The year is 10,181. The Imperium has stood for 10,000 years under the rule of House Corrino, currently headed by Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV. Balanced against him are the Landsraad, the alliance of Houses Great and Minor, whose feudal seats are granted by the Imperial house, and a combination of the Spacing Guild and CHOAM. CHOAM—or Combine Honnette Ober Advancer Mercantiles—controls all trade and contracts across the Imperium, including that of Spice. The spice melange is harvested on only one world—the desert planet of Arrakis—and bestows longevity, enhanced awareness, and prescience. Although highly addictive, it has one other property. It enables the mutated Guild Navigators to safely navigate interstellar space and thus the Spacing Guild to maintain its monopoly on all space travel between systems, for the Imperium bans the construction of thinking machines and has done so for millennia, ever since the Butlerian Jihad. Yet beneath this façade of stability, the Houses Great and Minor jockey and feud for power, such as the centuries old rivalry between House Atreides and House Harkonnen, the Great Convention preventing such feuds from breaking out into open warfare, but allowing economic wars and wars of assassins. Emperor Shaddam IV sits over it all, ready to unleash his dreaded Imperial Sardaukar, shock troops raised and trained in the harshest of environments, should the conventions be broken, a House gain too much power, or too strong a voice in the Landsraad. Four Great Schools provide services to the Emperor and all of the Houses. The Sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit provide wives, counsellors, and concubines; the Order of Mentats, strategists, spymasters, consellors, and advisors capable of computer like calculations; the Suk School incorruptible and unbreakable physicians; and the Swordmasters of Ginaz, commanders, generals, security officers, and bodyguards, trained in the use of swords and other weapons capable of piercing the personal energy shields worn as protection.

This is the setting for Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: The Roleplaying Game, published by Modiphius Entertainment and based on both the recent film and the fictional universe and novels originally created by Frank Herbert. Using the publisher’s house rules of the 2d20 System, it enables players to take the reins of a House in the Landsraad, and as its heirs and advisors, direct it fortunes in the quietly turbulent politics of the Imperium. Perhaps they will negotiate new contracts, gain the right to harvest spice from Arrakis, form an alliance with another house, or feud with a rival house. All of these are possible in a rules system which allows the players to play at two levels—‘Architect’ when they will direct the fortunes of their house and ‘Agent’, the personal level of the Player Character. Of course, Dune – Adventures in the Imperium is not the first roleplaying game to be set within Frank Herbert’s creation, Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium having been designed by Last Unicorn Games and published by Wizards of the Coast in 2000, but it does have the advantage of already being better supported. Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune provided a campaign starter that offered a different beginning than might be expected in the setting, and it should be noted that by being set over a century before the start of the first novel, Dune, there is a greater flexibility in what is possible in Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: The Roleplaying Game.

Dune – Adventures in the Imperium begins with an introduction to the setting of the Known Universe that takes up a quarter of the book. Its primary focus is on the situation in the year 10,181, but also explains how that came about using the history and background drawn from the expanded series of novels by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Potentially, this history offers scope to play in different time periods, although that is not the focus of core rulebook, and in addition, the history does not push beyond the year 10,181 and the events portrayed in either Dune or its film adaptations. As well as a timeline, the background covers the major factions and balance of powers, the schools, and more. There is a degree of repetition here as the book looks at each in more depth, but this a very solid overview which will be appreciated by fans of both the novels and the films, as well as helping to cement the setting for anyone coming to Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: The Roleplaying Game after watching just the films.

Playing and running Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: The Roleplaying Gamereally begins with the creation of a House, the noble family with feudal holdings around which much of the roleplaying game’s play will be directed. The choice of Nascent House, House Minor, House Major, or Great House will determine much of the framework. It will determine how many Domains, areas of interest the House will have, how many enemies, and mechanically, how much Threat (used to create problems and difficulties for the House and the Player Characters) the Game Master will have at the start of each session Apart from the enemies, who can be created on the given table, all of this is down to player choice.

House Hauteville is a renowned for its skilled military and its tacticians based on the world of Menerth III. It is also known for its diary products made on the vast upland pastures it owns, and had to protect in the past, hence its development of its military prowess. This includes its former vassal, House Indermauer, whose founders originally trained with House Hauteville, and has continued offer rival services to this day.

House Hauteville
House Minor
Primary Domain: Military
Secondary Domain: Farming
Banner: A red cow on a green background
House Trait: Stalwart (Military)
Enemy: House Indermauer (Rival)

When it comes to Player Character creation, a player decides the role that his character will take in the house. This can include the heirs, councillors and advisors, swordmasters, warmasters, and more. A player will have a main character and possibly supporting characters too. A Player Character in Dune – Adventures in the Imperium is defined by Skills, Focuses, Drives, Traits, Complications, and Assets. The five Skills are Battle, Communicate, Discipline, Move, and Understand, whilst the five Drives are Duty, Faith, Justice, Power, and Truth—both of which are rated between four and eight. Focuses represent skill specialisations, such as Deductive Reasoning for Understand or Dirty Fighting for Battle. Traits can be Talents, which make a test possible or make it harder or easier depending upon its nature. So the Bene Gesserit Talent of Hyperawareness grants a Bene Gesserit Sister the ability to ask two questions rather than one when spending Momentum to Obtain Information, whereas the Bold Talent can be selected by anyone and when used with the Battle skill, the player can additional twenty-sided dice by generating Threat for the Game Master to use, the player can reroll one of the dice in the pool. Assets include equipment, contacts, and so on, for example, a personal shield or someone in a criminal gang on Arrakis.

Although character creation can be done in play, and that process is fully detailed too, the standard process involves selecting an Archetype, which sets the base skills, assigns four focuses to the skills, three Talents, assigns the values and statements to his character’s Drives, chooses three assets which the Player Character will always have access to, and then finally, a Trait, Ambition, and any personal details. Faction templates are also available if a player wants his character to be a Bene Gesserit Sister, Fremen, Mentat, Spacing Guild Agent, or a Suk Doctor, but these are optional and a player is free to pick and choose as he likes.

The sample character is a Mentat, sponsored by the Spacing Guild to work with House Hauteville in ensuring that the house’s goods and services find markets.

Name: Benedikt Winter
Faction Template: Spacing Guild Agent
Archetype: Analyst
Ambition: To ensure the economic prosperity of my house

Skills
Battle 4 Communicate 5 (Bartering) Discipline 8 (Composure) Move 4 Understand 7 (Attention to Detail, CHOAM Bureaucracy)

Drives
Duty 8 (I serve at the pleasure the House) Faith 4 Justice 5 Power 6 (Power must be used wisely and cleverly) Truth 7 (You will know me by my deeds)

Traits: Analyst, Guild Agent
Talents: Calculated Prediction, Guildsman, Intense Study
Assets: Sapho Juice, Ixian Dampner

Dune – Adventures in the Imperium employs the 2d20 System first used in the publisher’s Mutant Chronicles: Techno Fantasy Roleplaying Game and Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, and since developed into the publisher’s house system. To undertake an action, a character’s player rolls two twenty-sided dice, aiming to have both roll under the total of a Skill and a Drive. Each roll under this total counts as a Success, an average task requiring two successes. Rolls of one count as two Successes and if a character has an appropriate Focus, rolls under the value of the Skill also count as two Successes.

In the main, because a typical difficulty will only be a Target Number of one, players will find themselves rolling excess Successes which becomes Momentum. This is a resource shared between all of the players which can be spent to create an Opportunity and so add more dice to a roll—typically needed because more than two successes are required to succeed, to create an advantage in a situation or remove a complication, create a problem for the opposition, and to obtain information. It is a finite ever-decreasing resource, so the players need to roll well and keep generating it, especially if they want to save for the big scene or climatic battle in an adventure.

Now where the players generate Momentum to spend on their characters, the Game Master has Threat which can be spent on similar things for the NPCs as well as to trigger their special abilities. She begins each session with a pool of Threat—equal to the number of players if their characters’ House is a Minor one, but can gain more through various circumstances. These include a player purchasing extra dice to roll on a test, a player rolling a natural twenty and so adding two Threat (instead of the usual Complication), the situation itself being threatening, or NPCs rolling well and generating Momentum and so adding that to Threat pool. In return, the Game Master can spend it on minor inconveniences, complications, and serious complications to inflict upon the player characters, as well as triggering NPC special abilities, having NPCs seize the initiative, and bringing the environment dramatically into play.

Combat uses the same mechanics, but offers more options in terms of what Momentum can be spent on. This includes creating a Trait or an Asset, or taking advantage of one in the situation, either of which can then be brought into the combat, and keeping the initiative—initiative works by alternating between the player characters and the NPCs and keeping it allows two player characters to act before an NPC does. It takes in various forms, scaling up from duelling and skirmishes to espionage and warfare, taking in intrigue along the way. These are supported by descriptions of the various assets which the Player Characters can bring into any one of these conflict types. Where Dune – Adventures in the Imperium differs from other 2d20 System roleplaying games is the lack of Challenge dice, and instead of inflicting damage directly via the loss of Hit Points, combatants are trying to defeat each through the removal of Assets and attempting to create—cumulatively—Successes equal to or greater than the Quality of the task or the opponent. Minor NPCs or situations are easily overcome, but difficult situations and major NPCs will be more challenging to defeat and will require extended tests.

In addition, a Player Character has access to Determination, typically a point at the start of an adventure. Determination is used in conjunction with a Player Character’s Drives and their associated statements, and when spent, a point of Determination can be used to set a die automatically to one, to reroll dice, create a new trait, or take an extra action. However, if the action is at odds with the statement attached to a Drive, then the Game Master can force the Player Character to comply or challenge the Drive and its statement. Compliance means that the Player Character suffers a Complication, unable to overcome the Drive, but Challenge means the Player Character can act freely, but leads to the loss and use of the statement, at least temporarily. It can be recovered, but with some difficulty. Either way, the Player Character gains a point of Determination.

What Determination highlights here is the degree of nuance in the combination of Skills and Drives for each Player Character, a Skill often being used over and over again, but the how and the way being determined by the Drive. A Player Character will have a greater chance of success if his highest Skill is combined with his highest Drive, representing the best that the character can do and for what he believes to be the best of reasons. However, even shifting away to another Drive, because it is more appropriate, for example, Duty versus Faith, may well mean that the Player Character is still as skilled, but not as personally motivated.

Overall, the iteration of the 2d20 System in the Dune – Adventures in the Imperium lies at the simpler and easier end of its implementation. It is not as simple as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars: Adventures on the Dying World of Barsoom, but is roughly on a par with Star Trek Adventures.

For the Game Master, there is advice on setting up and running a game, the type of campaigns possible, managing the types of conflict in the game, as well as on running a gaming with safety and comfort in mind. It pays particular attention to bringing key aspects of Dune as a setting—faith, prophecy, prescience, and hyper-perception, all versus the freedom they can be often seen to impinge. It is solid advice throughout, and there is further support of stats for the major figures in Dune—Duke Leto Atreides, Lady Jessica, Paul Atreides, and more. They take in the Atreides household, plus notables of House Harkonnen and House Corrino, amongst the Fremen on Arrakis. Alongside the notables, there are sample NPCs and Houses that the Game Master can more easily be brought into her campaign, and advice on creating them too. Many of the NPCs come with story hooks too. Rounding out Dune – Adventures in the Imperium is the adventure, ‘Harvester of Dune’, in which the Player Characters are assigned to check on their House’s fiefdom on Arrakis. What they discover is trouble, deceit, and betrayal. It is a solid enough affair, and could be easily become the starting point for a campaign.

Physically, Dune – Adventures in the Imperium is cleanly and tidily laid out. The book is well written and easy to read. The artwork throughout is excellent as well.

Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: The Roleplaying Game is very much pitched at the fans of Herbert’s novels, but provides enough background and explanations that the more casual player, intrigued after the seeing the more recent film, could better understand the setting to play in it. And this is all done whilst focusing on one period within Dune’s millennia long future history and avoiding the more immediate future history of Frank Herbert’s novels. From there, it builds the means to create campaigns played at dual scales—the personal and the epic, and involve intrigue, espionage, warfare, and more, whether that is down some dirty alley or at a grand ball, at a reception for an Imperial envoy or across the sweeping deserts of Arrakis. Overall, Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: The Roleplaying Game takes an incredibly rich and detailed setting and makes it impressively accessible and playable.

