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

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

Senet Issue 5 was published in the Summer of 2021 and heralded the then return to a degree of normality following the extended periods of lockdown and limited social interaction due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The elaborate lock and key cover hints at this, but the editorial expands upon it, highlighting how the pandemic kept us apart and kept us from socialising through the play of board games and in that welcoming everyone back to the gaming table, it should be that everyone is welcome. As is usual, the issue opens with ‘Behold’, a preview of some of the then-forthcoming board game titles. Unlike in Senet Issue 4, none of the titles truly stand out, although League of the Lexicon from Crazy Clever Games looks to be least interesting if you like your words as it explores the history of words, letters, and punctuation, whilst Keymaster Games’ Caper: Europe could be a decent filler game after the depth of the publisher’s well received Parks.

‘Points’, the regular column of readers’ letters, calls back to the editorial and the sense of community and togetherness that playing games engenders. The first letter discusses whether or not it is appropriate to call the end regular department in Senet the ‘Shelf of Shame’ or not. The correspondent makes the point that she does not associate the gaming hobby with a sense of shame, and whilst possible to sympathise with her, it is clear that the use of the term is lighthearted and other than exclusionary. It is also clear that, whilst he listened and symphonized with her, the editor has not made the change in subsequent issues, although this is the first real point of contention in any of the issues to date. Were it not revisited later in the actual ‘Shelf of Shame’ it might not been have rated as even that. In ‘For Love of the Game’, Tristian Hall continues his designer’s journey towards Gloom of Kilforth. In previous issues he explored how the game became a vehicle for roleplaying and storytelling and used the mechanics to bring the game and its background to life, but in this issue, he looks at marketing and how his friends helped him market the game. In so drawing upon his community contacts as the basis of his marketing campaign, it matches with the theme’s issue of togetherness.

Each issue of Senet explores a theme found in board games, its history and the the games that showcase it to best effect. This issue, the theme is one that refuses to stay dead—zombies! In ‘Turn of the Living Dead’, Own Duffy explores the origins of the genre in George A. Romero’s 1968 classic, Night of the Living Dead, before looking at the appearance of the genre in board games, beginning really with Twilight Creations, Inc.’s Zombies!!! Although Night of the Living Dead got its own board game in 2020, it clear that the dominant game line since 2012 has been the Zombicide series, and even the Night of the Living Dead game is a Zombicide game! Zombicide also highlights zombie-themed games tend to be action orientated and so the author has to pick and choose with some care to really to look for something deeper and finds it in Dead of Winter, the 2014 game from Plaid Hat Games, where survival involves negotiation with the survivors as much as building barricades against the zombie attack and attempting to stop them. Duffy works hard to explore the genre in board gaming, but the thematical limits of the genre are quickly reached.

The first of the two interviews in Senet Issue 5 is with artist Catherine Hamilton, whose near death reaction to the oil paints she had been using lead to a change in mediums and subject matters. Now painting in water colours, her works have been best showcased in the board game Evolution, but here we not only see some of Hamilton’s favourite pieces, each and every one receives a short commentary too. Senet as a magazine has really given a space for board game artists to show off some their board game illustrations, and in ‘Call of the Wild’, Senet Issue 5 is no exception. Her art stands out all the more because it is done in an unfamiliar medium for the hobby, but is no less stunning than if had been done in oils. The second interview is in ‘Boxing Clever’ and is with Isaac Childres, the creator of Gloomhaven, one of the most popular board games of recent times. The interview explores the development of and comparisons with Gloomhaven and its sequel, Frosthaven, as well as Childres’ history with board games and working outside of the ‘Havneverse’ setting. The interview is interesting and informative and overall, a decent read.

For its mechanic, having done deck-building in Senet Issue 2, ‘Roll-and-Write’ in Senet Issue 3, and tile-laying in Senet Issue 4, Senet Issue 5 turns to a lesser device—the ‘rondel’—in ‘Full Circle’ by Alexandra Sonechkina. The rondel is a wheel-shaped game mechanism which provides numerous options, but limits player choice by forcing them to move around the rondel and onto to other options instead of repeatedly performing the same option again and again. It turns out that this device is relatively recent, having been invented in the early eighties by designer, Walther ‘Mac’ Gerdts, and really implemented for the first time in the civilisation style game, Antike. Whilst it is interesting to explore the history of a mechanic so new and have a chance to discuss it with its creator, writing about the rondel proves to be slightly difficult. This is because as a design it has not caught as a possible mechanic and its use to date has been limited. This does not stop the author examining as many games that do use it as she can, not only including Antike and its sequel, Antike II, but also board games like Vikings and Shipyard. The feeling is that author had to dig deep to find these and much like the earlier ‘Turn of the Living Dead’, ‘Full Circle’ feels as if it exhausts the limits of its subject matter, whereas previous articles on game mechanics have felt more expansive.

As ever, the ‘Unboxing’ section of Senet Issue 5 covers only a relative handful of games, but the choice is as ever interesting and covers a range of games, not just the big Euro-style titles. The big review is saved for Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile, which is rated as ‘Senet’s Top Choice’, a sprawling civilisation style game designed to be played again and again if its depths are to be fully reached. Other interesting games include Surrealist Dinner Party, a drafting game with an off-the-wall theme and absolutely beautiful artwork, and Cryo, a worker placement game about the crew of crash-landed spaceship that must survive on an icy world. None of the reviews are unnecessarily long and they are all beautifully illustrated with shots of the games and their components, and again, the issue manages to maintain a decent balance of titles and types of game being reviewed.

Rounding out the issue is Sara Elsam’s ‘From Turntable to Tabletop: How to Playlist’, which looks at the idea of using music to enhance game play. This is common enough in roleplaying, but board games? It turns out to be the case, with not only board games receiving their soundtracks, such as Escape the Dark Sector: The Game of Deep Space Adventure, but players putting together their own playlists for particular games and genres. The article is a solid introduction to the concept with some suggestions and handy hints. Lastly, in the ‘Shelf of Shame’, the hosts of Our Family Plays Games pull a game off their shelf that they have not yet played and try it out. The game is Paris: La Cité de la Lumière, a game which once on the same table, they enjoy. However they make the point that no game of theirs sits on a ‘Shelf of Shame’, but rather a shelf of opportunities to learn something new. 

Physically, Senet Issue 5 is very professionally presented. It looks and feels as good as previous issues of the magazine.

Yet again Senet Issue 5 contains an excellent mix of articles, interviews, previews, and reviews, but much like the Senet Issue 4, the articles often feel limited in their subject matter. In the previous issues, the reader always knew that he could go beyond the subjects matters explored in the issue and make discoveries for himself. With Senet Issue 5 that is not necessarily the case, whether that is true of the mechanic explored or the theme. Nevertheless, the quality of the magazine and its writing continues to be excellent, maintaining its place as vehicle to show off and explore some of the best ideas, contributors, and games in the hobby.

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Senet magazine will be at UK Games Expofrom Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th, 2023.

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

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

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Name: The Well of All FearPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Kat Clay

Setting: Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England
Product: ScenarioWhat You Get: Eighty-two-page, 15.98 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Sometimes it is not enough to take the waters, sometimes you have to give backPlot Hook: A missing brother, and of course, scandal!Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, eighteen handouts including five maps and floor plans, and nine NPCs.Production Values: Excellent.
Pros# Fully plotted, period piece# Well written mystery# Excellent handouts# A spa town other than Bath!# Non-Mythos, Mythos scenario# Derbyshire without the lycanthropy!# Kefalitemnophobia# Aquaphobia# J9dobphobia# Gynophobia# Arithmophobia
Cons# A spa town other than Bath!# Needs a slight edit# Buxton underwritten# All spa’d out# Non-Mythos, Mythos scenario
Conclusion# Stravinsky has nothing on this scandal—though the scandal and its scenario has much to recommend it!# Bounders, blackmail, and badasses in Buxton in a thorough,  Austentatiously detailed and enjoyable investigation which takes Regency Cthulhu up north

Titan City reaches beyond the sky and deep into the planet. Its soaring Empyreal Spires are home to the Plutogia, the ruling families, who know only a life of glittering beauty and untold wealth. At its heart is the Great Cannon, the greatest machine on the planet, capable of launching starships laden with rare and valuable minerals mined by the innumerable tunnels which bore into the planet’s crust. The limits of Titan City are marked by the walls of the impossibly large crater and beyond lies radioactive deserts, inhabited only by mutated beasts and half-life bandits capable of surviving the death-grey sands and poisoned atmosphere, all under a sky marked with three moons. Ten billion humans live in Titan City, many in the Undercity, amidst industrial ruins which stretch for miles and miles up and down as well as in any other direction. Here such humanity and other such outcasts—mutants and psions, survive as best they can. Enforcers ruthlessly break up any dissent or uprising from here in the Guts of the Titan City, but that is only an intermittent threat to inhabitants’ lives, their purses bled dry by the hyper-corporations and the air they breath wrapped in smog poisoned by the waste output from barely regulated factories. Under such grinding conditions, some of these Guts-dwellers make what purpose and hope they can. They join gangs, cults, rebellions, churches, anything to give them both purpose and hope. The gangs are everywhere, staking their claims to territories, making money from crime, dealing with rivals through ‘honourable’ agreements and bloody violence, trying to get bigger, better, and richer, grab all the power they can to be crime lords, not just petty gangs.

The is the setting for Gangs of Titan City, a roleplaying game of crime and consequences in a far future underworld—literally and figuratively. Published by SoulMuppet Publishing, it can be best described as BBC’s Peaky Blinders meets Games Workshop’s Necromunda in a Judge Dredd-like Mega-City One, but vertical, in which the players take of the role of Gutters in a gang which wants to grow and be feared. As Gutters, the players will direct and roleplay the lives and development of their gang over three phases of play per session. In the ‘Escalation Phase’, the gang plans its next move. In the ‘Operation Phase’, the gang enacts its plan, and in the ‘Fallout Phase’, the gang suffers the consequences of their actions, for good or ill. Grabbing a Claim will often bring a gang into conflict with a potential rival and as the gang’s domain grows so will its rivalries and the consequences of its actions. How far will a gang go before the consequences threaten to overwhelm it, let alone individual gang members, will be revealed as a Gangs of Titan City campaign progresses. And it is important to note that Gangs of Titan City does require that progress to really work. The roleplaying game is better suited to campaign play than the one-shot because the consequences are not going to be fully explored in the short term, only the long term.

Gangs of Titan City is a storytelling roleplaying game in which the players are encouraged to be bold in their storytelling and their Gutters’ actions, as well as embrace and explore the consequences of those actions. It is player-driven in that there are no set plots and much of the setting can be created during play. However, it is a roleplaying game which deals with gangsters and that means that the players will be exploring the darker, criminal side of human nature. It is not surprise that Gangs of Titan City carries warnings about its violent, traumatic themes that include body horror, injury, and death. Similarly, the inclusion of addiction and drug abuse should be no surprise either. Harm to animals is definitely a surprise, whilst as a Science Fiction roleplaying game which includes psionics, especially one of this nature, the invasion of privacy and mind control are also included as a possible issue. To be clear, Gangs of Titan City does not dwell on these or condone, but instead indicates that they can be part of the game and its play given its dark nature. Thus, the use of Safety Tools is advised, but even so, Gangs of Titan City deals with some surprisingly direct and mature themes.

The players in Gangs of Titan not only create their Player Characters or Gutters, but also their Gang. A Gang has an Archetype, three XP Prompts, which suggest activities and behaviours the gang can engage in to generate Experience Points; various details which will vary between Archetypes and add flavour rather than mechanical benefits; two Aspects or quirks, which again flavour rather than mechanical benefits; a Contact and a Rival; an Advancement, a powerful ability which gives the gang an advantage; and lastly, a Hideout connected to the Gang’s Claim and three Hazards. One hazard comes from the Gang’s Rival, one from its Hideout, and one from its Archetype. There are six Archetypes. A Consortium will make and sell anything because money equals power; a Cult worships something dark and terrible and wants more converts; an Enclave is made up of outcasts and the dispossessed trying to survive, make a space for their own, and even hit back at their oppressors; Mercenaries are guns for hire, the bigger the paycheck, the bigger the boom; Operatives work in secret, stealing, destroying, and keeping secrets; and Overlords just want to rule. Each entry gives lots of options to choose from, including names, so that there is lots of variation and the players can really make their gang their own.

Name: The Party Syndicate
Archetype: Consortium
XP Prompts: Negotiate a favourable price, force a competitor out of business, secure a supply or source
Starting Claim: Stack-Market
Core Product: Vice Peddling
Aspects: Wide-Ranging Suppliers, Catchy Slogan (“Our price, your vice”)
Consortium Gear: Emergency Funds (enough for a small bribe or two), Very Fancy Outfit for each Gutter
Consortium Hazards: City-Wide Shortage
Contact: Hekeret Tine, Corporate Stooge
Rival: Promolium Vol, Spire House Representative
Hideout: Bodega Bill’s Corner Shop
Consortium Advancements: Smugglers
Hazards: Bodega Bill’s Corner Shop gets a lot of footfall (Hideout), got Promolium Vol, Spire House Representative very drunk and got him to invest (Rival), already sold a whole load of filth (City-Wide Shortage)

A Gutter has a Class, three XP Prompts, six Approaches (or methods of dealing with a situation), Aspects (visual descriptors and quirks), Personality Traits (roleplaying prompts), a Contact and a Rival, Specialisms (skills and areas of knowledge), an Advancement, and some Gear. A Gutter always has one piece of Gear with him, plus one item related to a Specialism and one given to the Gutter by his Contact or taken from his Rival. The six Approaches range in value between -3 and +3 and are Overwhelm, Exploit, Dominate, Resolve, Calculate, and Appeal. There are eight different Classes. These are the Aberration, more or less Human; the Broker, ready to make any deal; the Bruiser, who provides muscle and close-up intimidation; Marksman, stealthy gun for hire; Mastermind, gifted liar and clever thinker; Psionicist, whose gift both marks them and gives them power; Spectre, the sneak and knife in the back; and Technomancer, combing man and machine. Like the Gangs, each of the Classes is nicely detailed with lots of elements for a player to choose from and individualise his Gutter, to which the player also assigns an array of values to the Gutter’s Approaches.

Name: Wolter Dabrurgun
Class: Spectre
XP Prompts: Deception, Stealth, Disabling Security
Approaches:
Overwhelm 0 Exploit +2 Dominate -1
Resolve +1 Calculate +1 Appeal 0
Aspects: Pale Skin, Goggles
Personality Traits: Careful, Manipulative
Contact: The Bird’s Foot, Alleged Master Thief
Rival: Horvas, Data-Mind Scavenger
Specialisms: Security measures, Cyber Splicing
Advancements: Are you sure about that?
Gear: Cybernetic Interface, Lockbreakers, Climbing Kit

Mechanically, Gangs of Titan City is simple. If a Gutter wants to undertake an action, his player rolls two six-sided dice and applies the modifier from the appropriate Approach. A roll of ten or more indicates a Full Success, between seven and nine a Partial Success, and six or less, a Failure. Essentially, the equivalent of ‘Yes’, ‘Yes, but’, and ‘No’. Some abilities, including Specialisms, allow an additional die to be rolled, but only two are kept. Circumstances can add a single +1 bonus and rerolls of single dice are possible if the Gutter takes a point of Desperation.

Combat uses the same core mechanic. It tends to favour the Gutters initially; opponents tending only to act or have a Reaction when a Gutter’s player rolls a Partial Success or Failure on an attack. When this happens, the player makes a Resistance roll to avoid or withstand the effects of the attack. Essentially, Gangs of Titan City is player-facing. Once a Gutter starts suffering damage, combat can get nasty. A Gutter only has three Damage Boxes, which are filled in with Scratches and Wounds, and if all three are filled in, it becomes a Critical Wound. Further damage can inflict Desperation, Trauma, or kill the Gutter. If a Gutter has too much Desperation at end of the three phases of Gangs of Titan City’s play, there are multiple consequences that include burning a Contact, suffering a Trauma—which might be a Hatred, an Obsession, or a Weariness, and adding to the Gang’s Danger Table.

