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: Monsieur Deloffre Has Gone Quite Mad!Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Cameron Hays

Setting: Paris, 1830Product: One-shot
What You Get: Twenty-eight page, 24.24 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Les Misérables meets the Mythos (singing optional)Plot Hook: Madness, Monarchy, & the MobPlot Support: Six pre-generated Investigators, six NPCs, two maps, one Mythos spell, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Excellent
Pros# Intriguing historical background and setting# Potential convention scenario# Nicely done NPCs
# Nicely done pre-generated Investigators# Dementophobia# Submechanophobia# Phasmophobia
Cons# Needs a slight edit# Plot outline could be clearer# What does the invisible body feel like?# No NPC stats# No mob rule
Conclusion# Intriguing background and set-up supports a solid plot # Lack of mechanical development undermines the ease of use

There are certain parallels to be drawn between Tales from the Lone-Lands and Tales from Wilderland. Both are, of course, supplements for The One Ring, the roleplaying game set in Middle-earth between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and both are by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan. Of course, Tales from the Lone-Lands is for The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings, the second edition published by Free League Publishing, whereas, Tales from Wilderland is written for The One Ring: Adventures Over The Edge Of The Wild from Cubicle 7 Entertainment. Both have companion volumes which greatly expand upon the regions where they are set. Thus, Tales from the Lone-Lands has Ruins of the Lost Realm, the regional guide to the lands of southern Eriador, and Tales from Wilderland has The Heart of the Wild, the regional guide to the lands bordering Mirkwood, which is also a companion to the campaign, The Darkening of Mirkwood. Further, Tales from the Lone-Lands and Tales from Wilderland are both campaigns that work as anthologies. In other words, all of their scenarios can be run separately, but to get the absolute best out of them, the Loremaster should run them as a campaign. Lastly, both Tales from the Lone-Lands and Tales from Wilderland present ancient threats from the north.
Tales from the Lone-Lands is actually the first collection of adventures for The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings, as Ruins of the Lost Realm presented a number of major Landmark locations replete with important individuals at each, and the grand plots that will play out and befall the region if the Player-heroes do not get involved and nothing is done to stop them. Instead of pre-written scenarios then, Ruins of the Lost Realm contains numerous plots, both immediate and long term, that the Loremaster can use and develop for her campaign. Tales from the Lone-Lands contains six adventures, each of which should provide two or three good sessions’ worth of play, which together will take the Player-heroes back and forth across Eriador—and beyond. Together, they will locate and confront the Hill of Fear, an ancient and blighted site where the Witch-king of Angmar performed foul rites to darkness, and as Third Age wanes and great evil waxes once again, the shadow cast by the hill promises to rise up and engulf all of Eriador. A hero once swore to defeat the darkness that is the Hill of Fear, but his courage failed and he fled, and though he sought inspiration and guidance to return, he never did. Thus, his oath remains unfulfilled, but there is another who may be equal to the task, who will discover his ancestor’s intent and take up the oath, make the journey to the far north, defeat the darkness, and so become a hero worthy of his ancestor, if not more. This will be a Player-hero, who as part of the play of Tales from the Lone-Lands becomes ‘the Heir’. Ideally, this should be a man or woman, either of Bree or a Ranger, although alternatives are suggested for a Dwarf or Elf Player-character. The aim here is not for the story to focus on ‘the Heir’, but on the fellowship he is part of as its other members aid him in his quest. Indeed, whilst the campaign acknowledges ‘the Heir’ at certain points, it does not focus on him very much.

The anthology opens with ‘A Troll-Hole, If Ever There Was One’. It begins in Bree, at the Prancing Pony, with the Player-heroes being inveigled into accompanying a chirpy Dwarf and his dour and bedraggled Man companion to locate a buried treasure hoard. The question is, can they be trusted? Well, of course not. However, neither Man nor Dwarf are exactly villainous and there is a lot more going on than simple villainy. The scenario does not take the Player-heroes very far, but it serves up nasty monsters, desperation, and a chance at redemption. All of which takes place in a rain sodden, boggy valley. One of the issues with the scenario is that the players and their heroes are unlikely to trust either NPC, but the scenario addresses this, suggesting how the NPCs might react under the questioning of the Player-heroes. It is a solid start to the collection.

‘Messing About In Boats’ takes the Player-heroes and The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings in totally unexpected direction—to sea, and in doing so, it begins the campaign proper. Heading to port of Lond Dear on the southwest coast of Eriador, one of the Player-heroes is grabbed by one of the kingdom’s champions, a Hobbit knight, and dragged before the queen. Not because he has done something wrong, but because he has been seen in a vision by a local seer. This is of the Player-hero—‘the Heir’—standing on the shore of lonely island, a great dark sword in his hand. The queen decides that this warrants investigation and the Player-heroes are ferried up the coast of Eriador and out further than they would have ever imagined travelling (unless they were an Elf) by a fisherman who has motives of his own, wanting to find his missing daughter. Their destination is the Isle of the Mother, and here the Player-heroes will encounter hunters from the very far north, a long-abandoned Númenórean fortress, and the first signs that the reach of the Hill of Fear is greater than they had imagined.

‘Kings of Little Kingdoms’ returns the Player-heroes to land and a small, but engaging scenario that plays on the reputation of Gandalf. Back in Bree, the Player-heroes are accosted by a woman complaining that as adventurers they have done nothing about her son and worse, they probably know Gandalf. Her problem is that her son ran off to join the wizard, who was hanging around Bree two weeks before, on promise of the discovery of buried treasure and has not returned. Of course, the Player-heroes are going to look bad if they do nothing and so upon investigating, begin to realise that something is amiss. The trail leads east of Bree, to an isolated farm and its family headed by a cantankerous old man who is definitely not pleased to see the Player-heroes, even if they do offer him help with attacks his farm is under. Numerous options are given as what might happen, but alongside the mundane, if slightly silly plot of the young man having run off in search of adventure, there is something much darker going on—the spreading influence of the Hill of Fear which plays upon the personalities of the NPCs.

‘Not to Strike Without Need’ begins with the Player-heroes on the road to the water-logged city of Tharbad in southern Eriador, which is fully detailed in Lone-Lands has Ruins of the Lost Realm. They are escorting a criminal to the city in the hopes of exchanging him for a visiting merchant who is currently imprisoned there for non-payment of fines. Yet it turns out that the criminal might actually have changed his ways because he has been aiding the Rangers including getting messages in and out of Tharbad where the Rangers are greatly mistrusted. Which sets up a dilemma for the Player-heroes. Are they willing to let a possibly reformed criminal suffer the ill-justice to be found in the city in order to arrange the release of another? There is the possibility too of the Player-heroes being imprisoned for non-payment of the random fines levied by the city guards, so essentially, the scenario becomes a break-in and a break-out as the Player-characters sneak into the partially ruined Fortress of Garth Tauron, locate the prisoners, and get out again. However, the prison is so large, it has to be explored to find the location of the right cells. This is done in narrative rather than by running a dungeon-type crawl. Once the Player-heroes have escaped the city, preferably with the latest message from the Rangers’ spy in Tharbad, the scenario switches to a hunt for the subject of the message—a Man travelling in lands that even the Rangers tend to avoid. It will be revealed that he has some interest in the Hill of Fear, but what they interest will remain a mystery.

The Player-heroes are asked by a Dwarves friend, Floki, to deliver a message to his brother in the fifth scenario, ‘Wonder of the Northern World’. In the far northwest of Eriador, they discover tragedy as the brother and his settlement of fellow Dwarves has been sacked and spoiled by an Orc warband as part of the opening plans of Sauron to defeat all the Free Folk. The scenario is more open than the previous ones, with the Player-heroes having multiple courses of action rather than a more obvious one. There are some great set pieces in the scenario—a chase across the Lone-lands after the Orc warband, a great council with the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains, and an attack on the Fort of Blood, an ancient fortress from the days of the Witch-king of Angmar, now home to a servant of Sauron! This can be done by force of arms if the Player-heroes mange to raise a Dwarven host in the council, or they can use stealth. There are rules for both, but at the end the Player-heroes will learn that that the servant of Sauron—who of course, gets away—has plans of his linked to activities that they will already be aware of.

The sixth and final scenario in Tales from the Lone-Lands is ‘The Quest of Amon Guruthos’. This takes the Player-heroes into unknown territory once again. This is Forodwaith—the northern waste—and it requires a great expedition rather than the simple toing and froing of the previous scenarios. With the help of the tribesmen that they met on the Isle of the Mother in ‘Messing About In Boats’, the Player-heroes can track east in search of the Hill of Fear and then a way to approach it successfully from yet another unexpected source and an utterly unexpected encounter! This is with the scenario’s villain and is a great moment in the campaign, giving the Lore-master a fun NPC to portray and a chance to portray him in a situation other than the big final encounter and when he and the Player-heroes are on equal footing. The scenario and the campaign will come to an end with the Player-heroes first approaching and then descending into the Hill of Fear. This a foul place, once from which they are unlikely to return from unscarred such is the malevolence of the Shadow here. As they are assailed from within and without, it is likely their strength of character that will save them, though numerous methods are suggested as to how the Hill of Fear might be defeated.

Tales from the Lone-lands works better as a campaign than it does as an anthology of scenarios. Really, only ‘A Troll-Hole, If Ever There Was One’, ‘Kings of Little Kingdoms’, and ‘Not to Strike Without Need’ work effectively when run on their own. The other scenarios are key to the campaign and cannot be effectively untied from it. So there is scope for just an anthology of scenarios, all unconnected, still. The format also leaves room aplenty for the Loremaster to insert her own scenarios and that does not take into account the plots given in Ruins of the Lost Realm that she interweave between that of this campaign. That may prove to be helpful since the campaign as a whole does feel quite short and it does feel as if it should be longer. What the campaign does fail to address are the consequences of the Player-heroes’ actions. What happened if they succeed? What happens when they fail? These are really the only issues with Tales from the Lone-lands. Other than that, there is good Loremaster advice throughout and there are notes on adjusting the starting points of each of the scenario’s depending upon the Player-heroes’ locations and patrons.
Physically, Tales from the Lone-lands is a fantastic book. It looks great and the artwork is very, very good. The depictions of moments where a Player-hero hides behind a pillar in a cellar as a wight hunts him and a mighty troll lolls on a lakebed as she stretches her arms up out of the water to attack a raft full of Player-heroes are both genuinely scary. That said, the maps are not often as good as they could be, the Loremaster often wanting more detail. In many cases, the maps given, all of them Landmarks, so representative rather than mapped out to the inch, will be used narratively rather than mechanically.
Tales from the Lone-lands captures the bleakness of the period between the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, when the darkness was again growing and spreading across Middle-earth. The Player-heroes have a chance to hold some of that back with Tales from the Lone-lands, far removed from the traditional manoeuvrings of the Dark Lord of Mordor, but that attempt will be grim and terrible and the likelihood is that even if they succeed, the Player-heroes will come away scarred and marked with the Shadow. Being a hero and helping to save even some of the land is not without its consequences.

Miseries & Misfortunes is a roleplaying game set in seventeenth century France designed and published following a successful Kickstarter campaign by Luke Crane, best known for the fantasy roleplaying game, Burning Wheel. Notably, it is based on the mechanics of Basic Dungeons & Dragons. Originally, Miseries & Misfortunes appeared as a fanzine in 2015, but its second edition has since been developed to add new systems for skills, combat, magic, and more. However, the underlying philosophy of Miseries & Misfortunes still leans back into the play style of Basic Dungeons & Dragons. For example, the differing mechanics of rolling low for skill checks, but high for combat rolls and saving throws. Plus, the Player Characters exist in an uncaring world where bad luck, misfortune, and even death will befall them and there will be no one left to commiserate or mourn except the other characters and their players. Further, Miseries & Misfortunes is not a cinematic swashbuckling game of musketeers versus the Cardinal’s guards. It is grimmer and grimier than that, and the Player Characters can come from all walks of life. That said, it is set in the similar period as Alexandre Dumas’ Three Musketeers and Twenty Years After, so will be familiar to many players. The other major inspiration for Miseries & Misfortunes is Les Misères et les Malheurs de la Guerre, a set of eighteen etchings by French artist Jacques Callot that grimly depict the nature of the conflict in the early years of the Thirty Years War.

Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane is the third of the roleplaying game’s rulebooks. The first, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 1: Roleplaying in 1648 gives the core rules for the roleplaying game, and the second, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 2: Les Fruits Malheureux provides the means to actually create Player Characters, and together they make up the core rules. Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane does two things. One is that it provides the rules for learning and casting various types of magic and the other is a set of Lifepaths for both religious and arcane character types. The Game Master can make use of some of the Lifepaths without making use of the rules for magic.

Magic in Miseries & Misfortunes can only be learned through the reading and studying of the written word. This is primarily from grimoires which contain hidden truths far beyond that of the two divine books of Christianity—the Book of God and the Book of Nature. This knowledge is called ‘Gnosis’ and it is required to perform rituals, cast spells, and mix formulae. Through Gnosis, a practitioner can study the physical and metaphysical properties of the world and learn to alter numerous substances through Chymistry; Goëtia to summon and command demons; Necromancy to affect the world, particularly spirits and the dead; Theology to understand and communicate with the divine to invoke prayers of one’s faith; and Theurgy to summon and bind aerial spirits or angels. There are parallels certainly in the study of ‘Gnosis’ and the Mythos of Call of Cthulhu, but with differences. One is that there is no Sanity loss for reading the grimoires in Miseries & Misfortunes, but the other is that where a Player Character will know how much Cthulhu Mythos knowledge his Investigator has, a Player Character in Miseries & Misfortunes does not. Instead, it is kept secret by the Game Master.

Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane lists some one-hundred-and-forty grimoires. Most have a language requirement to be read, and any attempt to read a grimoire can lead to a successful interpretation or a misinterpretation. The reader who misinterprets a grimoire can attempt to read it again, but the amount of Gnosis he can learn from it is reduced. If this happens too many times, the grimoire actually becomes useless. A reader’s Gnosis also needs to be high enough to be able to interpret the grimoire, which takes time. However, a failure to misinterpret can lead to a long period of meditation without learning anything, the learning of false knowledge, and again, the degradation of the text. The process takes time, whatever the outcome. Another way of gaining Gnosis is through appreciation of great art and beauty, though the Player Character needs to be open to this rather than being stubborn.

Once learned, Gnosis represents the degree of knowledge a practitioner knows, no matter which tradition he follows or studies, each of which has its own skill. Chymistry includes a list of chymical formulae; Goëtia comes with a list of demons, their form and office—the latter the purview of their powers, and Demons can only be summoned at certain times of the day; Necomancy a list of highly detailed spells; Theology divides its prayers between those used by Catholics and those used by Protestants; and Theurgy, a surprisingly short list of Angels and their offices. Notably, each of the practices has its own set of unintended results and catastrophic results, many of which are quite amusing. In addition to the major difficulties of learning and casting, there are social challenges in learning Gnosis. Many of the traditions have been declared heresy and practitioners are hunted by the Inquisition.
The particular tradition that a practitioner studies depends on the Lifepaths they have followed. Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane includes five new Lifepaths. These are Exorcist, Jesuit Priest, Occultist, Protestant Pastor, and Philosopher. Thus, the Exorcist studies Goëtia, the Jesuit Priest and the Pastor Theology, the Occultist both Goëtia and Theurgy, and the Philosopher, Chymistery. All five begin a six-sided die’s worth of Gnosis.
Physically, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane is well presented and written, and although it does include some examples, these feel underwritten in places. It is illustrated with a period artwork and etchings which helps impart its historical setting. If it is missing anything, it is an index, but at just forty pages, this is not too much of an issue.

Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane provides a solid set of rules for adding ‘magic’ to the world of Miseries & Misfortune, although it is not really magic or even as simple as magic. In many cases the practitioners are dealing with the profane and the heretical, so dangerous both metaphysically and socially. It also takes time to research and interpret, so it involves more effort and work than most magic systems, so more commitment upon the part of the players and their characters. Of the traditions, Theurgy does feel underwritten, but the others are nicely detailed, and if there is anything missing, it is a Nun Lifepath and notes for Gnosis studying NPCs. Otherwise, Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 3: The Sacred & The Profane expands its Early Modern France setting both mechanically and thematically adding dangerous knowledge.