“All right my Orcy Borgy boys and girls, dis great trash rocket, da Derelict, just smashed in a new ship. We gonna break it and smack it open, and hack the snot of any hoomies and gobbos and pointy ears, and make it good like any Orc home, like our dear old Derelict. Da goods have rumbled and yelled today and they say no DOOM today, but DOOM tomorrow. And we wantz that DOOM! We when have DOOM, we crash the Derelict into Heaven and scream every dead-hard big-toothed bastard in a glorious tide of violence. And when dat happens, ya wanna be at the front to be the first to kick Heaven right proper in its bollox. So ya gonna fight and yell and steal and kill to be at the front, but no DOOM today, but DOOM tomorrow!”

This is the set-up for ORC BORG, a fanzine-style roleplaying game of brutal action and violence, published by Rowan, Rook & Decard, following a successful Kickstarter campaign. It is modelled upon Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance retroclone designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing, the result being a doom-laden, death metal driven, dark fantasy roleplaying game set in a grim-dark world of despair. ORC BORG also shares with Mörk Borg its same neon and yellow colour palette, but not its despair. Instead, ORC BORG is a more action-orientated roleplaying game, even a more optimistic one, though still not a positive one. Rather, its optimism is driven by Orcish anger and energy—every Orc absolutely positive that DOOM is going to happen and until it does, and afterwards too, hand out plenty of punches, headbutts, and stabbings! This includes the dread Orcborgs, machine-Orc, Orc-machines turned into even brutaler killin’ machines with scrap and junk, and even the Big Robots, clankin’, smoking’, metal-screechin’ machines of war piloted Orcs who wire themselves in.

An Orc in ORC BORG has four abilities—Presence, Strength, Agility, and Toughness. For a standard Orc, a player rolls four six-sided dice and discards the lowest result, the total used to determine the ability values, which range from -3 to +3. (If a player is rolling up an actual Orc Borg or Big Robot, the two Classes in ORC BORG, only three six-sided dice are rolled.) Then the player rolls for his Orc’s Origins, Physical Features, plus gear that includes Stuff, Armour, and Weapons. This can include powers such as Technowizard Runes or Prayers, the latter to the Orc Gods. For example, the ‘Metronomicon’ Technorune summons a monorail car to the Orc’s location, whilst the ‘Rip and Tear’ Prayer allows an Orc to ignore armour in attacks. Technowizardry comes installed on single-function computers, data slugs, or ancient punch cards, whilst prayers are inscribed on steel plates, printed on clothing, or tattooed on flesh. This can be determined randomly, or chosen at the cost of some armour and weapon selection. If an Orc does not have either, he can easily beat up an Orc who already has, or simply steal them from his corpse! In comparison, the standard Orc is more straightforward than the Orc Borg or the Big Robot.

Bumhug Gorzharz
Presence +0
Strength +3
Agility +2
Toughness +1
Hit Points: 9

Tek: 10

Origins: Hunted by wild humans in Spacer territories until he was strong enough to defend himself.
Physical Feature: Huge Fuckin’ Teeth
Stuff: Yelling Helm, Alien Dogbeast, 25 m reinforced extension cable
Armour: Junk and Scrap (-d2 damage taken)
Weapon: Club (d4)
Technowizardy: Rite of the Blue Key

Mechanically, ORC BORG is simple. When he wants his Orc to act, his player rolls a twenty-sided die, adds the appropriate ability, and succeeds if the result is equal to or greater than the Difficulty Rating, which range from ten for Simple Enough to eighteen for Barely Possible. Technowizardy and Prayers have a limited number of uses per day—determined randomly, and can go wrong if the test is a failure. Combat is more complex, allowing natural criticals and fumbles, as well as Dodgin’, morale, and more. An Orc reduced to zero Hit Points is not dead—this occurs at -6 Hit Points—but ‘Mangled’. This in general, has a negative effect upon the Orc, but bionic prosthetics can be purchased to offset them. A head Mangle though, can result in a quirk, like mistrusting anything in writing or the Orc alone becoming the voice of DOOM!

For the Game Master, there is a map of the Derelict, marked with all of the ships that have crashed into it over the years. There are stats too for Angels of the Dark Gods as well as threats such a Spacers (Hoomies) and Rival Orcs, and it is fairly easy to create more threats. One set of tables determines whether or not the Derelict is one step closer to DOOM that day and what that day’s prophecies might be, whilst another suggests ways of mapping the Derelict to create easy adventures and jobs for the Orcs to carry out. They are all quick and dirty, and will run out fairly quickly if ORC BORG is overplayed. That said, it should not be too difficult to create more.

Physically, ORC BORG is a neon assault on the senses and scrappy stab in the eyes. It is big, it is bold, and it intentionally based together. Thankfully, ORC BORG is simple enough. With this layout and this colour scheme, anything more complex would be a pain in the proverbial and rightly require you to go all Orcy on the publisher.

ORC BORG is a cathartic scream of a roleplaying game. It demands a single session of brutal violence and Hoomie stompin’ and no more, before the Game Master and her players switch back something more involved and more restful. Then come stompin’ back to more yellin’ and stabbin’ action when a break is needed again!

Since 2007, the 2004 Spiel des Jahres award-winning board game Ticket to Ride from Days of Wonder, has been supported with new maps, beginning with Ticket to Ride: Switzerland. That new map would be collected in the Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 2 – India & Switzerland, the second entry in the Map Collection series begun in Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 1 – Team Asia & Legendary Asia. Both of these have proved to be worthy additions to the Ticket to Ride line, whereas Ticket to Ride Map Collection vol. 3: The Heart of Africa and Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 4 – Nederland have proved to add more challenging game play, but at a cost in terms of engaging game play. Further given that they included just the one map in the third and fourth volumes rather than the two in each of the first two, neither felt as if they provided as much value either. Fortunately, Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 5: United Kingdom + Pennsylvania came with two maps and explored elements more commonly found in traditional train games—stocks and shares in railroad companies and the advance of railway technology. This was followed by Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6: France + Old West, which provided two maps exploring a common theme—telegraphing each player’s intended placement of their trains, then by Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland, which focused on borders and connecting them.

The next entry in the Ticket to Ride Map Collection is Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 7: Japan + Italy. This introduces another pair of maps, two sets of different mechanics, two different ways to score points, and of course, two gorgeous maps. Both can be distinguished by their long sweeping routes and consequently they are played out on what is a very large board for Ticket to Ride. On the Japan map, the players will take advantage of the bullet train network, which everyone can use once built to connect their routes, whilst also building into, out of, and across subnetworks of routes that represent the city of Tokyo’s subway system and the island of Kyushu. On the Italy map, the players will not only connect cities up and down the peninsula, but also regions, whilst also making use of the new Ferry cards to travel by sea to Sicily and Sardinia, and up and down the coast. Like other entries in the Ticket to Ride Map Collection series, it only requires a set of Train cards, train pieces, and scoring markers from a base Ticket to Ride set to play.
The first of the new maps in Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 7: Japan + Italy is Japan. Its board is beautifully illustrated and introduces a new type of route—the ‘Bullet Train’. These represent Japan’s high-speed train network which run the length of the country. They are grey routes, but unlike on other maps for Ticket to Ride, when they are claimed using standard Train cards, they do not use a player’s train pieces. Instead, they use the Bullet Train pieces, of which there are sixteen. When a player builds the ‘Bullet Train’ route, he places a single Bullet Train piece on the route, and once the route is built, not only can that player use the route, but so can everyone else! This introduces an element of forced co-operation into Ticket to Ride, each player knowing that he will have to build ‘Bullet Train’ routes to connect his destinations and complete Destination Tickets at the same time as knowing he will probably share them.
A player is subtly encouraged to build ‘Bullet Train’ routes throughout the game. First, the more ‘Bullet Train’ routes a player builds, the more points he will score at the end of the game as a bonus. Second, he will receive a hefty penalty to his score at the end of the game if he does not build any ‘Bullet Train’ routes at all. Third, each player begins play with only twenty train pieces, which limits the number of coloured, non-‘Bullet Train’ routes he can claim. In effect, the ‘Bullet Train’ routes create a core network of routes that run the length of Japan, off of which the players will build.
The other feature of the Japan map is a pair of zoomed in submaps, one for Kyushu Island and one for Tokyo subway. These have Destination Tickets for destinations within their submaps, but there are also Destination Tickets which connect a destination on the submaps to a destination elsewhere in Japan. To complete one of these Destination Tickets, a player will have to build or use the various routes and ‘Bullet Train’ routes from the destination in Japan to the city of Tokyo or Kyushu Island on the main map and then into the submap itself.
The network of routes on the Japan map feels highly organised and ordered, and that is reflected in another, not so obvious feature, of this expansion. This is extra Destination Ticket-drawing, the aim being to draw Destination Tickets that a player has already completed as part of play, or nearly completed, as part of play. The shared network feature of the ‘Bullet Train’ routes encourages this, but the result is fairly underplayed in comparison to the Switzerland map of Ticket to Ride: Switzerland.
The Japan map for Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 7: Japan + Italy is engaging and fun. The Bullet Trains are a great feature that both encourage a different play style and enforce the Japanese feel of the map as well as pushing the players to work together—just a little bit.  
The Italy map takes in all of the Italian peninsula, as well as the islands of Sardinia and Sicily. It also connects to the neighbouring countries of Monaco, France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia. The various cities across Italy are divided up amongst its various regions and a player will score more points for connecting more regions. The busy feel of the Italian north with this its many, compact two-train routes gives way to long sweeping routes that lead south, which are often paralleled by the long ferry routes which run from the mainland to the islands of Sardinia and Sicily, and across the Adriatic to Slovenia and Croatia. Several of these Ferry Routes are as many as seven spaces long, which even given the fact that each player begins with forty-five train pieces, means that a player will quickly be using up his train pieces.
The Ferry Routes on the Italy map do not work like the traditional Ferry Routes of Ticket to Ride. Since Ticket to Ride: Europe, a Ferry Route has required a single Locomotive or wild card as well as the indicated Train cards of the same colour to complete. On the Italy map, Ferry Routes make use of Ferry Cards. Both the Ferry Routes and the Ferry Cards are marked with ‘Wave Symbols’. The Ferry Cards have two Wave Symbols on them and instead of drawing Train Cards as normal or Destination Tickets, a player can instead draw a single Ferry Card, up to a maximum of two. The Ferry Routes have one, two, three, or four Wave Symbols on them. To claim a Ferry Route, a player must play Ferry Cards with same number of Wave Symbols on them combined, plus a number of Train cards of the same colour equal to the other spaces on the route. A Locomotive card can substitute instead of a single Wave Symbol. For example, if the player wants to claim the four-space Ferry Route between Roma and Olbia, he needs to play two cards of one colour and one Ferry Card as this will have the same number of Wave Symbols as marked on the Ferry Route. The maximum number of Ferry Cards a player can have is two. Where taking Train cards of a particular colour can indicate the routes that a player might be wanting to claim, here taking a Ferry Card definitely signals the intent to claim a Ferry Route. 
Although they feature in the Italy map, the Destination Tickets which connect to Italy neighbouring countries do not play as big a role as they do for Ticket to Ride: Switzerland or Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 6½: Poland. Where they differ is that some connect from one of Italy’s regions to a country rather than from a city. The regions also figure in the scoring at the end of the game as players score more for connecting more regions together with their train networks.
The Italy map in Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 7: Japan + Italy is playable, entertaining, and challenging in its own right, but it is not feel as exciting as the Japan map. It is stately and much closer to the original Ticket to Ride than the Japan map, which has an energy and excitement of building new routes and in the main competing, but also working together just a tiny little bit in the construction of the ‘Bullet Train’ routes.

Physically, Ticket to Ride Map Collection is Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 7: Japan + Italy is as well produced as you would expect for a Ticket to Ride expansion. Everything is high quality and the rules are easy to understand. If there is an issue, it is that the otherwise beautiful maps, are big, and consequently, unwieldy to unfold for play and fold up to put away.

What Ticket to Ride Map Collection is Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 7: Japan + Italy shows is that you can mix and match the old with the new in Ticket to Ride. The Japan map is modern, sweeping, with a sense of speed and energy, offering a different style of play. The Italy map provides a variation upon the standard game, but still feels very traditional. Together, Ticket to Ride Map Collection is Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 7: Japan + Italy offers something old and new, and is a solid addition to the Ticket to Ride family.