Gangs of Titan City’s rules also detail weapons, vehicles, and other gear in quite light detail. More detail is paid to Pharma-Serums, which are readily available across the city. These all have drawbacks, but provide an extra die for certain checks depending upon the Pharma-Serum. In terms of improvement, both Gang and Gutters can acquire further Advancements if they have sufficient Experience Points, which are gained from tagging their XP Prompts under dangerous circumstances. For the Gutter, a player can choose a new Advancement or Specialism from the Gutter’s Class, increase an Approach, or gain an Alteration. Alterations can be Cybernetic Augmentations, Gene-Mods, or Psionic Disciplines. Gaining Alterations can be easier for some Classes rather than others. For example, the Psion will only have access to Psionic Disciplines, but members of the other Classes can obtain the Cybernetic Augmentations and Gene-Mods—for a price and likely some roleplaying too. The players can spend their Gang’s Experience Points to take an Advancement for its Archetype or improve one of its Squads. In addition, a Gang’s Hideout can be improved with a new Feature or have an existing Feature upgraded.

Gangs of Titan City has a distinct Cycle of Play consisting of three phases. In the ‘Escalation Phase’, the gang plans its next move. In the ‘Operation Phase’, the gang enacts its plan, and in the ‘Fallout Phase’, the gang suffers the consequences of their actions, for good or ill. Each phase consists of several steps. For example, in the ‘Escalation Phase’ there are three steps. In the ‘Montage Phase’, the players explore what their Gutters are doing on a day-to-day basis, followed by a roll on ‘The Event Table’ which brings in a Rival or Faction into the story for that Cycle of Play, and then the Gang gets together to decide on its next ‘Gang Moves’. The ‘Operation Phase’ is when the Gutters go out and seize control of a Claim or Asset, launch a pre-emptive strike to remove a Hazard from the Gang’s Danger Table, or perform a job or contract for another Gang or faction, and this is when the Gutters will go out and actively, physically pursue the Gang’s aims. In the ‘Fallout Phase’, the Gutters and their players will resolve objectives, treat wounds, determine if the Gang’s actions has made sufficient ‘Noise’ to attract the authorities, check income, spend Experience Points, and more. All of this is intended to be played within a single session, although it need not be, and fundamentally player driven, with outside elements randomly generated by the Narrator. So, there are no set plots and the players need to be proactive more than reactive.

Gangs of Titan City is played on two levels. One is the tactical, often the individual level, when the Gutters are acting directly and the players are roleplaying them, often in the field. The other is strategic, when the Gutters plan their actions, direct their Squads, handle their Assets and Claims, and so on. Thus, there is a degree of resource management to the play, whether that is dealing with Assets and Claims, but also Debt. Debt represents how far a Gang’s resources are spread out or extended and works the same way as Desperation does for the individual Gutter. If a Gang has too much Debt at end of the three phases of Gangs of Titan City’s play, there are multiple consequences that include burning an Asset, suffering a Hardship—which might be being Watched, Spread thin, or suffering from Loose Lips, and adding to the Gang’s Danger Table. Whilst Desperation and Debt track the consequences of the Gutters’ actions on the personal and collective levels, they both come together in the Danger Table. Entries can be added to the Danger Table because of both, but also due to Noise generated during the ‘Operation Phase’, taking Claims and assets from rival Gangs and Factions or doing jobs for them, and so on. As the Danger Table is filled with Leads, Jobs, and Hazards, these become storytelling elements which randomly come back into play and the Gutters have to deal with immediately. The entries on the Danger Table are never hidden, so there is always a problem or difficulty looming over the Gutters and their Gang, waiting to escalate into something that they must deal with immediately.

However, Gangs of Titan City does require some set-up by the Narrator. Not necessarily a great deal, but it is not obvious from the outset. This includes creating a starting sector or two and then populating it with themes, factions, and a starting dynamic. Plus, an Asset web needs be drawn, connecting the players’ Gang and their Assets to the previous owners of those Assets, because every Asset has a previous owner! This of course, builds connections for the Gang, for both good and bad. As a campaign progresses, this Asset web will grow and grow. Fortunately, the Narrator’s role is strongly supported throughout with almost a third of the devoted to helping her run Gangs of Titan City. The advice is good, including letting the players be cool, be open about the risks that their Gutters and Gang face, and almost in adversarial terms, that the Narrator can always get the Gutters and their Gang later if they are successful in their plans now! This does not mean that the Narrator is expected to be adversarial, but rather the successes of the Gutters and their Gang will come back to proverbially bite them through the Hazards and other entries on the Danger Table. There are also examples of almost everything that the Narrator can bring into play or use as inspiration, including Leads and Jobs. Various sector types are discussed as are the Enforcers who will act when the Gang causes too much Noise, and there are numerous example Gangs and Factions given too, ready to populate the sector.

Rounding out Gangs of Titan City is an overview of the City of Plutogia, its major powers, and its technology. There is high degree of technology and gear being used over and over, and is not that far advanced from that of the twenty-first century. Advances (or not) include the Data-Brains, the brains of both animals and humans preserved and used as motherboards, wired into electronic devices, including computers, as well as A.I.s, laser and beam weaponry, and space travel, but it is unlikely that the Gutters will have access to that.

Physically, Gangs of Titan City is in general well written and presented. The artwork is scrappy, but works well enough. The writing does suffer from being a little too succinct in places, but the main problem is the lack of index. This might not be an issue in another roleplaying game, but Gangs of Titan City does have a lot of moving parts and interplay between the Gutters, their Gang, other Factions, and the consequences of the actions of both Gutters and Gang. What might have helped is a flowchart for the phases of the roleplaying game’s play that was readily accessible, perhaps placed inside the back cover of the book.

Gangs of Titan City is not a roleplaying game that everyone is going to want to play given its subject matter, dealing with crime and having the Player Characters—the Gutters—commit criminal and direct criminal acts. However, whilst Gangs of Titan City does do that, it never lets them avoid the consequences of committing or directing such actions, and the roleplaying game is about those consequences as much as it is the criminal acts themselves. This balance makes for great storytelling with both the players and the Narrator expected to engage with and encourage actions and consequences, whilst at the same time making the players care their Gutters’ decisions on a broader stage. For the mature gaming group willing to commit to the time it needs, Gangs of Titan City is a great toolkit for telling stories and drama in the dirty underbelly of the tallest city in the galaxy.
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SoulMuppet Publishing will be at UK Games Expofrom Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th, 2023.

Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure introduced the Roomlands. A vast castle which covered the whole of the known world and more and whose individual rooms, corridors, stairs, and rafters contained whole environments of their own. Mountains, lakes, deserts, forests, caves, and ancient ruins. Oceans stretch across rooms as far as the eye can see and beyond. Desert sands whip and whirl down long corridors. Forests climb the stairs that seem to rise to nowhere. Whatever the environment, there is always a constant danger to be faced—Rooks. These are walking castles, stone giants that seem to have no purpose, other than to wander aimlessly until something captures their attention and then they erupt in incredible aggression. From Parapette, the greatest city in the Known Roomlands which is built into the body of a Colossal Rook, brave adventurers set out alone to explore the near limitless castle of Colostle. Perhaps fulfilling tasks and quests for the Hunter’s Guild, perhaps to explore on his own, hunt Rooks for the precious , often magical resources they contain, or simply to protect a village or settlement from a rampaging Rooks. Rooks are not the only dangers, there are often bandits and other threats as well, but Rooks remain the most feared.

Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure is a Journalling game in which a player will write and keep a journal telling of the exploits of an adventurer across the ecumenopolis-sized castle of Colostle. As is usual with this type of game, the player will need no more than an ordinary deck of playing cards, pen and pencil, and a notebook of some kind. The scope and size of Colostle’s setting meant it was ripe for expansion and the supplement, Colostle – The Roomlands is that expansion. In particular, it provides and explores new character options, locations, living in Colostle, rules, options, and more. And of course, it does so in a book that is beautifully illustrated, echoing the style and feel of the Zelda computer game series, and both the Ico and The Shadow of the Colossus, with just a touch of Studio Ghibli. Like any good roleplaying game, the artwork sells the setting, making you wonder and want to wander the vast setting of Colostle, let alone the fact that together Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure and its companion, Colostle – The Roomlands, provide a unique approach to the fairy tale idea of getting lost in a giant’s castle.

Colostle – The Roomlands begins with new Classes. In Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, an adventurer can set out with either with a piece of a Rook grafted on to him, accompanied by a Rookling companion, wearing a scrap helm taken a Rook that grants its wearer magic, or riding a mount devised from Rook scrap. The first of the new Classes is the Allied, in which a pair of adventurers team up and rely upon each other to survive the Roomlands. Together they have higher Exploration and Combat scores, rather than a special ability, and there is guidance too, if one of them is unfortunately killed. The second new Class is the Bastion, recently discovered person-sized stone or Rook constructs who have achieved independence from their former roles as the immune system for Colossal Rooks, the city-sized Rooks which are near legend in the Roomlands (although the City of Parapette built into a former Colossal Rook). Although able to speak and fight, Bastions are feared and distrusted because of their connection to Rooks. The Bastion gives the option for a player to explore the Roomlands through the embrasures of an outsider, whilst the Allied opens up interplay between two characters that the player can record and develop in her journal.

Colostle – The Roomlands adds and expands the rooms available to the player to explore. The Tundroom is an icy wasteland that Ice Rooks are at home in, but where the often-nomadic tribes have learned to defeat Rooks and command the resulting Rook husk as a Rooknaught! These require a crew to operate the various parts, commanded by a Helmed—one of the Class who wears a scrap helm taken from a Rook that grants its wearer magic, and Rooknaught often battle each other, besiege camps and villages, fight Ice Rooks, and so on. This adds an element of mecha combat to Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, and the Tundroom is supported with rules for its exploration and fighting Rooknaughts—both as an individual Adventurer (very challenging) or another Rooknaught, as well as tables for encounters, village events, and Tundroom characters. If an Adventurer can defeat a Rooknaught, there is the possibility of finding fantastic treasure, including the Carapace, a set of legendary ice armour! Accompanied by their own encounter tables, the Rafters are another environment, or rather environments, each different, high above in the skies over the Roomlands, the biggest threat being the Gargoyles which abduct lone travellers for reasons unknown…

More interesting are the Crackways. These are the cracks in the walls of Colostle, often carved out and expanded, some leading all the way through a wall to the room next door, others not. Some are safe, others not, and these are often marked as such. These add an element of dungeoneering and perhaps a more scaled-down exploration of the Roomlands.

Colostle – The Roomlands expands upon the information given in Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure on the city of Parapette. Although it provides an overview of the city—and notes that Parapette is the one constant between one player’s experience of journalling across Colostle and that of another, almost like Michael Moorcock’s Tanelorn—this focuses on the Rook’s Rest tavern and the Hunter’s Guild, the former sprawling, the latter palatial. Together the information builds on the idea of Parapette being a ‘Fixed Location’ between campaigns, suggesting ways in which a player can interact with other players and collaborate in shared storytelling, either face-to-face, on-line, or even via the post. There is even the option for doing via the publisher’s Discord channel, and is further supported with rules for two-player co-operative adventuring, including exploration, combat, and more, using a mix of prompts from complication and oracle tables. This brings a degree of interaction to the play of Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure as well as roleplaying because it is no longer a case of a player simply developing a story for himself from cards drawn and prompts generated, but instead having think about ways to present his character’s actions and decisions to the other player. In this way, Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure takes on the performance elements of roleplaying.

In addition there are rules for fighting in Rook. This is an option because it is possible for a character to internally defeat a Rook and turn it into a Rookhome. To do this a player needs to use an ‘Onboarding’ action in combat with a Rook and if successful, then fight from the inside. A character only has the one chance to do it per combat. Although a defeated Rook can be stripped of its treasures, turning it into a Rookhome gives the character an ambulatory home that will make travel that much more easy. He will be able to travel further and do so unmolested by other Rooks. However, Rookhomes are not combat machines, unlike the aforementioned Rooknaughts, and a character must leave a Rookhome to explore or fight on foot. They also require maintenance, so once a character has one, he will need to adventure further to pay for that.

Lastly, Colostle – The Roomlands includes something quite different in a Journalling game—a directed campaign. ‘Search for the Seastone – A Solo Colostle Campaign’ combines the standard exploratory play of Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure with sections where the decisions will be limited like a ‘choose your own adventure’ book, story sections which work like cut scenes for video games, and map areas which can be more freely explored and have keyed descriptions elsewhere. The campaign sees the character explore the legendary island known as Crown Isle and perhaps delve into the labyrinth below. The campaign is more linear than a ‘choose your own adventure’ book would be, primarily because of the limited space, but also because it is more of a scenario than a campaign. However, it does allow the exploration of a small part the Roomlands without the need to generate procedurally in every scene or location. Meaning that the player will recording details in response to given details rather than random ones. It would be interesting to see if this format could be repeated again, not just for single scenarios, but an actual campaign. Of course, one use of ‘Search for the Seastone – A Solo Colostle Campaign’ would be to run it as a traditional roleplaying scenario if the Game Master has adapted the setting to the mechanics of her choice.

Of course, Colostle – The Roomlands builds on Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, opening its scope with visits to new locations—the Tundrooms, Rafters, and Crackways, as well as new options in terms of storytelling, like the co-operative play. They are all great options, the new locations worthy of supplements of their own, as is the format of the directed journalling of ‘Search for the Seastone – A Solo Colostle Campaign’. Colostle – The Roomlands is an absolute must for Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, enabling a player to explore further and have more interesting adventures, and if a Game Master wants to take the information presented here and develop more of a setting for traditional roleplaying, then that would be fine too.
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Colostle will be at UK Games Expofrom Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th, 2023.

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.

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What is it?
The Cursed Captains of Cthulhu Quick Start is the quick-start for Cursed Captains of Cthulhu, the swashbuckling roleplaying game which pirate crews hunt down and confront the eldritch forces of Cthulhu in the Golden Age of Piracy.

It includes a basic explanation of the setting, the various factions which make up the Brethren Court of pirates who guard the Caribbean against unspeakable horrors as well as fighting oppression and inequality, detailed descriptions of the various elements which make up a Pirate Character, rules for actions and combat, being terrified, magic, details of the arms and equipment fielded by the Pirate Characters, ship combat, the voyage, ‘Devil in the Details’, and nine ready-to-play, pre-generated Pirate Characters.

It is a forty-four page, 31.95 MB full colour PDF.

The quick-start is well illustrated and the artwork is uniformly decent, although there is none for the pre-generated Pirate Characters. The maps and handouts for the voyages are also good. Throughout there are sidebars with handy advice, summations of the rules, and examples for the benefit of the Game Master.

The Cursed Captains of Cthulhu Quick Start is published by Black Cats Gaming.

How long will it take to play?
The Cursed Captains of Cthulhu Quick Start and its voyage, ‘Devil in the Details’, is designed to be played through in one session.

What do you need to play?
The Cursed Captains of Cthulhu Quick Start requires six-sided dice, no more than four per player.

Who do you play?
The pre-generated Pirate Characters consist of a Captain, Windcaller, Seeker, Exorcist, Duellist, Bosun, Brawler, Musketeer, and Student. The Windcaller, Seeker, and Exorcist are capable of casting spells. All have eight characteristics and some skills. Some also have traits. None have any background, so the player will need to provide or develop that.

How is a Pirate Character defined?
A Pirate Character in Cursed Captains of Cthulhu has eight characteristics—Melee, Brawn, Seafaring, Abjure, Harness, Studies, Savvy, and Accuracy. All are rated between zero and five, and of the eight, Abjure is the ability to withstand the power and influence of all things eldritch, whilst Harness is the ability to use forbidden powers and knowledge. These values are laid out on a ship’s wheel on the character sheet.

In addition, a Pirate Character has Health Points, Courage Points, Evasion Score, and Initiative Score.

How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, Cursed Captains of Cthulhu is driven by characteristic checks. Target Numbers range from eight and ‘Very Easy’ up to thirty and ‘Nearly Impossible’. To attempt an action, the Pirate Character’s player rolls four six-sided dice and add the characteristic value to the total. If the roll is equal to, or greater, than the Target Number, the Pirate Character succeeds. If all four dice are sixes, the result is a critical success, but a critical failure if the result is all ones. It is possible to reroll the dice or nudge their values up and down. If the dice are all sixes after nudges or rerolls, the action automictically succeeds, but is not a critical success. Rerolls come from skills.

How does combat work?
Combat in the Cursed Captains of Cthulhu is also driven by characteristic checks. In a turn, a Pirate Character can move, attack, cast a spell, reload, hold, or interact for one action. It is possible to attack twice, including firing two pistols, swinging a cutlass, fire a cannon, and so on. The Target Number is typically equal to the Evasion Score of the NPC or Pirate Character. In general, weapons inflict set damage values. Once a fight starts and multiple participants are involved, combat be deadly, especially when cannon are involved.