Primal Quest – Weird Stone & Sorcery Adventure Game is a roleplaying of a Stone Age that never was, inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Land That Time Forgot and The People That Time Forgot, Quest for Fire and One Million Years, B.C., Thundarr the Barbarian, Horizon Zero Dawn, and the Cavemaster RPG and Hollow Earth Expedition. This is a world in which humanity survives alongside dinosaurs and other creatures and ancient secrets and aliens lurk, the Player Characters as warriors and hunters, shamans and sorcerers, exploring an environment dominated by a natural untrammelled by mankind. Designed by Diogo Nogueira because of his love of dinosaurs and published by Old School Publishing, the core rules for Primal Quest – Weird Stone & Sorcery Adventure Game are presented in Primal Quest – Essentials. Besides a surprisingly thorough bibliography, this includes a simple set of mechanics using six-sided dice designed to handle both consequences and narrative control, character creation, survival and exploration, sorcery, and a complete mini-hexcrawl that encompasses twelve, lightly-detailed locations, that introduces the World of Thaia. In addition, Primal Quest – Weird Stone & Sorcery Adventure Game is not only supported by its own licence enabling others to write and publish for it, but also its own series of supplements, including The Primal World of Thaia fanzine.

A Player Character in Primal Quest – Weird Stone & Sorcery Adventure Game has three attributes—Body, Mind, and Heart. These can be negative values, but typically range in value between 0 and +3, though can be higher through experience. He has five Tags, one each for his Concept, Talent, Motivation, Relationship, and Trouble. His Vitality represents his Hit Points, whilst his Defence is dependent upon armour worn and shield carried. To this are added name, gender, looks, and personality. To create a character, a player divides three points between the three attributes, to a maximum of +3. A bonus attribute point can be gained by lowering one attribute to -1. He defines his five Tags and the five aspects of his character, and then chooses an equipment option. Three are given, one each suitable for a warrior with more weapons and armour and shield, one for a hunter with hunting tools, and one for a sorcerer or shaman with three foci for casting spells.

Name: Dres’zhi
Body -1 Mind +3 Heart +1
TAGS: Curious Shaman (Concept), Secrets (Talent), To Prove Herself (Motivation), Cantankerous Master (Relationship), Mother (Trouble)
Vitality: 9
Defence: 1
Equipment: wood spear, light armour, arcane foci (Fire, Spirit, Life), three torches, fire, three units of Food, three units of Water.

Mechanically, Primal Quest – Weird Stone & Sorcery Adventure Game uses pools of six-sided dice, needing several of two different colours. One colour is Positive Dice, the other Negative dice. A player always rolls one of each die type. More Positive Dice can be gained by invoking a Tag, which can be a Player Character’s own, or come from an item of equipment, the environment, and even an opponent. Extra Effort, gained by sacrificing Vitality, provides further Positive Dice. Further Negative Dice can also be added to the pool, whether from poor equipment, difficult terrain, or spell or monster effect. Once the combined pool is rolled, the value of the highest Negative Dice is subtracted from the value of the highest Positive Die. The value of the appropriate Attribute is added to the resulting value and compared to the Difficulty of the task, which ranges between zero and moderate and six or Legendary. The default is zero, but it is otherwise determined by a stat, such as an Attribute, Defence, and so on. If the final value is equal to, or greater than the difficulty, the character succeeds.

The degree of success, or Effect, of a task, is determined by subtracting the result from the Difficulty. In addition, a Player Character can benefit from Boons and Setbacks. A Boon is gained for rolling a six on a Positive Die, a Setback for rolling a six on a Negative Die. A Boon can be used to add an extra Stat if appropriate to the result, give an extra Positive Die to another Player Character’s action, impose a Negative Die on an opponent, or to gain insight about a situation. A Setback can grant an extra Stat if appropriate to an opponent’s result, add an extra Positive Die to an opponent’s action, inflict a Negative Die on the Player Character’s next action, or add a negative consequence to the current situation.

Combat uses the same mechanics, with an opponent’s Defence value, derived from his armour, determining the Difficulty. A shield blocks an attack entirely, but used to block too many attacks and it will break. Weapons inflict either one, two, or four points of damage depending upon their size, plus the Effect value of the attack roll. Combat can be short and brutal, but the healing rules are fairly forgiving.

The primary resources in the game are food and water, and Player Characters need one of each per day to survive. The primary means of exchange is barter, and there are simple rules for encumbrance and material durability, which includes bronze—though not copper—as well as wood, stone, and bone.

Sorcery requires two things—an Arcane Focus and an associated word. The latter can be ‘Fire’ or ‘Truth’ or ‘Grasp’, and once a focus—a particular object like a stone with a hole through it or a piece of carved leather or bone—it cannot be used with another word. That said, different foci and their words can be combined for different spell effects. Primal Quest – Weird Stone & Sorcery Adventure Game does not include spell lists, but instead a sorcerer decides upon the desired spell effect and describes how he is using the Arcane Focus to cast it. Once a player has described the spell that he wants his character to cast, the Game Master decides whether it is a Cantrip, Invocation, Ritual, or Miracle, each one more difficult to cast than the last.

For the Game Master there is the recommendation that safety tools be used and several pointers of good advice. Much of it will be obvious to an experienced Game Master, but useful, nonetheless. Further rules cover opponents, exploration, getting lost, camping, and so on. Half of Primal Quest – Weird Stone & Sorcery Adventure Game is dedicated to ‘Mother’s Vale’, a ‘Weird Stone & Sorcery mini-Hexcrawl’. To the north lies Father Mountain rich with life upon its slopes; to the south in the Deep Jungle the Mother Tree upon which grows fruit that can restore life to the dead, to the west the Fanged Hills that smell of fear, sweat, and death; and to the east, lies the Tower That Fell, a strange organic structure that left a ravine and Mother’s Mounds, a series of ravines that stretch for miles and lead beneath the vale where the remains of ancient, non-human civilisations can be found. There are twelve locations strewn across Mother’s Vale, each given a broad description, a combination of a problem, a secret, a danger, or a special detail, and a table of random encounters. The latter ranges from tribesmen from the three humankind villages in the Mother’s Vale, aurochs, and Triceratops to Argentinosauruses, a Giganotosaurus, and Devouring Chaos Beasts via Red Gorillas, Yeti, Giant Constrictors, Brachiosauruses, and a whole lot more. These encounter tables also serve as the bestiary for Primal Quest – Weird Stone & Sorcery Adventure Game.

Although obviously an anachronistic mix of Stone Age man and dinosaurs, in very Ray Harryhausen fashion, Primal Quest – Weird Stone & Sorcery Adventure Game is also a Pulp adventure setting, a lost world of sorts which mixes in elements of Science Fiction too. Much of these require further development upon the part of the Game Master, as the ‘Mother’s Vale’ is drawn in quite broad detail. Once that is done, the Game Master can add an adventure site or two and be in position to respond to what the players and their characters want to do. That said, there is plenty of further content available for the roleplaying game, plus each of the three villages in Mother’s Vale—the obvious starting point for any campaign—has a problem that can easily serve as a hook for the Player Characters.

Physically, Primal Quest – Weird Stone & Sorcery Adventure Game is well done. It is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is decent, whilst the cartography for Mother’s Vale is engaging. It does need an edit in places and feels slightly underwritten in others.

In terms of tone and to an extent play style, Primal Quest – Weird Stone & Sorcery Adventure Game is like an Old School Renaissance roleplaying game, but mechanically, it is anything but that. Its dice pool mechanics are far more modern and its narrative controls in the form of Boons and Setback are distinctly opposite the mechanics you would find in an Old School Renaissance retroclone. That aside, Primal Quest – Weird Stone & Sorcery Adventure Game is a solid Pulp-style Stone Age-set roleplaying game in which its Science Fiction and Fantasy elements and thus many of its stories are wrapped up as mysteries for the Game Master to develop and make her own.

Galileo Galileo is famous as the astronomer who attracted the ire of Pope Urban VIII and the Catholic church and the Roman Inquisition by championing Copernican heliocentrism, the concept of the Earth rotating daily and revolving around the Sun, rather than the Aristotelian geocentric view that universe revolving around the Earth. Tried for heresy, in 1633, he was condemned and sentenced to house arrest, remaining in his villa outside Florence until his death in 1642. What though, if Pope Urban VIII, deeply irked at an insult Galileo had insinuated at him in his work of 1632, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, believed that house arrest was too good for the heretical natural philosopher? How far would the Holy Father go in order to have his revenge? Would he commission a clockwork automaton that would tramp the halls of Galileo’s villa, tormenting him verbally and playing tricks on him, day after day? Well, to be fair, very probably not, but since this is the set-up for a scenario for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess, it is safe to assume that this did happen and the Player Characters got caught up in it, because otherwise, there is no scenario. The scenario in question is Galileo 2: Judgment Day, which if you are thinking the title of which sounds an awful lot like Terminator 2: Judgement Day, you definitely have some idea what this scenario is about, because it does involve Galileo and it does involve a big, near unstoppable, clomping robot. Just not from the future.

Galileo 2: Judgment Day takes place roughly in 1640. Galileo Galilei has been under house arrest for several years and the Inquisition maintains a steady watch on his villa, the Villa Il Gioiello, hiring spies to do so from a neighbouring house. The Player Characters are the latest to be hired to fulfil this role, discovering the pay to be a pittance and the house where they stationed, a mould and rat-infested tumble down ruin. The job is also boring. Nothing happens. Except on this summer’s night when strange noises are heard in the villa and then a figure runs out through the games. Followed, not long after, by a mountain of a man, heavy-footed, but determined. With the change in circumstances, do the Player Characters have the chance to take advantage of the situation and come out of it richer either than they were before or they would have been if nothing had happened? Their choices are simple? Do they ransack the Villa Il Gioiello, said to be home to untold riches? Do they race after the fleeing man, and then after determining who he is—most likely Galileo—work what to do with him then? Hand him into the Inquisition and collect the reward or let him go free because they believe him to have been unjustly imprisoned? And if they do let him go free, do they follow him, or do they take advantage of an empty house, to go back and ransack the Villa Il Gioiello and make off with any money and valuables that Galileo has left behind? Then what of the great bear of man, huffing and puffing after Galileo, taunting him all the way? Can he be stopped, bribed, or does he simply need to be bribed and done with it?

Galileo 2: Judgment Day takes places in the default setting for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying of the Early Modern period, the first half of the seventeenth century. What it promises is a pair of one-shot adventures, but that is really not what it provides, because what Galileo 2: Judgment Day really sets up is a situation with a handful of options and another handful of endings. In one option, the Player Characters might see Galileo run out of Villa Il Gioiello and decide to burglarise the building and make a run for it themselves, being hounded by the Inquisition once the authorities realise what they have done and they attempt to fence their loot. In another option, they chase Galileo to nearby Florence, help his escape, and he rewards them with details about the Villa Il Gioiello and the many traps he has laid, letting them grab the loot. Alternatively, they capture Galileo, hand him over to the Inquisition and take the reward for doing so, and head for the nearest bar and get stinking drunk? These are the main options, but there are others too, including one where the Player Characters end up in the hands of the Inquisition themselves and face the possibility of torture and death—the table for that is just ever so slightly unpleasant—and another where the neighbours of Galileo decide the rob the Villa Il Gioiello before anyone else does. And that still leaves the unstoppable killing machine which has been tormenting Galileo and will stop at nothing to prevent his escape to Florence and beyond...

However, it is possible for the Game Master to run Galileo 2: Judgment Day as two separate things. For example, whilst the Player Characters chase after Galileo on the road to Florence, his neighbours could be attempting to loot the Villa Il Gioiello. To that end, several nosy neighbours are provided, who either turn up whilst the Player Characters are still there or could be played as would be looters with a little bit of development. They include a widow wanting to prove the capability of old people, a castrato who takes the opportunity to perform, an Ottoman mercenary, a gossipy chandler and his wife, and so on. These are simply drawn, but could developed into playable characters.

And then there is the Automaton or ‘L’Assassino Meccanico’. All six feet of it, a half-tonne of steel, and dressed in the best boots, wig, and cloak that money can buy. Designed to impersonate a man to the best of its abilities and then placed to taunt the poor Galileo for as long as he shall live. The thing is described in some detail, and comes with a table of twelve wrestling moves for the Game Master to roll on and randomly determine if it engages in combat. Galileo Galileo is similarly detailed, though as an NPC rather than a monster.

Galileo 2: Judgment Day includes the detailed background for Galileo’s situation, his means of escape, and the resulting chase from the Villa Il Gioiello to Florence, plus a set of encounters along the road in the dark. Possible events in Florence are also covered, including a case through its streets and encounters with the Inquisition. The Villa Il Gioiello itself is described in detail should the Player Characters decide they want to take advantage of the absence of its occupants. The description includes some really nasty traps, though of course, the Player Characters may avoid them should they help Galileo and he reward them with their particulars.

Physically, Galileo 2: Judgment Day is a short, clean and tidy affair. It is well laid out, and easy to read. The cartography is decent and the artwork is excellent. The illustration of the Automaton is particularly good and in combination with its portrayal by the Game Master with its booming voice, it should enforce its imposing nature.

Galileo 2: Judgment Day demands a greater suspension of disbelief than might be required in other scenarios. If that is achieved though, then all bets are off, and that includes quite where the events of the scenario and the Player Characters will end up. This is very player-driven scenario, with their decisions deciding which its parts will come into play. Go in one direction and only Villa Il Gioiello does, go in another and only Florence comes into play, although there is the possibility of the scenario coming back round from Villa Il Gioiello to Florence and then back to Villa Il Gioiello. Yet if it does not, there is possibility of using Villa Il Gioiello all by itself as a target of the Player Characters’ larceny. So there is the possibility that the Game Master could use the parts of the scenario rather than as a whole. The nature of the scenario also means that it is difficult to work into a campaign, but an inventive should be abale to come up with something suitable.

Galileo 2: Judgment Day—inspired as the author admits by Terminator 2: Judgement Day—takes the concept of the unstoppable robot killing machine and drops it into the last situation you would think of. It has the potential to be a classic slasher horror with a really weird premise that could be run as a one-shot and thus a convention scenario, or it swirl out of control and end up in another of the scenario’s various endings, which would probably take another session to play. Galileo 2: Judgment Day is a ridiculous, but still enetrtaining scenario, whose set-up is pleasingly detailed as are it various different endings.

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

For every Ptolus: City by the Spire or Zweihander: Grim & Perilous Roleplaying or World’s Largest Dungeon or Invisible Sun—the desire to make the biggest or most compressive roleplaying game, campaign, or adventure, there is the opposite desire—to make the smallest roleplaying game or adventure. Reindeer Games’ TWERPS (The World's Easiest Role-Playing System) is perhaps one of the earliest examples of this, but more recent examples might include the Micro Chapbook series or the Tiny D6 series. Yet even these are not small enough and there is the drive to make roleplaying games smaller, often in order to answer the question, “Can I fit a roleplaying game on a postcard?” or “Can I fit a roleplaying game on a business card?” And just as with roleplaying games, this ever-shrinking format has been used for scenarios as well, to see just how much adventure can be packed into as little space as possible. Recent examples of these include The Isle of Glaslyn, The God With No Name, and Bastard King of Thraxford Castle, all published by Leyline Press.

The Pocket Sized Perils series uses the same A4 sheet folded down to A6 as the titles from Leyline Press, or rather the titles from Leyline Press use the same A4 sheet folded down to A6 sheet as Pocket Sized Perils series. Funded via a Kickstarter campaign as part of the inaugural ZineQuest—although it debatable whether the one sheet of paper folded down counts as an actual fanzine—this is a series of six mini-scenarios designed for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, but actually rules light enough to be used with any retroclone, whether that is the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game or Old School Essentials. Just because it says ‘5e’ on the cover, do not let that dissuade you from taking a look at this series and see whether individual entries can be added to your game. The mechanics are kept to a minimum, the emphasis is on the Player Characters and their decisions, and the actual adventures are fully drawn and sketched out rather than being all text and maps.
Death in Dinglebrook is the fourth entry in the Pocket Sized Perils series following on from An Ambush in Avenwood, The Beast of Bleakmarsh, and Call of the Catacombs. Designed for Fourth Level Player Characters, the scenario is a gothic mini-mystery, much in the style of the Hammer Horror films or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Although written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, its theme and tone make the scenario easy to adapt to other fantasy roleplaying games or even to the Victorian era. It does have some set-up requirements which limit its usefulness, in that it suggests that each of the Player Characters is ill at the beginning of the scenario, but these can be worked around. Perhaps an NPC is ill or one of the characters whose player is present is ill, and so on. Whichever of the Player Characters (or not) is ill, they are all travelling into the mountains to the isolated vale of Dinglebrook. Here, it is rumoured that a gifted healer named ‘Sirona’ can be found, one who is capable of curing whatever rare disease it is that ails them.