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’, which sadly, is a very North American event. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2021’, which took place on Saturday, July 26th, 2021, the publisher released two books. One was Dungeon Crawl Classics Day #2: Beneath the Well of Brass, a classic Character Funnel, one of the features of both the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game—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. The other was an anthology, the DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack, which contains three adventures. One for Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, one for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, and one a preview for the forthcoming Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth.
The DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack opens with ‘Temple Siege!’. This is designed for five to six First Level Player Characters and draws directly from ‘Appendix N’ by being inspired by the Cossacks stories of Harold Lamb, an influence on Robert E. Howard. The Player Characters will definitely encounter horse nomads—and they prove to be a rough, evil lot, ready to kill the Player Characters and take whatever they have. ‘Temple Siege!’ is a very different scenario. Rather than being an atypical dungeon, it takes place entirely in the confines of a single location. Such a constraint is a challenge to the author. Can he create an interesting location and an interesting plot built around the one place? Often, these are ‘locked room’ style adventures, but ‘Temple Siege!’ is not quite that. Rather, the Player Characters are trapped within the confines of the site, but the door is open and the enemy really wants to get in!
‘Temple Siege!’ takes place on the nomad steppes where the Player Characters have come to plunder an ancient temple, but not long after they enter its confines, they are besieged by a band of nomads. The Player Characters have a limited number of actions they can take between wave upon wave of nomad incursions inside the temple, but they also have a lot to examine in the temple. There are puzzles to be solved and traps to be discovered, some of which will lead to means and ways that the Player Characters can use to their advantage. To that end, the Judge is provided with a wealth of detail which she will need to understand and be able to impart to her players as their characters, as well as handle the three different waves of vile nomads, each of which is slightly different. The progress of the Player Characters will be greatly hampered if they do not have a Thief amongst their number. ‘Temple Siege!’ is a scenario which will keep a Thief really busy just as it will keep a Fighter—and other Classes—busy facing off against the nomads outside. ‘Temple Siege!’ might be slightly too long a scenario to run in a single session and its isolated, nomad steppe location make it a little too difficult to add to a campaign, although the prominent role of the Thief Class in the scenario means that it could work with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Overall though, this is a detailed and fun scenario which combines traps, puzzles, and combat in an entertainingly fought situation.
The DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack is really notable for its inclusion of the first scenario for Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth, the adaptation of the world of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth. ‘Fathoms Below Witch Isle’ is again a scenario for First Level Player Characters, but just three or four. However, it does not require the use of Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth and does not make use of the new Classes from Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth, but can instead be run using the standard rules from the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. (Doubtless, this will change once Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth is widely available.) The scenario opens with their travelling aboard the Calealen, a vessel pulled by giant sea worms that need careful handling throughout the journey. Due to circumstances beyond their control—and heedless of the Calealen’s somewhat scurvy crew—the Player Characters find themselves cast ashore on a decidedly strange island. One that has been turned upside down! To find out how this came about and perhaps make their escape back to sea, they must descend the upturned mountain and confront a mad hermit! 
‘Fathoms Below Witch Isle’ is intentionally odd and weird, just as you would expect from something set in the world of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth. For the Judge, the language itself is ostentatious and takes some getting used to, but the scenario works just as well under the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game as it will under Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth. However, it does not quite feel weird enough, primarily because the players cannot engage with it as Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth characters yet, and only as Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game characters. This is still a decent scenario and will be enjoyable which ever version of Dungeon Crawl Classics is used.
‘The Neverwhen Rock’ is a Character Funnel for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. It can be run on its own, or if the Judge has access, run together with ‘Ruins of Future Past’, the scenario from the DCC Day 2020 Adventure Pack. As part of their Rite of Passage, the Player Characters are instructed by the tribal shaman to examine a strange boulder not too far away and explore the cave inside of it, the likes of which no one has ever seen before. Although their characters will have no idea as to what is going on, the players will quickly realise that this is a time travel adventure. It is a very basic one though, with an obvious nod to Doctor Who, and the Player Characters never get the chance to explore the strange boulder, merely get thrust out of it in different locations. It definitely feels like it should be more and like some of the great ideas presented in other titles from Goodman Games, it leaves the Judge left wondering what to do next if she wants to do more with that idea.
Physically, DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack is decently done. The artwork is fun and the maps clear. The maps for both ‘Temple Siege!’ and ‘Fathoms Below Witch Isle’ are both well done. All three scenarios are well written and easy to read.
The DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack contains three scenarios which vary in their utility and their capacity to entertain. ‘Temple Siege!’ is the standout entry, a thrillingly constrained and nicely detailed encounter which will challenge the player and their characters and is suitable for almost any Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game setting. ‘Fathoms Below Witch Isle’ is a serviceable introduction to Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth, but will really come into its own when the Judge and her players can experience the whole of what the setting has to offer, including characters Classes. In comparison, ‘The Neverwhen Rock’ feels too slight, as if it wants to be something more, but the page count is constraining it. There are more than enough Character Funnels for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic that the Judge not really need look at this unless she has access to ‘Ruins of Future Past’ from the DCC Day 2020 Adventure Pack.

There are plenty of good guides to the weird and wonderful past of Great Britain. The country is rich in folklore, the occult, magic and mysteries, horrors and hauntings, and much, much more, and so has been subject to numerous books and guides. The Readers Digest Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain and The Lore of The Land, backed up with Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, will give anyone with an interest in the myths and legends of the United Kingdom a good grounding in the subject, but both are hefty books. So they are not easily carried on the go, and in the case of both The Readers Digest Folklore Myths and Legends of Britain, several decades old. The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain does a similar job and covers much of the same material, but differs in two important ways. First, it is a more recent treatment of the subject and second, it is smaller and thus infinitely portable. In fact, The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain is actually designed to be portable for it actually includes the post codes for each of the numerous locations and sites described in its pages—though it is unlikely that all of these sites actually receive anything via Royal Mail (other delivery services may deliver). What this means is that the sites of the various standing stones, ghost sightings, occult personages, and more, are all easy to find. The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain may not be pocket-sized, but digest-sized, it is easy to carry around.

The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain is published by Hellebore, which collates various essays and pieces devoted to British folk horror—including folklore, myth, history, archaeology, psychogeography, witches, and the occult—into a series of fanzines. It covers the United Kingdom, region by region and country by country, so Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, as well as England—with London as a separate location. It starts in the southwest in Cornwall, and moves steadily east and north. The maps are marked with clear icons, including ‘Witches and Cunning Folk’, ‘The Old Gods’, ‘Magic, Rituals, and the Occult’, ‘Ancient Megaliths’, ‘Ports to the Otherworld’, and more. So in Dorset, Bradbury Rings and Cerne Abbas are the site of ‘The Old Gods’; Avebury and Stonehenge sites of ‘Ancient Megaliths’ in Wiltshire; ‘Witches and Cunning Folk’ of Pendle in Lancashire; and the ‘Curses and Portents’ of Cleopatra’s Needle and the ‘Magic, Rituals, and the Occult’ at both the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert, all in London. This barely touches upon the hundreds and hundreds of entries in The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain.

The various regions across The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain are colour coded, each region’s entries combining a mixture of short descriptions with slightly longer pieces. For example, Worcestershire has short entries on the Fleece Inn with its three white circles inn front of its fireplace to prevent the entry of witches via the chimney and Penda’s Fen, the children’s television series from the seventies, but longer entries on Bredon Hill and Wychbury Hill, the latter the site of an iron age hillfort, several follies, and the mystery of Bella in the Wych Elm. London is an exception to this with numerous entries under several different banners, such as Bloomsbury with the British Museum, Freemason’s Hall, and amusingly, both Treadwell’s Bookshop and The Atlantic Bookshop, and Hawksmoor’s London and Doctor John Dee’s London (Dee will also have entries for Manchester and Oxford).

Where The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain differs from other books of legend and folklore is its inclusion of sites particular to film, television, and literature. As with the other categories used in the book, these are clearly marked on the maps. For example, Aldeburgh in Suffolk is listed under ‘Film and Television Locations’ for the Martello Tower there, as it was the basis for M.R. James’ ‘A Warning to the Curious’, whilst several locations across southwest Scotland are listed as locations for the classic British folkloric horror film, The Wicker Man. There are not too many of the film, television, and literature locations throughout the volume, but in the case of the film and television entries, they add visual cues in particular for the imagination.

Physically, The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain is cleanly, if tightly laid out, primarily in black and white with the occasional use of spot colour. If there is an issue with the book it is that the liberal illustrations are not as crisply produced as they could be. The book does include an index and a list of references as well.

For roleplaying purposes, The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain is a useful book to have to hand. It is a veritable fount of ideas and hooks that the Game Master could turn into roleplaying encounters, scenarios, or mysteries for her gaming group. No more than that though, for the entries are thumbnail-sized and should be considered to be pointers or starters for the Game Master who will then need to conduct a little more research to flesh out the scenario or mystery. Nevertheless, much of the content would work in a wide range of horror roleplaying games, including They came from Beyond the Grave! from Onyx Path Publishing or Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition from Chaosium, Inc., as well as specifically United Kingdom-based roleplaying games, like Liminal from Wordplay Games, The Dee Sanction: Adventures in Covert Enochian Intelligence from Just Crunch Games, Vaesen – Mythic Britain & Ireland for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying from Free League Publishing, or Fearful Symmetries for Trail of Cthulhu from Pelgrane Press.

The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain is an indispensable travel guide to the legends and folklore of Britain. It is not so much a definite reference guide, but more a reference starter, a point from where the reader (or gamer) can have her interest piqued and from there conduct her own further reading and investigations. Compact, but full of interesting content, The Hellebore Guide to Occult Britain is an excellent little tome to take off the shelf and flip through or even have handy in the bag when you want to find something really interesting to visit nearby.

Call of Cthulhu is a roleplaying game with a problem—and always has been. The first and most famous of horror roleplaying games inverts the traditional path for the Player Character, as first seen in Dungeons & Dragons, and then ever since, who as he learns and masters skills and has experiences, goes from a nobody to a hero in the course of his adventures. In Call of Cthulhu, a Player Character—or Investigator—enters play as someone with skills and experiences, but as he learns more and master skills, he declines, most obviously in terms of his mental health or Sanity. Of course, that ignores his fragility relative to the world and the multiple ways in which he can be killed or sent mad, both very common destinies in Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. Whether dead or mad—not impossibly both, what that means is that the player has to create a new Investigator. Which in any edition of Call of Cthulhu is a straightforward enough process, but the resulting Investigator is not going to be as interesting as the one that died, perhaps little more than a run-of-the-mill example of whatever Occupation the player has decided up for the Investigator. A louche Dilettante? A hardboiled Detective who has seen it all? An all-too nosy Journalist? And if the Investigator’s fortunes go awry, how quickly will the player be returning to the Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook?

Now Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition goes some way in allaying this issue. In presents numerous Occupations, but also encourages a player to create a Backstory, including Personal Description, Ideology/Beliefs, Significant People, Meaningful Locations, Treasured Possessions, and Traits. Optional rules also provide alternative means of creating Investigators, as well as Experience Packages that can further round out an Investigator, though at a cost of some Sanity. What though, if there was a volume which would go even further, to help a player create even more interesting Investigators, with detailed backgrounds and histories, which would be even more engaging and interesting to roleplay and interact with? Heinrich’s Call of Cthulhu Guide to Character Creation is such a tome.

Heinrich’s Call of Cthulhu Guide to Character Creation is inspired by the series of books published in the early nineties by Task Force Games that include Central Casting: Heroes of Legend, Central Casting: Heroes Now, and Central Casting: Heroes for Tomorrow. They provided tools for interesting Player Character generation—in addition to the mechanics and numbers provided by the roleplaying game that the Player Character was being created for—for their respective genres, and so does Heinrich's Call of Cthulhu Guide to Character Creation. The book also works with Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos as some of the entries do veer into the fantastic. The volume takes the Investigator through the four steps of his life prior to becoming involved with the Mythos and entering play, from Origins through Childhood and Adolescence to Adulthood, the player rolling on the tables as necessary, and sometimes also being asked to make skill or attribute rolls as well. What is made clear is that neither the player nor the Keeper has to adhere to the outcome of any roll. Indeed, both are encouraged to cheat if it will make a more interesting Investigator or NPC, and anyway, even if not using dice the entries on the innumerable tables in the Heinrich's Call of Cthulhu Guide to Character Creation are ultimately nothing more than prompts to the imagination.