In addition to suffering physical damage and losing Health Points, a Pirate Character can lose Courage Points through spells, failing certain saves, and being confronted by certain situations and creatures. If reduced to zero, the Pirate Character can become Terrified and do little more than crawl away. A Terrified Pirate Character can be revived by consuming certain drinks, or certain traits or skills being used, or ultimately, if time passes. This replaces the equivalent of a Sanity system as seen in other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, shifting to a loss of courage rather than sanity.
How does naval combat work?
Ships in Cursed Captains of Cthulhu have ratings for their type, size, health, and weapons. A ship’s crew is treated like a character of its own and has the equivalent of Health Points, Courage Points, Evasion Score, and Initiative Score, plus a general Characteristic value. The quality of the crew will also modify Characteristic rolls made by the players.

In general, naval chases and combat are kept abstract in Cursed Captains of Cthulhu in order to ease play and put the Pirate Characters at the heart of the action. The Pirate Characters’ typically has an edge over any NPC ship. The rules presented in the quick-start cover ship movement, actions, firing the guns, boarding actions, and forcing a crew’s surrender. It is noted that the latter does not always mean the fight is over!

How does magic work?
Casting spells requires the Otherworldly Insight skill. When casting a spell, a player can choose to roll one, two, or three dice rather than the standard four. The number of dice rolled determines the number of Courage Points lost when casting a spell.

What do you play?
The Cursed Captains of Cthulhu Quick Start includes the voyage, ‘Devil in the Details’. The Pirate Characters are engaged by Benjamin Hornigold, leader of one of the factions in the pirate republic of Nassau, New Providence, to spy on a meeting between some pirate dissenters and agents of an unknown power. They are ordered to kill or capture the dissenters, but also ensure that whatever the dissenters are selling does not fall into the wrong hands. The encounter quickly turns into a fight and the Pirate Characters will have to chase down the agents aboard their vessel and board it in a final eldritch confrontation.

The voyage is designed to showcase the mechanics, primarily naval chases and combat, and personal combat, whilst hinting at the eldritch horrors on the high seas. The voyage does feel like Pirates of the Caribbean, but with added Mythos.

Is there anything missing?
For the most part, the Cursed Captains of Cthulhu Quick Start is complete. Although there is background on Brethren Court of pirates who guard the Caribbean against unspeakable horrors, there are no details of what the entities and forces and their agents are doing in the region beyond that hinted at in the given voyage. More problematic is the lack of background for any of the pre-generated Pirate Characters. Some background would make them easier to play and not leave the players reliant upon whatever they can make up on the spot, especially if the quick-start is run as a convention game. The result is that the Pirate Characters are bland.
Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in the Cursed Captains of Cthulhu Quick Start are relatively easy to prepare. The Game Master will need to pay closer attention to how ships and ship-to-ship combat work in the game, as they are the most complex part of the rules. There is decent advice for the Game Master on how to run the scenario.

Is it worth it?
Yes. The Cursed Captains of Cthulhu Quick Start includes everything necessary to play an action-packed voyage which reveals the eldritch nature of the real, if secret conflict in the Caribbean. The lack of background for the pre-generated Pirate Characters is disappointing as that would have helped players engage with the specific elements of the setting, but otherwise, the voyage, ‘Devil in the Details’ is simple and direct and has a pulp-action feel and will showcase both the core rules and elements of the setting, and will work as a convention scenario.

Where can you get it?
The Cursed Captains of Cthulhu Quick Start is available to download here.

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Black Cats Gaming will be at UK Games Expofrom Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th, 2023.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #103: Bloom of the Blood Garden is a scenario for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, the Dungeons & Dragons-style retroclone inspired by ‘Appendix N’ of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. Published by Goodman Games, scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics tend be darker, gimmer, and even pulpier than traditional Dungeons & Dragons scenarios, even veering close to the Swords & Sorcery subgenre. One of the signature features of Dungeon Crawl Classics and its post-apocalyptic counterpart, Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, is the ‘Character Funnel’. This is a scenario specifically designed for Zero Level Player Characters in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. Dungeon Crawl Classics #103: Bloom on the Blood Garden is such a Character Funnel, but is could be played with a party of six First Level Player Characters and still be a challenge. Either way, the scenario can be used as a one-shot or to start a campaign in a world of dark goddesses and demonic entities!
Dungeon Crawl Classics #103: Bloom of the Blood Garden is set on the grounds of Cob Hill Manor. The house and its grounds had been long abandoned and the inhabitants of the nearby village without a lord of the manor. More recently, Morto Blango, a wealthy merchant came into the property and moved in, deciding to become a rural landowner and restore the place to what it once was. He hired numerous villagers to work for him. Now several weeks have passed and nobody has heard anything from their friends and relatives employed at the manor, let alone seen any movement on the grounds. Worse there was a fire and everyone could see the manor house itself alight. Why did nobody cry out or run to the village for help. It is unsettling and a mystery that the villagers they want not so much solving as reassuring that their relatives are alive and well. Thus begins Dungeon Crawl Classics #103: Bloom of the Blood Garden.

The scenario opens with the Player Characters at the gates to the manor. Beyond lies an extensive and partially overgrown garden, strewn with strangeness and secrets. There is a pumpkin patch, a topiary garden, a well, and gardens devoted to fungi, lotus flowers, cacti, and even poison! Some of the flora is animated, even ambulatory, and much of its deadly. Working their way through the garden—necessary if they are to get to the ruins of the manor house—the Player Characters are likely to get at least scratched and more likely to have withstand the effects of various poisons. However, not all encounters are necessarily adversarial and the Player Characters are careful, they can sense a feeling of displacement which lingers over the garden and potentially pick up various items which will help them, as well as some clues and secrets which suggest that someone had strange plans for the manor and its grounds. Not necessarily Morto Blango, but someone...

Once the Player Characters reach the top of the garden they will discover the manor house partially burned to the ground. Here they will also discover some of the surviving villagers, possible friends and relatives, as well as strange monsters lurking in the house. The inclusion of the surviving villagers is a nice touch, given that they could all have been found dead, but alive they serve as a pool of ready replacement Zero Level Player Characters should one of the originals die. They also serve as a source of information as to what happened at the manor. They do not know much as they are very frightened, but helpful nevertheless. Investigating the remains of manor will lead to Morto Blango’s last refuge and a very nasty encounter with a thing from beyond time and space!

Dungeon Crawl Classics #103: Bloom of the Blood Garden has much to do with the doings of wizards, but the scenario being a Character Funnel means the Player Characters are totally incapable of dealing with him, instead merely dealing with the consequences of his insidious plans. The Player Characters never encounter him in the scenario, although they will possibly learn of his name and his plans. The scenario is nicely detailed and has a pleasing Lovecraftian feel to it rather than in terms of content, although there is a touch of the Edgar Allan Poe to the piece a la Roger Corman. Where there is an issue with the scenario is the number of ways through the garden to the house. There are three or four routes which the Player Characters could take through the garden, meaning that they might never get to the secrets hidden in the garden or the potential aid to be gained if they explore enough of the garden. So some playthroughs may miss some of the clues and some of the items that might mean the difference between life and death as the scenario comes to its climax. To be fair, this is understandable in terms of design, since the Player Characters are not always going to find everything and Character Funnels are meant to very dangerous. It is more a case of the players and their characters having to balance the need to search for more clues versus the deadliness of the encounters!

There can be no doubt that Dungeon Crawl Classics #103: Bloom of the Blood Garden is deadly. When compared to other scenarios it does feel as if there are more Fortitude and Will saving throws needed in order for the Player Characters to survive. This will make the scenario almost as deadly if played through with First Level Player Characters.
Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics #103: Bloom of the Blood Garden is well presented. The artwork is excellent and the scenario is clearly written and easy to understand. The maps are as decent as you would expect, and there is the bonus of an interview with the author at the end of the book.
Dungeon Crawl Classics #103: Bloom of the Blood Garden combines two horror genres—the gothic and the Lovecraftian, in an unworldly garden and broken mansion. This is definitely a scenario where ultimately, being too timid will leave the Player Characters poorly equipped to deal with what they will face at the end, but pushing too far is potentially as deadly. Dungeon Crawl Classics #103: Bloom of the Blood Garden is a fine Character Funnel, which starts off quaint and deadly, before turning out downright dangerous.
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Goodman Games will be at UK Games Expofrom Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th, 2023.

It is the year 2035. The digital age has been surpassed by the nanotechnology age and the USA is already colonising and terraforming Mars. On Earth, huge multinationals have extended their reach and power so it is also the Age of Corpocracy. Europe has regressed into totalitarianism and protectionism, Asia remains in lockdown after the Third Pandemic, South America dominates global banking via cryptocurrency investment, and there is war in Africa. As the power of the corporations has grown, the power of nation states has dwindled, leaving often unable to deal with emergent threats. This is where Icarus steps in. Sanctioned by numerous states and given freedom of movement and legal authority beyond local governments, Icarus fields highly effective agents from the diverse backgrounds. They have to be the best and they cannot fail, because some day they have to be ready to save humanity.

This is the set-up for Critical: Foundation – Season 1, a roleplaying game which looks like a board game, is designed to introduce roleplaying to the board game playing hobby, and plays like a ‘filler’ game, intended to be played in between or before longer games. It looks like a board game because it uses a lot of cards as reference, much like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition—but very much without any of the complexities. As an introductory roleplaying game, it uses simple mechanics, introduces the rules and concepts in a step-by-step fashion to make learning easy, and it uses a familiar set-up. This is near-future Spy-Fi action, with a team of specialists working together to investigate mysteries and deal with threats, but Spy-Fi action as a television series—and that leads into the ‘filler’ game format. Critical: Foundation is designed to be played in episodic fashion, the box including a total of nine episodes each with an estimated playing time of thirty minutes. Thus, a game of Critical: Foundation is designed to be played over several sessions rather than one, and with the physical nature of its components, around the table rather than online. From a roleplaying viewpoint, Critical: Foundation is like the equivalent of a starter set, complete with rules, four pre-generated Player Characters, dice, rules, and an adventure, all designed to introduce the setting and rules of a roleplaying game. Except that Critical: Foundation is a complete roleplaying game designed to showcase the roleplaying experience rather than a particular game or setting.

Published by Gigamic and available via Hachette Games, Critical: Foundation – Season 1 is designed to be played by between two and five players, aged fourteen or more, one of whom is the Game Master. Although there are suggestions as to how to adjust if there are fewer players, the roleplaying game really works best with a Game Master and four players. Its board game like design means that it has plenty of components. For the Game Master, there is the Game Master’s Screen, the What is a Roleplaying Game? sheet, a Synopsis Booklet for Season 1, nine Episodes, thirty-four Episode cards, eight NPC cards, ten Clue cards, eight Wound card, fifteen Status cards, plus thirty-two 32 Narrative tokens, five Clue tokens, and two six-sided dice. For the players there are four Character cards, eight Background cards, 19 Equipment cards, four Hero tokens, one eight-sided and four twelve-sided dice, a dry-erase marker, and for Name cards. The What is a Roleplaying Game? Sheet provides a brief explanation of roleplaying, whilst the Synopsis Booklet for Season 1 gives an overview of all nine episodes of the first season, some background to the setting, and the epilogue to the season. The Episode cards are used to illustrate scenes and locations within each Episode; the NPC cards detail the other members of the season’s cats the Player Characters will encounter; and the Narrative Tokens to track everything from the passage of time and escape attempts to equipment use and NPC health points. Clue tokens and Clue cards are used to reveal further information during play.

For the Game Master, the highlight of all of these components is the Game Master’s Screen. Although quite low as Game Master’s Screens go, it is very sturdy affair, with all of the rules on the inside for easy reference. It also has handy little pockets to slide NPC cards into so that the Game Master can see the details for the NPC whilst her players can the picture of the NPC on the other side.

The dice consist of a mix of six-, eight, and twelve-sided dice. The six-sided dice are black and marked with various keyed to the NPCs, and are used by the Game Master. Both the white eight- and twelve-sided dice are white and numbered differently. Both are average dice rather than being marked with the full range of numbers as standard polyhedral dice. For the twelve-sided die, this also includes a zero and an ‘×’, the latter indicating a critical failure when rolled.

The four Character cards are double-sided, male on one side, female on the other. They consist of an Analyst, Coder, Scientist, and Military. Each has a quality and a flaw, four—Dexterity, Mental, Physical, and Social, a quick description, and a quote. Each is fully illustrated. One attribute is marked in red to indicate that is a Character’s specialisation. Unlike any other roleplaying game, the attributes do not have an associated value, although they do have linked skills. So the Physical attribute covers Athletics, Combat, and Stealth, whilst Mental covers Knowledge, Investigation, and Perception. The Background cards further define the Characters, there being two per Character. For the Analyst there is Profiler and Private Detective, for the Coder, Hacker and Programmer, for the Scientist, Researcher and Forensic Physician, and for the Military, Mercenary and Special Forces. The Equipment cards include a short range of arms and armour, plus various pieces of technical gear like a Medical Drone or Holo Tablet.

Character creation in Critical: Foundation – Season 1 is fast and easy. Each player selects a Character and chooses which side of the card he wants to use, then chooses one of the two Backgrounds for the Character, plus the associated equipment. He uses the dry-erase marker to write his Character’s name on a Name card, and that is it.

Mechanically, Critical: Foundation – Season 1 is also fast and easy. To have his Character undertake an action, a player rolls the twelve-sided die to get a result equal to or more than a Difficulty Level. The Difficulty Level ranges from one for Easy to six or more for Impossible. The bonus from the die ranges from zero to three, and further bonuses can from a Character’s Specialism for an Attribute, if appropriate, his Background, and the Equipment he is using, for a maximum of three. A Critical Success is achieved if the roll is double the Difficulty Level, which doubles the outcome of the action, but if the ‘×’ is rolled, the attempt is a Critical Failure. This also applies if any player rolls an ‘×’ on a group check in which everyone rolls. When a Critical Failure is rolled, the group earns a Hero Token, up to a maximum of four. Hero Tokens are expended to add the eight-sided die to a roll. Some items of Equipment also allow a reroll of a check.

Combat is likewise kept simple. Initiative is handled through simple Perception checks and when a Character acts, he can do one action and use one piece of equipment. There are just four combat actions—Attack, Help, Take Cover, and Find a Weakness. NPC actions are determined by rolling the Game Master dice and referring to the card for each NPC. A Character can suffer a maximum of two wounds. Any damage after that and the Character suffers an ongoing penalty indicated by a Status Card, the most common of which is ‘Exhausted’, which leaves the Character unable to act until the next scene. Whilst Wounds can be healed, the effects of Status Cards typically need time to heal.

The Episodes are four-page leaflets and start with an episode zer0—the equivalent of a pre-credits scene—before running through to the finale in episode eight. Each includes a Set-up guide, an Episode Synopsis, and then an Introduction followed by two or three scenes and an epilogue. Throughout icons are used to indicate which sections are narrative, involve action, investigation, or roleplay, or require a dice roll by the players or the Game Master. There are also notes running alongside the scenes which give the Game Master pointers on how to portray various NPCs and describe various situations, the latter primarily drawing from action movies. Preparation requires the Game Master to study an episode and make sure that she has all of the cards and tokens ready. Some of the scenes are more complex than others, primarily the action or chase scenes, and these will require more preparation than others. So preparation can take anywhere between five minutes and twenty minutes depending upon the complexity of the scene. Set-up and take down is easy, the latter made easier because the game includes envelopes that each player can store his Character’s cards in.
As a roleplaying game, Critical: Foundation – Season 1 is simple and straightforward and easy to grasp. For the experienced player and the experienced Game Master, it is really easy to pick up and play. The experienced player can start with the simplest of explanations and start play with almost no preparation, whilst the experienced Game Master really only needs to learn the rules, ready an episode, and then run the game directly from the really great Game Master’s Screen, it is that simple and straightforward. For the player and Game Master who have not played a roleplaying game before, Critical: Foundation – Season 1 does its very best to present a direct and accessible roleplaying game. This shows not only in the simplicity of the mechanics, but also the easy-to-grasp televisual, action-orientated style of its story and the fantastic presentation in terms of the NPCs and the Episode cards which help the players visualise the antagonists and other members of the cast, the various locations, and clues. (Further play aids, including music and maps, are available from the publisher’s website. More content has also been promised.)

One aspect missing from Critical: Foundation as a roleplaying game is the scope for the Player Characters to learn and grow from their experiences. In part, that is due to the simplicity of both the Player Character design and the mechanics, but if Critical: Foundation is viewed as something akin to the traditional starter set for a roleplaying game, this is not always an aspect covered anyway. More potentially problematic is the directed, quite tightly scripted nature of the episodes, which do not give the players and their characters a lot of freedom in what they are expected to do. For the experienced roleplayer, this can feel constraining, less so for anyone newer to the hobby, though they may find it so should they return to Critical: Foundation after trying other roleplaying games. That said, Critical: Foundation is designed to be the equivalent of a television action series so a certain degree of scripting is to be expected.