Upon arrival, it seems bar the local tavern, ‘Thin Fat Jim’s’, Dinglebrook is deserted and when the Player Characters do discover the locals, it turns out that they are all skeletons, although going about their normal lives, just as they did before their undeaths. After realising that the skeletons are not actually evil and do not want a fight, probably after the bones have knitted themselves back in order and the correct place, probably after the bones have knitted themselves back in order and the correct place—ideally to the sound of ‘Dem Bones Dem Bones Dem Dry Bones’—the Player Characters are going to be wondering quite what is going on in Dinglebrook. Which is when three stone golems, dressed as orderlies turn up and attempt to take them away... So, what has happened to the inhabitants of Dinglebrook? Who are the stone orderlies working for and where are they taking their captives? And lastly, where is ‘Sirona’ and why has she not cured all of this?

Flip through the few, but heavily illustrated pages of Death in Dinglebrook and the story will take the Game Master and her players and their characters to the village and the local tavern, ‘Thin Fat Jim’s’, and from there outside to look up the Abbey that looms over the village from the mountainside. To reach this the Player Characters will need to climb the mountain, but all the Game Master has to do is open up the pages of the scenario, flip it over, and pull it open. This reveals the abbey in all its glory, fantastically drawn in isometric style, with room descriptions round the edge and Sirona’s stats and roleplaying hints below. The abbey is no longer a place of worship, but part-hospital gone wrong and part-alchemical laboratory gone awry, overseen by stone, golem-like orderlies, and Sirona, would be healer driven to madness and monstrousness by her failure to heal the sick.

Death in Dinglebrook is straightforward enough, but its set-up is all for a standup, knockdown fight, without any scope for roleplaying. This is a pity, since there is the fun earlier of interacting and roleplaying with tongue-less and therefore speechless skeletons in the tavern, whereas Sirona is only given a motivation. Given the genre and tone of the scenario, she deserves more, and the Game Master should really seize the opportunity to let her explain her actions and motivations, and have her chew some scenery!

Physically, Death in Dinglebrook is very nicely presented, being more drawn than actually written. It has a cartoonish sensibility to it, that although it plays up the scenario’s tone and genre, lacks the humour of the previous releases in the Pocket Perils series. The combination of having been drawn and the cartoonish artwork with the high quality of the paper stock also gives Death in Dinglebrook a physical feel which feels genuinely good in the hand. Its small size means that it is very easy to transport.

Ultimately, the plot of Death in Dinglebrook is short, simple, and the whole thing can be run and played in a single session. It is not as sophisticated or as engaging as previous entries in the Pocket Perils series, and its set-up requirements are quite strict, which in combination, does limit its usefulness. That said, if the Game Master can meet the requirements for its set-up and is prepared to develop her portrayal of its villain, then Death in Dinglebrook is easy to prepare and run for a single session’s worth of play.

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

—oOo—
It is interesting to note that two of the hobby’s mostly highly regarded humour roleplaying games were co-designed by Greg Costikyan and both were published in 1984. One, the dystopian Science Fiction roleplaying game, Paranoia, published by West End Games, was most obviously published in 1984, because after all, that was the year that George Orwell’s eponymous novel is set. The other was Toon – The Cartoon Roleplaying Game. Published by Steve Jackson Games, it was based on an original idea by Jeff Dee which was inspired by a conversation about genres that nobody had then yet designed roleplaying games for. As its title suggested, that genre was cartoons. Not the cartoons of Saturday mornings, but rather the short, sometimes violently anarchic cartoons of Warner Bros’ Looney Toons, Hanna and Barbera’s Tom and Jerry, and Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies and others. This is a genre that almost everyone is familiar with, making the resulting roleplaying game incredibly familiar in terms of what you were playing and the world in which it took place. However, Toon also asked a great deal of its players in terms of how it was played, because in many ways it was asking them to do everything which other roleplaying games had taught them to do.

In almost every other roleplaying game, the player not only wants his character to survive, to grow, and to thrive, which invariably means plotting and planning, and taking the time to come up with the best tactics or strategy to achieve all three. Not so in Toon. Let alone the fact that a character in Toon cannot die—only fall down for three minutes of real time—the play is all about the immediate. What does my character want? How does he achieve that right now? What is the simplest and more direct way of getting that? It does not matter if that direct way is not the most logical, for it serves its purpose right now. So rather than ‘think before you act’, the credo of Toon is ‘ACT before you THINK’. The roleplaying game will even punish a player if he thinks before he acts or attempts to think before he acts, rendering his character Boggled and unable to do anything until his next turn. This is a roleplaying game played at high speed, even breakneck speed, in which the action passes from one character to the next in a flurry, in which Short Subjects and Feature Films always take place in Anytown, Outside of Town, The City, and Outer Space, where there is always a mailbox close by to receive that thing you just ordered, logic has a way of being illogical in an entirely logical way, coincidences are perfectly normal and to be expected, cause and effect might go one way for a character, but not another, and nobody reads the fine print until you write it and persuade everyone as to its veracity.

Toon – The Cartoon Roleplaying Game is a roleplaying game with a genre that everyone will know and will understand how its worlds work, supported by simple, fast-playing mechanics, good advice for the Animator—as the Game Master is known, and four Short Subjects and one Feature Film. One of the Short Subjects is designed to teach the game and so with a quick read through and copies of the characters ready, the Animator really could be running her first game in fifteen minutes.

A character can be anything. An ant, a robot ant, a sea serpent, a kangaroo, a pig, a parakeet, and so on. He can run and talk, take part in the Cartoon Olympics, go to Outer Space, and more, whether he is a Milkman, a Retired General, a French Chef, or a Cowboy. He has four attributes—Muscle, Zip, Smarts, and Chutzpah—which determine how strong, how fast, how intelligent, and how pushy he is. They are range in value between one and six. Each attribute has a number of skills, which range in value between one and nine. He will have a natural enemy, such as a cat for a dog or a park ranger for a bear; a Belief and a Goal, for example, “I hate elephants” and “Stop the hunter from hunting me in Rabbit Season”; a possession or two; and Shtick. A Shtick is an amazing ability that breaks rules. For example, a Bag of Many Things from which innumerable objects can be drawn, Shape Change, Hypnosis, and so on. Mechanically, they are rolled for just like skills to see if they work.

To create a character, a player rolls a six-sided die for each of the four attributes. Species, Occupations, Beliefs, and Goals can selected or rolled for, or selected, whilst Natural Enemies are always chosen. The base value for each skill is equal to its associated attributes, but a player has thirty points to divide between them. Alternatively, a character can have a Shtick, which costs five skill points and always begins play with a value of five. This cannot be increased during character creation, only later through experience. The process is quick and easy and takes five minutes.

Doctor Freuderick “It’s pronounced ‘Frederick’” von Mesenme (Actually Joe from Pittsburgh)
Species: Human
Natural Enemies: Patients and other doctors
Belief: I always know what is best for my patients
Goal: Get rich
Hit Points: 9

Muscle 3
Break Down Doors 3, Climb 3, Fight 6, Pick Up heavy Things 3, Throw 3

Zip 2
Dodge 7, Drive Vehicle 2, Fire Gun 2, Jump 4, Ride 2, Run 4, Swim 4

Smarts 5
Hide/Spot Hidden 5, Identify Dangerous Thing 7, Read 5, Resist Fast Talk 8, See/Hear/Smell 5, Set/Disarm Trap 5, Track/Cover Tracks 5

Chutzpah 6
Fast-Talk 9, Pass/Detect Shoddy Goods 9, Sleight of Hand 6, Sneak 6

Shticks
Hypnosis 5

Possessions
Medical Diploma from The Republic of Užupis University of Universal Study, Pocket Watch, Pipe (for bubbles), medical forms

Mechanically, Toon is simple. To undertake an action, the player rolls two six-sided dice, and aims to roll equal to or lower than the skill or attribute. It is a simple yes or no mechanic. Situations where there is an opposed roll, such as a fight or a chase or a competition, the outcome is determined by who rolls successfully and who fails. Thus, in a chase, the character who makes a successful roll with either Drive Vehicle, Run, or Swim will get away from the character who fails his roll, whereas if both make a successful roll or fail, neither makes any progress. Combat uses the Fight or Shoot Gun skills, with brawls and bust ups being opposed rolls. In general, if neither side is successful, that is, makes a successful roll whilst the other fails, then after three rounds of both making successful or failed rolls, both characters fall down exhausted. If a character is successfully hit in a fight or shot, then he suffers a six-sided die’s worth of damage. If he loses all of his Hit Points, the character will Fall Down. This is bad, but not actually that bad, because unlike every other roleplaying game, the character is not dead. Instead, he is out for the count, but can bound back, because that count is three minutes of real time. After that, the character and his player are back in the game with full Hit Points, ready to play.

The mechanical aim of play is to earn Plot Points. These actually reflect how well a player has roleplayed his character and served the genre of the Short Subject or the Feature Film. Each Short Subject and Feature Film has a budget to divide amongst the Player Characters at the end, but a player can earn more when his character makes another Fall Down, roleplays the character’s Beliefs & Goals, has his character make a Natural Enemy Fall Down, roleplays his character in a clever or entertaining fashion, and even for making the Animator laugh. Conversely, he loses them if he does not roleplay the character’s Beliefs & Goals or if the character is made to Fall Down by an NPC. Plot Points are used to increase a Player Character’s skills and shticks, including buying new shticks.

In terms of game play, Toon – The Cartoon Roleplaying Game begins before Player Character creation. This gives a description the base elements of the game, how the skills work, a quick introduction to Plot Points, and some advice the Animator. All this in preparation for ‘The Cartoon Olympics’, a Short Subject designed for the Animator and two players. Taking place in the Anytown Anydome, this sports event will see the Player Characters compete in boxing matches, javelin toss, and marathon to determine the winner. They will also have to deal with Judge Mole, who of course, is blind as and also armed with a deadly starting pistol, and a bunch of monkeys. Although intended for two platers, the Short Subject includes a quartet of potential Player Characters, such as Mack the Mouse, Olga Hippopovna, Fred Bulldog, and Fifi La Feline. This is an easy to prepare Short Subject that can be brought to the table very quickly.

It should be noted that Toon also emphasises adversarial play, a feature also shared with Paranoia. Player Characters can have conflicting goals even as they work collectively towards the objective of a Short Subject or Feature Film, but more often than not, they are directing competing against each other, as in ‘The Cartoon Olympics’, and unlike in other roleplaying games, there can be a winner. Offset that though, with the fact that Toon is designed for ephemeral, one-shot play rather than campaigns, so even if the same Player Characters appear in a subsequent Short Subject or Feature Film, the events or outcome of a previous Short Subject or Feature Film will not have any real influence on the next one.

Beyond both ‘The Cartoon Olympics’ and Player Character creation, Toon – The Cartoon Roleplaying Game explains how Beliefs & Goals, skills, and shticks all work, plus there is good advice on being the Animator. Ultimately, this boils down to keeping things moving, throwing in sound effects, playing to the genre, and transmitting the right atmosphere to her players. The advice also stresses that the most important aspect of being an Animator is to remember that the Animator is in charge, and that anything she says goes. That said, the Animator should always be open to ideas from her players and when it counts, she should act crazy.

Rounding out Toon – The Cartoon Roleplaying Game are another three Short Subjects and one Feature Film. The extra Short Subjects include ‘The Cartoon Olympics Strikes Back!’, which really just expands on ‘The Cartoon Olympics’ with a single page; ‘I Foogled You!’ sends the Player Characters into the jungles of Darkest Africa (conveniently located Outside of Town) in search of the famed Foogle Bird, which involves lots of swinging on vines with a Tarzan-like character and his wife; and ‘Spaced Out Saps’ in which members if the Space Aeronautics Patrol Squad or S.A.P.S., take a trip to the Moon (conveniently located Outside of Town) and investigate strange activity involving The Martian and The Martian Dog. The Feature Film is ‘The Better Housetrap’ in which the Player Characters are trying to hide out in a newly built house, only for them to discover that the house is actually robotic! Each one of the Short Subjects and the Feature Films can be played in a single session and each wears its inspirations firmly on its sleeves.

Physically, Toon – The Cartoon Roleplaying Game is cleanly, tidily laid out and organised. It is liberally illustrated with entertaining cartoon artwork. The roleplaying game is well written and easy to read and grasp.
—oOo—Toon – The Cartoon Roleplaying Game was reviewed not once, but twice by Dragon magazine. First by Michael Dobson in ‘New heights(?) in silliness’ in Dragon #92 (December 1984), in which the opening line is, “TOON™, The Cartoon Roleplaying Game, appears at first glance to be just an elaborate joke.” before he qualifies this with, “…TOON is a genuine good idea – an original (if unlikely) concept in role-playing – that is enjoyable, fastmoving, and incredibly silly.” Although critical of the roleplaying game’s use of Plot Points, which he felt were, “…[A] holdover from traditional role-playing games that doesn’t quite fit the TOON spirit. In a straight adventure game, a character’s potential to improve may be important as a tool to motivate the player and to keep a campaign going. In TOON, this approach doesn’t make sense. Cartoon characters never get “better.”” Nevertheless, Dobson described Toon as “Inspired silliness…” Jim Bambra would follow this up in Dragon #144 (April 1989) in ‘Role-Playing Reviews’. He described it as “…[A] classic – a game which deserves the attention of everyone looking for a dramatic change of pace and emphasis in their role-playing.” before concluding with, “The TOON game provides an excellent change of pace and a shift of emphasis away from the more serious role-playing games. I highly recommend it as an evening’s entertainment and as a cure to role-playing blues.”

In ‘Notices’ in Imagine No 21 (December 1984), Mike Lewis was equally as positive, concluding his review with, “Toon is a very refreshing change from the usual run-of-the-mill rpgs which have been appearing recently. The game very firmly puts a sense of humour back into rpgs. If you are interested in cartoons, then Toon is an essential purchase — but even if you aren’t, try it for a change. I am very impressed with the ideas behind this game and hope that it gets more support than most minority RPGs have done in the past. It deserves it.”

R.A. Greer reviewed Toon in Space Gamer Number 72 ((Jan/Feb 1985) and like Jim Bambra would four years later, described it as an antidote to the roleplaying blues, saying that, “TOON is a quick cure for all your roleplaying ills, a fast-acting balm to be applied directly to your funny bone, speeding you back to those uncomplicated days of roleplaying when it was fun!” His conclusion was equally as complimentary, stating that, “TOON is a gen for those willing to work with it a little bit. (The game should have been published with a qualified Animator stapled inside.) It may not replace the weekly fantasy game, but it’s great change of pace. It is also a great introduction to roleplaying for that new to the hobby and really allows experienced gamers to let down their hair. Almost all of TOON’s problems can be solved by applying this simple maxim: “If you want to do it, exaggerate it; if it’s simple, complicate it; if you’re in a jam, take all steps to make it worse.” Follow these simple rules and you’ll advance the plot and add to the fun. Congratulations to Steve Jackson Games on a job well done.”

None other than Larry DiTillio reviewed Toon in ‘Game Reviews’ in Different Worlds Issue 38 (Jan/Feb 1985), awarding the roleplaying three stars out of four and praising its writing, stating that, “[Greg] Costikyan has clarity, wit, and the good sense to be brief, as well as an obvious love for cartoons. The rulebook not only reads quickly and easily, it makes you eager to play the game.” He advised that, “Role-players of a basically serious nature and gamemasters who prefer rigid detail are advised to stay away. On the other hand, for a few hours of silliness, Toon can’t be beat and is a refreshing change from the ofttimes leaden pace of other role-playing games. It’s fast, it’s fun, it’s simple.”

Lastly, Toon was reviewed in ‘Open Box’ in White Dwarf Number 63 (March 1985) by Stephen Kyle, who awarded it nine out of ten. He concluded that, “For anyone who likes cartoons, then Toon is definitely worth looking into. It concentrates more on the Warner Brothers/Hanna Barbera type of American cartoon, rather than the more sophisticated British product like Dangermouse. Nevertheless, all of us have favourite cartoons or characters and Toon enables you to recreate them easily and with a lot of fun. I just hope it gets more support than most minority RPGs.”—oOo—
Toon – The Cartoon Roleplaying Game does have one single problem—and it is a big one. That is the degree of buy-in that a Game Master and her players need to have to play and enjoy Toon, the willingness to accept its implied anarchy and mandatory impulsiveness of ‘ACT before you THINK’, and to break the learned habits of playing roleplaying games. A player unwilling or unable to make that adjustment is not going to enjoy or appreciate the fun that Toon has to offer.