To it necessary to really see what we are contrasting in Heinrich's Call of Cthulhu Guide to Character Creation and so the following is an Investigator who has appeared in numerous forms. He is a Boston antiquarian, a would be academic whose experiences in the Great War left him partially deaf and unsuited to the rigours of university life.

Henry Brinded,
age 44, Antiquarian

STR 40 SIZ 85 CON 45 DEX 70
APP 75 INT 80 POW 65 EDU 91
SAN 58 Luck 75 Damage Bonus +1d4 Build 1
Move 7 HP 12

Brawl 35% (17/7), damage 1D3+db, or by weapon type
Rifle/Shotgun 35% (17/8), damage 2D6/1D6/1D3 (Ithaca Hammerless Field 20G 2.75” calibre shotgun)
Handgun 30% (15/7), damage 1d10+2 (Colt New Service (M1909) .45 LC calibre revolver)
Dodge 35% (17/7)

Skills: Appraise 45%, Archaeology 26%, Art/Craft (Book Restoration) 49%, Art/Craft (Painting) 26%, Artillery 40%, Climb 30%, Credit Rating 45%, Firearms (Handguns) 30%, Firearms (Rifle/Shotgun) 35%, First Aid 50%, History 55%, Library Use 50%, Navigate 20%, Occult 20%, Persuade 40%, Pilot (Boat) 26%, Psychology 31%, Spot Hidden 45%, Stealth 25%, Swim 40%, Track 20%.
Languages: Ancient Greek 41%, English (Own) 91%, Latin 51%.

Backstory
Personal Description: Tall and thin, just shy of infirm, bespectacled and inquisitive.
Treasured Possessions: Latin-English Primer
Traits: Introspective but curious, softly spoken, but firm in manner
Phobias: Ligyrophobia – Fear of loud noises.
Notes: Immune to sanity losses resulting from viewing a corpse or gross injury.

Heinrich's Call of Cthulhu Guide to Character Creation will build in elements that will potentially include Personal Description, Traits, Ideology/Beliefs, Injuries & Scars, Significant People, Phobias & Manias, Meaningful Locations, Arcane Tomes, Spells, & Artifacts, Treasured Possessions, and Encounters with Strange Entities, but begins with a point spread of characteristics. Similarly, it assumes a similar point spread for both Occupational skills and Non-Occupational skills, and builds from there. What the volume does not do is include tables to determine the Investigator’s race, sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation, these being all very personal choices and it should not be a case of a random roll determining something that a player might uncomfortable portraying in game. Similarly, the tables do not reflect the social, cultural, and legal prejudices prevalent during the Jazz Age or the Desperate Decade, the primary settings for Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. Again, such choices are very much left up to the Keeper and her players to decide upon.

The creation process is methodical, step-by-step, sometimes sending off the player or Keeper off to a separate table way in the back in the book—so it does involve a lot of flipping back and forth—to roll on another table to get another detail. Some entries instruct the player or Keeper to add a detail here or assign there. For example, ‘Bookworm’ is an entry in the ‘Childhood Events’ table and informs the player or keeper that the Investigator or NPC was studious and curious as a child, always asking questions or reading a book. The Keeper or player is then instructed to assign the highest remaining characteristic score to the Education of the NPC or Investigator and suggests ‘Book Dealer’ and ‘Librarian’ be listed under Potential Occupations.

Albert Johansen,
age 44, Book Dealer

Place of Birth: Germany
Social Status: Extremely Wealthy
Occupation: Book Dealer
Potential Occupations: Librarian, Book Dealer, Professor

STR 40 SIZ 50 CON 50 DEX 50
APP 50 INT 70 POW 60 EDU 80
SAN 60 Luck 84 Damage Bonus None Build 0
Move 8 HP 12

Brawl 25% (12/6), damage 1D3+db, or by weapon type
Rifle/Shotgun 45% (22/11)
Dodge 35% (17/7)

Skills: Accounting 45%, Appraise 55%, Art/Craft (Painting) 21%, Credit Rating 70%, Cthulhu Mythos 05%, Drive Auto 60%, History 75%, Library Use 70%, Navigate 30%, Occult 45%, Own Language (German) 80%, Other Language (English) 61%, Other Language (Latin) 61%, Persuade 50%, Pilot (Boat) 21%, Psychology 30%, Swim 40%

Albert Johansen was born in Germany to an Extremely Wealthy family and was expected to be a great scholar (Destiny). He was brought up by his mother, his father having been killed in an automobile accident which left her blind in her right eye. He has a younger sister. During his childhood, he was frightened of taking a bath, believing there to be a monster in the water pipes, but as he grew older, the members of the hunting lodge his father had belonged to took an interest in his upbringing and encouraged to learn to shoot and enjoy other field sports. As a boy, he was studious and religious coming to believe that he was Blessed (gains the relevant handout which grants bonuses in play, plus extra Luck) after adopting the faith of his father (Turn of Faith). He was surprised to receive an invitation at Miskatonic University (Invitation to Study), having expected to study at home, but there discovered the Professors’ Conspiracy investigating some dread powers. Your involvement led to an encounter with a living flame, which injured your throat (gaining the handout, ‘The Injured’), scarring your neck (Body Scars) and leaving you with a raspy voice. You returned home and much to your family’s surprise entered the book trade. You were apprenticed to Herr Emil Winter, who provided to be more than a book dealer. Indeed, he was a Magician who was able to teach him one spell at least.

This is only the start and it is possible to explore numerous aspects of the Investigator or NPC. Events can occur as part of his Occupation, he can engage in romances and build a family life, suffer fortune and misfortune, join the military, get caught up in crime and even end up incarcerated or institutionalised due to mental illness, go on an expedition, including to the Amazonia and Antarctica, come to the attention of a secret government agency, and even venture into the Dreamlands and other dimensions. There is the chance of experiencing some kind of event that will become part of a campaign—as decided or chosen by the Keeper, that the Investigator or NPC be kidnapped or have to put up with a nosy neighbour, be possessed, and a whole more, all supported by table upon table! Handouts cover strange events which will have long lasting in-game effects, such as suffering ‘The Innsmouth Look’ or becoming ‘A Friend of Ghouls’. These do push the campaign towards a more Pulp style, but add flavour and detail. Even at the most basic functions, the tables in Heinrich's Call of Cthulhu Guide to Character Creation are just lists of prompts—certainly too many to count. If perhaps the one table that is underwhelming, it is the one of names, but to be fair, covering that in this book would probably double the page count!

Physically, Heinrich's Call of Cthulhu Guide to Character Creation is busily laid out with table upon table. It is decently written and liberally illustrated with both period photographs and painted pieces.

Heinrich's Call of Cthulhu Guide to Character Creation is fantastic toolkit. Of course, it is too much perhaps to create an Investigator or NPC with any rapidity. There are just too many tables to roll on and options to choose from, but between games, this is a superb resource to consult and gently create interesting and detailed characters. It very much has the feel of a solo adventure book, but one which creates a character by the end rather than at the beginning, equipped with a treasure trove of experiences and details that the player or Keeper can draw upon.
With Heinrich’s Call of Cthulhu Guide to Character Creation, the player is at last going to have a resource and supplement all of his very own from the Miskatonic Repository. With it he can create interesting and varied Investigators ready to bring to his Keeper’s next game using the wealth of detail and background and ideas to be found in its pages. Sometimes though, just sometimes, he is going to have to let his Keeper have a peak too. Heinrich’s Call of Cthulhu Guide to Character Creation is the player’s tome that the roleplaying game never knew it quite needed, but now it really, really does.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Trick or Treat 2Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Andy Miller

Setting: Modern DayProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Sixty-Two page, 32.43 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Sequel to ‘Trick or Treat’ from Blood BrothersPlot Hook: Bored? Too old to trick or treat? Why not visit the site of an unsolved series of murders?
Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Teen Investigators, twelve NPCs, three handouts, four maps, three non-Mythos spells, and four non-Mythos monsters.Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Sequel to ‘Trick or Treat’ from Blood Brothers# Pleasing history of Halloween and Halloween and Call of Cthulhu# Decent staging advice# Plenty of background# Does not simply start at the murder site# Contrasts the horror with school life# Detailed playtest notes included# Detailed plotting# Botanophobia# Formidophobia
Cons# Another ‘Kids in peril on Halloween’ scenario# Too much background for a one-shot?# Handouts a little plain# Needs an edit# Detailed plotting# Slightly too for a one-session one-shot
Conclusion# Classic ‘Kids in peril on Halloween’ scenario in which exploring an old murder site turns horrifically bloody as traditional Halloween motifs come to life and stalk the teenage protagonists. # Highly detailed and plotted—perhaps overly so?—teenage horror scenario which delivers a suitably nasty sequel to a Call of Cthulhu, non-Mythos classic. 

Occam’s Razor: Seven Modern Era Adventures of Mystery and Deathbegins with a problem. The anthology is a collection of scenarios for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition from Stygian Fox Publishing, previously known for two other collections, Fear’s Sharp Little Needles:Twenty-Six Hunting Forays into Horror and the highly regarded Things We leave Behind. What its back cover blurb states is that the book is, “Seven modern era adventures of mystery and death taking investigators through a nightmare of unexpected outcomes, horrific dilemmas, and extreme cosmic horror.” However, the problem is that this statement is both inaccurate and misleading, and it completely fails to tell the prospective purchaser and Keeper what Occam’s Razor is. This problem is compounded by the complete absence of an introduction, which might have explained what Occam’s Razor is and what Occam’s Razor is not, and this key idea behind the anthology. It is not until the reader is fifteen pages into Occam’s Razor and at the end of the first scenario that it becomes clear what the anthology is and what the key idea behind it is. Which really is too late to discover, especially when the blurb promises the prospective purchaser and Keeper “extreme cosmic horror” and does not ‘exactly’ fulfil that promise.

Occam’s Razor: Seven Modern Era Adventures of Mystery and Death, published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, is an anthology of scenarios which involve the mundane rather than Mythos horror. In this they adhere to the principle of ‘Occam’s Razor’ that when faced with competing theories or explanations to a problem, the one with the fewest complications and thus the simplest is to be preferred. In fact, there is no fantastical horror involved in the scenarios in the anthology. So, no vampire or werewolf, let alone the Cthulhu Mythos. Instead, a pack of rabid dogs rather than werewolves (or Ghouls), murder rather than lake monsters (or Deep Ones), and mental illness rather than stalking (or cultists). However, in each case, the author provides options and suggestions in a ‘Must Have Mythos’ sidebar as to what Mythos threat might be added to make each scenario more of a traditional scenario for Call of Cthulhu. That though, would be undercut the point of the anthology, which would be to misdirect the players and their Investigators. To have them chasing hither and thither in search of a Mythos threat or solution to a situation, only for them to miss the obvious, but ultimately realise that the mundane solution can be just as horrifying.

Besides sharing mundane solutions with Mythos options, what the majority of the scenarios in Occam’s Razor share is a hook. Five out of the seven involve missing persons cases, which quickly becomes repetitive and means that whether running them using the mundane solution or the Mythos solution, the Keeper cannot use them one after another. Similarly, four out of the seven involve college students, and that too has a similar effect. All seven though are quite short, offering no more than a session or two’s worth of play, and all are really nicely detailed, the author having done a decent job of explaining each scenario’s plot and clues and ramifications and how each investigation should play out. Even the simplest is well thought through and this shows on the page. The author also adds advice and suggestions on how to run or stage each scenario in sidebars that are in an addition to the usually fulsome ‘Must Have Mythos’ sidebar. The scenarios in the anthology are all set in the modern day, so mobile phones and the Internet all feature fairly heavily, and it will probably be a good idea if at least one Investigator possesses a decent Computer skill—there are a lot of passwords to crack in the seven scenarios.

The anthology opens with ‘A Whole Pack of Trouble’. The parents of Kyle Alexander, a college freshman, believe that he has gone missing, but cannot persuade the campus or local police department that this is the case. Both believe that he is simply away on a break, but following the clues from his dorm room leads the Investigators out into the back wilds where they find Alexander’s car outside a long-abandoned asylum. So, the questions are, what was Kyle doing out there and where is he now? The solution here is a feral dog pack, which presents a genuinely nasty threat once the animals gain the Investigators’ scent.