Critical: Foundation – Season 1 could be played as a traditional roleplaying game starter set and the episodes all in one go. However, that would be to miss the episodic nature of the design, which although runs counter to today’s prevailing practice of having all episodes of a television series released at once and everyone binging on them, leaves room for anticipation and a sense of mystery from one episode to the next. The episodic nature also means that each session is focused and never outstays its welcome. Beyond the limits of Critical: Foundation – Season 1 core box, there is advice on using the contents again to create other episodes, though again, the more experienced Game Master will find that easier than the one that Critical: Foundation – Season 1 is actually aimed at.

Physically, Critical: Foundation – Season 1 is very well presented. The quality of the components are uniformly excellent, the artwork as good as any modern board game, and the writing decent too. Still, the standout piece is the Game Master’s Screen.

Although there is nothing to prevent either from enjoying playing through it, Critical: Foundation – Season 1 is possibly a bit too light a roleplaying game for the experienced player or Game Master. The campaign and design of the game does not quite support the introduction for the players as much as the Game Master and it is likely that players new to roleplaying may need more of a hand or preparation than is given here. However, once they get started there is plenty keep them involved, but not overwhelm in terms of rules or mechanics. A more experienced Game Master will have no issue with easing her players into the play and roleplay of Critical: Foundation – Season 1, and that is probably how starting to play will best work.

Critical: Foundation – Season 1 is clever idea, one executed to give what is actually an introductory roleplaying game not just much more of a visual appeal, but also a physical, tangible presence that the players can hold and inspect. Hopefully there will be expansions because there is plenty of story to be told and because roleplaying in the short sharp bursts of drama and action provided by Critical: Foundation – Season 1 deserves future seasons rather than cancellation.

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Hachette Games will be at UK Games Expofrom Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th, 2023.

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

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

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Name: Bad TidingsPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Orlando Moreira

Setting: Portugal, 1937
Product: ScenarioWhat You Get: Thirty-page, 4.92 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Innsmouth in IberiaPlot Hook: A mentor’s revelation exposes murder and terrible Nazi experimentsPlot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, two handouts, three NPCs, five maps and floor plans, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Period one-shot under a different dictator# Pulp horror style scenario# Entertainingly staged finale# Pre-generated Investigators help enforce the background period# Excellent use of period photographs# Ichthyophobia# Thalassophobia# Batrachophobia# Iatrophobia# Naziphobia
Cons# Needs an edit# Cartoonish artwork# Mythos tome mentioned, but never found# Oddly undermanned Nazi base# Heavily plotted in places, but Keeper advice gives options
Conclusion# Strongly plotted scenario supported by decent Keeper suggestions# Pulp horror one-shot in pre-war Portugal opens up new location for period horror

Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland is sourcebook for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, the Sweden-set roleplaying of folkloric horror set during the nineteenth century published by Free League Publishing. In fact, it is the first sourcebook for the roleplaying game, one that takes the roleplaying game to new territory—though not new territory for roleplaying—and there confront new creatures amidst familiar tensions. Between superstition and modernity. Between industrialisation and rural traditions. These are joined by new, heightened tensions. Between the rich and the poor. Between employers and employees. Between North and South. Between the cities and countryside. The setting is Great Britain and the United Kingdom during the latter half of the reign of Queen Victoria. The British Empire is reaching its heights, trade flows in and out of the county’s ports bringing wealth as well as foreigners not to be trusted, the demand for goods means bosses drive their workers harder and install new and more powerful machines to increase production. Yet across the isles, as in Sweden, the supernatural lurks at the edge of society. In Sweden, it is the Vaesen, the supernatural creatures who helped out on the farms, gave a hand when it came to calving, ensured that lost children would find their way home, and kept everyone alive during the harsh winters of Northern Europe, and in return would receive milk and grain from the farms. In the British Isles, it is the fey or fairies, who make their homes in parallel realms of their own, but slip into ours, their mercurial interactions with mankind often leading to mysterious encounters at best, bloodshed at worst. Fortunately, just as Sweden has the Society—or Order of Artemis—dedicated to investigating supernatural threats and preventing interactions between them and society leading to further bloodshed or exposure, Great Britain and Ireland has the Apollonian Society.

Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland can either be used as an expansion to Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying or a whole new campaign setting. In other worlds, the Player Characters could travel from Sweden to investigate the mysteries of sceptred isle, or indeed to fey it presents shifted to Scandinavia, but it could also be used as the basis for a Britain-set campaign, with the Player Characters being English, Irish, Scottish, or Welsh rather than Swedish. This is its default, but it has notes and suggestions as to how to involve Swedish Player Characters. That default has its advantages. In particular, the period and setting will be familiar to the English-speaking gaming hobby, as after all, this is the land of Charles Dickens, Sherlock Holmes, the Hound of the Baskervilles, and Jack the Ripper. Similarly, there will a certain familiarity in the fairies it details, such as the Banshee, Pooka, Redcap, or Selkie. However, as much as this familiarity makes it easier to engage with, it loses some of the mystery, which the Swedish default setting of Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying always maintained because it was unfamiliar. However, the supplement maintains enough mysteries of its own, whether that is the strange locations it describes, the fairie threats it details, and the scenarios it presents.

Funded following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland is written by Graeme Davis, co-author of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and The Enemy Within campaign, as well as most notably, GURPS Faerie. Which given the wealth of research and detail that the GURPS line is famous for, means that the author has a certain expertise when writing about the supernatural threat that the Player Characters will face in the United Kingdom. The book includes an overview of Britain and Ireland, a gazetteer of strange places, details of the fae and their realms, the Apollonian Society, new Archetypes, a host of supernatural creatures, and three lengthy mysteries.

Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland opens with an overview of Mythic Britain and Ireland. This is not intended to be a historical treatment of the setting or period, in part because there is insufficient space and in part because the setting is familiar. Instead, it opts for a combination of history and fantasy. This shows in its inclusion of notables of the period, so that alongside figures such as Charles Dickens, Florence Nightingale, and Oscar Wilde, there are also fictional characters like Sir Harry Flashman, A.J. Raffles, and Sherlock Holmes. All are given thumbnail descriptions, as are the important cities of the Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. London is understandably given more attention, covering the city’s important locations, railways, and other institutions. Particular attention is paid to the tensions rife across all four countries, with suggestions as to how include Fenian fairies (and others) agitating for home rule, Social Class, and more in a Vaesen game set in the British Isles. Many locations—in and out of London—are accompanied by a short description of a haunted place, whether that is the Blackley Boggart of Boggart Hole Clough near Manchester or suggestions that spirits haunting Hackney Marshes might be of Roman or older origins. Several Mysterious Places, like the Cerne Abbas Giant and Loch Ness are described too, before the supplement dives in deeper detail about the parallel worlds of the Fairie. This provides solid background for the Game Master to involve her players and their characters in visits to Annwvyn, Tír Na nÓg, fairy glades and rings, and so on.

The equivalent of the Society in Britain, the Apollonian Society, whilst linked to the one in Sweden, has a history all of its own. The Apollonian Society was originally founded by Doctor John Dee, scientist and astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I, together with Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s spymaster, and Edmund Spenser, whose epic poem, The Fairie Queen, would threaten to reveal too much about the Fairie and their realms. Much of its archives are based upon the records and correspondence of William Stukely, noted antiquarian and often regarded as the ‘father of archaeology’. The Apollonian Society even has its own headquarters in the form of Rose House, complete with its own seemingly ageless butler, Hawkins. Options are suggested to who or what Hawkins might be. Overall, there is a nice sense of the historical and the fantastical to the Apollonian Society and of course, Rose House has the same scope for development as Castle Gyllencreutz in Upsala.

Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland includes three new archetypes for Player Characters—the Athlete, the Entertainer, and the Socialite. These are perhaps the easiest of the content in the supplement to transfer back to roleplaying game’s default setting of Sweden, and indeed, any setting of the period. There is a pleasing flexibility to the Athlete, so that the archetype’s main skill and Talent vary according to their sport, for example, for cricket, the main skill is Agility and Talent is Gentleman, whilst for Tennis, the main skill is Force and Talent is Fleet-footed. The illustration for Archetype, a prize fighter, is delightfully suitable. Conversely, it is a pity that the same is not done with the Entertainer archetype, which simply has to rely on the Manipulation skill and Performer Talent. ‘Expanded profession and ‘Life Event’ tables support the inclusion of the three new archetypes in the supplement as well as those in the core rulebook.

One option for Player Character and NPC interaction is the aforementioned rules for Social Class, deference meaning that those of a higher gain a bonus to Empathy tests when dealing with those of a lower social class, whilst conversely, those of a lower social class suffer a penalty with dealing with their social betters. This reflects the nature of social class throughout the Victorian era and beyond, but the rules do paint a broad brush and lack nuance. Ideally, the Game Master should adjudicate their use as necessary on a case-by-case basis.

The highlight, of course, to Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland are its English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh equivalent of vaesen. Drawing upon a mixture of Celtic myth and local folklore—sometimes very local folklore—the supplements discusses the nature and common features of many of the isles’ fairie creatures, including their invisibility, invulnerability (except of course, for a loophole particular to each type), the nature of fairie challenges, favours, and forfeits, even impossible tasks. Some thirteen fairie are detailed, each given a two-page spread as in the core rules, complete with Apollonian Society notes by William Stukely, the possible ritual necessary to defeat the creature, three example conflicts between the creature and mankind, and variants. The conflicts for the Banshee, the first fairie entry in the supplement, include a Banshee who will not howl, a Banshee who reaches out in dreams, and banshee who wails despite the last of the nearby family line not wanting to die. The variants include the Caoineag, a water-bound version who is almost impossible to interact with and the Bean-nighe, a crone-like creature who washes the clothes of those who are about to die in a stream. The other fairie include the Black Dog, Boggart, Glastig, Hag, Knocker, Nuckelavee, and several others. there are even notes on adapting the vaesen from the core rulebook to Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland setting.

Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland includes three mysteries. All three clearly present their conflicts, countdowns, and catastrophes, the latter occurring if the Player Characters fail to act in time. Clues are given location by location, and each scenario ends in a confrontation, climax, and possible aftermath. All open with a latter to the Apollonian Society which will draw the Player Characters hither and thither, first to rural Gloucestershire where a young man has been arrested for the murder of his sweetheart and the ground about his village has been beset by unusually late and cold frosts, to the north of Wales where a rash of accidents in a slate mine suggest something unchristian, and then back to London to locate a missing brother last seen at an artists’ colony upsetting the middle class propriety of Hampstead Heath. They can of course, be played in any order. Taking up almost half of the supplement, all three scenarios are excellent, highlighting conflicts between tradition and reason, tradition and modernity, the mysterious and the mundane, as well as depicting the social differences and attitudes in all three locations. Although there are notes to adapt the scenarios to the Swedish default setting of Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland is , doing so would lose some of the flavaour and nuance to be found in each scenario.

If there is an issue with Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland, it is that it does skimp on the history and background to its setting. It does have the benefit of familiarity though, so a Game Master and her players can rely on knowledge they may already have, but if not, it does mean that both will need to conduct more research. Thankfully, neither is all that difficult to research, and in addition, there are plenty of books readily available on the folklore of all four countries.

Physically, as you would expect, Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland is a lovely looking book. The cover is ominous, but inside the various fairie and NPCs in the scenarios are brought to vivid life by the artwork of Johan Egerkrans. The book is well written, the handouts are well done—if a plain in places, and the cartography is excellent.

Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland takes the structure and style of Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland and places it in what be the familiar for much the English speaking hobby. That familiarity may lead to clichés, but this is actually not all that much of an issue given the supplement’s mix of the fantastical and the historical, meaning the Player Characters can don deerstalkers and tramp the moors in search of malicious or mischievous wee beasties or hunt for horrors on the fog-bound streets of London and neither would be out of place. Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland is an excellent supplement, opening up the world of Vaesen to a whole new realm and making the fairie something to fear.

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Free League Publishing will be at UK Games Expofrom Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th, 2023.

One of the innovations of RuneQuest is that it introduced a world in which religion plays an intrinsic role. Glorantha has numerous mythologies, pantheons, deities, cults, heroes, and villains, and they are important to all of the peoples of Glorantha such that everyone belongs to a cult, worships one or more gods, whilst also acknowledging many others. Originally introduced in the ground-breaking Cults of Prax and its companion, Cults of Terror, the cults of Orlanth, Humakt, Ernalda, Yelmalio, Kygor Litor, Zorak Zoran, and many others have even entered the roleplaying lexicon. Each provided beliefs, outlook, and spells, and in play even roleplaying hooks. However, having access to all of these cults has historically been something of an issue, the last complete treatment of Glorantha’s gods and cults being GloranthanClassics Volume III – Cult Compendium, which collates material from Cults of Prax, Cults of Terror, and Trollpak, and more. One of the plans for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha was to produce its own similar tome, Cults of Glorantha, initially in a two-volume set—now only to be seen in a limited ashcan edition released at Gen Con. Instead, the Cults of RuneQuest is to be a ten-volume series, each entry dealing with particular pantheons and aspects of Glorantha’s mythologies.
Cults of RuneQuest: The Prosopaedia is the first volume in the series from Chaosium, Inc.. It is essentially an encyclopaedia to the gods and other mythological figures and groups of the fantasy world of Glorantha and contains hundreds of entries. Entries are arranged alphabetically as you would expect. Some entries only receive a single paragraph, for example, Delaeo, Goddess of Fortune, Good Luck, and Wealth, Lanbril, King of Thieves, and Zistor, The God Machine of the Dwarfs. Others, however, are accorded two more paragraphs, such as Babeestor Gor, Avenging daughter and Sacred Guardian, Kyger Litor, Mother of Trolls, and the Seven Mothers, the Recreators of the Red Goddess, the New Gods. Perhaps some of the longest entries are devoted to some of the more well-known figures in Gloranthan mythology—of which Ernalda, Goddess Creation, Goddess of Love, and Orlanth, King of the Gods, Storm God, Chieftain, Warrior, Leader of the Lightbringers, are the best examples. The Cults of RuneQuest: The Prosopaedia is also cross-referenced, so the entry for Orlanth includes references to both Ernalda and the Lightbringers, and when you turn to the Lightbringers entry, there are references to Chalana Arroy, Eurmal, Flesh Man, Ginna Jar, Issaries, Lhankor Mhy, and Orlanth. Not every entry is a god. For example, Gerak Kag is a Dark Troll hero who defeated Praxian nomads and invaded Pavis in the 1230s, Jaldon Goldentooth is the immortal hero of the Praxian tribes who returns again and again to lead them all into battle, and Zzabur is the First Wizard.
Every entry includes a pronunciation guide, its place and role in particular pantheon, and cross-references as needed. Also included is the Rune symbols associated with that particular god, a practice continued from The Red Book of Magic, and particularly useful it is too.
What is not included in Cults of RuneQuest: The Prosopaedia are any game stats or rules mechanics. This it shares with The Glorantha Sourcebook, which framed the conflicts between the differing mythologies in the forthcoming Hero Wars. The lack of stats or mechanics is intentional. Cults of RuneQuest: The Prosopaedia is intended as an overview of the mythologies and gods and other figures of Glorantha, drawing on diverse sources and collating everything for ease of reference. For the player new to RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and the setting of Glorantha this is an easy starting point to look up such details, with the core rules providing the mechanics necessary. For the Gloranthaphile, it still provides a good overview, but they will, of course, be left wanting more, but that will come as further entries in the Cults of RuneQuest series are published. Further, it should be pointed out that Cults of RuneQuest: The Prosopaedia is not designed as a standalone product. In being an overview of the gods and mythologies, it is a companion volume to the rest of the titles in the series.
There is one other aspect of Cults of RuneQuest: The Prosopaedia which stands out and that is Katrim Dirim’s artwork. It is gloriously rich and vivid in its colours, capturing the majesty, power, glory, and might of the many deities depicted. It gives them all a naturalistic feel as if painted by their worshippers, yet still unworldly.

As comprehensive as the Cults of RuneQuest: The Prosopaedia is, there is one feature which would have increased its utility, and that is perhaps an index by pantheon and thus refer to particular entries in the Cults of RuneQuest series. It is likely that at the end of the series that an index for all ten books will be necessary.
Physically, Cults of RuneQuest: The Prosopaedia is a slim volume. It professionally written and presented, and as already mentioned, is superbly illustrated. That said, in places, the writing will send the reader to a dictionary to look up the definitions of unfamiliar words.
Cults of RuneQuest: The Prosopaedia is beautiful introduction to the pantheons and mythological figures of Glorantha. Superbly comprehensive, it sets up and serves as a companion to the Cults of RuneQuest series and if the rest of the titles are going to look as good and delve deeper into their subjects, then the RuneQuest fan and the Gloranthaphile are going to very pleased with each new volume.
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Chaosium, Inc. will be at UK Games Expofrom Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th, 2023.