Toon – The Cartoon Roleplaying Game is and was a groundbreaking roleplaying game, because of its treatment of the cartoon genre and its humour, although numerous roleplaying games have visited its genre since. It is simple, even simplistic, but the simplicity of the rules and the mechanics means that Toon is incredibly easy to teach and just as easy to grasp, and when it comes to its genre, Toon has the most accessible, most familiar genre of almost any roleplaying game. After all, who has not seen a Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry cartoon? Which absolutely makes it great for convention play. That said, whilst it can be used as an introductory roleplaying game, it is not written as an introductory roleplaying game, so is best suited to be run by an experienced Game Master who can adapt to its fast pace and over the top, silly play. Similarly, this is a roleplaying game whose speed and tone is something that experienced players will also have to adapt to in order to get into the spirit of the roleplaying game and its silly, cartoon humour. Essentially, this is not a roleplaying game which the Game Master simply decides to run—her players have to buy into the whole concept, big anvil, stick of dynamite, and all.

Toon – The Cartoon Roleplaying Game is undemanding fun that in the hands of a good Animator awards energy, inventiveness, and impulsiveness. Toon – The Cartoon Roleplaying Game is the roleplaying equivalent of a tonic, a great pick up and play roleplaying game that enables the players to engage in all of the mayhem and madness of their favourite childhood cartoons and after they Fall Down, get back up and dive right back in.

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.

—oOo—

What is it?The Bully Bird is a “A monstrous predator packed into two pages” for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha which presents a creature and three hooks to use the creature in a campaign that the Game Master can develop and run as a single session’s worth of play or possibly longer.

It is a two page, full colour 329.59 KB PDF.

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

The creature and the scenario hooks can be easily be adapted to the rules system of the Game Master’s choice.
Where is it set?As written, The Bully Bird details a creature found across Dragon Pass.

Who do you play?
The Bully Bird does not require any specific character type, but the Bully Bird is hated by Orlanth-worshippers in particular, and anyone who keeps alynxes, such as Odayla or Yinkin worshippers.
What do you need?
The Bully Bird requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha only.
What do you get?The Bully Bird details simple, but very large creature, roughly four times taller than the average man and the size of a mammoth. It is a giant bird that talks and pecks its way back and forth across Dragon Pass, able to fly, but only with the benefit of a running start. It will stalk and eat anything it likes, but not men, though it is capable of defending itself by pecking or grappling with its beak or flapping its wings in a strong strike. Having escaped into the mortal world from God Time following a botched heroquest, it has become both a terror across the region and a much desired trophy for hunters, who are seen as being either very brave or very foolish for wanting to hunt it. One reason to hunt are its magical feathers, which either make magnificent trophies or can be used to attract predators when hunting.

In addition to describing the Bully Bird, how it came to be in the mortal world, and giving its stats, The Bully Bird includes three plot hooks. These will have the Player Characters preventing it being accidently caught by Summons of Evil cast by a clan, the Bully Bird becoming infatuated with a Player Character, and the Player Characters becoming involved in an attempt to banish the Bully Bird. These are thumbnail descriptions at best, and the Game Master will need to undertake a fair amount of development to have something readily playable.
One aspect of the Bully Bird which would have have benefited from further development is the heroquest that enabled it to escape God Quest. That might have better prepared the Game Master who wants to run a heroquest to banish it or it might even set up the possibility of the Player Characters having performed the original heroquest that set the Bully Bird free in Dragon Pass!
Ultimately the usefulness of The Bully Bird will depend upon if the Game Master does not mind adding another creature to Glorantha, especially as one as ridiculous as the the Bully Bird, and does not mind developing the included scenario hooks.

Is it worth your time?Yes—The Bully Bird adds a strange beast to Glorantha that can be seen lurking here and there throughout Dragon Pass before the Player Characters go hunting for it just as in Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark.No—The Bully Bird is just a bit too gonzo, even silly, and needs too much effort upon the part of the Game Master to effectively use.Maybe—The Bully Bird is fantastically absurd, a looming presence which reminds others of the dangers of heroquests gone wrong and with a bit of effort its plot hooks can be developed in something worth running..

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: Mad Sci – How to Train your ShoggothPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Kurt Havelock

Setting: Miskatonic UniversityProduct: One-shot
What You Get: Thirty-eight page, 142.16 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Miskatonic Mad Science
Plot Hook: Cartoonish capers with chemistry and whatnot causes chaosPlot Support: Eighteen NPCs, one map, and sixteen Mythos monsters, plus one robot.Production Values: Plain
Pros# Entertainingly cartoonish art# Interesting set of NPCs/Mythos Monsters# Variant Great Race of Yith# Myxophobia# Teraphobia# Science Anxiety
Cons# EDU as a stat is NOT stupid# Variant Great Race of Yith# All set-up, no plot# No staging advice# No investigation# Unusable as written without a lot of effort

Conclusion# All set-up, but no plot, investigation, adventure, or advice on how to use it# Actually more the bible for an anime-style Saturday morning Miskatonic University mad science cartoon

The two great features of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set were twofold. First, in ‘A Guide to Ubersreik’, it introduced Ubersreik, the fortress-town in the south of the Reikland, and its surrounding duchy that are in turmoil after an announcement from the emperor that unseated the ruling House Jungfreud. It left the town’s burghers and minor members of the nobility spotting an opportunity to take control themselves and much of this was explored in ‘The Adventure Book’, which provided a five-part mini-campaign and more story hooks. This was the second great thing about the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set—lots to roleplay. Although Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set was in part designed to set the Game Master and her players up reader for the majestic The Enemy Within campaign—after all, almost everything is in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition is—what if instead of leaping into that campaign, the Player Characters wanted to stay in and around Ubersreik? Fortunately, and almost immediately, publisher Cubicle Seven Entertainment began publishing scenarios set in and around the Duchy of Ubersreik, so the Player Characters could not only continue their involvement in the political upheaval in the town, but also explore its surroundings.

Ubersreik Adventures: More Grim and Perilous Scenarios in the Duchy of Ubersreik continues the series begun with Ubersreik Adventures: Six Grim and Perilous Scenarios in the Duchy of Ubersreik, by collecting the next five scenarios in the series—and more, in another handsome, if slim, hardback. The five take the Player Characters in and around the Duchy of Ubersreik, but do not stray very far from the river port at its heart. In the process, they will face an uprising by the recently dead, investigate a local legend, get caught up in a whodunnit, search for a serial killer, and find themselves wrapped in a con job. The scenarios are also flexible. All can be taken and dropped into the Game Master’s campaign, used in conjunction with the Rough Nights & Hard Days campaign anthology, or used as part of The Enemy Within. However, where Ubersreik Adventures: Six Grim and Perilous Scenarios in the Duchy of Ubersreik felt like it constantly wanted to push the Game Master, her players, and their characters onto the path that would lead into the events of The Enemy Within, none of the scenarios in this anthology do. Instead, they are standalone affairs that can be run in episodic fashion in and around the duchy, all the better to be free of any connection to The Enemy Within. One thing missing from all five is the ‘Shaking Things Up’ appendix with advice for the Game Master on running the scenario, alternative hooks to get the Player Characters involved, and a list of possible connects to not only the other five scenarios in the volume, but also other parts of the Empire. Although the lack of suggested connections means that the five scenarios in the anthology are less obviously flexible, at the same it enforces their independence away from The Enemy Within, though of course, they do work better in conjunction with the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set.

The anthology opens with ‘Deadly Dispatch’ which opens with one of the Player Characters receiving a mysterious package. Opening the package reveals that it contains a puzzle box and opening the puzzle box—the scenario suggesting either Intelligence checks modified by appropriate skills and talents or brute force as possible methods—reveals its contents to be quite probably blasphemous. Of course, brute force also destroys some of the evidence, but not all of it. Investigating the address label reveals that it has been given to the Player Character in a case of mistaken identity and investigating the addressee reveals that it should have been sent to a local river woman. She turns out to be easy to find and nervous when she is found. This is because unfortunately, she has become the front woman for a necromancer who has designs on Ubersreik. This is all a good set-up, supported by two well written NPCs in the form of the river woman and the similarly reluctant, but undead Estalian duellist who is the necromancer’s bodyguard and servant. In comparison, the necromancer himself feels underwritten as does the fact that the plot ends with a zombie uprising. Nevertheless, zombie uprisings are invariably fun and ‘Deadly Dispatch’ is a serviceable scenario that can be played through in a single session.
If ‘Deadly Dispatch’ is straightforward, then ‘Fishrook Returns’ is just a bit obvious in its plotting. The whole of Ubersreik is talking about the return of Fishrook, a notorious highwayman who has been holding up and robbing coaches and wagons on the roads around the city. What is significant about the highwayman’s return is that he is dead, having been hanged for his crimes a century ago. But this Fishrook wears the same bird-like mask and dresses just as flamboyantly, so is this the real Fishrook returned, his ghost, or someone impersonating his legend. A local noblewoman, Gutele von Bruner, bored and enamoured by the legend is determined to find out and hires the Player Characters to find out. Unfortunately, there is not really much of a mystery as to the identity of who the new Fishrook is and it is likely that the Player Characters will very quickly put two and two together and realise that it is actually Gutele von Bruner. There is a bit of a run around to capture her, but where the scenario gets interesting is deciding what to do with her, because after all, she has committed several crimes. This is particularly tricky if the Player Characters are still part of the city watch as they are in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set. Do they upset the nobility by pushing for a trial and causing a bigger scandal, get a very reluctant town council involved, or upset almost everyone else by brushing it under the carpet and letting Gutele von Bruner get away with it? At this point, the scenario opens up and becomes much more Player Character driven as they try to negotiate the way out of the legal and social mess that Gutele von Bruner has landed them in and the Game Master will need to respond as necessary. Although there is advice for the Game Master, this second half of the scenario is much more difficult to run and so needs much more preparation time to understand the various possible outcomes.
The third scenario, ‘Double Trouble’, is a classic country house murder mystery. It begins with the Player Characters being invited to visit the home of a young poet because he wants to hear of their adventures and adapt them into verse. The atmosphere in the poet’s home is tense and nervous, and not because he has invited what his mother considers to be riffraff onto the family estate, but because of the other reason that he wants the Player Characters there. The poet is also worried about the rash of recent and sudden disappearances from amongst the staff on his family’s estate and the odd behaviour of his mother, and he wants the Player Characters to investigate. When they do, the Player Characters discover similarly worried and nervous staff, hear odd movements in the night, and so on, their efforts hampered by the attitudes of the staff who do not trust them and the efforts of the murderer. With a scenario being a murder mystery in a country house and having a title like ‘Double Trouble’, it would suggest that a twin is involved—and it is. Sort of. The scenario includes a good floor plan of the family estate and some well NPCs, though again, as in ‘Deadly Dispatch’, not the true villain of the piece. There is also good advice on what to do if the Player Characters accuse the villain too early on and pleasingly, it culminates in a scene in the drawing room in which the Player Characters will have to identify the murderer, explain his actions and motives, and convince everyone of their solution to the case. In other words, a classic ‘I suppose you’re wondering why I gathered you here today…’ scene and the scenario even uses that phrase for the title of the actual scene! ‘Double Trouble’ is a cracking little scenario that puts a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay spin on a classic genre to very entertaining effect.
The fourth scenario, ‘The Blessing That Drew Blood’, is another murder mystery, but this time more procedural in nature and set on the streets of Ubersreik, with the Player Characters undertaking a lot of detective footwork as they slog from one murder site to the next and from one witness interview to the next. In fact, there are a lot of witnesses to interview and a party of Player Characters without a decent Charm between them is going to be at a disadvantage from start to finish. This is something the scenario acknowledges, noting its heavy reliance upon the Charm skill and suggesting alternative interpersonal skills to use such as Gossip and Intimidate. Throughout the investigation, the Player Characters will be watched with keen interest by a strange trio that include a cat and a dog, and beset by incidences of explosive bodily expression or sleepiness at just the wrong moment… Are they connected and if so, what is their interest in the Player Characters and their investigation? It turns out that they are working to ensure that the culprit responsible, a musician famous across the empire, succeeds, because they are all in the service of Slaanesh. The strange trio willingly because they are former daemons attempting to get back into Slaanesh’s good books and the musician half-heartedly because if she fails to kill the required number of victims, she loses the musical ability that has made her rich and famous.
‘The Blessing That Drew Blood’ is another scenario with a good set-up and a great cast of well-drawn and colourful NPCs, including a veteran agitator and muckraker, a scared initiate of Morr—who may also serve as the Player Characters’ patron for the adventure if needed, a hail and brimstone Sigmarite Warrior Priest with shameful secrets, and a bartender who attempts to avoid answering every question lest he gains a reputation as an informer! And then there is the trio of ex-daemons whom the Game Master can have some fun with inflicting horrid, if temporary, afflictions upon her Player Characters. Unfortunately, the scenario is not as clearly laid out as it should have been and some of the information does not always match in the text. Nevertheless, this is a good adventure that fans of police procedurals will enjoy a great deal.

The fifth and final adventure in the anthology is ‘The Grey Mountain Gold’. The Player Characters are hired by an ambitious young man who believes that he has got hold of a map which shows the locations of the treasures rumoured to have been left behind when the Dwarven Clan Harataki had to flee the Karak of House Harataken from constant Greenskin assaults and wants their help to mount an expedition. Only it turns out that not only is he gullible, but he has been targeted by a gang of charlatans, because of course, the map is fake. How far the Player Characters are taken in by the conmen is another matter, but complicating the problem is that the remnants of Clan Harataki are based in Ubersreik and when Queen Vilda of Karak Branar gets to hear about it, she is less than pleased to learn that someone is going after treasures that rightfully belong to her and her clan. The other dwarves of Clan Harataki, in comparison, are incensed and with their ire up, are quite happy to give the culprits a good thumping, all of which sets up a scene where the Player Characters are chased through the alleys of Ubersreik by mob of disconsolate dwarves! This is an entertaining set piece, though one not helped by the lack of a map. One of the pleasures of this scenario is seeing a con in action with the Player Characters being caught up in it rather than being the target per se, whilst another is seeing a signature Career from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, that of the Charlatan, in action. Of course, if the players and their characters are unhappy at the end of the scenario because they did not actually have a chance to mount an expedition to Karak of House Harataken, then this scenario does actually show them why it might be a bad idea.
One of the aspects of Ubersreik which is not explored in full in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set or Ubersreik Adventures: Six Grim and Perilous Scenarios in the Duchy of Ubersreik, is what happened to the ruling House Jungfreud after it was unseated by the Emperor. This, though, is explored in Ubersreik Adventures: More Grim and Perilous Scenarios in the Duchy of Ubersreik. House Jungfreud has fled back to its ancestral seat of the neighbouring Duchy of Black Rock, a grim and gloomy place best known for its coal or ore mines, where Graf Sigismund von Jungfreud alternates between glowering and preparing for war, wary of the Emperor’s next steps. All of this is detailed in the penultimate section of the book, ‘A Guide to Black Rock’. This details the craggy, rock-strewn moorlands, it various town and settlements, mines along with a list if miner’s slang, the site of a ruined abbey which along with its monks and nuns was put to the torch for heresy and is still haunted by a tomb banshee who was the former abbess, the source of Neufaljung ink typically used to sign death warrants, Castle Neufaljung—seat of House Jungfreud—and its inhabitants, and the various plots whirling around the castle and the duchy. Alongside this are numerous hooks and sidebars that the Game Master can develop into scenarios and plotlines, and overall, this a good introduction to the duchy with plenty of information for the Game Master to work with.

Lastly, Ubersreik Adventures: More Grim and Perilous Scenarios in the Duchy of Ubersreik does actually return to the subject of The Enemy Within, but in an unexpected fashion. This is as consequences of the campaign, as if there is another group of Player Characters involved in it rather than those in Ubersreik. This further divorces Ubersreik Adventures: More Grim and Perilous Scenarios in the Duchy of Ubersreik and its events away from those of The Enemy Within beyond those consequences, whilst allowing the Game Master to take them into account even if she has no intent of running the campaign herself. Alternatively, a group of players could actually play both, but with different characters, so that the one set of characters experience the events of The Enemy Within and the other characters’ activities if only vicariously. It is a nice addition and interesting to the campaign from a different angle even if it does give away a lot of detail about The Enemy Within.

Physically, Ubersreik Adventures: More Grim and Perilous Scenarios in the Duchy of Ubersreik is very well presented. The book itself is a handsome hardback and the book’s artwork—especially in its depiction of the NPCs—and cartography are both well done. However, the anthology needs an edit to fix final errors and to make sure that some of the plots and their information is clearer.
Ubersreik Adventures: More Grim and Perilous Scenarios in the Duchy of Ubersreik is another solidly impressive set of scenarios that enables a group to continue playing the campaign begun in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set, whilst also being flexible enough to be set elsewhere in the Empire and the Game Master’s campaign. ‘A Guide to Black Rock’ very nicely expands upon the source material in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set, but really the two standout scenarios in the anthology both involve murder—‘Double Trouble’ and ‘The Blessing That Drew Blood’. Although it is a good anthology of scenarios in general, the Game Master who has set her campaign in Ubersreik is definitely going to want to run the scenarios in Ubersreik Adventures: More Grim and Perilous Scenarios in the Duchy of Ubersreik.