The second scenario is ‘Eye of the Beholder’ and involves the second missing persons case in the anthology, again from a college. Amy Langan is an art student and once her movement is traced, she was last seen at a local art museum. The question is, where did she go after that? This is a constrained scenario, confined to the four walls of the museum, which has the scope to inject an unhealthy dose of the Mythos via a seemingly random art exhibition. This seems rather overdone in comparison to the mundane solution behind the disappearance. Whether the Keeper adds the Mythos or keeps the scenario mundane, it is possible to circumvent either and very quickly bring the scenario to a conclusion.

‘Frozen Footsteps’ takes the Investigators to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on the trail of a friend who failed to turn up for a regular lunch meeting. The friend is known to be an amateur scholar of the occult, so something must have caught his interest… Unfortunately, this is not an interesting scenario in itself, with or without the addition of the Mythos content. What sets this scenario apart is the wintery nature of the setting and time of year, and that the antagonists are actually more proactive than others in the scenarios in the anthology. Of course, the friend needs to be added to the campaign prior to the scenario to really work.

Fortunately, ‘Dark and Deep’ is much more interesting in almost every way. In a nod to the author’s own filmic interests, the Investigators receive—or are alerted to the existence of—what appears to be an exert from a snuff film, in which a young woman appears to be attacked by a monster in the waters near a lighthouse. Perhaps the monster could be a Deep One? There is an engaging plot to this scenario and plenty of potential for good roleplaying, and that is even before the Keeper thinks of adding the suggested Mythos content. Should she do so, this adds another level of engaging plot and the motivations of the Mythos threat actually fit the situation ever so neatly. Of all the scenarios in Occam’s Razor, ‘Dark and Deep’ is the one easiest to use in a standard Call of Cthulhu campaign without the Mythos feeling shoehorned in.

The scenarios return to college for ‘Visions from Beyond’ after one of the investigators receives a late-night telephone call from a young man who looks up to the Investigator and takes an interest in the Investigator’s occult-busting activities. The young man is distraught and upset, babbling about recent activities he has been involved in, but then the telephone goes. What has the young man been up to and where is he now? The Investigators must deal with the young man’s fraternity and the campus police before grasping some idea of what is going on… When the antagonists find out, they have a nasty way of turning on the Investigators and then everything gets really freaky! This scenario is nasty enough to not warrant the inclusion of the Mythos, and if it is, there would really be very little difference between the Mythos threat and the mundane one. The scenario needs some set-up beforehand, adding the young man as an NPC to the Keeper’s campaign. This is likely to work better here than in the earlier ‘Frozen Footsteps’, as the interaction with the young man brings an emotional immediacy to the scenario.

The most radical of the scenarios in Occam’s Razor is ‘The Watchers’. A young woman, Linda Lopez, hires the Investigators because she believes is being followed and her apartment is being watched, including by a tall shadowy figure. Of all the scenarios in the anthology, the solution to the situation in ‘The Watchers’ is the both the most mundane and certainly the saddest. This is because her fears are unfounded because she is mentally ill and suffering from schizophrenia. The scenario is designed to teach reckless Investigators and their players a lesson or two in not rushing into the situation and jumping to conclusions. Adding the Mythos to ‘The Watchers’ would ultimately undermine this intent, let alone the fact that the Mythos would not add anything of interest either. The treatment of the mental illness and the symptoms of schizophrenia are reasonably well handled, but there is no denying that ‘The Watchers’ has a brand of horror all of its very own, which makes for an uncomfortable scenario with potentially a difficult subject matter for some players and controversial for others.

The last scenario in ‘A Cleansing Flame’ goes back to college where an astronomer friend of the investigators is found burned to death. Does it have something to do with his research or is there something else going on here? As the Investigators tries to find out the truth, one of their number comes to the attention of someone who always seems to remain elusive and just out of the corner of their eye. Is this person related to the victim’s work or not, and just what is their interest in the Investigator? This is not an easy investigation and many of the NPCs will be unhelpful or simply difficult to deal with. In comparison to the other six scenarios in the anthology, ‘A Cleansing Flame’ is a looser affair and not as tightly structured or plotted, so it likely to require more time to play and more input from the Keeper. The scenario’s climax—as the author makes clear—also has the potential to kill all of the Investigators. Also, like some of the other scenarios in the anthology, adding the Mythos to ‘A Cleansing Flame’ does not add anything to its horror.

Rounding out Occam’s Razor is a series of newspaper articles which the Keeper can develop scenarios from herself or link to other adventures, especially those also published by Stygian Fox Publishing. The anthology also comes with a set of pre-generated Investigators, the owner and staff of the Sandings Investigative Agency. These are for the most part, decent enough.

Physically, Occam’s Razor is a handsome looking, but slim tome. The book is nicely illustrated throughout and the cartography is artfully done, arguably the best to appear in a Stygian Fox Publishing in some while. Not all of the illustrations match the maps—or vice versa—though, and the editing is uneven in places.

There have been anthologies for Call of Cthulhu before which present scenarios without the Mythos. Bumps in the Night from Pagan Publishing is one, as are Blood Brothers and Blood Brothers II, both from Chaosium, Inc. Occam’s Razor joins them, but wants to have its cake and eat it by including options to involve the Mythos, and in too many cases, the presence of the Mythos does not add much, if anything at all, to a scenario. This is primarily because the presence of the Mythos is simply changing the motivations behind the antagonists’ actions, the exception being the best scenario in the book proving the point. ‘Dark and Deep’ stands very well up on its own, but the addition of the Mythos adds plot rather than motivation.

The collection though is not as easy to use because of its repeated hook of missing persons cases and the mundane nature of the antagonists. Rather than use than use them one after another, the scenarios need to spread across a campaign if their central conceit—that not all horrifying situations have a Mythos solution and the Investigators need to be reminded of that on occasion, is to work. Nevertheless, Occam’s Razor: Seven Modern Era Adventures of Mystery and Death presents a set of serviceable scenarios, with at least the one standout, but all seven are solidly plotted and well written.

England is falling. She stuttered after the slaughter of the Great War and the ravages of the Spanish Flu. As the Bright Young Things flung themselves into the hedonism of the Jazz Age and the working classes fomented industrial action—if not outright revolution, the fall was accelerated after the Wall Street Crash spread the Great Depression around the world. Now as Fascism rises in nearby Europe and is admired and entertained by the Upper Classes, the country is losing its way, weak and unsure of what it once was, let alone what it is now. Yet there are those who recognise the malaise, and who not only know the solution, but have the means and the power to apply it and so restore the country. Since the strange occurrences in the South Pacific in 1925, there have been men and women who have come to see there are beings and powers beyond that can be used and bargained with to ensure that England can be at least itself once again, that it can inspire great men and simple men alike, be prepared to weather the coming storm, and perhaps aspire to be the Albion of William Blake’s verse. Their means is not politics or the modern arts of mass communication, but old arts and skills—magic! Or rather Alchemy, Spiritualism, and Witchcraft, as well as the Magick of the evillest man in England, Aleister Crowley. Armed with knowledge gained from their newfound skills and researches, they will delve into the myth and folklore of the country, allay the threats they sometimes are, have dealings with creatures and persons out of fable, and encounter those non-believers, rival magicians, and fascists who do not want a return to a green and pleasant land in a secret war which will play out over the course of the Desperate Decade.

This is the setting for Fearful Symmetries, a campaign for Trail of Cthulhu, published by Pelgrane Press. This explores the clash between rationalism and romance, science and magic, Lovecraft and Blake, the Mythos and the folklore in a framework inspired by Blake’s artwork and writings, that might not involve Lovecraftian investigative horror at all! For although the often non-Euclidean mathematics of the Mythos underly the workings of the mundane magics of Alchemy, Spiritualism, Magick, and Witchcraft, as well as the existence of the Mythos creatures and races that explain many of the creatures known in folklore, this does not mean that they will be recognised as being of the Mythos. Thus, the Investigators may encounter the Mythos but not necessarily recognise as such, likely losing Stability and Sanity nevertheless, just as they will for practising magic and encountering folkloric creature. Ultimately, magic, even as it empowers the Investigators to deal with the threats to Albion and ensure its restoration, is a double-edged sword, yet one more ‘fearful symmetry’ they will face in the course of a campaign.

Fearful Symmetries begins with an introduction to William Blake and both his works and mythology, contrasting them with those of Lovecraft. This section in particular is lavishly illustrated with Blake’s paintings, but they are used throughout the book and so give it a very individual look. Here the groundwork is laid for a campaign, including whether it should be played open or closed in terms of Investigator knowledge, the style of magic the Investigators should employ—Magick is the default, the conventions of magic, what type of characters to play, and advice for the player. The counterpart to this—or symmetry—is the advice and tools for the Keeper. The Folklore Engine and the History Machine are the primary sets of tools, more a series of prompt than necessarily tools, but they enable the Keeper to build mysteries and episodes around folklore and the real world. They have their own counterpart for the players in the form of The Book of the New Jerusalem, an in-game prompt that they can draw from to direct their Investigators’ enquiries. Other tools include geographical and relationship maps, timelines, and more, the latter running all the way up to safety tools necessary for a good game. There is decent advice on setting up and running a campaign, the primary advice being that the Keeper improvise in response to her players’ and their Investigators’ actions and decisions, many of which are intended to be drawn from The Book of the New Jerusalem.

One major difference between Trail of Cthulhu and Fearful Symmetries is the power level of the Investigators. In Trail of Cthulhu—even in Pulp mode, the power level of the Investigators is low. At best, an Investigator might know a spell or two in Trail of Cthulhu, whereas in Fearful Symmetries they are magical adepts, capable of casting a variety of spells, empowering rituals, creating magical items, entreating with magical beings, and incarnating Blakean spirits. Fearful Symmetries gives ways of making the casting of Incantations—immediate spells, and the performing of rituals—longer, more involved castings, both interesting and mechanically beneficial. Magic here has to be worked, especially the rituals, which the Investigators will be regularly performing, whether this is initiation rituals to bring someone into a magical group or attunement rituals to align the casters to a magical item or node. The attunement ritual will be important throughout a Fearful Symmetries campaign as the Investigators will be working to restore and repair important locations upon England’s ley lines and this bring about a new Albion.

Although the default style of magic in Fearful Symmetries is Aleister Crowley’s Magick, three others—Alchemy, Spiritualism, and Witchcraft—are also examined in detail. Others are mentioned as an aside, but the focus on the key four means that there is a lot here for the Keeper to grasp and understand, let alone her players. Having Magick as the default offsets that, although main reason is that having the Investigators share the same magical style means that they can easier work together. The wealth of information here means that the casting of magic should never get stale.

In terms of background, Fearful Symmetries gives a good guide to life and cultures of mundane England of the thirties, details several of the occult groups operating in England in the period (these can be rivals, groups the Investigators can join, and so on), points to ordinary groups such as ramblers and potholers as useful contacts and NPCs, numerous creatures and beings from British folklore are described and given stats, as are various items and occult books. Occult England—or Albion—takes in not just the notable magical places across the country, thus tying in with The Book of the New Jerusalem, but also extends beyond into other places. These include Fairyland, the astral plane, even Death, as well as John Dee’s Aethyrs, the planes surrounding the Earth. Combined with the ley maps in the appendices at the rear of the book and The Book of the New Jerusalem and what Fearful Symmetries provides an occult sandbox which the Keeper can develop a campaign from and the players and their Investigators can explore in pursuit of a restored Albion.

The default or sample campaign in Fearful Symmetries comes oddly placed in the middle of the book. In ‘Fearful Symmetries’ the Investigators begin as newly initiated practitioners whose mentor is suddenly snatched away in front in of them by what is arguably Blake’s most well-known motif. Once the ritual is completed and now both initiated and incarnated as one of Blake’s Zoas, or primal spirits, they can begin following the clues in search of their mentor and discover who or what abducted her in front of their eyes. The plot thickens with a Lovecraftian antagonist, trips out into the English countryside and across seedy London (potential here for a crossover with Bookhounds of London and The Book of the Smoke, the London counterpart—or symmetry?—to The Book of the New Jerusalem), and in the second part or series, confrontations with England’s growing obsession with fascism. Just fifteen pages long, this is an excellent outline, which together with the background, should develop into a good campaign.

Rounding out Fearful Symmetries is a bibliography and a set of appendices that examine the ley lines network across London, worksheets, lists of alternate names for folkloric creatures, a glossary, a lengthy list of other occult books, and maps of the lay lines detailed earlier in the book. In particular, the examination of the ley lines network across London ties into the sample campaign and potentially turns Fearful Symmetries into a sequel to the earlier Bookhounds of London.