Mutant Crawl Classics #14: Mayhem on the Magtrain is the fourteenth release for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, the spiritual successor to Gamma World published by Goodman Games. Designed for Second Level player characters, what this means is that—just like Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths before it—Mutant Crawl Classics #14: Mayhem on the Magtrain is not a Character Funnel, one of the signature features of both the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game it is mechanically based upon—in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. In terms of the setting, known as Terra A.D., or ‘Terra After Disaster’, this is a ‘Rite of Passage’ and in Mutants, Manimals, and Plantients, the stress of it will trigger ‘Metagenesis’, their DNA expressing itself and their mutations blossoming forth. By the time the Player Characters in Mutant Crawl Classics #14: Mayhem on the Magtrain have reached Second Level, they will have had numerous adventures, should have understanding as to how both their mutant powers and how at least some of the various weapons, devices, and artefacts of the Ancients they have found work and can use on their future adventures.

Mutant Crawl Classics #14: Mayhem on the Magtrain takes the Player Characters in a totally unexpected direction, quite literally, but not an unprecedented one. The scenario opens with the village elders summoning the Player Characters before the tribal council. A fellow tribe member, agitatedly reports that she and her hut-mate were attacked by several Sk’wik, the notoriously violent worm-folk which turn everything into a charnel heap that they constantly stir. (It is notable that the Sk’wik are very much like the mysterious worm-like race known as the Sathar from Star Frontiers.) The Player Characters are tasked with returning to the site of the attack and burn out the nest before the Sk’wik spread and threaten the village. The Player Characters quickly locate the nest and after killing the horrid worm-things, find themselves in a cavern of the Ancients. Investigating further, they discover a metal door and beyond that a metal tube of the Ancients, and if the Player Characters have played through the scenario, ‘Assault on the Sky-High Tower’, the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic core rule book, then they will have been here before! That scenario involves a journey by tube train, not too dissimilar to the journey they are about to make. The scenario is also just a little like that of Mutant Crawl Classics #6: The Apocalypse Ark being set aboard a moving vehicle.

All of the action of the scenario—and the scenario is very action orientated—takes place aboard a runaway Maglev train, still intent on completing its timetable and reaching its next destination at its best possible speed. Or rather, as it turns out, the worst speed possible! At first, the journey seems to going well, but the virtual Conductor becomes increasingly jittery and uncertain until she explains the other A.I. aboard the Maglev train, the Engineer is following its programming to the letter and refusing all attempts at communication. As the Maglev speeds up, it begins to buck and rock as the repulsor on one of its forward carriages begins to fail. As the Maglev hurtles towards its next destination, the Conductor asks the Player Characters to help save the train and go forward to the ‘bridge’ and deal with the Engineer.

Cue all of the classic train shenanigans—only on a Maglev! Do the Player Characters have to climb onto the roof of the train? Are they shot at whilst atop the train? Do they have to inch their way along the undercarriage of the train? Do they have a fight with the Rail Marshal-Bot? The answer is yes to all of questions and more!

Mutant Crawl Classics #14: Mayhem on the Magtrain is a short adventure. Action-packed, but short. It is designed to provide a means to getting the Player Characters a long way away from their village to somewhere possibly more interesting. In the standard Mutant Crawl Classics set-up, the Player Characters rarely get that far from their base village, going out and back again to deal with issues and threats the tribe faces. Mutant Crawl Classics #14: Mayhem on the Magtrain gets the Player Characters far away and hopefully somewhere interesting.

In addition to the floorplans of the Maglev, the scenario includes several new artefacts. The most fun of these is ‘Ocean Apes Insta-Pet’, an entertaining update of sea monkeys!

Physically, behind a suitably briny cover, complete with a metallic logo, Mutant Crawl Classics #14: Mayhem on the Magtrain is cleanly and tidily laid out, clearly written, and decently illustrated. As already mentioned, the maps are really nicely done.

Mutant Crawl Classics #14: Mayhem on the Magtrain is an action movie of a scenario. It is fun, fast, and furiously thrilling, and both the players and the Judge will enjoy playing this in between longer, more involving scenarios.

The world of Okkorim was rich and verdant. Then the Empire of Ydrissid rose and fell and so we have the Blighted Lands. The sorcerers of the Empire of Ydrissid commanded great magic and not only established dominion over Okkorim, but also out onto other planes. Key to their power were the ‘eanifisilat’ or ‘dragoncoils’, the focal points where magical power coalesced around slumbering elemental dragons. Yet over time, the power of the ‘eanifisilat’ began to fade, eventually dwindling to nothing and the sorcerer god-kings of the empire sought other means to maintain their arcane power. They could not recreate the ‘eanifisilat’ which had enabled them at their height, to send whole armies across the empire in the blink of an eye, but they could create artifacts imbued with the power of the elemental dragons—air, earth, fire, and water. One of these artefacts is the Occulus of Senrahbah. Like many of its type, it would lost in the years that followed the collapse of the Empire of Ydrissid due to the Wrath which turned its territories into the Blighted Lands and many lesser empires and nations rose and fell. Several factions in the port city of Chentoufi believe they have determined the location of the Occulus of Senrahbah. If there is even the slimmest possibility of holding a sliver of the power of the sorcerer god-kings of the Empire of Ydrissid, then these factions will do their utmost to either obtain it, or prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. Enter the Player Characters…
This is the set-up for OS1 The Eye of Chentoufi, an adventure compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition that is notable for several things. First and foremost, it is set in ‘Luke Gygax’s World of Okkorim’ and thus co-authored by Luke Gygax, the son of E. Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and thus the hobby itself. Second, it is the first part of a trilogy, which will continue with OS2 The Heart of Chentoufi and OS3 The Fate of Chentoufi. Third, it can be run as a tournament scenario, in just a single four-hour session, and there are notes and points awards so that the players’ progress can be tracked and scores compared at the end of the tournament. Alternatively, it can played through in two or more sessions with the addition of the scenario’s optional scenes. Fourth, it was written as a special tournament scenario for Gary Con XIII, the convention held each March in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

OS1 The Eye of Chentoufi begins en media res. The Player Characters are somewhere in the sands of the Blighted Lands as the ground drops away from them and they find themselves in a giant cavern with many creatures wanting to eat them! They have a chance to get out and then fade to black… Several options are suggested for this, but the players are encouraged to come up with their own solutions. The action switches to the port city of Chentoufi where Pelicos Red approach the heroes to help him find a missing artefact, the Occulus of Senrahbah. If they agree—and if not, then there is no adventure—their investigation leads to the city’s Grand Library where with a bribe or intimidation, they can learn that clues to the artefact’s location lies in the sewers and catacombs below both city and library. Here there is a big set-piece, a puzzle which the Player Characters (or preferably, the players) have to solve before they can move on. They face one of the factions interested in stopping the efforts of the Player Characters and doing so by any means necessary. The fight is made all the more challenging because at this point the Player Characters are weapon-less, having had to hand them over in order to enter library. Improvised weapons can be found, but the spell-casting Classes are at possible advantage here.

The second act begins with the Player Characters discovering a vault under the city and using the clues found there to identify another location in Chentoufi, a tower made of lapis lazuli! Atop the tower is another puzzle, which if solved points to the next location. This leads back under the city, but much deeper this time, encountering several ancient guardians before confronting the Guardian of the Eye and… well… Not actually locating the Occulus of Senrahbah, just more clues. Which of course, leading into OS2 The Heart of Chentoufi.

OS1 The Eye of Chentoufi has some great features. Each of its three acts starts with a summary of the plot for that act; there are suggestions as to what music to play during various scenes (with links to YouTube for the PDF version of the scenario); and the monsters are decently done, with a favourite being the Sussarate Spiders which exist on the Prime Material and Ethereal Planes which grapple their prey and drag them into the Ethereal Plane where they consume them. The two big puzzle scenes in the scenario are really particularly good and like any good tournament scenario do their very best to challenge the players as much, if not more than, the Player Characters.

However, OS1 The Eye of Chentoufi is not a great scenario for a number of reasons. The primary problem is that there is not enough context for the benefit of the players and their characters. There is no background information that is readily presentable to the players, whether on the Blighted Lands or the city of Chentoufi. So, the players will have difficulty getting a feel for the setting as a place, let alone motivation for their Player Characters. This starts with a beginning—en media res, and thus intended to be exciting—in a situation where no attention at all paid to why the Player Characters are there and what they are doing. Some of this could have been alleviated with some pre-generated Player Characters, but there are none. Which makes no sense for a tournament scenario, especially one set in a background which is not vanilla fantasy. The background to Okkorim, the Blighted Lands, and Chentoufi all have an Arabic or Middle Eastern feel, much like Al-Qadim: Land of Fate. Some of this information could have been presented in a set of pre-generated Player Characters, which could also been used to provide motivation for the players and their characters and have been used to showcase what can be played in the ‘Luke Gygax’s World of Okkorim’ and its differences between it and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. This is a missed opportunity.

Physically, OS1 The Eye of Chentoufi is hit and miss. The artwork is excellent, as is the cartography, and on the whole, the scenario is a fine-looking book. However, the editing is inconsistent. Further, whilst the monsters and NPCs are given clear stats at the end of the book, not all of them.

OS1 The Eye of Chentoufi is playable as is, but it is underdeveloped in all too many places, especially as far as the players are concerned. They will probably complete the scenario not knowing quite what their characters will have achieved as they only get part ways towards locating the Occulus of Senrahbah and feeling unrewarded for their efforts, although there are some nicely thematic magical treasures to be found. Not enough for a party of six Player Characters though. Where OS1 The Eye of Chentoufi shines is in its big set-piece puzzle encounters, but getting to them and playing them will take some development upon the part of the Dungeon Master, both in preparing pre-generated Player Characters and the background for the players and so ready them for the scenario and help bring it to life.

At the Mountains of Madness is horror author H.P. Lovecraft’s longest and one of his most famous stories. It takes the form of a series of letters, written by Doctor William Dyer, a geologist from Miskatonic University, who in late 1930 led an expedition to the Antarctic which would end in disaster, madness, and death following the discovery of the remains of prehistoric lifeforms unknown to science, buried in the permafrost and the remains of a cyclopean city behind a mountain range the height of the Himalayas—previously never seen before, the city long abandoned for terrible reasons which are ultimately revealed at the denouement of the story. Specifically, Doctor Dyer’s letters have been written in an effort to prevent a second, and much more important and widely publicised expedition which is being mounted to the Antarctic from following in the same path. The story has a strong sense of atmosphere and environment—the ice and snow, and extreme low temperatures play a major role in the narrative, serving as a starkly frigid backdrop against which its events take place and its equally stark revelations as to the horrid and horrifying events in the past and their dark influences upon the origins of mankind.

Originally serialised in the February, March, and April 1936 issues of Astounding Stories, At the Mountains of Madness has been published many times since and in more recent years adapted into songs, musicals, graphic novels, radio serials, and more. The very latest adaptation is none of these, but an illustrated version of the novel. At the Mountains of Madness is published by Free League Publishing, a publisher best known for roleplaying games such as Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days and Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World, this is not the publisher’s first such title. That would be The Call of Cthulhu, the classic of American horror literature and the short story that is arguably H.P. Lovecraft’s most well-known. As with that classic, the Free League Publishing edition of At the Mountains of Madness is fully illustrated by French artist François Baranger and presented in a large 10½ by 14 inches folio format.

At the Mountains of Madness Volume I only took the protagonists as far as the upper reaches of the Elder Thing city, it closing at the point where the protagonists are preparing to enter the city’s subterranean depths. Baranger’s final illustration was subtly ominous, the stonework of the wall around the entrance to the tunnel below the Elder Thing city casting a skull-like shadow… It is Baranger’s gorgeous artwork that stood out in the first volume and again, his superlative illustrations capture the frigid, shattered, and alien of the Elder Things on the other side of the Mountains of Madness in the second volume, At the Mountains of Madness Volume I. If the first volume was dominated by wide panoramas of the Antarctic wastes, his artwork balances that here with a sense of height that dwarves the explorers, Doctor William Dyer and the student, Danforth. As they delve deeper into the city and Dyer begins to translate the hieroglyphic murals, the art changes to match, illustrating it in time to Lovecraft’s text as both men learn the long history of the city and its strange inhabitants. Thus there is a switch back and forth between the city in ruins and the city as a living place for the Elder Things, sense of stillness in the former and movement in the latter. No more so than in the terrible confrontation between the Elder Things and the Cthulhu Spawn, an eldritch battle over which great Cthulhu looms. In the text, Dyer notes the sense of awe at the alien city and again that is matched by the Baranger from the first page to the last.

The tone changes as the Elder Things devise and develop the terrible protoplasmic intelligences known as Shoggoths. Even their appearance seems to overawe the Elder Things, imbuing the alien creatures with sense of sympathy and even fear on their behalf...! This though turns shock as the two men first discover the remains of the missing Gedney and his dog—whose disappearance was detailed in At the Mountains of Madness Volume I—and the strange giant albino penguins! Then find out what happened to the Elder Things that were woken in the first half and who were responsible their nemesis—the dread Shoggoth! The final scenes are a rush, as the Shoggoth threaten engulf Dyer and Danforth and the two men make a desperate escape from the city and to their aeroplane. Only in the final scene, do we focus at all upon either of the men, a look of sheer terror upon Danforth’s face as he takes one last terrible look at where he has just come from!

The text for this second volume of At the Mountains of Madness, as with the first, are taken from the standard version of Lovecraft’s story. Although there is no change to the text in terms of content, there is in terms of emphasis, there in places being sentences and paragraphs being placed in a larger font. This is often jarring and does not match Lovecraft’s story, feeling unnecessary given that Branager’s illustrations are there exactly to deliver that emphasis.

If the reader was disappointed to have to wait for At the Mountains of Madness Volume II is after At the Mountains of Madness Volume I, then that wait has been worth it. At the Mountains of Madness Volume II is a stunning book, but then again, so was At the Mountains of Madness Volume I. François Baranger fantastically depicts and contrasts the present and the past of the city beyond the Mountains of Madness in this second volume, just as the second volume as a whole, contrasts the stark alienness and openness of the Antarctic with the oppressive heights of the ruins of the Elder thing city. Of course, At the Mountains of Madness Volume II is not a standalone book, yet its artwork almost transcends the necessity for the first volume. Together, At the Mountains of Madness Volume I and At the Mountains of Madness Volume II combine to retell H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness in a glorious fashion that will delight readers who already know the story and readers who are new to his cosmic horror.