One of the great things about The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings, the second edition of the acclaimed The One Ring: Adventures Over the Edge of the Wild published by Free League Publishing is The One Ring Starter Set. Why do you ask? Well, because it lets us roleplay members of the Hobbit community whom we not normally encounter. Drogo Baggins, Esmeralda Took, Lobelia Bracegirdle, Paladin Took II, Primula Brandybuck, and Rorimac Brandybuck, in many cases the parents or relations of three of the Hobbits who would form part of the Fellowship of the Ring decades later. Under the direction of the scandalous Bilbo Baggins, the quintet went off and had adventures of their own in the Shire, whilst at the same time The One Ring Starter Set presented the Shire for the roleplaying game itself. Sadly, the five adventures had to come to close and with it the chance to play those characters again. Fortunately, s available a number of sequel adventures, including Landmark Adventures, that can be run as part of, or after, the events of The One Ring Starter Set, or simply added to an ongoing campaign for The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings if it is being run in or around The Shire. The Ghost of Needlehole proved to be a sharp little ghost story, whilst the Mines of Brockenbores took the Player-heroes to the far north of the Shire to inspect a mine! Sackville-Baggins Estates takes the Player-heroes to the far south to explore a growing threat that comes to a fruition at the end of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Sackville-Baggins Estates describes the farmstead to the southeast of Longbottom, which lies on the very edge of the Shire. This is the estate of Otho and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, the latter the infamous cousin of Bilbo Baggins, known for her covetous and grasping nature and her desire to own Bag End. Despite the poor quality nature of the farm’s ground, Otho and Lobelia have enriched themselves growing Southern Star pipe weed, which although of too poor a quality to sell to other Hobbits, is sold to Men and merchants in Bree and beyond. Where Lobelia is sour-natured and inquisitive, her husband is dour and ill-mannered, and their son, Lotho, is ill-tempered and lazy with a perpetual scowl on his face. Otho is also secretive and rarely welcomes visitors—and with good reason.

In his desire to become the ‘wealthiest Hobbit in the Shire’ and appease his wife, Otho has entered into a secret pact with a man from the south. This is to provide information about the doings of the Shire, and in particular, the comings and goings of Gandalf the Grey. The money he is paid comes from the purse of Saruman the White... Over the years, Otho’s farm has doubled in size and seen an increasing number of visitors, working the fields and transporting the harvest away. These are a mix of ne’er do wells from across the Shire and men brought in, many of whom work the spy network that Otho has established on behalf of Saruman. Ultimately, the investment that Saruman has made in the Shire will pay off with the Scouring of the Shire.

Sackville-Baggins Estates includes a rumour and old lore about Otho’s farm and both he and Lobelia, a random event that brings the Player-heroes into contact with one of Otho’s agents, descriptions of all three NPCs—Otho, Lobelia, and Lotho, and a description of their farm. There is a lot of information given here and as a Landmark Adventure, what it does is develop the back story to the events at the end of The Lord of the Rings. However, this is not an easy Landmark Adventure to use. To begin with, there is relatively little to explore and not much more to discover. Then, when Otho’s perfidy is revealed, how does this play out? What are the consequences? How does it affect future events in the Shire given that they are written in stone? Then there is an even darker plan upon the part of Otho, which the adventure suggests, but again, the consequences are not explored in any depth.
Sackville-Baggins Estates is neatly presented and is well written. The map is rough, but workable.
Unfortunately, as welcome as Sackville-Baggins Estates is, it is simply not as good as the previous The Ghost of Needlehole. It does a very nice job of filling in the back story to the events that lead into the later events of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and the Scouring of the Shire. In terms of gameable content, Sackville-Baggins Estates will need development upon the part of the Loremaster to be effectively useful in her campaign.

How do you like your GM Screen?

The GM Screen is a essentially a reference sheet, comprised of several card sheets that fold out and can be stood up to serve another purpose, that is, to hide the GM's notes and dice rolls. On the inside, the side facing the GM are listed all of the tables that the GM might want or need at a glance without the need to have to leaf quickly through the core rulebook. On the outside, facing the players, can be found either more tables for their benefit or representative artwork for the game itself. This is both the basic function and the basic format of the screen, neither of which has changed all that much over the years. Beyond the basic format, much has changed though.

To begin with the general format has split, between portrait and landscape formats. The result of the landscape format is a lower screen, and if not a sturdier screen, than at least one that is less prone to being knocked over. Another change has been in the weight of card used to construct the screen. Exile Studios pioneered a new sturdier and durable screen when its printers took two covers from the Hollow Earth Expedition core rule book and literally turned them into the game’s screen. This marked a change from the earlier and flimsier screens that had been done in too light a cardstock, and several publishers have followed suit.

Once you have decided upon your screen format, the next question is what you have put with it. Do you include a poster or poster map, such as Chaosium, Inc.’s last screen for Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition or Margaret Weis Productions’ Serenity and BattleStar Galactica Roleplaying Games? Or a reference work like that included with Chessex Games’ Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune or the GM Resource Book for Pelgrane Press’ Trail of Cthulhu? Perhaps Or scenarios such as ‘Blackwater Creek’ and ‘Missed Dues’ from the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition? Or even better, a book of background and scenarios as well as the screen, maps, and forms, like that of the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack also published by Chaosium, Inc. In the past, the heavier and sturdier the screen, the more likely it is that the screen will be sold unaccompanied, such as those published by Cubicle Seven Entertainment for the Starblazer Adventures: The Rock & Roll Space Opera Adventure Game and Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG. That though is no longer the case and stronger and sturdier GM Screens are the norm today.

So how do I like my GM Screen?

I like my Screen to come with something. Not a poster or poster map, but a scenario, which is one reason why I like ‘Descent into Darkness’ from the Game Master’s Screen and Adventure for Legends of the Five Rings Fourth Edition and ‘A Bann Too Many’, the scenario that comes in the Dragon Age Game Master's Kit for Green Ronin Publishing’s Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5. I also like my screen to come with some reference material, something that adds to the game. Which is why I am fond of both the Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune as well as the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack. It is also why I like the Gamemaster’s Toolkit published by by Modiphius Entertainment for use with Dune – Adventures in the Imperium, the roleplaying game based on the novels by Frank Herbert.
Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Gamemaster’s Toolkit comes with a four-panel screen and a Game Master booklet that contains tools and advice on running a campaign for Dune – Adventures in the Imperium as well as adventure hooks, intrigues, and more. The screen itself is a sturdy affair, as is standard for the hobby today, but in portrait format rather than landscape. This is not as easy a format to use, plus it does have a much imposing presence at the table. The front of it depicts a map of Arrakis, or rather the known map of Arrakis at the time of the events of the novels. So, the northern polar region around Arrakeen and Catharg with the surrounding shield wall and The Great Flat, Funeral Plain, and Habbanya Erg to the west and the Deep Desert to the east. Done in sandy shades of yellow and brown with the startling blue of the polar ice cap at the centre, it is an imposing presence at the table. On the inside, the outer left panel list Skills, Drives, Traits, difficulty levels, and the skill test procedure, whilst on the inner left panel summarises the use of Determination, challenging Drives, how to add to the Game Master’s Threat pool, and the uses of Momentum. The inner righthand panel covers the rules for conflict and the attack sequence, plus the costs for spending Advancement Points, whilst the outer right panel has sections for creating NPCs on the go and generating story hooks. Throughout, every section has a page reference number so that the Game Master can check for further details or an explanation in the Dune – Adventures in the Imperium core book. Overall, there is a clear and pleasing simplicity to the Game Master’s Screen, and it is easy to read and use.
Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Gamemaster’s Toolkit comes with a four-panel screen and a Game Master booklet that contains tools and advice on running a campaign for Dune – Adventures in the Imperium as well as adventure hooks, intrigues, and more. The screen itself is a sturdy affair, as is standard for the hobby today, but in portrait format rather than landscape. This is not as easy a format to use, plus it does have a much imposing presence at the table. The front of it depicts a map of Arrakis, or rather the known map of Arrakis at the time of the events of the novels. So, the northern polar region around Arrakeen and Catharg with the surrounding shield wall and The Great Flat, Funeral Plain, and Habbanya Erg to the west and the Deep Desert to the east. Done in sandy shades of yellow and brown with the startling blue of the polar ice cap at the centre, it is an imposing presence at the table. On the inside, the outer left panel list Skills, Drives, Traits, difficulty levels, and the skill test procedure, whilst on the inner left panel summarises the use of Determination, challenging Drives, how to add to the Game Master’s Threat pool, and the uses of Momentum. The inner righthand panel covers the rules for conflict and the attack sequence, plus the costs for spending Advancement Points, whilst the outer right panel has sections for creating NPCs on the go and generating story hooks. Throughout, every section has a page reference number so that the Game Master can check for further details or an explanation in the Dune – Adventures in the Imperium core book. Overall, there is a clear and pleasing simplicity to the Game Master’s Screen, and it is easy to read and use.
The Game Master booklet expands upon the chapter on being a Game Master in the core rulebook, first suggesting the types of conflict that the Player Characters might be involved in a scenario for Dune – Adventures in the Imperium. These include humanity versus nature, humanity versus civilisation, humanity versus tradition, humanity versus other humans, and so on. It supports these with eighteen different story seeds each of which includes a dramatic hook, an immediate call to action, locales, what is at stake, and the nature of the opposition. For example, in ‘Forgotten Vendetta’ under Kanly or humanity versus other humans, the Player Characters’ House may find itself the target of Kanly from a Minor House over an ancient and otherwise forgotten slight and a War of Assassins has already begun or in ‘The Star Pilgrims’ under Wilderness Survival for humanity versus nature, there is a race on to locate and investigate a crashed starship recently uncovered from the sands—just how old is it? No stats are provided and the Game Master will have to develop them into something playable, but they are good starting points.
To help the Game Master, the ‘Adventure Generators’ is a set of tables to create all of the elements of a scenario. This starts with title structure, key character type involved, location, object or animal, concept such as revenge or calamity, and institution or group. Following this are tables for a starting point for the adventure, involving the Player Characters and an enemy, before revealing the plot and identifying the antagonists and their aim. Further tables throw in problems and obstacles, a hidden hand behind the plot, and the supporting cast and NPCs. It is suggested that this is then mapped onto an intrigue map, with tables further tables given to detail the NPCs. All of this is supported by a really good example of how an adventure generation works which can easily be adapted to the Game Master’s campaign. All the Game Master has to do is supply names and stats and the plot is ready to play.
In addition, Game Master booklet includes four Intrigues as both inspiration and ready-to-develop examples. These dive into the conspiratorial aspect of the Known Universe, including the Bene Gesserit’s Missionaria Protectiva attempting to craft a new superstition with which to manipulate the Fremen, the Bene Tleilax scheming to obtain the secrets of the Bene Gesserit breeding programme, investigating the low yields of spice recovery from the harvester cleaning crews, and the Ixians attempting to scavenge the remains of an ancient spaceship. The latter could be tied back into the earlier ‘The Star Pilgrims’. The Locations add three example places that the Game Master can add to her campaign. They include a smuggler base, a sample House which serves as an information broker on Arrakis, and a House-run passenger spaceship. These nicely detailed, complete with full NPC stats, and again fairly easy to insert into a campaign.
Physically, the Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Gamemaster’s Toolkit is well presented. The screen itself is sturdy and easy to use, whilst the Game Master Booklet is clean and tidy and easy to read. If there is an issue, it is that the Game Master will need a bag in which to store its various parts and not lose them!
The Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Gamemaster’s Toolkit is a solid resource for the Game Master. The screen will always find a use, whilst the contents of the Game Master booklet is really something that the Game Master will dip into as necessary and as an addendum to the Game Master advice in Dune – Adventures in the Imperium. This can be as direct inspiration using its almost ready-to-play content or as a series of prompts for the Game Master’s imagination.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities is a bit different, just like the previous entry in the line, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #7: A Dozen Lankhmar Locations. Unlike the majority of the releases for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the releases for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set, both of these are supplements rather than scenarios, although Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities does actually include a scenario. Where Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #7: A Dozen Lankhmar Locations provided the Judge with a wide range of locations and businesses and NPCs that she can use to bring the city of Lankhmar to life, what Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities does is open up the wider world of Nehwon to what is at heart a city campaign. It follows in the footsteps of the heroes of author Fritz Leiber’s tales of the adventures, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, as they struck north across the Inner Sea and into The Land of the Eight Cities. Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities is both a guide to the country and to playing in that country, as well as a guide to how it was developed from original source material. Plus of course, it comes with its own scenario to get the Player Characters there.
Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities introduces The Land of the Eight Cities, located in and on the edges of the Forest Land, across the Inner Sea from the city of Lankhmar. Six centuries ago, it was settled by Lankhmarts who came searching for resources including lumber, ores, and gems, who established its first cities and effectively turned the region into a colony of the city. That changed three centuries ago, when eastern nomads filtered through the gap between the Barrier Mountains and the Inner Cities and assaulted city after city, eventually capturing all of them. Yet they did not sack the cities, but instead occupied them and adopted their ways! In the centuries since, The Land of the Eight Cities and the city of Lankhmar have become uneasy trading partners, The Land of the Eight Cities trading its ready supply of lumber, ores, and gems in return for the grain and meat farmed around Lankhmar. Despite this strong relationship, the lords of the Eight Cities still fear invasion by the Overlords of Lankhmar. It has also a similar relationship with the barbarian tribes of the Cold Wastes, trading for their furs, amber, and ivory via the cold city of No-Ombrulsk, but constantly needing to patrol against the pirate ships from the north. The supplement also presents details of the peoples of The Land of the Eight Cities, its government, and its gods. The latter consist of the Gods of the Forest and the Red God. The Gods of the Forest are worshipped by the majority of inhabitants of the region and personify their belief in the inherent spiritualism of the ancient trees and verdant wildlife. The Red God is a deity of blood and slaughter, and is worshipped by soldiers across the region and in particular, by the gladiators who fight in the arena in the palace-house of Lithquil, the Mad Duke and ruler of the city of Ool Hrusp.
All eight cities of The Land of the Eight Cities are detailed, most of which are cramped settlements of close-set, steep-roofed wooden buildings threaded through by narrow alleys which are set in forest clearings where the forests literally come right up to the edge of the settlement. Few have walls or the fortifications found in the south, the surrounding areas being laced with traps and treetop watch posts with troops also keeping a hardy eye on the narrow roads to and from the cities.

The secrets of forest around the cities include stats for a typical gladiator of the Mad Duke, a Kilyolsho tribesman, a member of the desert tribe to be found on the other side of the Barrier Mountains, Ool Hruspian Marine who serves aboard the Ool Hruspian ships assigned protect the city’s merchant fleet from pirates and Sea Mingols. Two new creatures are given, the bear-like Luhr-beast and Pack Bear, the latter of which can be trained to carry items for a master, as well as fight for him. There are new Bensions and Dooms too. ‘Bear-blooded’ is a Benison which gives a Player Character bear blood, not only enabling him to roar like a bear and scare off animals in the forest, but also allowing him to have a trained pack bear that can understand commands and fight for the Player Character. The other Benison is ‘Mining Claim’, whilst the Dooms are ‘Blasphemer’, which makes the Player Character an apostate in the eyes of the priests of the Gods of the Forests, and ‘Treader in Ancient’ which curses the Player Character to followed by something discovered in the ancient black ruins deep in the forest, though he cannot recall the exact events of his first encounter with it or what it is. Both of these Bensions and Dooms are designed initially for natives to The Land of the Eight Cities, but outsiders who live there for some time may also gain them. Both the Gods of the Forest and the Red God are described in terms of being patrons, and there is a table for carousing in The Land of the Eight Cities instead of using the one given in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set.
The included adventure in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities is ‘Introductory Adventure The Tooth of No-Ombrulsk’. Designed for Player Characters of Second Level and Third Level, it begins with them coming into possession of a treasure map, pointing to the location of a stolen artefact. This is The Tooth of No-Ombrulsk, sacred to a whale-god worshipped in the northern city of No-Ombrulsk. The adventure is more of a mini-adventure, consisting of just eleven locations and describing a long-abandoned and ruined watchtower where the artefact has been hidden. It has a tomb-like quality, being laced with a number of traps, those these are not the only threats that the Player Characters will face. There are some sea-themed monsters as well as another pair of factions also after the artefact, including a very nicely done, desperate and vengeful priest of No-Ombrulsk. ‘Introductory Adventure The Tooth of No-Ombrulsk’ is nicely detailed as you would expect for Dungeon Crawl Classics, and the consequences of the Player Characters successfully gaining possession of the artefact are well thought out, but it only gets the Player Characters to the very tip of The Land of the Eight Cities and does not actually engage with the content presented elsewhere in the book. Thus, the Judge and her players will have to wait for something more definitive that will take their characters into The Land of the Eight Cities.