Physically, Fearful Symmetries is cleanly and tidily presented, its tight blocks of text broken up by Blake’s artwork as well as the liberal inclusion of quotes from Blake himself, plus William Shakespeare, H.P. Lovecraft, Aleister Crowley, Arthur Machen, and many more. This makes the book a lot easier to read given the wealth of information it provides. If there is a downside to the book, it is the lack of index, inexcusable given just how much information there is in Fearful Symmetries.

Fearful Symmetries is not a traditional campaign or setting book for Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying, let alone for Trail of Cthulhu. Of course, Pelgrane Press has form here with Dreamhounds of Paris, which combined Surrealism with the Dreamlands, but Fearful Symmetries is not really about the Mythos, although it is present, hidden under layers of Blake’s mysticism and the occult traditions practiced in the thirties. So the Investigators may never even encounter it. Nor is it a case of encountering a great ‘evil’ and thwarting its plans necessarily, as is the usual in a campaign of Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying, but rather of restoring and rebuilding an ideal. This is Blake’s Albion, the old Albion, as opposed to the ‘new’ Albion that the English fascists might be dreaming of, again, one more of the symmetries to be found in the supplement. One way in which Fearful Symmetries can be seen, especially in its emphasis upon Aleister Crowley’s Magick, is as a spiritual successor to Pagan Publishing’s The Golden Dawn.

Fearful Symmetries takes Trail of Cthulhu and the GUMSHOE System into the realm of occult investigative roleplaying, and whilst it does not leave Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying behind, it does prove that it is as dangerous as the Mythos. There is a bucolic richness to this realm, both in the mundane and the magical, that begs to be explored and appreciated, but there is complexity too, more so than will be found in a typical Trail of Cthulhu or Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying campaign. There is also, a sense of hope to Fearful Symmetries, a yearning for England to be a better place, and as dangerous and as difficult as the attempt will be, that the Investigators are rebuilding and restoring the country, directing her down a different path, rather than saving the country against an unknowable and uncaring foe. In hindsight, this can also be seen as restoring England as she once was spiritually and thus preparing her in time for the calamities that will come in the face of war.

As English as it can be, Fearful Symmetries is a superb set of tools for a very different type of campaign. Rife with fascinating parallels and contrasts, Fearful Symmetries presents a setting and campaign of occult investigative roleplaying that will be demanding of Keeper and player alike, but enable them to explore a rich world of the occult and the folkloric, becoming the country’s secret saviours as they master dangerous Magicks, face fascist bullyboys, and bring about a better future.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: After the Rain: A Samurai Era Call of Cthulhu ScenarioPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Kevin Konieczko

Setting: Warring States Era JapanProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Thirty-six page, 12.54 MB PDFElevator Pitch: Seven Samurai versus the MythosPlot Hook: Ronin hired to deal with bandits who have just turned more vicious
Plot Support: Staging advice, eight handouts including one map, six NPCs, and two Mythos monsters.Production Values: Good.
Pros# Suitable for Cthulhu Dark Ages# Includes a primer on Sengoku Era Japan# Detailed Investigators# Teraphobia
Cons# Involves a lot of combat# Needs an edit
Conclusion# Entertaining change of place in what is a samurai mini-sandbox supported detailed Investigators and historical background.# Can be run using Cthulhu Dark Ages or Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Taken for GranitePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Jade Griffin

Setting: Jazz Age VermontProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Thirty-eight page, 11.84 MB PDFElevator Pitch: Invasion of the Ringing, Singing RocksPlot Hook: Graniteville turns strange in the Fall
Plot Support: Staging advice, six handouts including one map, six NPCs, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Good.
Pros# First part of a series# Solid plot# Good artwork# Decent small town investigation# Petraphobia# Phonophobia
Cons# Forced failure of a skill roll?# Needs a careful read through to understand the plot# Underdeveloped in places# Slightly underwritten plot
Conclusion# Strange behavior in a small town reveals a weird menace from outer somewhere in a decent little scenario.# Scenario hindered by unclear explanations in places and a slightly underwritten plot

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Ravishing BeautyPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Dr. Benjamin Will

Setting: Italy, 64 C.E.Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty page, 1.41 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Sometimes the walls are given a willPlot Hook: A stay at a wealthy villa reveals the nastiness of the owners
Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators with backgrounds, three maps, six  NPCs, and three Mythos monsters.Production Values: Plain.
Pros# One session scenario for Cthulhu Invictus# Unpleasant NPCs# Pleasing sense of claustrophobia# Decent pre-generated Investigators# Inventive use of the representation of myth# Easy to move to elsewhere and elsewhen in the Roman Empire# Potential campaign starter# Sportaldislexicartaphobia# Automatonophobia# Artophobia
Cons# Underwritten primary NPC interactions# Includes scene where rape and sexual assault is a possibility
Conclusion# Claustrophobic scenario which makes inventive use of the representation of myth# Solid scenario for Cthulhu Invictus that can be worked into a campaign or used as a campaign starter

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Octopus TagPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Ronny Anderssen

Setting: Modern DayProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-Six page, 21.71 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Squid Game versus the MythosPlot Hook: Can you survive the horrors of the game?
Plot Support: Staging advice, eight NPCs, six handouts, one map, one Mythos artefact, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Good.
Pros# Definitely survival horror!# Inspired by Squid Game# Nicely done NPCs# Some NPCs you want to die# Make the NPCs playable Investigators for interesting dynamics# Almost endless supply of replacement Investigators# Kabaddi, Kabaddi, Kabaddi# Chapodiphobia# Ludophobia
Cons# Inspired by Squid Game# Unwinnable# As a one-shot, needed pre-generated Investigators# Some NPCs you want to die# Every game needs careful study and staging# Keeper needs to prepare ready supply of NPCs and names# Keeper needs to prepare ready supply of new Investigators
Conclusion# Bonkers, ultimately unwinnable game (or series of games) of survival horror that will grind the Investigators down and scour their Sanity.# Reality Television or Black Books-style horror infused with the Mythos for a nasty one-shot that will bring out the worst (and the best) in the NPCs and Investigators.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: The Time Shadow Over DarnesvillePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Scott Cox

Setting: Jazz Age USAProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Ten page, 2.35 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Invasion of the Mind SnatchersPlot Hook: “Look, you fools, you’re in danger! Can’t you see?! They’re after you! They’re after all of us! Our wives, our children, everyone! THEY’RE HERE, ALREADY! YOU’RE NEXT!”
Plot Support: Four NPCs, one Mythos tome, and no Mythos monsters.Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Short two-three hour scenario# Suitable for one Investigator and one Keeper# Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Shadow Out of Time’# Easy to adapt to other time periods and settings# Xenophobia
Cons# Needs a slight edit# Superfluous Spot Hidden rolls# Primary antagonist could be in two places at once# Underdeveloped in places# Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Shadow Out of Time’# Darnesville undeveloped as a setting# No maps# No Psychology rolls?# Underwritten NPCs# Insufficient alienness
Conclusion# Potentially decent one Investigator/one Keeper scenario undone by by underdevelopment in terms of location and the portrayal of the NPCs.# For a scenario dealing with alien invasion, The Time Shadow Over Darnesville simply lacks a sense of paranoia or the alien.

Station ‘S’: An Anomaly in Scotland Heralds Doom for All Mankind is a scenario for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Published by Stygian Fox, it is set in Scotland during World War Two, and can therefore be run as part of a World War Cthulhu campaign—soon to be updated to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition by Chaosium, Inc.—or with some effort adapted to play using the latest version of Achtung! Cthulhu from Modiphius Entertainment or with Delta Green: A Roleplaying Game of Lovecraftian Horror and Conspiracy. The scenario is short and can be run as a one-shot or a convention scenario and comes with its own set of four pre-generated Investigators. It is clear in its inspiration, Stanislaw Lem’s novel, Solaris, and consequently, the resulting scenario shares with it an unnerving uncertainty and a sense of secrecy which means that the horror is more personal and thus more subtle. Consequently, Station ‘S’ is a vastly superior to the previous scenario from the publisher set during World War Two, the execrable The Foulness Island Vanishings: A Corrupting Infiltration in a Time of War. With clues and elements tied into the scenario’s four pre-generated Investigators, the scenario will be more challenging to use in an ongoing campaign, but it can be done.

Station ‘S’: An Anomaly in Scotland Heralds Doom for All Mankind opens with a briefing. Contact has been lost with a secret research station on the banks of a saltwater loch in Scotland. There a team had been set up to study a strange anomaly in the loch—the appearance of a German U-boat, missing its crew, but almost nothing has been heard from the team in the last week and even then, the messages have been odd. The Investigator team consists of an Army officer, an Army non-commissioned officer, a historian, and a scientist (curiously no-one from the Royal Navy is sent considering a submarine is involved) and they are to make contact with the staff at Station ‘S’, determine their status, and then bring both them and any technology from the U-boat back. Although the Investigators have a few files to read, information is scant and considered top secret, so the real investigation begins as the team vehicle crests the top of the rise overlooking the isolated research station and the loch.

The Investigators find the base in disarray, with just a handful of staff still present, but desperate and deranged. As the Investigators explore the ramshackle base, they begin to find anomalies and things that that should not be there, things that only they know. These secrets are intentionally seeded throughout the research station and the U-boat, with notes for the Keeper to add more and enhance the sense of mistrust and uncertainty that pervades what is a mini-sandbox. Exploring the meagre facilities is a challenge in itself, especially the U-boat, and by the time the Investigators have been everywhere, the strange anomalies and secrets are likely to have scoured away some of their Sanity.

The scenario is by design opaque, especially the threat at the heart of it. In some ways it is a locked room situation, the Investigators trapped in the valley unless they can find the solution to getting out. One primary means is provided, which is in keeping with the nature of the Mythos threat, itself equally as opaque, although the players and their Investigators are free to come up with their own and several are suggested to that end. This pushes the scenario away from the type of story where the monster is unstoppable and will kill all of the Investigators unless they determine and devise the monster’s one weakness. This is not to say that death is impossible, but it is not the main thrust of the scenario.

The scenario is also primarily player and Investigator led, the Keeper provided with a range of prompts and keys scenes in what is a relatively short affair. In fact, in comparison to the earlier overblown and decidedly underwhelming The Foulness Island Vanishings, the design and writing of Station ‘S’ is distinctly succinct. The succinct design combined with the nature of the Mythos threat does mean that the scenario requires a careful read through by the Keeper and it does mean that it needs a degree of development in places. The Investigators will need some background sheets prepared and the Significant People, Meaningful Locations, and Treasured Possessions are not marked on all of the Investigator sheets. The deckplans of a U-boat will be useful, there being only the one, rather plain map included with the scenario. One missed opportunity in the scenario is the Nordic or Viking thread, which is not as developed as it could be. Having a Viking longship sail of the mist on the loch or a Viking warrior loom out of the mist ashore would add to the weirdness happening at Station ‘S’.

Physically, Station ‘S’ is neat and tidy. It needs a slight edit in places, but is in general, well presented and accessible. A huge improvement on previous releases.

Station ‘S’: An Anomaly in Scotland Heralds Doom for All Mankind is succinct and scary, an atmospheric one-shot perfect for a night’s unsettling horror. This is the best original scenario which Stygian Fox has put out in quite a while.

The Old School Renaissance continues to evolve although in small steps. Thus we have Cairn, a small Old School-style roleplaying game derived from two other designs, Into the Odd and Knave, both highly regarded. Designed to be played by a Warden—its term for Game Master and a handful of players, it casts the Player Characters as hardened adventurers who undertake to explore a dark and mysterious Wood populated with strange folk, hidden treasure, and unspeakable monstrosities. As a system, it does not use character Classes, eschews Experience Points in favour of in-world experience to gain new skills and abilities, has death firmly placed around the corner, and play has the Player Characters working together towards a common objective. Thus, from Into the Odd, Cairn employs three attributes, deadly combat with automatic hits which make armour a wise choice and forces a player to ask whether combat is always the right solution, armour deducting damage suffered, whilst from Knave, it uses the equipment slot mechanics for everything a Player Character carries, including the one-spell spellbooks and similar tables for determining traits for the character.