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

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The Travellers’ Digest #1 was published in 1985. It marked the entry of Digest Group Publications into the hobby and from this small, but ambitious beginnings would stem a complete campaign and numerous highly-regarded supplements for Game Designers Workshop’s Traveller and MegaTraveller, as well as a long running magazine. That magazine was The Travellers’ Digest and it would really begin as a fanzine before developing into a full magazine that together would run for twenty-one issues between 1985 and 1990. The conceit was that The Travellers’ Digest was a magazine within the setting of the Third Imperium, its offices based on Deneb in the Deneb Sector, and that it awarded the Traveller’s Digest Touring Award. This award would be won by one of the Player Characters and thus the stage is set for ‘The Grand Tour’, the long-running campaign in the pages of The Travellers’ Digest. In classic fashion, as with Europe of the eighteenth century, this would take the Player Characters on a tour of the major capitals of known space. These include Vland, Capitol, Terra, the Aslan Hierate, and even across the Great Rift. The meat of this first issue, as well as subsequent issues, would be dedicated to an adventure, each a stop-off on the ‘The Grand Tour’, along with support for it. The date for the first issue of The Traveller’s Digest and thus when the campaign begins is 152-1111, the 152nd day of the 1111th years of the Imperium.
To best run ‘The Grand Tour’, the Referee will need access to The Atlas of the Imperium, Supplement 8: Library Data (A-M), Supplement 11: Library Data (N-Z), Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats (or alternatively, Supplement 5: Azhanti High Lightning), as well as the core rules. In addition, the supplement, The Undersea Environment, and adventure, The Drenslaar Quest, published by Gamelords, Ltd., are both useful for running underwater adventures—though they are really only useful if the Referee develops adventuring content beyond that presented in the issue. Alien Module 4: Zhodani may also be useful. Of course, that was in 1985, and much, if not all, of the rules or background necessary have been updated since.
The set-up for ‘The Grand Tour’ begins with descriptions of the pre-generated Player Characters. There are four. They consist of Akidda Laagiir, the journalist who won the Traveller’s Digest Touring Award; Dur Telemon, a scout and his nephew; Doctor Theodor Krenstein, a gifted-scientist and roboticist; and Doctor Krenstein’s valet, ‘Aybee’, or rather, ‘AB-101’. The fact is, AB-101 is a pseudo-biological robot, both protégé and prototype. Consequently, the mix of Player Characters are surprisingly non-traditional and not all of them are easily created used the means offered in Traveller or MegaTraveller.
The Feature adventure in The Travellers’ Digest #1 ‘of Xboats and Friends’, its opening fiction, ‘It’s a Small Galaxy!’, setting the scene for the scenario as the four characters meet up on a passenger liner bound for the world of Jode in the Pretoria subsector. The primary motivations are to locate Neric Andor, a fellow Scout and friend of Dur Telemon, and for Doctor Krenstein, to test out a theory he has about the extinct sentient species on Jode. The Player Characters begin by looking for Neric Andor, searching high and low in the bars and casinos on Jode Orbital, but without any success, although they do pick up plenty of rumours—sabotage of a surface processing plant, a missing Vargr starship, and slowed outsystem mail being the least of them. When the Player Characters do find information about their missing friend, that he frequented a casino, they are warned off by a couple of Scouts—or are they? It turns out that they are actually part of a Zhodani spy operation on Jode and AB-101 has the means to detect their origins via their speech patterns.
In the second part of the adventure, the Player Characters manage to get aboard the Express Boat Tender Albany, where Neric is stationed and has just returned to. The Albany is detailed and deck plans are included as the Player Characters quickly discover that the Neric stationed there is an imposter. The plot quickly wraps up and should reveal the extent of Zhodani espionage operations in the system. The Player Characters are well rewarded, including the robot.
The adventure includes some roleplaying notes for each of the Player Characters, both the Referee and the players. It is noticeable that as a journalist, Akidda Laagiir, has an incredible skill of ‘Interview-5’! (The Journalist Career would appear in The Traveller’s Digest #2.) However, the roleplaying notes mix and match the information, so they contain information for both the Referee and the players, so there is information present that the players should not read as well as stuff they should know. Which is a problem which runs throughout the scenario, mixing information the players and their characters should know with information they should not. Consequently, the fairly linear and often direct adventure does need to be pulled apart and quite heavily prepared for the players, especially in terms of handouts.
The world of Jode is described in some detail. This includes its UUP—both past and present, its toxic, chlorine-tainted atmosphere, limited landmasses, and importance as a source of pharmaceuticals and the fact that it was once home to a sentient, land-dwelling species prior to a geological disaster. Options for further adventures are included. The Player Characters can go sea hunting or mining—details of a submersible are provided—and there is the suggestion that the scientist Player Character is interested in the archaeology of Jode.
There is some further library data in The Travellers’ Digest #1, divided into two strands. One covers some nineteen worlds of the Deneb sector, plus of a map of the Xboat routes across the Deneb sector. The other is a more general, covering the Shudusham Accords (by which armaments carried by robots are limited), the Vilani supremacist group known as the Rachele Society and its associated revolt which took place on Pretoria in the Pretoria subsector, and more. All of it is relevant to the main adventure to some degree. The Pretoria subsector is detailed, including both subsector map and the UPPs for all of its worlds.
The last three articles in The Travellers’ Digest #1 all have a technical bent. ‘Robot Design Revisited, Part 1’ expands on the ‘Ref’s Notes’ article, ‘Robots’ which appeared in The Best of the Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society. The article provides a new seven-step robot design system, from chassis and power plant through to sensors/devices and programming. It includes a fully worked (and costed!) example, which fittingly, is for the Player Character, AB-101. Of course, the article would be superseded the year following the publication of The Travellers’ Digest #1 with the release of Book 8: Robots from Game Designer Workshop. ‘Using Skills Effectively’ provides the Referee with a more consistent set of mechanics than is necessarily found in Traveller at the time, whilst ‘Orbital Complexes’ provides guidance for creating such facilities using Book 5: High Guard. The trio is well thought out and certainly would have been appreciated by the Traveller Referee at the time.
Physically, The Travellers’ Digest #1 is very obviously created using early layout software. However, that layout is surprisingly tidy and if some of the artwork is created using a computer too, it is not actually that bad.
The Travellers’ Digest #1 contains a lot of information that the prospective Traveller Referee would have found useful, whether that is ‘Robot Design Revisited, Part 1’, the ‘Library Data’, or ‘Using Skills Effectively’. However, the scenario in the first issue, ‘Of Xboats and Friends’, is both a highlight and a missed opportunity. Of course, it sets up ‘The Grand Tour’ and it is direct and likely fun to play. However, it needs a lot of work to pull apart and prepare, particularly with handouts and library data and the downside to being direct is that it does direct the players at certain points. The missed opportunity is what else to do on Jode. For example, Doctor Krenstein has a theory that the extinct sentient species on the planet was more advanced than is currently believed, but he never gets to test out that theory. There is not enough information given about this aspect of Jode and if the Referee had wanted to do anything with it because Doctor Krenstein’s player was interested, she would have to develop it herself. (Subsequent supplements have further developed the sentient species, known as Serpents.)
Overall, The Travellers’ Digest #1 is a good first issue, if flawed. Despite it leaving a lot for the Referee to do, The Travellers’ Digest #1 does lay the groundwork for ‘The Grand Tour’, a lost campaign that has disappointingly never been revisited.

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

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From the off, Knock! An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac grabs the reader’s attention and starts giving him stuff. Open the book and there is the beginning of an adventure on the front folded flap of the dust jacket. Slip that off—a dust jacket on a paperback book, no less!—and the adventure continues so that the reader can run its adventure separate from the actual book. Flip through the pages of the book and the reader will be impressed not by the range of content, but the look of the thick booklet. Heavily illustrated with a mix of artwork, both publicly available and new, there are think pieces and opinion pieces, tables galore of almost everything and anything imaginable, Game Master advice, new twists on old ideas, new ideas about old monsters, new monsters, new Classes, and even an adventure or three. And all of it for the Old School Renaissance and the Retroclone of the reader’s choice. Some of the content has been drawn from blog entries written by the leading luminaries of the Old School Renaissance, but since the publication of Knock! #2 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac there has been less of this and the mix of the old and the new has been more balanced. Published by The Merry Mushmen, each issue of promises and delivers oodles and oddkins of and for Old School Renaissance, making it a very companionable cumulation ready for the Game Master’s consultation.
Knock! #3 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac was published in June, 2022 following a successful Kickstarter campaign. The contributors for this issue, just to give you an idea of its range include Alexandre ‘Kobayashi’ Jeanette, Andrea ‘Vyrelion’ Back, Antoine Bauza, Arnold K., Ava Islam, Bill Edmunds, Brent Edwards, Christopher S., Ciro Alessandro Sacco, Danilo Moretti, David McGrogan, Diogo Nogueira, E. A. ‘taichara’ Bisson, Eric Brimstin, Eric Nieudan, Frank Reding, Harbowoputra, Islayre d’Argolh, Jack Shear, James Hall, James Holloway, James Malizsewski, Jason Sholtis, Jean Verne, John Grümph, Jorge Velasquez, Joseph Manola, Justin Hamilton, ktrey parker, Matt Strom, Nicolas Dessaux, Nobboc, Nyhur, Paolo Greco, Phill Loe, Pierre Vagneur-Jones, Roger SG Sorolla, Ron E. Ortiz, Rosie Grey, Stuart Robertson, Thomas Rey, Vagabundork, Vasili Kaliman, and Zach Howard aka Zenopus. There are some sixty articles and entries in the issue across a range of themes and ideas.
The scenario on the inside of the dust jacket for Knock! #3 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac is ‘Valley of the Desert Hound’, a sandbox by Thomas Rey and Eric Nieudan for First and Second Level Player Characters. It describes a desert valley wherein the Desert Hound was imprisoned in ages past in a Cursed Ziggurat. Now home to bandits and a tribe of semi-feral Halflings, much of the valley is buried under sand and there is a ‘Liberal Archaeology Table’ to roll on any time the Player Characters decided to search the sands. The suggestion is that the adventure could be tied in with the Basic Dungeons & Dragons module, B4 The Lost City. The scenario comes with a table of ‘Rumours and Hooks’ too, so that the Game Master can get her players and their characters easily involved.

What strikes the reader about Knock! #3 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac is its array of tables. There are tables upon tables and whole articles of tables and tables that are whole articles in the issue. For example, David McGrogan asks ‘What Happened to the Bodies?’ and gives a table of options what happens to the bodies of the humanoids and the large monsters after the Player Characters have put them to the slaughter. Its counterpart by Andrea ‘Vyrelion’ Back is ‘I slit open the body’, a table of contents of the stomach or intestines of some great beast. Andrea ‘Vyrelion’ Back adds flavour and fun to the Kobold with ‘d8 Weird Kobold* Weapons’ with entries like ‘Stink-n-Poke’, which inflicts low damage but marks the target with a stench that never really quite goes away or a ‘Burning Blade’, which is a bone blade covered in hot pepper powder! ‘What are my rations?’ by Eric Brimstin gives detail and verisimilitude to something that is otherwise incredibly mundane and always overlooked in Dungeons & Dragons.

Knock! #3 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac does not have a theme, but there are themes to be found. The most obvious one is that of ‘Domain-level’ play, which comes about when the Player Characters reach Ninth and Tenth Level and switch their focus from adventuring to maintaining a realm or institution of some kind. ‘Revisiting the Domain Game’ by Jack Shear gives options for making it interesting by giving a table of unavoidable issues and unruly neighbours, whilst Joseph Manola dives into the subject in more detail with ‘Meet the new BOSS – 7 thoughts on domain-level play’ with advice on how to run such a campaign. This is born of his own campaign in which the players and their characters have switched focus to ignore adventuring. The advice is excellent covering problem solving, keeping it OSR-style, turning threats into resources, and more. Similarly, Christopher S. creates dragons through ‘The Seven Draconic Sins’ to give them personality and motivation, Ava Islam suggests ways of making dragons more interesting in ‘Playing Dragons’, and in ‘Humanising the Monster’, Brent Edwards presents means of combining humanising and monstrous traits to make them fathomable, all three articles forming a draconic strand.
The advice and thoughts on Dungeons & Dragons begin with ‘The Story is the Campaign’ by David McGrogan, which suggests that the play of the roleplaying game and the story that it creates is not about the Player Characters per se—although they star, of course—but about the overall campaign. He draws parallels with soap opera and its ongoing series of stories which end and are replaced by another, as well its characters who also come and go. Of course, in the soap opera, their transience is driven by the writers and the story, but in Dungeons & Dragons, it is typically driven by Player Character death—which is the starting point for the article. James Maliszewski draws similar parallels in his ‘Picaro and the “Story” of D&D’, distinctly dividing Dungeons & Dragons between its original picaresque style of play and the heroic individualism and story focus of the post-Dragonlance era. He contends the original style of play is pulp-ish, if not outright pulp fantasy, the Player Characters are roguish, and the further the roleplaying moves away from this, the more it breaks and deviates from its roots. It a very Old School Renaissance stance, but clearly explained and relatable. The advice includes Diogo Noguiera’s ‘(My) Ten Commandments For Good Refereeing’ and Arnold K.’ s ‘Dynamism and the Generic Optimum’, which dangerously modish from its title, but really suggests ways of making dungeon exploration exciting and challenging by adding dynamism, whether through random events, increased difficulty, adding a unique element, and more. This is in and out of combat. Of course, these are articles whose type we have seen again and again, both before the advent of the Old School Renaissance and after, and the ideas are still interesting and the advice sound.

The volume is full of good articles, but some of the more fun and more inspirational ones include Joseph Manola’s ‘When All You Have Is a Hammer – Item-based problem solving’ which takes the act of a player consulting his character sheet for the means to solve a problem—often with weapons or magic—as a spur to provide interesting treasures that the Player Character might otherwise sell, but when noted on the character sheet could be used to solve a problem and let the player be inventive. For example, “Broad-brimmed fisherman’s hat. Waterproof and wide enough to conceal most of the wearer’s face. Could be used as an improvised boat for carrying small objects across water.” or “A fiery political tract, full of stirring revolutionary rhetoric cataloguing the crimes of the ruling classes and calling upon the people to rise up. Handy if you want to rile up a mob in a hurry.” All have a monetary value, but all have other uses if the players think about it. Warren Denning answers that age-old question, ‘What To Do Now That Your 1st Level Magic-User Has Cast Their One Spell?’ with not exactly new suggestions, but they are spelled out in detail and do give that poor wizard something else to do, whilst Frank Redding’s ‘Compelling Arena Fights’ does a fine job of making arena fights exciting with plenty of variations.

One of the most interesting articles in the issue is ‘Jennell Jaquay’s The Caverns of Thracia – Appreciation, Critique, and DM User Guide’. This is a fascinating guide by Roger SG Sorolla to one of the classic modules to be published by Judges Guild. The other, of course, is Dark Tower, and both are, of course, designed by Jennell Jaquay. This is a detailed breakdown of the adventure, its history, quirks, nature, and the challenges that a Referee will be faced in running one of the larger adventures published by Judges Guild. It is a thorough analysis, its often-scholarly tone at odds with the rest of the issue. It does feel a little compact in places, but this an excellent piece well worth reading by anyone interested in the history of Dungeons & Dragons and the Referee preparing to run the adventure. More articles like this would add a little more thoughtful heft to the magazine.
The last quarter of Knock! #3 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac does settle down and become more focused as it organises its content into regular departments. The ‘Portfolio of Cartographic Curiosities’ contains seven maps, all absolutely beautiful pieces that you could just sit there and look at, appreciating their artistry, whilst at the same time wishing that you had the time to use them to create adventures (or more likely, someone else had the time). One niggle is that two of the maps are in French, having been originally published in a d20 System magazine. One of them has lots of text and it would have been nice if that text had been translated. This is followed by the Menagerie of Monstrosities which provides seven new monsters (in addition to those already given or discussed in  in the volume, such as ‘What Are Those Stirges Doing?’, Ktrey Parker’s table of making Stirges more interesting than just vermin) that start with the Herdling by Nobboc, half-human, half-cattle folk that are amiable and will trade secrets for trinkets and even a portion of their flesh, which provides certain benefits upon consumption. This has just a little (if not more) of the Ameglian Major Cow or ‘Dish of the Day’ from Douglas Adams’ The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. James Holloway, of The Monster Man podcast offers the Homunculites, tiny Halfling-sized magically-created worker, soldier, or based on some artificial humanoids. Almost clone-like, these chibi-style monsters are rather silly in their way and sure to infuriate certain players. James Maliszewski describes two monsters, the Blighter, disease-ridden undead which spread contagion, and the Eidolon, undead spirit of a cleric who died while in the grips of despair, no longer finding solace in True Faith, whilst the Birch Maiden by Danilo Moretti, cousin to Dryads, provides a nice variation upon the latter.
‘Retinue of Rogues’ details six new Classes. Nobboc’s ‘The Lost Droid’, a humanoid robot crashlanded onto a fantasy world, its memory banks wiped clean. As it advances in Level, it activates Techno-modules like Force Field or Echo Radar 3000, each of which has a Usage Die a la The Black Hack. This is an entertaining Class should the Game Master wants to take her campaign into the realms of Science Fiction or Science Fantasy. Vagabundork’s ‘The Rat Catcher’ is an obvious nod to the Career from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, but here given advantages when it coms to dungeoneering, such as being able to find his way round sewers and catacombs, track vermin (including Kobolds and Goblins, as well as Rats), and possessing a certain danger sense. ‘The Blemmye’ by Pierre Vagneur-Jones is a headless humanoid—its head is in its chest—that best works with an attending group of retainers, whilst Eric Nieudan’s ‘The Lazer Mage’ is an Illusionist who can convert spell slots into explosive beams, holograms, laze swords, and light flashes. The accompanying illustration suggests that the Marvel Comics character, Dazzler, is the inspiration. ‘The Space Vampire’ by Jack Shear is intended to be vampy and campy, feels more suited to a Hypertellurians: Fantastic Thrills Through the Ultracosm-style game. Lastly, James Maliszewski’s ‘The Chenot’ is a plant-like humanoid, tiny, who can perform certain abilities such as ‘Climb sheer surfaces’, ‘Find or remove traps’, and so on with its tendrils. Again suited to weirder campaign settings, it could just be another alien species, if the setting is more Science Fiction or Science Fantasy than fantasy.
‘Extraordinary Excursions’ includes three adventures. The first is ‘Imprint’ by Jason Sholtis. This is set in ape-haunted Upper Mastodonia, the location for the brilliant Operation Unfathomable adventure and now its fully detailed setting explored in Completely Unfathomable. Described as an ‘Open Air Dungeon’, It is a miasmic-filled, lethally contaminated deression left behind by a titanic being from another place which left behind sloughed-off corporeal tissue (now decomposing) and alien gold, setting up a race to grab the lot by various factions. It is weird and pulpy, with Sci-Fi elements that provides a taster of the Odious Uplands setting, but really works in conjunction with the campaign setting. James Hall’s ‘Titan Cliffs’ begins with the hands and face of a gigantic statue of a Titan emerging from the ground. Surely something worthy of exploration, especially after cloaked figures have been seen entering the Titan’s mouth. The dungeon, relatively small, is all contained within the Titan, and also being explored by a cult attempting to revive the Titan. There is nice sense of ‘magic as technology’ here, but the villains of the piece are underdeveloped. Lastly, ‘Nexus of the Ixx’ by Nicolas Dessaux is another Science Fantasy scenario, this time inspired by Barbarella. So, it is campy and it is mature in tone, the ‘dungeon’ being dedicated to a goddess of love. Thankfully, the scenario avoids anything prurient, but there are probably a limited number of campaigns or settings into which it will fit.