Rounding out Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities is ‘Appendix A: The Fritz Leiber Papers Collection’. This details Michael Curtis’ trip to the University of Houston and its Special Collection department to examine the Fritz Leiber Papers it holds as part of the research to create the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. In particular, it looks at the draft version of ‘The Tale of the Grain Ships’ which would ultimately become The Swords of Lankhmar. It is this draft which Curtis draws on heavily for Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities and he discusses this before delving deeper into the many items in the collection. This includes swords, early maps, screenplays, and even correspondence with E. Gary Gygax. For fans of Fritz Leiber and Lankhmar, and both Gygax and the Appendix N, this is a fascinating read and a great addendum to both the scenario and the box set.
One of the issues with Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities is that it has relatively little source material upon which to draw from. Consequently there is a brevity to the content of the supplement, though some Judges will see this as a boon as it gives them room aplenty to develop their own content. However, the supplement is missing content which would have been useful. This includes maps, both of The Land of the Eight Cities and the Eight Cities themselves, and whilst the inclusion of the two Patrons, the Gods of the Forest and the Red, is more than useful, the lack of spells particular to them is not. Similarly, the supplement mentions several times that strange, ageless structures are to be found in the forests of The Land of the Eight Cities, but these are not detailed beyond suggesting that they might have been built by the same people who built the black temples upon which Lankhmar is built. Of course, this leaves plenty of room for the Judge to develop her own, but something beyond mere hints would have been useful.
Ultimately, the problem with Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities is the paucity of information. There is always the feeling that there should be more information, but this is not the author’s fault, as there is relatively little information about The Land of the Eight Cities for him to draw on. Nevertheless, he has been able to develop a fair amount of detail and add to it, from what was available. The rest is up to the Judge to develop herself.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities is well presented. The artwork is good and the one included map for the scenario is likewise good. One oddity to note is that the illustration of the Pack Bear is included on the previous page below the description of the Luhr-beast, a bear-like creature. Which suggests the possibility of there being a non-human anthropomorphic bear-like species in The Land of the Eight Cities. Which is not the case, and will only become clear when the reader flips over the page and continues reading.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities opens up the possibility of the Player Characters—thieves, pickpockets, burglars, cutpurses, muggers, and anyone else who would skulk in the night—escaping the City of the Black Toga and going on wilderness adventures and visiting other cities. It is unfortunate that the included adventure, as decent as it is, does neither. Similarly, whilst the rest of the information in the supplement is also decent, especially given the constraints faced by the author in terms of source material, it is only a starting point. This limits its usefulness for the Judge, whilst also leaving the setting open for her to develop as part of her own campaign. Thus, whilst there is a lot of interesting information in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities, none more so than in the appendix, this is not a supplement that the Judge needs to have as part of her campaign. Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #8: The Land of the Eight Cities is very much an option, if then, an interesting option.

We are lucky. We live in a time when the hobbies we pursue and the things that we like are the norm. Not just the norm, but accepted. Science Fiction, fantasy, superheroes, playing games, all the sorts of stuff that would have been derided in our childhoods and got us labelled as nerds. Board games are part of that trend, a trend which has seen them grow from being seen as childish pursuits to being just a hobby, but is that all they are? Just one more nerdy hobby amongst many others? This is something that What Board Games Mean to Me: Tales from the Tabletop sets out to explore in a series of essays from designers and publishers, players and scholars, journalists and librarians. Published by Aconyte Books, it is part of the publisher’s ‘Play to Win’ line, which includes James Wallis’ examination of the Spiel des Jahres winners, Everybody Wins: Four Decades of Greatest Board Games Ever Made, this is a collection of reminiscences and thoughts about board games—occasionally collectible card games and roleplaying games—but mostly board games, that will take the reader around the world and to some interesting places and ideas and to experiences familiar and unfamiliar, before coming back again, to his own collection of board games on the shelf and to the table where he plays them with friends and family.
The familiar follows two strands. The first being of playing with family—siblings, parents, and grandparents—of family classics such as Monopoly, Scrabble, Whist, Draughts, and how that got the essayist into playing games and understanding not just the mechanics of play, but the social dynamics of play. Games thus became a way to facilitate interaction with the rules of the game and the rules of game play. This is followed by the second, the discovery of a wider variety of board games, opening the essayist up to different themes and styles of play, co-operative games being a notable common discovery. For gamers of a certain age, such as John Kovalic, Gav Thorpe, Jervis Johnson, and Sir Ian Livingstone. This would have been with titles such as Escape from Colditz, Diplomacy, and The Warlord, an experience which British gaming hobbyists would recognise and which such figures would use as springboard into careers in the gaming industry. Others would discover a similar path through modern classics such as Carcassonne and CATAN or collectible card games such as Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh!.

The unfamiliar at first takes the reader to Nigeria with ‘Picture a Scene’. This charts KC Obbuagu’s first encounter with board games with an African classic, Mancala, and then following a revelatory moment in which he saw his board game design played, his steps into the board game industry where there was none. This was in Nigeria, and creating his first games led to the setting up of the games company, NIBCARD Games, the first tabletop café in Nigeria, and AB Con, the first board games convention in sub-Saharan Africa. All of which would result in NIBCARD Games being awarded the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming in 2021. This is a fascinating story, shining a light on the spread of the hobby in unexpected directions far beyond its origins in the English-speaking world. Also, an unfamiliar area—at least for board games—is that of the library. Jenn Bartlett describes in ‘Ticket to Read’, how she, as a librarian, created a board game programme at her library, working with publishers and local games shops, to support local business and develop a library-using habit in the attendees of the games events that she ran. There is an uncomfortable moment when she encounters misogyny as a player, but she draws parallels between what the hobby does at its best and what a library does, which is to welcome people in and letting them explore what each of them offers without judgement.

Both Lynn Potyen and Edoardo Albert bring a personal touch when they explore a fascinating effect of playing board games. In ‘Brain Games’, Lynn Potyen reveals how playing board games can help with learning disabilities and dementia, whilst Edoardo Alberto shows us in ‘Learning the Rules’ how the rules and etiquette learned in playing games can be applied to ordinary life, not in neurotypical learners, but in himself as well. What is interesting to note here is that when board games are used as tools in this fashion, they achieve something that the eighteenth and nineteenth century designers of board games failed to do, and that is to create a board game that works as an effective educational tool. That though was to teach the young players to be good Christians and the values of the British Empire, but even the board games of today designed to help players learn are not necessarily good teaching devices. Both Lynn Potyen and Edoardo Albert suggest that modern boardgames work better because they are designed for play rather than learning first, rather than the other way around. All of the entries in What Board Games Mean to Me are very personal, but none more so than ‘Brain Games’ and ‘Learning the Rules’.

Other entries in What Board Games Mean to Me include ‘Playing by Design’ an interview with the prolific board games designer, Reiner Knizia, the only entry to differ from personal essays that make up the rest of the book, and two scholarly explorations of board games and play. In the first of these, ‘The Magic Circle’, Matt Coward-Gibbs explores the phenomenon of the space which we all enter when we play from a theoretical standpoint, whilst in the second, ‘Connections’, Holly Nielsen looks at the connections made in that space when playing. One of the points she makes is that after discovering games designed to highlight the causes of women against unequal treatment and misogyny, the examples given pointing the feminism movement of the sixties and seventies and the Suffragette movement of the early twentieth century, she came to realise that despite the rallying cry of “Keep politics out of games!”, there had always been politics in games. There is scope here for an essay of all its own, but Nielson is also interested in the other aspect of games that the contributors to What Board Games Mean to Me return to again and again, and that is making connections via game play. Both entries talk about board games in a way that the casual player might necessarily consider, but do so in an engaging fashion.

What Board Games Mean to Me is similar to a pair of books published by Green Ronin Publishing, Hobby Games: The 100 Best and Family Games: The 100 Best, which together presented a series of essays on what the authors thought were the best and most enjoyable games of previous one hundred years. A handful of the contributors to What Board Games Mean to Mee also wrote entries in those earlier books, but where Hobby Games: The 100 Best and Family Games: The 100 Best looked back, What Board Games Mean to Me looks forward as well as back. This can be seen in KC Obbuagu’s essay highlighting the spread of board games as a hobby into unexpected markets and in the essays by Lynn Potyen and Edoardo Albert that point to board games as means of therapy and socialisation. In this way, it enhances the respectability that playing board games as a hobby has achieved in the past few decades.

Physically, What Board Games Mean to Me is a very lightly illustrated, but very readable paperback. None of the essays are longer than a few pages long and each is accompanied by a biography of its author.

What Board Games Mean to Me explores a variety of experiences in how the contributors came to play board games and how they came to discover and explore the wider hobby, and in doing so, tell stories that, for the most part, we can relate to because we had similar experiences. Yet wherever these stories take us, they always come back to the fact that playing board games is a social activity, a space where when we play, we do so using a set of rules that enable safe interaction and socialisation, even as we compete and battle against each other. Overall, What Board Games Mean to Me: Tales from the Tabletop is an enjoyable essay collection whose entries are in turn not only highly personal and immensely interesting, but will also will make the reader consider their own experiences with board games, whether they are new to the hobby or have been playing for decades.

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: Re-Animator 2508Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Quico Vicens-Picatto

Setting: Deep space in the 26th CenturyProduct: One-shot
What You Get: Nineteen page, 8.27 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Herbert West–Reanimator in spaaaace...!
Plot Hook: “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” – The AnimalsPlot Support: Six pre-generated Investigators, thirteen NPCs, one map, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Colourful
Pros# Fantastic cover# Detailed NPCs# Highly detailed Investigators# Highly detailed background
# Highly detailed timeline# All female cast# Interesting new Occupations# Kinemortophobia# Teraphobia# Cultphobia
Cons# Needs a good edit# Highly detailed background# Highly detailed and tight timeline# Investigators need to work hard to uncover the plot
Conclusion# Unclear plot with no obvious solution# Ultimately, a countdown-driven survivor versus zombies scenario in space, but the set-up is interesting

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: Operation Midnight SunPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Chicho OCARIZ ‘Arkashka’

Setting: World War II IcelandProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-seven page, 13.25 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Nazis versus dinosaurs versus ‘hoard of the Nibelungs’ meets Journey to the Centre of the Earth under Iceland… in World War IIPlot Hook: Iceland is neutral right now, but will it be after Operation Weserübung?Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, eight NPCs, three maps, and one dinosaur type.Production Values: Decent
Pros# Can be run using Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos# Straightforward scenario# Easy to run one-shot or convention scenario# Nyctophobia# Speluncaphobia# Ornithoscelidaphobia
Cons# Needs a good edit# No location map# More military operation than Mythos investigation# No Mythos content
Conclusion# Short, action and stealth-focused World War II scenario# Ultimately more military operation than Mythos investigation

Equipment books in roleplaying serve numerous functions. At their most basic, they are a book of goods and gear that a player can have his character purchase to help that character survive the next scenario, whether it is a sword, shield, and some armour that the character will wear from one adventure to the next, or thick furs or padded clothing that will help him weather the freezing temperatures over the high mountains and into the snow and ice beyond. Then they are the virtual equivalent of a Sears & Roebuck catalogue at the table, that the players can pick and choose from as their characters go shopping within the game and there is even semi-tradition of the Player Characters actually going shopping within the game and buying all of the things—whether the genre is fantasy Wild West, Science Fiction, or Cyberpunk—that their players never could. Literally roleplaying a fantasy of going shopping for fantasy things! Of course, just as the items within an equipment guide can be used to equip a Player Character, they can also be used to equip an NPC. If such an equipment guide includes a good mix of arms and armour, then all the Game Master has to do is pick out some different weapons and some different armour, and she has the beginnings of an interesting NPC, at least in terms of what wields and what he looks like. In addition, if the Player Characters have amassed some loot—jewels, gems, object d’art, and that sort of thing—then they will want to sell it and an equipment guide will often discuss the means to do so. In addition to arms and armour, an equipment guide will often detail a range of services and experts that the Player Characters can purchase or hire, as well as bigger things that they might want to invest in, such as land and buildings. This though, is not all that an equipment guide can be used for. A good equipment guide can do all that and more. A really good equipment guide can do all this and be used to help bring a world to life and it can be used as a spur for stories.
RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment is a supplement for Chaosium, Inc.’s RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. As an expansion for the core rules, RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment does everything that a good equipment guide does. It details and describes a wide range of items, goods, services, training, magical items, and beasts, plus new arms and armour, new rules for land ownership and use, and much more. And it is fair to say that the least interesting aspect of the supplement is actually the arms and armour. This is not to say that the included weapons and armour, which together draw from a range of cultures and races from across Glorantha, are not useful, because they very much are, but they are not actually interesting in comparison with the rest of the book.

RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment begins in broad detail with the market and what goods might be available depending upon the size and location of the market, explains Gloranthan currency, and looks at the economy, prices, handling and creating masterwork items, and more. The interesting aspect here is the effect that the size of the local economy can have on what a Player Character can buy and sell and what effect selling loot can have on the local economy. In smaller, more local economies, favours and bartering are more likely as means of exchange—even when it comes to settling debts—rather than money, and if the Player Characters sell too much loot, it can not only depress the economy, it can also attract the attention of the local authorities and temples, who will want them to contribute to the community!

One of aspects of Glorantha is the prominence and importance of different metals and their use. Most obviously bronze, since Glorantha is most often described as a bronze-age world, but other metals, ranging from aluminium and copper to silver and tin are also examined. This includes its properties when enchanted, such as weapons and armour made from enchanted copper being particularly hardy and enchanted quicksilver having the property of not being able to sink in water, Gloranthan cults and the enchanted metal spells they grant, and how enchanted metal is crafted. Here is where RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment begins rise above being just a simple shopping catalogue, because this is a useful section for metal workers—redsmiths for bronze, goldsmiths for gold, and so on. This is because it is possible to play such craftsmen in RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment and this directly supports them, as does the rules for creating masterwork items, which might be to increase an item’s Hit Points, armour points, or increase the amount of damage it can do. These are not fully detailed rules for creating masterwork or enchanted items, but they are more than sufficient. Plus, they enable a master craftsman Player Character, who needs a skill of at least 90%, to use his skill to greater effect, whilst at the same time working towards creating objects with enchanted metal. They are also accompanied by ‘The Metals of Acos’, a First Age document which provides some engaging in-game thoughts upon the various metals. Similar sections cover pottery and weaving, though not in as much depth, and there is an accompanying list of prices of crockery for the former and a list of clothing types and their prices under the common goods section.

‘Common Goods’ lists thumbnail descriptions and prices of a wide variety of everyday items. Clothing, jewellery, cosmetics, tools, musical instruments, toys and games, food and drink (including honey, wax, and royal jelly from bees), herbs and plants, exotic materials, and trinkets. There is some pleasing little details here, such as slimming girdles, made from either zebra or whale bones, being worn by Lunar nobility as means to appear thinner, but usually causing the wearer to pass out due to their tightness, or that popular board games are God’s Eyes and Fingers, Ouranekki, and Swords and Shields. Sadly, there are no rules any of the board games only relatively sparse descriptions, but whilst the mundane nature of many of these items and certainly their prices may not mean much to the average adventurer, they might to an NPC. Also, these items can be used to add verisimilitude to huts and houses and other dwellings as they are the everyday items which might be found at home. And just like the ingots of metals used by the various smiths, they will be found for sale at markets, in shops, and from the backs of the pack animals of travelling Issaries merchants. Further details, such as the fact that the popularity of rubies in the Lunar Empire means that Etyries merchants are willing to pay more for them and that reed baskets and bags, inexpensive when bought in Prax or New Pavis, are seen as foreign and fashionable items elsewhere, are more interesting than how much they cost. By comparison, though necessary, the section on adventuring gear feels almost mundane!