Where Cairn starts is in presenting up front its principles of play for both the Warden and her players. For the Warden these deal with how information, difficulty, danger, choice, preparation, narrative focus, treasure, and fate are handled during play, whilst for the player they cover agency, teamwork, exploration, communication, caution, planning, and ambition. For example, when it comes to danger, the Warden is told that the Player Characters face real risk of pain and death; that she should telegraph any danger clearly to the players and their characters; traps should be obvious allowing the players and their characters time to work out to disarm them; and she should provide opportunities to solve problems and interact with the world. For the players and their characters, they are advised to use teamwork, seeking consensus before rushing to act, agreeing to follow the same goals and limits, to respect each other, and consequently accomplish more as a group than single characters. Many of the points are obvious, but here they are placed up front for both player and Warden, and direct and to the point. It is a case of, “Here is what you are playing and here is how you play it to get the best out of it.” It is solid advice and both sections should be read by the Warden and her players.

A Player Character in Cairn has three abilities—Strength, Dexterity, and Willpower. These are rolled on three six-sided dice. He has between one and six points of Hit Protection. This is not Hit Points in the traditional sense of roleplaying games, but rather a measure of resilience, luck, and gumption, rather than health. He has an Inventory of ten slots, which includes backpack, both hands, and upper body. A player rolls for the three abilities, and then on tables for name and background, and various character traits, including physique, skin, hair, face, speech, clothing, virtue, vice, reputation, and misfortunes. He also rolls for armour, helmet and shields, expeditionary gear, tools, trinkets, and a bonus item. In addition, the Player Character has some rations, a torch, and some gold. Optional Gear Packages are listed if the Warden and her players want to play a more traditional style of fantasy roleplaying game. These include Cleric, Dwarf, Elf, Fighter, Magic-User, Ranger, and Thief, but also the odder Dowser, Friar, and Knight. Most of the traits are roleplaying and appearance cues, but the Player Character’s Background suggests an area of knowledge and skills, though this not reflected mechanically in the game itself. It is left up to the Game Master to decide whether that is the case or not, but mechanically, this would have made each Player Character stand out a little more. The process is straightforward and takes a few minutes.

Name: Esme Hunter
Background: Smuggler
Strength: 07 Dexterity: 10 Willpower: 08
Physique: Scrawny Skin: Soft
Hair: Filthy Face: Rat-like
Speech: Formal Clothing: Bloody
Virtue: Courageous Vice: Craven
Reputation: Respected Misfortunes: Cursed

Equipment
Armour: Brigadine
Helmet and Shield: None
Weapons: Dagger, Cudgel, Staff
Backpack: Three days’ rations, torch, Wolfsbane, Drill, Dice Set, Metal File

Mechanically in Cairn, a Player Character rolls a Save against an appropriate ability, aiming to roll equal to or under. A one is always a success and a twenty always a failure. It is as that, and combat does not much more in the way of complexity. In combat, a player will primarily be rolling to gain initiative and to inflict damage. Gaining the initiative—and therefore either the high ground or a point where an ambush can be performed—is important because it means that the Player Character can get a strike in first, inflict damage first, and hopefully defeat an opponent. This is because very attack hits and inflicts damage. Damage is rolled by weapon type, from a four-sided die for sling shots to a ten-sided die for a polearm, but attack damage can be reduced to a four-sided die no matter what the weapon if the combatants are fighting from a position of weakness or increased to a twelve-sided die if fighting from a position of strength.

Armour reduces damage, which is then deducted from the Player Character’s Hit Protection. Once that is reduced to zero, it is deducted from the defendant’s Strength. When this happens, a Strength Save is required to avoid taking critical damage. This is immediately crippling and lethal not that long after… If a defendant’s Strength is reduced to zero, then he dies anyway. If the Player Character’s Hit Protection is reduced to exactly zero without any Strength damage. The amount of damage suffered determines the result. For example, a two means that the Player Character suffers a Rattling Blow, and is disoriented and shaken. The player describes how his character refocuses and rerolls his character’s Hit Protection.

In the long term, Scars are the primary way in which the Player Characters improve. Most have the player reroll his character’s Hit Protection. If higher than the character’s maximum Hit Protection, then the new maximum is kept. Others though, do the same for the Player Character’s Strength, Dexterity, or Will. In this way, suffering Scars becomes a learning experience for the Player Character. An uncertain one, but a learning experience nonetheless.

All Player Characters in Cairn can read and cast magic from a Spellbook, each of which holds one spell. The secret to writing spells is unknown and Spellbooks are mostly looted from dungeons and tombs. It is fatiguing to cast spells—modelled by having one Inventory slot filled temporarily to reflect tiredness and ability to carry items. A list of some hundred spells is included, such as Astral Prison, Flare, Ooze Form, or True Sight. Casting a spell can be done again and again, but the caster’s Fatigue grows, until he is exhausted and cannot cast any more. The variety of spells, their relative power, and the fact that they cannot be replicated makes them worth searching for.

Also searching for are Relics. These are items of magical power, perhaps imbued with a spell. Although they do not cause fatigue when used, they have limited use and the examples given possess strict means of being recharged. For example, the Honeyclasp is a rusted ring which can shrink the wearer to six inches tall and has three charges. To recharge it, it must be bathed in a thimble-sized cup of royal jelly. The few Relics here are clever and pleasing and different. However, Relics are not Treasure. Treasure—as stated in the principles at the start of Cairn, is always specific to the environment from where it is recovered, tells a story, is highly valuable, likely bulky, rarely useful beyond its worth and prestige, and in terms of game play, used as a lure to exotic locations under the protection of intimidating foes. However, there are no examples of treasure of Cairn and that contributes towards the primary issue with the roleplaying game.
Cairn includes a short bestiary of creatures, such as the Root Goblin, the Wood Troll, and the Frost Elf. These are nicely detailed and possess a certain flavour, and the bestiary is paralleled literally with a guide to creating monsters. Much like the rest of Cairn, these guidelines are short and to the point, and they include guideline for converting creatures and monsters from other Old School Renaissance roleplaying games.

So far, so good. What Cairn does is provide a simple, sturdy set of rules that play quickly and are quick to set up by the players, plus a few examples of what might be found or encountered when playing the game. Then nothing. In fact, not just one nothing, but rather three nothings, all of which could have been addressed in a handful of pages. The first omission is a lack of setting. One is implied, that the Player Characters are exploring a mysterious woodland, filled with all manner of creatures fae and fell, searching and pillaging ancient barrows, stealing powerful spellbooks, and slaying unspeakable monstrosities. Bar the half dozen monsters and four relics presented in the book, there is none of this implied setting on show, and hardly even that… So there is no example of a mysterious woodland at all. One such wood, Dolmenwood, is mentioned in the acknowledgements and that is a possible example of such a wood, but that wood tends towards a certain whimsy that Cairn does not necessarily lend itself to. Nor is there a discussion of what such a woodland might be or help and advice for the Game Master who wants to create one. That is the second omission, whilst the third is a lack of a scenario, and all three together means that Cairn is not only incomplete, but also fails to follow through on its implication.

Physically, Cairn is well presented, the writing to the point, and the artwork, all public domain, does much to suggest a dark forestial setting.

Cairn feels like it should be suited for a dark and gritty, grubby and mouldering campaign involving intrusions into the wilderness, exploring ancient woodlands, and delving into tombs and barrows of the ancient past, played by fragile men and women who might just learn from their experiences. It has the mechanics and rules to do this, quick and brutal, but backed up with some excellent design philosophies and principles placed at the front of the book. Yet as solid as the rules are in Cairn and as solid as its inspirations are in Into the Odd and Knave, Cairn ultimately fails as a complete RPG because it never follows through on its implied setting. It only tells you what that setting is, it never shows you what that setting is. When Cairn, Second Edition is published with either the setting, setting advice, scenario, or all three that current edition only implies, it will be a complete roleplaying game and all the better for it.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: All Roads Point SouthPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Michael Bertolini

Setting: Jazz Age USAProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Fourteen page, 2.38 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A race against time to stop the Rise of R’lyehPlot Hook: A break in at Yale puts the Investigators on the trail of a dangerous cult.
Plot Support: Five NPCs, no handouts, and four Mythos monsters.Production Values: Ordinary.
Pros# Scriptophobia# Thalassophobia# Potentially interesting cult versus cult situation# Perfect for the Call of Cthulhu Keeper who wants a project to develop of her own
Cons# Needs a strong edit# No final Sanity rewards or losses given# Core clue difficult to obtain
# Underwritten and underdeveloped plot# A collection of scenes rather than scenario
Conclusion# A collection of scenes from an unfinished and underdeveloped scenario that vaguely apes elements of The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft.# Underwhelming and uninteresting scenario whose roads point to the less than perfect Shadows of Yog-Sothoth as a better purchase rather than south.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Gold FeverPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Erik Åhlin

Setting: Jazz Age SwedenProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-nine page, 9.56 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “All that glisters is not gold.”Plot Hook: A missing son leads to murder, mystery, and the Mythos under the Midnight Sun.
Plot Support: Twelve NPCs, five (ten) handouts, and two Mythos monsters.Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Silver medalist for the 2022 national Swedish Call of Cthulhu scenario competition# Solid Sweden-set investigation# Detailed notes and handouts provided to adapt the scenario to the USA# Engaging portrayal of period Sweden# Good handouts# Potential for expansion into the Dreamlands# Easy to adapt to other time periods# Ophidiophobia# Aurophobia

Cons# Needs an edit# Clearer final Sanity rewards and losses needed 
# No Swedish pre-generated Investigators# If the silver medal winning scenario is as solid as this, how good is the gold medal winning scenario?
Conclusion# Worthy medal winner in the 2022 national Swedish Call of Cthulhu scenario competition # Impressively decent scenario combines solid investigation with an engaging portrayal of Sweden in the 1920s

Ruins of the Lost Realm is the first supplement for The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings, which opens up new sites and new plots beyond those in both the core book and The One Ring Starter Set. It ranges far and wide beyond the borders of the sleepy Shire across what was once the great kingdom of Arnor, first split petty feuds and then destroyed by the forces of the Witch-King of Angmar. What remains are long stretches of wilderness and dark lands, punctuated by places and sites where hope may yet lie, darkness and remnants of Shadow hide, and plots await their turning and eventual culmination at the hand of factions that reach out from beyond the very borders of this land. The locations include Tharbad, a ruined river port ruled with the tightest of fists which could become an important trade stop and so help bind the peoples of the north and south together or it could become a path for the Shadow to reach into the region. Swanfleet, a refuge fiercely protected by its inhabitants, which include giant swans and talking otters—the latter prepared to act as a guide for a price, their payment saved in a riverbank!—hides secrets and great knowledge, which could prove useful or be lost. Eryn Vorn, one of the last remnants of the great forests which stretched across Middle-earth, including The Old Forest and Fangorn, inhabited by bloodthirsty savages which could be unleashed upon the region if they fall under the sway of certain factions. This is the land known as Eriador, a land rougher and wilder than Rhovanion, the region to the east of the Misty Mountains, for here in the Lone-lands there are few if any kingdoms, only isolated points of hope, let alone civilisation.

Ruins of the Lost Realm is a regional guide to the lands of southern Eriador, casting a spotlight on particular locations, important individuals at each, and the grand plots that will play out and befall the region if nothing is done to stop them. It does not include any pre-written scenarios as such, but throughout there are numerous plots, both immediate and long term, that the Loremaster can use and develop for her campaign. In two instances, the city of Tharbad and the village of Lond Daer downstream from the river port, this has required some looser interpretation of the source texts for the region, primarily for playability, but the authors are upfront about it and advise that the Loremaster can change it to fit her interpretation. The book itself is divided into three quite lengthy chapters.

‘Chapter 1: Fog Over Eriador’ explores some of the key regions and persons of note, primarily to the south of Bree. Particular attention is paid to the once great river port of Tharbad, noted for the ships it once built and the mighty bridge, with its numerous arches and towers, which once crossed the river the city stands on, but is now stands ruined. Tharbad though, remains an important trade stop on the road, and could be a significant one if its lord, Gurnow, Captain of the Haven has his way. A former bandit, he rules with an iron fist, taxing anyone who wishes to leave, especially if a craftsman or merchant who can bring Tharbad wealth. There is a seedy criminality to the city, but also a sense of desperation too. Gurnow has no designated heir, his thuggish sons ready to send the city into civil war should he die. However, there are allies for the Player-heroes to be found, including a librarian with access to great deal of lore who could become a Patron, plus, numerous factions outside the region have taken an interest in events in the city.