Physically, Knock! #3 is impressively bright and breezy, just as with the previous two issues. The layout is a little cluttered in places and the text a little too busy, but on the whole, it looks good. It needs an edit in places, but the artwork is good and the cartography excellent.
Knock! #3 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac is another good, but not perfect issue. A very great deal of the issue could easily find its way into the campaign of any Referee, but not the scenarios, either because they have their own setting or because their tone is just not quite right for most campaigns. That aside, there is so much in the pages of the issue which is interesting, entertaining, or just fun. Knock! #3 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac contains a wealth of inventive content, and just as with the first two issues, is another great addition to the shelf of any Old School Renaissance Referee.
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An unboxing of Knock! #3 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac can be viewed here.

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

—oOo—

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

Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1 opens with ‘Old Guns Never Die: A step-by-step conversion guide for bringing weapons from Cyberpunk 2020 into Cyberpunk RED’ by Mike Pondsmith, James Hutt, Cody Pondsmith, and J Gray. One of the issues with Cyberpunk RED is that its technology is often genericised and that includes its guns. This is in comparison to the weapons of Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0., in which all of the weapons are named and branded. In part, this has been offset by the release of the Black Chrome, but that does not include every weapon or piece of gear from the previous versions of the roleplaying game. Which is where this article comes in, providing a step-by-step process that enables a Game Master to take a design from the previous editions of the roleplaying game and bring it up to Cyberpunk RED. The article is nicely supported by an example and enables the Game Master to loot her old sourcebooks for material just as the Player Characters can loot the city and beyond for old technology.
‘Red Chrome Cargo: A Cyberpunk Red Screamsheet’ by Cody Pondsmith is the single adventure in the magazine. Tensions have come to the boil in Night City’s Combat Zone as two gangs, the neo-fascist Red Chrome Legion and the heavily cybered Iron Sights, the Player Characters are connected by a fixer. His clients wants them to rob a train and steal a Red Chrome Legion shipment. In other words, this is a train heist, and it is as simple as that. The Player Characters have to get from one train to the target train, deal with any opposition, and bring the goods back. This is all action and combat, though the mission definitely requires a Netrunner. Although simple, the mission is nicely detailed and the Screamsheet makes a great handout. The mission will also make a decent demonstration scenario and so could be run at a convention, and it is easy to add to a campaign.
Mike Pondsmith, James Hutt, Cody Pondsmith, and J Gray further provide ‘Single Shot Pack: Pregen Characters and NET Architectures’. This presents ten pre-generated Player Characters (or detailed NPCs as required) and six ready-to-use NET Architectures for the group’s Netrunner to hack. There is one Player Character for each of the roleplaying game’s archetypes and the NET Architectures include ones for conapt security, clinic security, a small corporate facility, and even a vault for anyone who likes to lock their valuables away. All of these are designed for use on the go. The NET Architectures are easy to use and the ten pre-generated Player Characters can easily be used as replacement characters, as NPCs, or even in conjunction with the ‘Red Chrome Cargo: A Cyberpunk Red Screamsheet’ for the demonstration game.
‘Cyberchairs: New options for mobility’ by Mike Pondsmith, James Hutt, Cody Pondsmith, and Sara Thompson detail two models of cyberchair. The Mecurius Cyberchair is wheeled, whilst the Spider Cyberchair has legs. Both require operation, but both can plugged into operated cybernetically of course. Their inclusion opens up options in terms of representation of the disabled in the Time of the Red and enables their characters to become actively involved in missions and adventures.
The longest entry in Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1 is actually two entries, dedicated to the same in-game MMORPG played via Braindance. ‘Elflines Online: A Segotari Rush Revolution Exclusive’ by James Hutt and Mike Pondsmith explains what it is, whilst ‘Elflines Online: Expansion Pack’ by James Hutt and Melissa Wong adds further background—online and offline—as pre-generated ready-to-play characters for the MMORPG, to the game within a game. Essentially this pair of articles is about a popular leisure activity in the Time of the Red, that the Player Characters really can play if they want to, almost as if they were roleplaying like the players. It has rules for in-game character creation, but otherwise uses the mechanics of Cyberpunk RED. The articles suggest the game as a platform where the Player Characters met, can encounter other NPCs, or simply as diversion. It is an interesting option that adds a layer of both immersion and complication, and that perhaps means it may not be suitable for every Cyberpunk RED campaign.
Lastly, the all-new article in the magazine is ‘All About Drones: Your Amazing Animatronic Friends!’ Written by Mike Pondsmith, James Hutt, Cody Pondsmith, and J Gray, this adds the element of biomimicry to drone design, such as the giraffe-like Zhirafa GRAF3 construction drone (there is even a junior model, My First GRAF3 for the budding engineer to build) and the Savannah Panther patrol drones. The five drones here have a generally utilitarian to them despite the thematic design, and they are all solid additions which add colour and flavour to the streets of Night City.

Physically, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1 is cleanly, tidily laid out. The map for the screamsheet is somewhat scrappy, but the artwork elsewhere is excellent, and the shorter page count means that that it feels as if there is more of it.

Although much of it was originally available for free, with the publication of Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1 it is nice to have it in print. There is much that is useful and helpful in its pages, but none of it is absolutely necessary to expand either the rules or setting of Cyberpunk RED, and some of it, will be simply labelled as silly by some gaming groups. Overall, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1 is a solid, but essential first issue.

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

—oOo—

Most magazines for the roleplaying hobby give the gamer support for the game of his choice, or at the very least, support for the hobby’s more popular roleplaying games. Whether that is new monsters, spells, treasures, reviews of newly released titles, scenarios, discussions of how to play, painting guides, and the like… That is how it has been all the way back to the earliest days of The Dragon and White Dwarf magazines. Wyrd Science is different—and Wyrd Science – The Horror Issue (Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 3) is different in comparison to both Wyrd Science Session Zero and Wyrd Science – Expert Rules. Gone is the ‘BECMI’ colour coding of the colours and the focus upon fantasy and the Old School Renaissance. Instead, the issue focuses on a much darker genre—horror, and instead of providing new monsters or scenarios, it explores the genre which has threaded its way through roleplaying since 1981 with the publication of Call of Cthulhu with a range of interviews and articles. This is not say that other genres are completely ignored, but the emphasis in this issue is very much on the dark and the forbidding, the scary and the spinetingling, and the unknown and the uncertain.

Wyrd Science – The Horror Issue (Vol. 1/Issue 3) was published by Best in Show in September, 2021 following a successful Kickstarter campaign. There are some ten interviews in the issue, beginning with ‘Publish & Be Damned: The Merry Mushmen’, or rather Eric Nieudan and Olivier Revenu, the French publishers best known for Knock! #1 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac and its subsequent issues. They give a little of their history and how they came to work together and their interest in the Old School Renaissance, including both Knock! and other projects. ‘Cast Pod: the Vintage RPG Podcast’ continues the magazine’s showcasing of a podcast in each issue and this time it is the podcast, The Vintage RPG Podcast run by Stu Horvath and John ‘Hambome’ McGuire. The podcast is dedicated to the history and art of RPGs, but the interviewees explain how they came to hosting a podcast and how they about creating an episode and in the process create a community around themselves.

Two artists are interviewed in Wyrd Science – The Horror Issue. The first is Tazio Bettin in ‘Art of Darkness: Tazio Bettin – Fighting Fantasy’. An Italian artist, he is the illustrator of Secrets of Salmonis, one of the two titles released for the fortieth anniversary of the Fighting Fantasy series and the first to be written by the series’ co-creator, Steve Jackson. There is some fantastic artwork on show here alongside the interview, in which the artist talks about his work and his turning his interest and hobby into a full time occupation. The second is Jonathan Sacha. In ‘Monstrous Arcana: Goblins & Gardens’ we find out how he came to be interested in Tarot decks and adapting the monsters of Dungeons & Dragons in weirdly bucolic, but unsettling Tarot deck by combining them with a gardening book!

Where all of the previous interviews have been conducted by John Power Jr, the editor of the magazine, Will Salmon interviews David Hughes of Plumeria Pictures on the release on Blu-ray of the 1982 television film starring Tom Hanks, Monsters & Mazes. The interview provides some context for the film and is more positive about it than others might be.

The issue’s horror theme swings into action with ‘I Will Show You Fear In A Handful Of Games...’ by Shannon Appelcline, which takes the reader through a history of the horror genre in roleplaying. He does this in a series of one-page mini essays, each one dedicated to a particular ear. Thus we begin in the early days of the hobby and Dungeons & Dragons, in which its horror was best seen in modules such as X1 Isle of Dread and I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City veering towards the Lovecraftian, but quickly steering away following issues with Deities & Demigods and mostly adhering to Pulp horror. The title of the opening essay, ‘Dark Shadows: 1974-1986’ is a nice nod to the soap opera of the period. The article really takes off with the appearance of Call of Cthulhu, the Satanic Panic of the eighties (of which the aforementioned Mazes & Monsters was a partial instigator), and the appearance of Vampire: The Masquerade in 1990, tracing their evolution over the past forty years and coming up to date with the more recent broadening of means, such as the Jenga of Dread, and areas explore, like LGBT adolescence with Monsterhearts and the feminine fairytale in Bluebeard’s Bride. It is an excellent history and with any luck, should future issues of Wyrd Science explore other genres, there will be similar articles.

Roleplaying games and the Gothic collide in Jack Shear’s ‘Wuthering Frights’. Here he looks at his favorite setting, Ravenloft. First seen in the 1983 module, I6 Ravenloft, this would be later developed into a full setting with the Realm of Terror boxed set in 1990. Shear examines the origins of Dungeons & Dragons’ signature villain, Count Strahd von Zarovich, of I6 Ravenloft fame, in Dracula and then each of the other Domains and their villains more recently for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition presented in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. A clearer bibliography might have helped what is otherwise an informative article and useful accompaniment to whichever version of the Ravenloft setting that the Dungeon Master is using.

Just as horror roleplaying games have changed over the decade, so have their portrayal of mental health. After all, the nature of the genre is all about the loss of self and control—physically, emotionally, and mentally. However, as Stuart Martyn points out in ‘Mind Games’, the portrayal of that loss, especially the mental loss, has not always been an accurate one, often leading to the enforcement of stereotypes about mental health and a lack of understanding of those suffering from poor mental health. To be fair, much of this can be explained by a game’s age. Call of Cthulhu is rightfully acknowledged as the first roleplaying game to explore fear and model the loss of control through its Sanity mechanics, but Call of Cthulhu and Vampire: The Masquerade are singled out as leading examples poor portrayals of mental health. However, as the article moves into the twenty-first century and comes up-to-date, it makes clear that modern iterations of these roleplaying games, as well as others, designers have shown more awareness and understanding of the subject and better tried to reflect that in their games. This is a fascinating look at a key mechanic, or least concept, that almost no roleplaying game can really avoid dealing with, and how it has changed over the years.

John Power Jr. takes us temporarily to the ‘Mythic North’ of Scandinavia, before returning to the British Isles in ‘This Septic Isle’ and an interview with Graeme Davis about Mythic Britain & Ireland, his supplement for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying. This highlights the stronger tensions and divisions present in nineteenth century Britain, discusses some of the new Vaesen to be found in the new setting, and interestingly, suggests how the limited geography of the setting can lead to distinct variations upon the Vaesen within only a few miles. Davis also draws the distinction between the horror of Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying and the horror of Call of Cthulhu, primarily in that the later the aim at best is not to lose, whilst in the former, it is possible to resolve situations without necessarily resorting to despair. A different type of horror roleplaying game, Campfire, is discussed in ‘Flames of Fear!’, Samantha Nelson’s interview with its creators, Adam Vass and Will Jobst. Campfire is a storytelling game inspired by the horror anthologies such as Creepshow and Are You Afraid Of The Dark? The game uses decks of cards as prompts to encourage the players to tell horror stories about the protagonists rather than a single character each and also allows the players to step back from the story itself to comment upon the ongoing narrative as they are watching it unfold. This is shared storytelling and designed for shorter sessions than most roleplaying games.

Just as Call of Cthulhu remains the template for horror roleplaying in general, Ridley Scott’s 1979 Alien remains the template for all Science Fiction horror games. John Power Jr.’s ‘Dark Future’ looks the three roleplaying games and how they handle horror and fear in examining this meeting of genres. Most obvious here is Free League Publishing’s Alien: The Roleplaying Game, but Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Player’s Survival Guide is also inspired by the film too. The third roleplaying game is The Wretched, a solo-journalling game about the last survivor aboard a spaceship whose crew was killed by alien monstrosity except for the survivor. One aspect of these settings that the article does not really explore is the class distinction between these and other horror roleplaying games. These are all Blue-Collar sci-Fi horror roleplaying games whereas many horror roleplaying games are not. Again, this is a legacy of the film Alien. Featuring interviews with the designers of three roleplaying games, article however, does nicely balance the unknown, but not cosmic, nature of the sub-genre’s horror against the possibility of survival—and even hope.

Wyrd Science – The Horror Issue also interviews the team at Rowan, Rook, & Deckard. They talk to Luke Frostick in ‘The Importance of Powerful Deaths’ about the origins of Spire: The City Must Fall and the consequences that its protagonists—Drow rebels seen as terrorists by the High Elf state—suffer in acting against the regime. Spire is not necessarily seen as a horror roleplaying game, at least not in the traditional sense, but the article makes it clear that it has strong horror elements. The article explores how the team works together and some of the ideas and concepts which make it into the setting, but without restricting the setting for the Game Master and her creativity. The issue returns to the Old School Renaissance with ‘In The Darkest Recesses of Ourselves’, an interview by Walton Wood with Paolo Greco of Lost Pages about The Book of Gaub. This brings out the horrific nature of the book and its spells and their broader effect upon a campaign. It is a pity that this book comes from Old School Renaissance, because being systems agnostic it can have a wider use in non-fantasy genres and settings too. The interview does not necessarily suggest this, but it highlights the nature of the book and will hopefully bring it to the attention of a wider audience. The interview by John Power Jr. of Guilherme Gontijo, in ‘Silver Scream’ turns to mundane horror, but horror, nonetheless. Blurred Lines – Giallo Detective Solo RPG is the Brazilian designer’s solo journalling game designed by the Italian giallo cinema of the sixties in which the protagonist is a crime scene photographer who hunting, and in turn being hunted, by a serial killer. Like the earlier The Wretched, this explores the notion of playing alone and at night, how that can immerse the player deeper into the game. The interview also notes the difficulty in bringing designs from Latin America to the English-speaking hobby and various attempts to support this.

The last two articles in Wyrd Science – The Horror Issue do not switch subject, but they do switch format under discussion. In ‘Roll & Fright’, Dan Thurot asks whether a sense of horror can be created in playing a board game, pointing to hidden identity or movement games such as Fury of Dracula or Battlestar Galactica, as possible vehicles as they both add a high degree of uncertainty to play. Whilst he acknowledges that most horror board games are merely themed, adding the veneer of the genre, he ultimately concludes that it is possible, if only under its terms. The challenge being that sense of immersion and the loss of control at the heart of the genre makes it all the more difficult to do in a board game. The last interview in the magazine is again by John Power Jr. and with wargames designer, Joseph McCullough. In ‘A Field of Horror’, the designer of the highly regarded Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City talks about his latest design, The Silver Bayonet, which fuses Napoleonic wargaming with horror and narrative storytelling. This looks to be a fascinating setting and with rules for solo play included suggests it can be played on a more casual basis without the need for more confrontational play of traditional wargaming.