The chapter on beasts covers meat beasts, pack animals, riding beasts, and war beasts. Exotic beasts are listed for the different Elder Races, and stats for two new riding bests are given, expanding upon those in the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary. These are the Moose and the Reindeer. Alongside the list of riding gear, including various saddles, harnesses, saddlebags, and stirrups, there are details of various mobile dwellings and a table of mount speeds. Also given here are details of awakened animals. The most obvious of which is the alynx or shadowcat, and in roleplaying terms, thus associated with the worshippers of Odayla and Yinkin. However, any Player Character can have an awakened animal, not just a worshipper of Odayla or Yinkin, but a shadowcat is not always the most appropriate. RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment looks at several options, including birds, lizards, and snakes as well as other mammals. It notes that parrots are popular in Nochet and Glamour, crows and ravens with worshippers of Ty Kora Tek, Durulz children have frogs and toads, and geckos are commonly found in both Lunar and Sartarite Tarsh. Possession of an awakened creature at least adds colour to a character, but the roleplaying possibilities it opens up are endless.

Some skills and knowledges lie outside that of the Player Characters and this is where hirelings and services are useful. There are rules here for the availability of either, the expected skill ratings and rates pay, plus specific sections on mercenaries, personal services, heralds and poets, sages and scribes, and magic services. Notable here are terms of employment and contracts for mercenaries, plus a typical oath sworn by mercenaries and a guide to how loot is divided among them, including the Orlanthi and Yelm methods, plus an adventurer’s pact. These work for both NPCs and Player Characters, whether they are entering employment or hiring. There are details too of how slavery works in Glorantha, primarily as punishment for crimes and debts, or being captured as prisoners of war, and which species do own slaves. This does not include the Orlanthi who abhor the practice. That said, the authors do address the subject of slavery from a modern point of view and how it relates to the game, ultimately advising that the Game Master discuss the issue with her players beforehand. Besides this, there is a list of magical services, including the decidedly ungodly practice of sorcerous divination and casting magic for enchanted items—the latter to accompany the earlier rules on enchanted items, and also prices for renting rooms in the short term at inns and residences in the long term. The section on funerary rites covers various practices and their prices, including ceremonies and funeral pyres humble and grand, but again adding depth and detail to the world, though greater specifics will lie with the various cults.

The chapters on arms and armour expands upon those listed in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, adding a variety of new weapons like the Orlanthi Broad-axe, Moon Blade polearm, trident, war boomerangs, chakrams, and more. All are described and listed in the expanded weapons tables, as is the rhino hide armour in the armour tables and the armours for beasts and non-humans including Elves, Ducks, Trolls, and Trollkin. All of the arms and armour are illustrated, the armour in full colour, with some nicely depictions of various types of helms to differentiate between the types. One surprising omission is that of Dragonewt weapons, especially since the weapons of other species are included. (They can though, be found in the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary.) The major addition are the rules for entangling and net weapons, which bring throwing hooks, lassos, nets, and whips into play.

The rules for travel focus on group travel, including caravan, river, and ocean travel. Typical travel times are listed, and there are even rules for length of journey depending on circumstances and skill, as well as details of vehicles and vessels, such as chariots and reed boats. It would have been handy here for them to be illustrated and even be given deck plans where necessary, but there are none. As a campaign progresses, there is scope for the Player Characters to own their own dwellings and land, possession of which can lead to further adventures. The example here being is land grants being handed out by Prince Argrath in the Big Rubble, enforcing that being a big challenge. Land is treated as a potential reward and then responsibility, something that the Player Characters might earn and then have to protect and nurture. There is list of improvements which can be made, profits or losses to be made during sacred time, and possible random land-related events. The aim is not to provide a detailed set of rules for resource management, but more as a means to support the narrative and roleplaying. There is scope though, for a supplement, whether in whole or part, dedicated to this subject.

The penultimate chapter in RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment revisits training from RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, adding rules for learning new Runes, which typically has to be done via a cult associated with the cult a Player Character is an initiate of. However, since a maximum of only 5% can be gained at the end of training, it takes at least two seasons to increase a Rune to the minimum of 10% necessary for it to be used in play. Lastly, the section on exotic items expands on the rules for magic crystals given in the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack with a list of strange enchanted items and extraordinary gems. The former include an Empty Purse, which transfers only local currency to a nearby strong box and Walktapus Gloves, made from the skin of the feared Chaos creature, but valued by redsmiths for their ability to withstand extreme heat, whilst the later includes a Lhankor Mhy’s Mark, used to copy and transfer text via rubbings and a Vengeance Black, which if an oath is sworn it, provides a temporary bonus to skills dedicated to fulfilling the oath.

Physically, RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment is very well presented. It is clean, tidy, and easy to read. The cover is excellent, depicting the pre-generated signature characters from the pages of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha – Quickstart and Adventure at rest, camping between adventures.

There is a degree of repetition in the pages of RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment and other books for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, but in most cases, the repetition means that the new information is brought together with the old so that it is all together. Then there is the fact that a quarter of book, that devoted to arms and armour, is actually utilitarian rather than interesting. The majority of the book, fortunately, is both interesting and useful, presenting content that will be of great use to Issaries merchants with the market and price guides; Chalana Arroy initiates for the herbs and plants details; and craftsmen of all types for details particular to their crafts. Player Character of all types will find the supplement of use, whether they want to make a purchase or sell some loot, or undertake some training or hire some experts. However, RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipmentcomes into its own for the Game Master, because of the richness of the tiny details that even the most mundane of items brings to Glorantha and the verisimilitude that creates, helping to bring the world to life for her players. In this way, RuneQuest: Weapons & Equipment does exactly what a good equipment guide should.

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

—oOo—

Five hundred years ago, Rhand was a rich, verdant colony with vast forests that supported agriculture and attracted tourism. Technologically advanced, easy travel was facilitated by four satellites which operated a world-spanning teleport network. Then the Spectrals came. The faceless, jet black invaders from deep space launched attacks that shattered the climate, smashed the teleport network, and unleashed bioagents which drove many of humanity on the planet into barbarism. Five centuries later, Rhand’s climate is dominated by advancing ice and devastating storms and tornadoes. The only habitable part of the planet is the equator, populated by a thousand kingdoms and city states, competing for resources as the war against the Spectrals and other monsters continues as their societies face further collapse. The only hope lies in Orca, the last remnant of the government from before the Spectral attack, dedicated to recovering and protecting what knowledge it can, conducting operations against the Spectrals, and preventing the total collapse of society into barbarism and anarchy. Orca fields a range of military and auxiliary units, the elite of which are named after mythical beasts like the Dragons and the Targa. Where Targa units specialise in hand-to-hand combat and heavy assault missions, Dragon units specialise in commando missions and strategic planning. In addition to its dedicated forces, Orca has one other advantage—it can anyone anywhere on Rhand. It has access to Morningstar, the surviving satellite that had been part of the teleportation network. The magic of the Morningstar is accessed via an Encoder. Activate this and anyone also wearing a Thrall, a chain worn on the wrist, will be teleported to the desired destination. However, being the only surviving satellite remaining in the network means that Morningstar does not cover all of the planet all of the time. Depending upon Morningstar’s orbital position and the intended destination, an Orca team can be out of contact with the Morningstar network for as short as a few hours and as long as two weeks!

This is the set-up for Rhand: Morningstar Missions. Published in 1984, it was the first roleplaying game to be designed and released by Leading Edge Games, which would later be known for the Phoenix Command combat system and the Aliens Adventure Game as well as a number of other licensed roleplaying games. Indeed, the mechanics for Rhand: Morningstar Missions were a precursor for Phoenix Command, just as its setting would be revisited in Living Steel. Set not long after the attack by the Spectrals, this was a prequel to Rhand: Morningstar Missions, and it would not be until the release of Rhand 2349, a supplement for Living Steel, that the world itself would get more detailed attention. At its heart, Rhand: Morningstar Missions is a post-apocalyptic setting with magic and medieval-style combat on a post-technological world. It is a roleplaying game of special forces-style military missions in which the Player Characters—as members of Orca—have access to a device which can get them anywhere, a la Fringeworthy from Tri Tac Games, Wraith Recon from Mongoose Publishing, and of course, Star Gate: SG1.

A Player Character in Rhand: Morningstar Missions is defined by his characteristics, skills, equipment, and various derived factors. The primary characteristics are Strength, Intelligence, Will, Health, and Agility, typically ranging in value between three and eighteen, although they can go higher. The secondary characteristics are Charisma, Motivation, Size, and Telepathic Sensitivity. The primary characteristics are purchased from a randomly determined pool of points and the secondary characteristics are all rolled randomly individually. This requires referencing a number of tables at the back of the book. Base skill levels are determined randomly. Skills are rated between one and twenty, with eight being a Professional level and fifteen World Class. They are categorised into Class 1 General Skills that all characters possess, and then Class 2 General Skills and Class 3 General Skills, plus Specialist Skills. The Magic, Medicine, and Science skills fall into the latter category, as does Special Fighting Forms, themed around the four elements, which greatly enhance a Player Character’s Combat and Martial Arts skills. A Player Character only begins play with levels in Class 1 General Skills, but can dedicate training time between missions to improve already known skills and learn new ones. This is limited by his rank in the Orca organisation and only by increasing his rank can he gain the opportunity to learn or improve Specialist Skills. This also takes him out of play as it requires dedicated learning time. Training grants a player Training Rolls. Each one is made against his character’s Learning Roll and if successful, grants him a Learning Point which can be assigned to a specific skill. When the number of Learning Points in a skill exceeds the threshold, its Skill Level increases. So, to become a Professional in a skill, Skill Level 7, a Player Character needs to accumulate eighty-eight Learning Points, and to be considered World Class or Skill Level 15, he needs six-hundred-and-seventy-four-Learning-Points!

A beginning Player Character only has the Skill Levels in the Class 1 General Skills at start of play. Effectively, he is a recruit, waiting to go on his first mission.

Name: Robert

CHARACTERISTICS
Strength 13
Intelligence 13
Will 10
Health 12
Agility 13

Charisma 15
Motivation 17
Size 11
Telepathic Sensitivity 14

Combat Value: 15
Combat Speed: 1+
Knockout Value: 15
Learning Roll: 84
Magic Learning Roll: 14

Skill Factor: 16
Base Action Time: .8
Damage Bonus: 1.0

SKILLS
Balance and Footwork – LP 0 Level 3
Bard – LP 0 Level 4
Combat – LP 0 Level 3
Diplomacy – LP 0 Level 2
Fall Recovery – LP 0 Level 3
First Aid – LP 0 Level 2
Horsemanship – LP 0 Level 2
Martial Arts – LP 0 Level 2

EQUIPMENT (Encumbrance: 37.7):
Studded leather, round shield, light spear, dagger, broadsword, mess kit, personal hygiene kit

WEAPONS
Dagger – Weapon Speed: 2.8 Weapon Class: +2 Impact: (3) +2 (Slashing), (3) (Stabbing); Attack Level: 5 (Slashing/Stabbing) Weapon Actions: 2.24
Spear – Weapon Speed: 2.1 Weapon Class: -2 (Stabbing) Impact: (5) (Stabbing); Attack Level: 1 (Stabbing) Weapon Actions: 1.68
Broadsword – Weapon Speed: 2.2 Weapon Class: 0 (Slashing), -1 (Stabbing) Impact: (6) +2 (Slashing), (3) (Stabbing); Attack Level: 3 (Slashing), 2 (Stabbing) Weapon Actions: 1.76
Round Shield – Shield Speed: 1.1; Shield Actions: 0.88

Mechanically, Rhand: Morningstar Missions is intended to be played out on a two-foot wide hex grid and uses a percentile resolution mechanic and what it calls the ‘Action/Reaction Table’. To undertake an action, the Game Master refers to the skill being used and determines the Base Odds for the skill being used. This is multiplied by the Player Character’s Skill Level to get the percentage chance of success. It is that simple, but as written it does not look that simple and from the exceedingly concise options listed under each skill it does not look that simple. So, it takes a lengthy example of play for the Game Master to even understand the basics, and even after that, she may be floundering.
For example, Robert wants to perform a song to bolster the mood of his fellow Men-at arms in his unit. The Base Odds are determined as follows: 5 for composition of average melodies and written material and ability as a scribe and 10 for the ability to evoke emotion in the audience. This gives a total of 15, which is multiplied by Robert’s Skill Level of 4 in Bard to give a total chance of 60%. If the ‘Action/Reaction Table’ of Rhand: Morningstar Missions attempts to be simple, its combat rules attempt to be complex. It details some thirty weapons from a range of cultures, divided into four damage types—Cutting, Stabbing, Flange, and Blunt—and further categorised as either One Handed, Two Handed, or Blunt Impact. Combat is intended to be played out on a grid of two-foot-wide hexes with Combat Speed indicating the number of hexes or changes of direction a combatant can move in a single phase. The number of Weapon Actions spent on an attack can alter the amount of damage inflicted, so that a Short Stroke inflicts half damage, but only takes a single Weapon Action, whereas two Weapon Action s are a Normal Stroke for normal damage, and three Weapon Actions a Long Stroke for double damage. A single Weapon Action is enough to parry and the use of shields have their own number of Actions. The issue with this is if a Player Character has a number of Weapon Actions less than two, he cannot do more than the one Action per combat round and he cannot do more than a Short Stroke. However, a single Weapon Action can be carried over from one round to the next, giving a Player Character more options in the next round rather than the current one.

The Odds of Hitting, of successfully attacking an opponent are based on the defender’s Parry Type and Combat Skill, and the attacker’s Attack Level. The Parry Type is either Partial Parry, meaning that the defender makes fewer parries than the number of attacks by the attacker, or Total Parry, meaning that the defender makes a number of parries equal to, or greater than the number of attacks by the attacker. The Game Master then refers to the appropriate ‘Odds of Hitting’ table for the Parry Type and the number of parries versus attacks to determine the chance of a successful attack by cross-referencing the attacker’s Attack Level versus the defender’s Combat Skill. If the attack is successful, the table for the damage type of the weapon and the blow, either Cutting, Stabbing, Flange, or Blunt, to determine hit Location and Physical Damage inflicted. This generates the Impact Damage of the attack, which is cross-referenced with the Armour Class value of any armour worn to find the actual Physical Damage suffered. Inflict enough damage and blows can disable a limb or knock out an opponent.
For example, Robert, our sample Player Character, is facing a brigand, who is armed with a spear and a shield versus Robert’s broadsword and shield. Robert has charged the brigand and saved a Weapon Action so that he has two Weapon Actions to use on a Normal Stroke. The brigand has done the same, but will use both to parry Robert’s slashing attack. This is a Full Parry, equal to one attack versus two parries. Comparing Robert’s Attack Level for his broadsword of 3 versus the brigand’s Combat Skill of 2 gives Robert’s player a 33% chance of successfully hitting. Fortunately for Robert, his player rolls 18 and Robert’s slashing blow gets past the brigand’s parry attempts. Robert rolls 8 for the Impact Damage—the maximum damage possible and this is cross-referenced with the Armour Class value for the brigand’s leather armour on the Cutting Damage table. It is a blow to the brigand’s abdomen and since the brigand’s leather armour is classed as light, he suffers 5 points of Physical Damage. There is a chance that the blow will know the brigand out, but since it is less than the brigand’s Knockout Value, it is only 10%. The Game Master rolls 03% and Robert is lucky! The brigand collapses with a grunt. The fight continues, but Robert probably has the group’s first prisoner. The combat rules also cover dodging, archery, mounted combat, and the special fighting forms available as Specialist Skills. Including the healing rules, the rules for combat run to some twenty or so pages versus the three dedicated to explaining the ‘Action/Reaction Table’—and the latter includes all of the Base Odds factors per skill. The upshot is that the combat mechanics for Rhand: Morningstar Missions are far better explained with a ready clarity that the skill resolution mechanic is not afforded.

Magic in Rhand: Morningstar Missions has seven Subjects—Earth, Fire, Air, and Water, as well as Mental Magic, Body Magic, and Astral Projection. Earth, Fire, Air, and Water are Elemental magics, but are not as specialised as Mental Magic, Body Magic, and Astral Projection and have a greater number of spells each. Each Subject is a Specialist Skill in its own right. The total number of Learning Points a Player Characters has in seven Subjects determines his Magical Skill Level, which determines range for a spell. The target of a spell receives the Resist Roll to withstand the magical effects of a spell. This is determined by comparing the Magical Skill Level of the target with the Magical Skill Level of the caster. Should a target have no Magical Skill Level, then he has a much lower chance of resisting a spell. The amount of points a Player Character has to spend on spells within a Subject is equal to the number of Leaning Points he has in the associated skill, but expressed as Magical Force. Each spell has a cost in Magic Force to cast. Casting magic takes concentration and should a mage be distracted, there is a chance of his failing to cast the spell and suffer Psychic Damage. Rhand: Morningstar Missions includes a wide range of spells, but there are some oddities, such as Create Fire and Thicken Water being under the Earth spells, Raging Waters under the Fire spells, and so on.