Other factions and regions detailed here include the aforementioned Swanfleet and Eryn Vorn, but also Lond Daer, a village downstream from Tharbad which following her slaying the serpent which threatened it, is becoming a town under Queen Nimue, aided by the occasional guidance of the Grey Wizard himself, Gandalf; the Dwarf Halls of Harmelt, ancient mines in the Blue Mountains, where a desperate band of Dwarves dig in order to prove that the gold in the mines has not played out and their wealth and standing has not been lost; and also the Ruins of Cardolan and the Lone-lands of Minhiriath. These last two are overviews, first of what remains of the last kingdom of the Núménoreans—mostly their watch towers like that at Weathertop, and the second, the seemingly empty lands of what was once Arnor. However, it is the city of Tharbad which stands out here and is given a gorgeous map in the inside front cover of the book. As potential starting point or base of operations for the Player-heroes, Thardbad is noticeably darker and dirtier than previously presented would be Havens in The One Ring, but that highlights the rougher and darker feel of the Lone-lands.

‘Chapter Two: A Gathering Storm’ provides the Loremaster with details of several external factions with designs on the region. Although others are mentioned, three are given particular attention—a band of Black Núménoreans sent by Sauron, agents of Saruman looking for ring lore, and raiders from Dunland. All come from the south, and all have unique goals, agents, and resources, which are described in detail. The Black Núménoreans are sent by Sauron, and sail up from Umbar aboard a black fortress ship, and then travel ashore up the rivers in search of Rivendell. Saruman is the most subtle of the three factions, sending agents across the region in search of ring lore, whilst the Dunlenders are the least subtle, raiding and spreading their influence through force, secretly with the backing of Saruman. Each faction also has its own ‘Dark Designs’, a year-by-year timeline of what happens if their plans come to fruition. These run from the year 2965, the default starting year for The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings, and end in 2975.

Use of these factions and their timelines by the Loremaster are entirely optional, but they are great narrative tools around which she can frame her campaign. They are notable for two points. One is the fact that the three timelines are contradictory—and contradictory by design. This represents the competing, although they are not necessarily aware of it, goals of the three factions, so it is possible to have them clash over their goals or simply focus on one or two of the factions and still have them threaten locations. The other notable fact is the presence of Saruman who we know will have become a villain by the time of The Lord of the Rings. The Loremaster is advised not to foreshadow this in her campaign and maintain him as primarily a force for good in the region, and even a possible Patron for the Player-heroes. Overall, these factions and timelines are a great tool for the Loremaster.

‘Chapter Three: Landmarks’ is the last and largest chapter in Ruins of the Lost Realm, taking up over half of the book. As its title suggests, it deals with individual locations or landmarks, each a possible adventure site. Each comes an associated rumour and lore, background, location, and more, including artefacts, NPCs, and one or more maps. One, ‘The Queen’s Hall’ in Lond Dear, expands upon a location detailed earlier in the book, adding further detail and presenting more as a playable location. Most are new though. ‘The Queen’s Hall’ is a potential place of safety as is ‘The Ranger-haven’ south of the Trollshaws, whilst ‘The White Towers’ treasured holdings of the Elves of Lindon which house a palantír, are a potential site of learning and for Saruman, of ring lore. Other locations explore the region’s history, for example, ‘Tindailin – an Elven Refuge’ which has fallen into horror from loss and heartache, and ‘The Fields of Slaughter’, the site of the Battle of Fornost at which a host of Elves and Men (plus Hobbits) defeated the armies of the Witch-king where spirits and the unquiet dead still wander. Most though, are sites of danger and threat, the worst of which is ‘Mount Gram’, a goblin-infested, skull-faced mountain in the far north.

Ruins of the Lost Realm is not a fully fledged campaign, but rather a toolkit with which the Loremaster can build a campaign. The primary structure for the campaign will be built around which of the three factions and their projected timelines the Loremaster decides to use, and these will likely send the Player-heroes off hither and thither to the various Landmarks detailed in the supplement. This means that the Loremaster will need to undertake some development work of her own, though in some cases, the Landmarks are already pre-written as encounters and mini-scenarios. All the Loremaster has to do is find a way for the Player-heroes to get there. There is some overlap in details between chapters, but these help to enforce the links between locations rather than simply repeat content. If there is an issue perhaps, it is the lack of a starting point or way into the campaign possibilities that Ruins of the Lost Realm suggests, but that lack is one which affects The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings as a whole rather than just this supplement.

Physically, Ruins of the Lost Realm is stunning, following the same style as the core rulebook. It is very cleanly presented in a clear, open style, and the content itself is engaging to read. In particular, the maps are excellent, whether of Tharbad, the region, or the individual Landmarks, the latter done in three dimensions rather than from overhead. The artwork is also very good, a pen and ink style that captures the old-world rustic charm of Middle-earth and its ruins and wilderness. The style and look echoes that of the classic editions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy published by Allen & Unwin, and has a more scholarly feel as if Bilbo himself sat down to write it.

Ruins of the Lost Realm is not a regional guide to Eriador nor is it a set of scenarios or a campaign, but rather the means for the Loremaster to develop a campaign of her own. That may well be a problem in its own right, since it is not providing an easy way into playing and running The One Ring, and so Ruins of the Lost Realm is very much a supplement better suited to the experienced Loremaster rather than one new to the task. Nevertheless, for the Loremaster ready to develop a campaign set in the Lone-lands of Eriador, Ruins of the Lost Realm provides the Loremaster with everything she needs—lore, legends, plots, places, monsters, and NPCs, to make the campaign her own.

The Cursed Library: A book of scary one-shot short storiesis an anthology of scenarios for use with Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. Published by Parable Games, this is a fast-playing, dramatic, and generic horror roleplaying game which combines simple, thematic mechanics built around archetypal characters and a simple propriety dice mechanic, combined with a Doom Clock which escalates the tension and a wide selection of classic, nasty monsters. The Cursed Library contains five scenarios inspired by horror films old and new, ranging from The Thing and Children of the Corn to Alien and Bone Tomahawk. Consequently, each of the scenario has a very film-like feel and structure, and the film-like feel even starts before a scenario gets down to explaining the plot and the set-up to the Director by preceding it with a certificate from the ‘Shiver Board of Classification’. This lists the expected playing time, number of players, horror subgenre, film age rating, content warning, suggested ability levels for the Player Characters, and a watchlist. The latter is a list of three films that the Director can watch to understand both the tone of the scenario and its inspiration. The film age rating uses the ratings used by the British Board of Film Classification and of the five scenarios in The Cursed Library, one is rated ‘12’,whilst the other four are all rated ‘15’.
The help and structure in The Cursed Library does not end with either the ‘Shiver Board of Classification’ or the end of the scenario itself. Each scenario begins by explaining what the Director knows, the set-up for the Player Characters, the types of character that fit the scenario and their archetypes in Shiver, and then after the scenario there are suggestions as to how to expand the story, helps and hints to better run the scenario, and of course, each scenario comes with a list of Doom Clock Events and new weapons, equipment, monsters, and NPCs. Every scenario in Shiver is played against the clock as it ticks down to midnight, primarily due to the actions of the Player Characters, and at ‘Quarter Past’, ‘Half Past’, ‘Quarter To’, and ‘Midnight’ certain events will happen. Each of the six scenarios provides four such events suited to both subgenre and the story. The new weapons, equipment, monsters, and NPCs are all potentially useful for the Director if she wants to use them in scenarios of her devising.
The Cursed Library: A book of scary one-shot short stories opens with ‘The Lost Ship’, inspired by The Thing, The Void, and Event Horizon. There is a dash of The X-Files in there too as the Player Characters are members of a Special Ops team assigned to locate the USS Morningstar, a United States Navy research vessel operating in the Artic which has lost communication with the outside world. When the scenario starts out in Barrow, the first response is to think of a vampire attack as in 30 Days of Night, but ‘The Lost Ship’ is actually a tale of cosmic horror than bloodsuckers. The scenario has a pleasing sense of frigid isolation as the Player Characters locate and descend into the bowels of the ship and things seem to come out of the walls and floor at them. The monsters too are fantastically otherworldly too and that is ultimately where the Player Characters will have to deal with the threat currently contained within the hull of the USS Morningstar. This is an action-packed opener which gets the anthology of to a good start.
The second scenario combines Stranger Things, People Under the Stairs, and The Haunting and sets it all on Halloween. ‘All Hallow’s Eve’ is a set in any small town with creepy old house where no one lives, in which many a teenager is challenged to see how long they will last inside its walls. The ultimate bragging rights go to the kid who can stay the whole night. This year it is the turn of the Player Characters—as teenagers from the local high school—to test their resolve, but this time when they cross the threshold, the front door not only closes, but locks too! The scenario combines two puzzles in one—how to get out of the house and what happened to the original owners. Thus the Player Characters are on the hunt for clues to both, forcing them to explore the house and in the process encounter all manner of classic haunted house elements. Animated suits of armour, Ouija boards, demonic toys, things in the bathtub, and more. The horror in the scenario tends towards being creepy rather bloody, but the Director can dial either up or down as necessary, and there are some fun suggestions as to what do with the outcome of the scenario. These include having the front door open to somewhere else rather than their hometown when the Player Characters finally get all the keys necessary to unlock it or secrets being revealed that lead the Player Characters to investigate the original owner’s background. This is a fun scenario in which both players and the Keeper play up the clichés and enjoy its gothic Americana.
‘Dark Prospect’ is set on the frontier of the Wild west in the town of Hope’s hallow. Inspired by The Blob, Bone Tomahawk, and The Descent, the fortunes of the town rest on the mines in nearby Deadwater Peak, so when all news dries up of the miners, the local sheriff—backed up by the mine owner’s $2 reward (each)—raises a local posse and rides into the mountains, up to the mine, and from there descend into the depths. Compared to the other scenarios in the anthology, this is a smaller, much tighter, and more linear affair, and more physical too.
Inspired by Alien, Event Horizon, and Starship Troopers, the fourth scenario, ‘Protocol’ is a Science Fiction thriller set in outer space. The crew and passengers of the CCV Pilgrim respond to a distress call from a nearby planet and discover a downed vessel with the majority of its crew missing despite there being signs of their being alive when the ship went down. The clues point elsewhere and if the Player Characters follow them they discover another crashed starship, this with its own definitely missing crew and still the mystery of what happened to the crew of the ship that sent the distress call. ‘Protocol’ very much takes its cues from the xenomorphs of Alien and works hard with them. It all ends with a desperate race to get back to their shuttle and back off planet as the true nature of the threat is revealed…
The final scenario in the anthology is ‘Mr Husk’. Inspired by just Children of the Corn and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, this is a rural slasher Folk Horror scenario. It is the seventies, and the Player Characters are driving through the flat Midwest with nothing to see but cornfields, when their vehicle breaks down. Stranded in the middle of nowhere, the Player Characters are going to need help, but what they find at the nearest farm is horror in the barn. With limited locations, but wide-open spaces of the cornfields, there is room here for stalking the Player Characters as they try and hide and get away from the farm and what is going on there (Clue: It is not cannibalism!) This is the shortest of the scenarios in The Cursed Library and the most flexible, instead having set Player Characters, it suggests a range of character types including Vietnam veterans, travelling salesmen, a band going from gig to gig, and even some low budget film makers looking to shoot some film… ‘Mr Husk’ brings the collection to a close with a swing of the scythe.
Physically, The Cursed Library is much like the core rulebook for Shiver. The artwork is excellent for the most part, done in a style similar to that of Mike Mignola and his Hellboy comic, and very much showcases the type of horror stories that Shiver was designed to handle. The writing is clear, but does need a stronger edit in places and the cartography is too plain for each scenario’s needs.
From its choice of subgenres to its choice of plots, The Cursed Library is one big book of horror clichés and familiar plots. However, that is far from being a bad thing. After all, Shiver is designed to deliver fast-playing, dramatic, and generic horror in which the players roleplay horror archetypes in various subgenres, and that is what The Cursed Library delivers. Its stories are not so much horror clichés as horror archetypes, just like the Player Characters, and they complement each other. The five scenarios in the anthology will be familiar to many, after all, they are film-inspired, but knowing and playing into that familiarity is part of the fun with a generic horror roleplaying game. Both player and Director alike need to load up on popcorn and fizzy drinks, lean into the clichés of the subgenres in five horror scenarios in The Cursed Library: A book of scary one-shot short stories, and together, they will have a blast.

—oOo—

SHIVER: Double Feature, the next expansion for Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown is currently being funded on Gamefound.