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

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

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Name: Operation HopePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Marco Carrer

Setting: Post-‘the Stars are Right’ Germany, 2035Product: Scenario
What You Get: Eighteen page, 512.92 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.” – Friedrich NietzschePlot Hook: A search for sanctuary in a time when dreams are all that anyone hasPlot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Investigators, five handouts, five maps, four NPCs, and four Mythos monsters.Production Values: Plain
Pros# Near future-set post-apocalyptic scenario for Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos# Ososphobia# Oneirophobia# Phagophobia
Cons# Requires Cthulhu through the ages# Who was calling for help?# Needs an edit# Sanity rewards too high# Underdeveloped setting

Conclusion# Operation Hope turns to Operation Hopelessness...# Underdeveloped setting# Reviews from R’lyeh Discommends

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It is pitches the Allied Agents of the Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance into a secret war against those Nazi Agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. They are willing to risk their lives and their sanity against malicious Nazi villains and the unfathomable gods and monsters of the Mythos themselves, each striving for supremacy in mankind’s darkest yet finest hour! Yet even the darkest of drives to take advantage of the Mythos is riven by differing ideologies and approaches pandering to Hitler’s whims. The Black Sun consists of Nazi warrior-sorcerers supreme who use foul magic and summoned creatures from nameless dimensions to dominate the battlefields of men, whilst Nachtwölfe, the Night Wolves, utilise technology, biological enhancements, and wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) to win the war for Germany. Ultimately, both utilise and fall under the malign influence of the Mythos, the forces of which have their own unknowable designs…

In addition to any number of scenarios for Achtung! Cthulhu, Modiphius Entertainment also publishes what it calls ‘Section M: Priority Missions’. These are smaller missions and scenarios intended to help a Game Master is hard-pressed for time or needs an alternate scenario when there are fewer players. Alternatively, they can be used as one-shots or woven into ongoing campaigns. Each though, provides a single mission that can be played in a single session as well as adventure hooks should the Game Master want to expand the scenario.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 3: Assault on Zuara 2 is the third entry in the series and the second to be set in North Africa. Its premise is very simple. A mysterious Luftwaffe aircraft has been spotted making a forced landing at an airstrip in North Africa following an engagement with the RAF where it is undergoing repairs in a hangar on-site. The LRDG, or Long Range Desert Group, which conducted the reconnaissance, indicated in its report that the aircraft resembled the Junkers G 38 bomber, a model based on a 1929 large, four-engined transport. However, there are significant differences. This aircraft has only two engines, both of them rear-facing, and there is no rear fuselage or tail boom. Whatever the aeroplane is, it must be experimental, because what it resembles is a flying wing! The report also contained one other fact: the damaged aircraft seemed to flicker in and out of sight as it landed. Could it be some new radical prototype? The RAF was sceptical. It was just one unidentified aeroplane and the fact that the report said it seemed to flicker in and out of sight as it landed was ridiculous. The report was filed away.

However, the very fact that this strange aircraft was said to have flickered in and out of sight as it landed was more than enough to attract the attention of Section M. Especially when its hears each disappearance was marked by an intermittent burst of blue light! This is definitely more than a simple prototype. Whatever is in that hanger at the airstrip is definitely connected to Nachtwölfe or Black Sun. Likely a wunderwaffe of the former or some devilry of the latter. The mission is simple. The Player Characters have to get to the airstrip, sabotage or steal the aircraft, and then report back!

The LRDG operated in North Africa between 1940 and 1945, which gives a wide time frame in which to run the mission. Ideally though, it should be after the events of Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 2: Our Lady of the Eternal Sapphire is and early on in the war when Nachtwölfe was a relatively unknown force in the Secret War. It would also mean that it could be easily run as a side mission for part of the campaign, Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis. The campaign involves Nachtwölfe and its third mission is set in Cairo and Egypt. Either way, the fact that the damaged engine is flickering with a blue light probably means Nachtwölfe involvement.