Wyrd Science – The Horror Issue is rounded out with ‘Hit Points’, its extensive reviews sections. It includes reviews of wargames such as Warlord Games’ Sláine – Kiss My Axe Starter Set, roleplaying games like the RuneQuest Starter set from Chaosium, Inc. and Orbital Blues from Soulmuppet Publishing, board games such as Tales From The Loop: The Boardgame from Free League Publishing, and a range solo games (all revewed by Anna Blackwell), like Be Like a Crow and Bucket of Bolts, before looking at Christopher Frayling’s Vampire Cinema – The First one Hundred Years and various films and television series, which has a report from the FrightFest 2022. Two of the more interesting reviews here are of The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity by Jon Peterson and Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons by Ben Riggs, pleasingly placed opposite each other in an entirely appropriate pairing. Lastly, the issue catches up with the adventures of Mira Manga in ‘Appendix M’. It adds a personal touch to the magazine and brings it to a close.

Physically, Wyrd Science – The Horror Issue is impressively bright and breezy—despite its subject matter. The layout is clean and tidy, but the issue does need another edit in places though.

Wyrd Science – The Horror Issue covers a wide range of roleplaying games in exploring the issue’s genre. Some of the roleplaying games and supplements, such as Call of Cthulhu, Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, and Mythic Britain & Ireland obviously fall into the horror genre, others less obviously so, for example, The Book of Gaub. There is a lot to read and discover in the pages of the magazine and that is where it is at its best, finding out about a game you never heard of or wanted to know more about. Yet the format of the magazine, or at least this issue, makes it unbalanced and often not as engaging to read as it deserves to be. There are simply too many interviews in the issue compared to other articles, so that the other articles, whether Shannon Appelcline’s ‘I Will Show You Fear In A Handful Of Games...’ and Jack Shear’s ‘Wuthering Frights’ stand out more because they are different rather just because they are both interesting and informative. Consequently, whilst the issue is interesting and informative, providing an engaging look at a particular genre in roleplaying, Wyrd Science – The Horror Issue is better for what it covers rather than the way it covers its content.

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

—oOo—

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

Senet Issue 4 was published in the Spring of 2021 and as is usual, opens with ‘Behold’, a preview of some of the then-forthcoming board game titles. Perhaps the most notable of these are Tales From The Loop: The Board Game and The Thing. Both are based on well-known properties, the former the roleplaying game, Tales from the Loop – Roleplaying in the '80s That Never Was, in which Player Characters are teenagers living an alternate Sweden and the latter, the 1981 film directed by John Carpenter. Both of these games have an emotional heft to them. Tales From The Loop: The Board Game in that the players are teenagers with difficult family lives as well having to deal with the mysteries of the Loop and The Thing with the uncertainty that one of your fellow base members might be a mutating alien infection! Other games previewed include Dreamscape, a solo exploration of H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands and HEL: The Last Saga, a dark fantasy co-operative board game in which the players create their own Viking saga. These are not quite full reviews, but they are given as much prominence as the reviews are later in the issue, and in each they entice the reader to investigate further.

‘Points’ provides a selection of readers’ letters, two of the letters making some interesting points about using board games as part of the teaching process, whilst in ‘For Love of the Game’, Tristian Hall continues his designer’s journey towards Gloom of Kilforth. In the previous issue, he explored how the game became a vehicle for roleplaying and storytelling, but here he he looks at how he uses the mechanics to bring the setting to life and have events going on in the background that can affect the lives of the Player Characters. There are some interesting ideas here that draw parallels with roleplaying worlds and much that will be familiar to Game Masters running their own campaigns. These connections continue to make the series a fascinating path and it will be interesting to follow in in future columns.

As with previous issues of Senet, the fourth issue of the magazine dedicates its centre section to a quartet of lengthy, immensely enjoyable articles. These begin with Owen Duffy’s ‘How The West Was Fun’ examines how the Western and the Wild West figures in board games. Perhaps the most well-known board game in the genre is the Spiel des Jahres-winning Colt Express, but as entertaining as banditry and shootouts is in games like BANG! and Flick ’em Up!, the genre offers more than just that. For example, Western Legends offers multiple means of achieving victory, including herding cattle and mining for gold as well as the banditry and the hunting for the perpetrators of such banditry. Along with recommendations for the best Western-themed board games, the article interviews several designers, most of them surprisingly European rather than American. This highlights how the Euro games that employ this theme are often inspired not so much by Hollywood as the bandes dessinées, such as those of the character, Lucky Luke.

Martin Wallace, best known as the designer of Age of Steam, Brass, and Discworld: Ankh-Morpork, is the subject of the interview by Sara Elsam in ‘Lord of Creation’. The discussion focuses on his exploration of both history and technology—many of his designs involving trains and early industry, if not both—in games, before branching out to look at the fantasy games he has designed and the difficulties involved in making that switch. Written just before the release of Rocketmen and Wildlands: The Ancients, the interview is not quite as interesting as those in previous issues, but still worth reading. The artist interviewed by Dan Jolin in the issue is Dominik Mayer, whose work has been seen in cards for Magic: The Gathering, the cyberpunk game In Too Deep, and ISS Vanguard. His artwork is rich and deep and as with previous artists interviewed in Senet, it is given a fine showcase here.

Previous issues of Senet have explored various mechanics key to board game design and play, such as deck-building in ‘Decks in Effect’ from Senet Issue 2 and ‘Roll-and-Write’ from Senet Issue 3. The mechanic examined in this issue by Matt Thrower is tile placement in ‘On the Tiles’. Tracing a line back to medieval China with Dominoes, the mechanic is much older than those, and in modern terms is still predates those other mechanisms. Having appeared in Acquire and 1829—the later the first railway construction and stocks game which would spawn a large family of its own—before featuring at the heart of classics such as Settlers of Catan, Tikal (Tikal is in fact, this reviewer’s first modern Eurogame), and most famously of all, Carcassonne. In the case of the latter, and for most tile-laying games, there is usually a pleasing sense of organisation and having built something using the mechanic at the end of the play. In addition, there is also often a semi-co-operative aspect to play, the players building something together even if they are still competing for the points in doing so. It is a solid overview of the mechanic, but being an older one does feel as if the limits of what it can have already been reached and that sense comes across in the article.

As ever, the ‘Unboxing’ section of Senet Issue 4 covers only a relative handful of games, but there there is a range to them and they are all interesting titles. Leading the way are reviews of the big titles, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion and Pandemic Legacy 0, providing roleplaying and dungeoneering and legacy-style espionage respectively, whilst Dune Imperium offer strategic play and intrigue and Mysterium Park, confrontation-free deduction. None of the reviews are necessarily long, but they are to the point and they cover a decent range of titles in smart fashion. Three of games reviewed also appear in the self-explanatory ‘The Best of 2020’, so their reviews are a pleasing accompaniment and like any good list, this one is worth checking out because it does contain some classics even two years on.

Rounding out Senet Issue 4 is ‘How to Play’ and ‘Shelf of Shame’. In ‘How to Play’, Andy Bush of the podcast, Bush’s Board Game Thing, discusses ‘The tricky art of explaining rules’ and how to get around the problem of someone having to explain how a game is played for the first time. It is a challenging problem still today, in general not for the dedicated board game enthusiastic, but certainly for the more casual player, but there is good advice given here that is still useful. In ‘Shelf of Shame’, Ella Ampongan of Ella Loves Boardgames, in which takes her copy of Bärenpark off the shelf and plays it for the first time. Her verdict that it is better than Carcassonne, which is high praise indeed.

Physically, Senet Issue 4 is very professionally presented. Previous issues of the magazine have all looked sharp and attractive, and this issue is no exception, ensuring that the games it covers live up to the magazine's motto of “Board games are beautiful”.

Senet Issue 4 maintains the high standards set by the previous issues, another fine looking magazine with a good mix of reviews, interviews, and articles. In places the articles do feel shorter, with less depth to them, and so not quite as involving. Nevertheless, the quality of the magazine and its writing is excellent, maintaining its place as vehicle to show off and explore some of the best ideas, contributors, and games in the hobby.

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

—oOo—

The fourth issue of Parallel Worlds magazine was published in the winter of 2020. As with previous issues, beginging with the the inaugural issue, Parallel Worlds Issue #01 published in 2019, it contains no gaming content as such, but rather discusses and aspects of not just the hobby, but different hobbies—board games, roleplaying games, computer games, films, and more. Unlike like later issues, for example, Parallel Worlds Issue #21 and Parallel Worlds Issue #22, this fourth issue is a fairly unbalanced issue, with relatively little, direct gaming content in favour of focusing on computer games and films. Further, the standard of writing is better, which when combined with its selection of interesting articles and brevity serves to make it overall an engaging, even sometimes thoughtful read. Of course, Parallel Worlds Issue #03 is readily available in print, but all of the issues of Parallel Worlds, published by Parallel Publishing can also be purchased in digital format, because it is very much not back in the day of classic White Dwarf, but here and now.
Parallel Worlds Issue #04 opens with its editorial from Tom Grundy, briefly mentioning the importance of escaping into the fantasy of a new book, film, or video during the winter, before giving an overview of the issue’s contents. It is followed by the first of several articles in the issue dedicated to computer games. This is the issue’s ‘Interview’ with Julian Gollop, designer and programmer of the classic, turn-based strategy games, Laser Squad and UFO: Enemy Unknown. Timed with the then release of Phoenix Point, this is a relatively short piece which looks back at the creation process of UFO: Enemy Unknown in particular and how that has developed with the then new game. It would have been useful perhaps if there had been some more information on the designer’s earlier titles, perhaps to give context for younger readers, but otherwise an enjoyable read. Aliens are the subject of the second article dedicated to computer games. In Louis Colvert’s Thinkpiece, ‘Why Aren’t Aliens In Video Games More… Alien?’, the author explores the role and expectations of the alien in our most modern form of fiction—the video game. Drawing from a number of different titles, Halo and Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee in particular, he notes how the design of the aliens have been used to reinforce and subvert the expectations of the players. In Halo, the size and speed of the aliens often reflects what expect of the animal world—larger aliens are slower, hit harder, and take more damage, whereas with the smaller ones, the reverse is true. Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee has alien creatures which are human-like in all but appearance, meaning that in telling a story around slavery it can draw parallels with our own history. Ultimately, the near familiarity of how these aliens act is how we are best able to interact with them in game.
Under ‘Video Games’, Parallel Worlds Issue #04 continues its computer game strand with Ben Potts’ ‘Anthem: The game that nearly was’ examines the perceived failure and difficulties of Bioware’s Anthem, drawing parallels in terms of development with Destiny and Destiny 2 and highlighting the anticipation for the game following its 2017 demo versus the disappointment upon its release. That was in 2019 of course, and Anthem can be seen as a failure now, since development on the game ceased in 2021. Nevertheless, the article is another interesting read, and contrasts nicely with the piece that follows by Thomas Turnbull-Ross. ‘Lambda Cubed: The continuing mystery of Half-Life 3’ sets up and then explores the anticipation, even then a decade old, for the eagerly awaited, but yet to appear, third part in the Half-Life series from Valve. Even several years on from the article, fans will have to be satisfied with a sequel of sorts, Half-Life: Alyx, though that, of course, is unlikely. Consequently, this article has not really dated!
The ‘TV & Film’ articles in the issue open with ‘Star Wars Rebels: A Love letter To The Fans’ which examines the animated series and how it fits into Star Wars canon. Exploring the links to what is now known as ‘Legends’, but which was previously known as ‘The Expanded Universe’, the article highlights how much fan service it delivered, how it delved into and developed the lore, and some of the stories it told. It is clear that its author, Louis Colvert, is a fan, and he very much sells the series. Fans of Star Wars Rebels will enjoy the article, whilst anyone else should be intrigued enough to want go and watch it. Next, Jane Clewett provides thumbnail reviews of various genre films, such as Us, Midsommar, and It Chapter Two in ‘2019 in horror cinema’, which are decent enough. More interesting is ‘Let’s Talk About... Ad Astra’, which is a follow on from Parallel Worlds Issue #03 and its ‘Let’s Talk About... The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance’. This is a discussion piece, a two-hander between Tom Grundy and Jane Clewett about their reaction to the film and their thoughts about it. This article is shorter, but it highlights the odd nature of the film and disparity of its story elements.
The issue includes three entries under the ‘Tabletop Games’ label. First, ‘We Found a Body’ launches the first in a series of ‘The Generic Adventure Module’ which explore particular plot types which can be added to a game. In this case, Allen Stroud adds a corpse and accompanying mystery. Graphically, it suggests that this is for a modern game, but the article is broad enough to suggest otherwise, in turn examining ways in which the body can be introduced, forensics applied, suspected questioned, and the death investigated. This is all from a point of setting up a good story and whilst it could have been more detailed, the advice is sound and the article lays the groundwork for future articles to come. It is followed by Christopher Jarvis’ review of Zombie Kidz, which is given high praise. The trio is rounded out the ‘Mini of the Month’, this time by Allen Stroud. The regular article, this time devoted to ‘Grak, warlord of the Clan’, an orc miniature that he purchased at Gen Con UK, benefits greatly from being a page in length, but is very much a nostalgia piece, since the convention and the miniature date from 1995.
Ant Jones and Tom Grundy follow up Allen Stroud’s ‘Diamonds in the Rough: Read Adventurous!’ on self-published novels in Parallel Worlds Issue #03 with ‘Self-Pub Review’, a trio of reviews of three self-published books. These are all good and sound interesting reads from the reviews. With half of the article devoted to its award winners, Allen Stroud’s ‘Fantasy Con Glasgow’ is never given sufficient space to make the event come alive or sound interesting as other entries in the ‘Events’ department in previous issues managed to do. Rounding out the issue are two pieces of short, ‘Original Fiction’. They consist of ‘Lazaraki Chronicles’, a horror piece by Connor Edles, and a Science Fiction piece, ‘Red 14’ by Ben Potts. These are decent enough.
Physically, Parallel Worlds #04 is printed in full colour, on very sturdy paper, which gives it a high-quality feel. Unlike in previous issues, it not does suffer from a lot of empty space and the articles are compact rather than stretched out. Consequently, the issue does not feel as empty as was the case with the first three issues.
Parallel Worlds Issue #04 is the best issue yet. It has more content, the less interesting articles take up decidedly less space, and there are more interesting articles to read. ‘We Found a Body’ is good, as is, again ‘Let’s Talk About... Ad Astra’, and also ‘Star Wars Rebels: A Love letter To The Fans’. Yet as much as there is more interesting content in the pages of the issue to read, it is unbalanced. The tabletop gaming content does not come off as a poor second or third so much as a poor fourth or fifth. Three articles, one of which is a review (and compare that to the fact that three books are reviewed to one game) and another a nostalgia piece about a twenty-five year old miniature, compared to four computer game articles and three film and television articles, all lengthier articles, do not feel enough for magazine which was at the time being pitched to sell in game shops. ‘We Found a Body’ is a good start, but Parallel Worlds needs more gaming content to balance everything else out. In the meantime, Parallel Worlds #04 is still a decent read.

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 noneeless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

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

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Name: Victor Frankenstein-ReanimatorPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Al Smith

Setting: Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England
Product: Pamphlet ScenarioWhat You Get: Two-page, 1.92 MB Full Colour PDF (Plus more)
Elevator Pitch: H.P. Lovecraft writes Mary Shelly/Mary Shelly writes H.P. LovecraftPlot Hook: Victor Frankenstein’s greatest experiment!Plot Support: Staging advice and FAQ, four pre-generated Investigators, two handouts, one NPC, one floor plan, one Mythos tome, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Minimalist pseudo-scientific one-shot# Low preparation scenario# Plenty of elements left up to the Keeper to decide# Another find the solution to the unstoppable monster scenario (but themed)# Chemophobia# Necrophobia# Diokophobia
Cons# Minimalist pseudo-scientific one-shot# No stats for Victor Frankenstein or Igor (Fritz)# Plenty of elements left up to the Keeper to decide# A grand manor with one floor?# Another find the solution to the unstoppable monster scenario (but themed)
Conclusion# Lovecraftian creature-feature in minimalist style# Easy to set-up and run Mythos-Monster mash that goes all points Herbert West