At a Skill Level of 6 and beyond a Mage can gain attributes such as Magic Sense and Weatherwise, mainly protective, but permanent abilities. Mage can also make enchanted items, and there are also optional rules for resisted spells bouncing back, joining specialised magical groups, and spells being enacted in ascending order of Magical Force invested in them. Overall, the magic rules are decent enough and there are plenty of spells to choose from. Their use is not quite as well explained as combat is, but still better than that given for the ‘Action/Reaction Table’. The main issue with magic in Rhand: Morningstar Missions is its inaccessibility at the start of play, along with the Class 2 General Skills and the Class 3 General Skills, meaning that beginning Player Characters are mechanically very similar.

Rhand: Morningstar Missions also includes rules for physical phenomena such as terrain and travel, complete with generation tables, sight and sound detection, spreading and flowing fluids, fires, explosions, breaking down doors and walls, explosions, earthquakes, and mob actions and riots. Optional rules allow for glancing blows, aiming blows, cutting through shields and parries, collisions and tackles, and more. Much of these serve to make combat in Rhand: Morningstar Missions more dynamic, but it comes at the cost of further complexity.

Mission types in Rhand: Morningstar Missions include Guard, Escort, Assault, Rescue, Holding Action, Defence, and Special Action Squads. The latter are actually held within the magic of Morningstar, ready to be teleported to a location at a moment’s notice. In general, the type of mission will be determined by the Risk Level that the players and their characters want to face. The Risk Level will determine the random encounter odds and the combined value of the Player Characters Combat Values the level of any potential opposition. Three sample missions are provided, ranging from Risk Level 1 to Risk Level 10. These are decent outlines for what are straightforward military missions—actually too straightforward military missions since there is no real plot to any one of the three—and require development upon the part of the Game Master. Descriptions of various creatures are given, including several types of Spectral, as well as their subject races that they brought with them when they attacked. The book comes to a close with a topographical map of the planet Rhand, which actually is not that detailed or useful, followed by the roleplaying game’s various tables.

Physically, Rhand: Morningstar Missions is a surprisingly short book—barely a hundred pages long. But being printed on sturdy thick paper with heavy card inserts combined with being spiral bound gives it a surprising heft. Bar the map, the book is completely devoid of illustrations, which gives it a bland look. This is actually offset by the large margins, typically used—as was the case with future titles from Leading Edge Games—for in-game quotes, some of them quite humorous. The writing is not too bad, mainly suffering from a lack of clearer explanation when it counts, but there are plenty of explanations that do go some way to offset this. As well as being able to lie flat on the table and fold over, what the format of Rhand: Morningstar Missions does remind you of, though, is a technical manual for a computer or a major piece of machinery? Could it be that designer Barry Nakazono, an actual rocket scientist, decided upon the format he knew best for the books that Leading Edge Games published?
In many ways, Rhand: Morningstar Missions is a complex roleplaying game, but not as complex as the roleplaying games that Leading Edge Games would later publish, most notably Phoenix Command, Living Steel, and the Aliens Adventure Game. Combat is complex, but at least it benefits from a clearer explanation than that given the ‘Action/Reaction Table’ and its associated resolution mechanic. The real problems with Rhand: Morningstar Missions start with the uninteresting and similar starting Player Characters which are given no capacity for differentiation until a long way into the play of the game and they have progressed up a Rank or two within Orca. Then there is the setting. Rhand and Orca are severely underdeveloped such that neither is given enough description for them to come alive and for a group to want to play within the setting. The set-up to Rhand: Morningstar Missions is a fun concept, of being able to hop back and forth across the planet because of the ‘magic’ of the past, performing missions to hold back alien invaders and recover or prevent knowledge from being lost. Yet there is not enough of the past in the setting to know what it is that the Orca is attempting to save or protect and knowing that would have given the Game Master hooks and motives to pull the players and their characters into the setting. So, if the Game Master and her players can get past the complexity, what they will find Rhand: Morningstar Missions offers in terms of what they play and what they roleplay to be underwhelming, if not outright disappointing. Rhand: Morningstar Missions presents a potentially interesting setting and campaign set-up, but ultimately undoes itself by failing to develop either beyond their core concepts.

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

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

—oOo—

What is it?The Swyvers Quickstart is introduces the rules light roleplaying of guttersnipes, rogues, grifters, charlatans, shysters, and chisellers on the make in filth and detritus of The Smoke, where it is always wet, foggy, smoky, and dirty, whether that is above ground or in the extensive Midden that runs deep under the sprawling metropolis. The Player Characters—or Swyvers—are desperate and dirty, but have to deal with corrupt officials, looming war, rogue sorcerers, monsters below and nobs above.

It is an Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game.

It is an eighty-seven page, black and white book.

The quick-start is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is superb, capturing the grubbiness of the setting.

The Swyvers Quickstart requires an edit.

Technically, the Swyvers Quickstart is not a quick-start. It is an extensive exert from the core rulebook for Swyvers and there are missing an important number of elements usually found in quick-starts.

How long will it take to play?
The Swyvers Quickstart can provide multiple sessions of play, although it does not include an actual adventure.

What else do you need to play?
The Swyvers Quickstart requires five six-sided dice and a standard set of polyhedral dice.

A standard deck of playing cards is also necessary.

Who do you play?
There are no ready-to-play Swyvers given in the Swyvers Quickstart.

How is a Player Character defined?
A Swyver has three stats—Constitution, Dexterity, and Strength—and a chance of being literate (though the player needs to explain why in under five seconds!) and starts with a few coins, a trinket, and a personality trait.

How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, the Swyvers Quickstart and thus Swyvers, uses two types of rolls—Competing Rolls and Saves. The rolls are made on pools of six-sided dice which can be adjusted in size to reflect the difficulty of the task. The aim is roll a total equal to, or less than, the appropriate attribute or a target number set by the Game Master.

In addition, a Swyver can have skills, for example, lockpicking, drinking contests, clipping and counterfeiting coins, or evaluating goods—stolen or otherwise, but mostly stolen. Each level adds increases the value of the attribute when using that skill.

There are also rules for chases, the random consequences of carousing, researching marks for cons, creating stooges and putterers (putterers are apprentices that a Swyver can train) and the possible revenge if they are abandoned, and fences and offloading stolen goods.

The rules for advancement highlight how Experience Points are gained from the sale of loot ‘conveniently’ found and for expenditure on carousing, research, and training a putterer. Of course, like other activities, these have associated damagers of their own.

How does combat work?
Combat in the Swyvers Quickstart involves a roll of two ten-sided dice to beat the Defence Value of the target. A roll of two tens by a player means that his Swyver has automatically killed the defendant, but is a standard attack by an NPC. A roll of two ones is a fumble and requires a roll on the ‘Critical Miss’ table.

Defence Value is determined by the weapon a combatant is wielding. So the Defence Value if a combatant is ‘Shooting’ or ‘Unarmed’ is six, but twelve if wielding a ‘Medium Weapon + Shield’. Armour soaks damage, the amount determined randomly, whilst weapon damage is dependent upon quality. Ropey weapons roll damage twice and take the lowest value; decent weapons roll once; and mint weapons roll damage twice and take the higher result.

There are notes on how to ‘Fyte Lyke a Swyver’. Essentially, a quick and dirty guide to fighting and not getting killed. Fighting fair will get a Swyver killed.

In other words, combat in Swyvers is brutal and meant to be that way.

How does Magic work?
Magic in Swyvers is uncommon, though rumours of witchcraft are not. Casting magic involves playing Blackjack to obtain a score of between seventeen and twenty-one. Results of sixteen and below indicate a failure, whilst results of twenty-two and above are critical failures—and there is a nasty table for that. With more understanding of magic, a caster can match the right card suit with the right Hippocratic Humour to gain extra spell effects if the spell is successfully cast, enhance it with spell components, and even gain an inkling of demonic forces behind what magic can be cast in The Smoke. The included grimoire is full of grim and ghastly spells.

What do you play?
There is no adventure in the Swyvers Quickstart. As an excerpt from the Swyvers rulebook, what it includes instead is a combined guide to The Smoke and set of procedural tables to enable the Game Master and her players procedurally generate the city. This starts with the city in broad details before focusing upon a district. The tables enable to the Game Master to determine the power and nature of the ruler of The Smoke, power and nature of the church, commonly supposed facts about the war going on, and districts and their features and qualities, including rumours and opportunities—the latter for every ‘good’ Swyver to take advantage of, random encounters, and some absolutely great street names!

Since Swyvers are anything but honest, so there is a list of crimes and their punishments. Plus a guide to making bribes and dealing with the watch and detectives. A watchman may make a Swyver’s lfe a misery, but a determined detective can be positively bothersome! Tables are provided to enable the Game Master create both and add quirks to bring them to life.

Below The Smoke is The Midden. First, the Shallow Midden and then the Deep Midden. Entrances to the former can be found all over The Smoke, the latter can only be accessed via the Shallow Midden. The dead are are entombed in the Shallow Midden, whilst the Deep Midden is where secrets are hidden and the call of the sea can be heard...

Although the Swyvers Quickstart does not include an adventure, there is nothing to stop a Game Master from using the content of the tables in the excerpt to create adventures.

Is there anything missing?
The Swyvers Quickstart is not complete, since it is truly not a quick-start, but a rulebook excerpt designed to give a taster of the full book. Aside from the lack of an adventure, the excerpt is missing a list of ready to use names and unlike other Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying games, there

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in the Swyvers Quickstart are far from difficult to prepare. The Game Master will need to create content herself, but this process is supported by the festering feast of details and descriptions included in the book. Thus the Game Master will need to come up with a plot, some NPCs, and more, which will take longer than preparing a typical quick-start.
Is it worth it?
Yes. The Swyvers Quickstart is a scrumptious feast of vile vagabounds, dastardly deceivers, and pernicious pilferers whose grotty shabiness and unscrupulous shadiness as told in a series of Dickensian penny dreadfuls. And as appalling and as awful as those penny dreadfuls are, there is a fascination with this wicked world that means that the Swyvers Quickstart is begging to be played and demanding that you roleplay the snot out of these tricksy little bastards.
Where can you get it?
The Swyvers Quickstart is available to purchase and download here.

The Toxic Wood is a descent into a poisoned world, a forest whose verdancy has been darkened by a noxious, even baleful, baneful influence has twisted and transformed a whole landscape. At its heart lies the village of Mugwort, trapped, but protected from the noxiousness surrounding them, and desperate for rescue. Fortunately, a secretive council of wizards has heard the arcane distress call sent out by the wizard residing in the village and hires a group of adventurers to mount a rescue mission. The poisonous nature of the wood includes the air and so the employing wizards have fashioned a magical orb which ensure that there is a bubble of safe for them as they journey to Mugwort. It will require power, whether of lifeforce or magic, but it will keep the adventurers safe. Exposure to the toxic air will corrode metal and mutate those who breathe it in, but it is not the only danger that the adventurers will face. There are plants so twisted that they curse magical items or cause them to explode, that spy on the adventurers are they proceed through the forest, shoot parasitical needles that want feeding more than the victim, and worse… Druids corrupted into accepting the toxic nature of the wood as the new norm, half-ghosts lost between this world and the next, trapped by the mutating growths which keep their bodies from decomposing, corrupted fairies that swarm in search of flesh, and other terrible things. There are terrible things that want spread the toxicity, terrible things that take advantage of it, and terrible things that want to rid it from the wood—and not all of them are telling the truth…

The Toxic Wood: A Corrosive Hexcrawl Adventure written by the Lazy Litch and was published following a successful Kickstarter campaign as part of Zine Month 2022. As with the publisher’s other titles—The Haunted Hamlet & other hexes, Woodfall, and Willow—The Toxic Wood is written or use with Old School Essentials, Necrotic Gnome’s very accessible update of the Moldvey/Cook and Marsh version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons, which means that not only is it mechanically accessible, it is also easily adapted to the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice. However, it is not clearly stated what Level the adventure is designed for, but from the relative Hit Dice of the various monsters The Toxic Wood, it feels roughly suitable for Player Characters of Third, Fourth, and Fifth Level. Beyond the introduction, there is a some advice as to the adventure's play style, which is standard to all of the scenarios published by the Lazy Litch. This limits Experience Point gain to finding treasure, making discoveries, and achieving objectives rather than kill monsters; monsters are intentionally unbalanced; game is deadly and Player Character death a possibility; and an emphasis is placed upon resource management. In addition, The Toxic Wood includes a number of optional backgrounds and objectives that be assigned to the Player Characters or rolled for, which set up conflicting agendas between them. The conflict between them exacerbated by the fact that the Player Characters are forced to travel together within the safety of the magical orb and the clean air it generates, forcing them more obviously to both work together and negotiate where they will go and what they will do. As well as the information provided by their background, each Player Character will also begin the scenario with a rumour about the area detailed in The Toxic Wood.

The toxicity of the scenario’s title is infused into every aspect of it, from the strange nature of the plants and inhabitants of the woods and the mutations that the Player Characters can suffer if exposed to it for too long to the vileness of the various factions to be found in the woods and the weirdness of their various aims. Although there are several monsters given, it is these plants which play a major role in the scenario and are the most obvious evidence of the transformation that the wood has undergone. There are Energy Consuming Flowers that absorb spells, which can be carried as a form of protection, but which ill implode if too many are absorbed; Fungi Outposts that act as the ears and eyes of one for the factions in the wood; and Rune Fruit, marked with dark arcane runes, which can be eaten, but have side effects that are deleterious upon the consumer’s mental health.

Although there are hints as to the true nature of the plots swirling and around the Toxic Wood in the various backgrounds and rumours, the Player Characters will only discover more details by visiting the various locations dotted throughout the woods. This starts with Mugwort, a village trapped in its own bubble, its inhabitants desperate and divided, on the edge of the collapse if the Player Characters do not intervene. The others include a dragon atop a plateau building his own cult as a defence against ongoing events in the wood; rival twin sisters, long since transformed into insectoid creatures spinning and feuding for control of a mycelial network that runs throughout the wood; and an abandoned tower from whose roof grows a pair of trees and whose lowest level is filled with a green gelatinous thing filled with eyeballs that refuse to look at anyone who enters the tower—though the orb supplying the Player Characters their life-preserving air will actually speak before they do and warn them not to enter! The Toxic Wood is full of little details and fantastic writing like this which brings its combination of weirdness and dark whimsy to life.
The lack of indication as to what Level it is designed for, is not the only issue with The Toxic Wood. The other is the hexcrawl map used in the scenario. It is an attractive piece that uses a lot of icon-like pieces of art to fill its hexes, The majority of the symbols or icons used are all very similar, which has two important consequences. The first is that the icons used for specific locations do not stand out, and the second is that it is difficult to track the progress of the Player Characters across the map.

Then there is the fact that hexcrawl are of The Toxic Wood is too large for ease of play. It has an area of fifteen by twenty hexes, but there is no scale to the map. The only hint the Game Master is given is that in a single day, the Player Characters can either explore a single hex or they can travel across a total of three. (That said, there are a lot of hexes where nothing much will happen except the occasional random encounter.) It will take a minimum of three days’ travel to get to Mugwort from the edge of the map and then the other locations on the map are a similar distance away from the village. So play is going consist of a lot of dice rolls for encounters in the poisoned forest and the Player Characters scavenging for fuel to power the air-generating orb they need to maintain in order to survive. This is only going to worse if the Player Characters get lost. Resource management is a part of the play of The Toxic Wood, but the size of its play area means that the scenario over emphasises it. Ultimately, The Toxic Wood could have been smaller without any loss of play and a smaller size would have made it easier to slot into a Game Master’s own campaign.
Physically, The Toxic Wood is a fairly busy book, but everything is neatly organised and for the most part, easy to use when the Game Master needs it. The artwork is excellent and so is the writing. Although it does have an introduction, it does not explain what is fully going on until a fair way into the scenario.

The Toxic Wood is a fantastically noxious and nasty scenario, a combination of Stephen King’s Under the Dome meets Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation crossed with The Fantasic Voyage and Tron. Which reads like a thoroughly odd mixture, but there is a strand of Science Fiction which underpins the scenario, with the orb that the Player Characters must take with them to breathe being almost like a submersible and the Emergency Bubbles they are given which enable them to operate away from the orb, being like aqualungs, and the twin sisters’ mycelial network a cross between an information network and a surveillance network.

Ultimately, The Toxic Wood may be slightly too odd and slightly too large for some campaigns, with the Game Master needing to work a lot of its details into her own setting to effectively work. If the Game Master can do that, then The Toxic Wood is a poisonously fantastic scenario.