As with other ‘Section M: Priority Missions’, the focus on Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 3: Assault on Zuara 2 is on detailing the location and mapping what and who is there. As an active airfield there are a lot of personnel. There are over fifty members of the Luftwaffe and twelve members of Nachtwölfe assigned to operate and monitor the newly designed prototype. There are also fifteen vehicles, primarily used for transport in and around the airfield, plus, of course, several Bf-109 fighters. The map of the airfield is nicely done, showing both how widely spaced out the various locations are for the safety of the men and the aeroplanes in case of attack or explosion and how temporary the landing strip is, with only two buildings. One is a modern concrete command post; the other is an old fortress. There is also a single hanger and a machine shop. These and the other locations are lightly described and there are no internal maps of the command post, fortress, hanger, or machine shop. The Game Master will need to do some research or improvise if the Player Characters want more information or floor plans. That said, these locations should be familiar to anyone who has seen a few World War 2 films!

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 3: Assault on Zuara 2 is a strike mission. It is military in nature and it will involve a lot of stealth. Plus, if the Player Characters are to steal the strange prototype, then one of their number should include a pilot. The focus on the strike mission, that is, get in, steal or destroy the prototype, means that there is little in the way of variation in terms of hooks or how the Player Characters get involved. Instead, three possible outcomes are discussed, including destroying the aeroplane, alerting the base personnel, and escaping aboard the aeroplane, ready to fly it back to Allied territory. In addition, several ‘Encounter Escalation’ options are suggested. These are all thematically appropriate such as a sudden downpour of rain that turns the airfield into a muddy quagmire or a flight of Allied bombers attacks the aircraft!

However, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 3: Assault on Zuara 2 saves its best for last—“Who’s the big feller?” This is Egypt, there are Nazis, so there has to be big bruiser of an NCO ready to duke it out with one of the Player Characters with his fists! And if that NCO is played by the late Pat Roach, then all the better. His inclusion, though, points to the obvious inspiration for the Priority Mission, and that is Raiders of the Lost Ark. Another is that the mysterious aircraft which initiates the plot is based upon the Blohm and Voss BV-38 ‘Flying Wing’ that appeared in that film. Another possible inspiration is Captain America: The First Avenger in the design and modification of the aeroplane.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 3: Assault on Zuara 2 is cleanly and tidily laid out. It is not illustrated, but the map of the airfield is nicely done.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 3: Assault on Zuara 2 is more military than Mythos, more stealth and action than cosmic horror. As a military operation though, it is actually easier to prepare and run and thus easy to slip into an ongoing campaign or run when a backup scenario is needed. Despite the lack of Mythos in the scenario, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 3: Assault on Zuara 2 is fun and its playing around with its inspirations is engaging.

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

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Some time in the near future. Mankind has advanced into near orbit and beyond, establishing space stations and lunar bases. Regular shuttles run between them and the Earth. Crewed spaceflights have visited the inner planets and the asteroid belt, and great solar arrays beam power down to the surface. Advances have been made in terms of computer hardware and software. It could be ten years from now. It could be fifty years from now. In other words, it could be 1994 or it could be 2034. The world though riven in two and society has fragmented. The cause? Psionic powers. Whether to be seen as gifts or curses, to be celebrated or feared, society in general has reacted with fear and distrust. The Psis, those with the genetic quirk that grants them their powers, are few in number, so the Norms, those without, ostracise them, corralling them in ghettoes where they can be monitored and controlled. The government enacts laws that restrict their freedoms in the name of protecting the majority and will use force and even other Psis to track down and arrest those that hide or worse, resist.

This is the setting for PSI World: Role Playing Game of Psionic Powers, a roleplaying game published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1984. It is a roleplaying game in which either the Player Characters have psionic powers and fear being hated and persecuted because of them, but wanting to use them to benefit humanity, or they are hunting rogue or terrorist Psis. Inspiration would have come from books such as Stephen Kings 1980 novel, Firestarter, and the 1984 film of the same name, David Cronenberg’s 1981 Scanners, and the ‘Days of Future Past’ storyline from the Marvel Comics comic book The Uncanny X-Men issues #141–142, published in 1981. It is slim affair in several senses. The genre, that of near-future ‘dystopian otherness’ does not amount to very much, though that does not mean that familiar tales of resistance cannot be told using the roleplaying game. After all, the television miniseries V was released in 1983 and that drew parallels between the alien Visitors and the Nazis. The setting is very lightly defined, but it does leave more than enough room for the Referee to map it onto her own setting, perhaps even the one outside her window, or simply create one of her own. Lastly, the two books that come in the boxed set are slim themselves.

PSI World was published as boxed set. Inside can be found the thirty-two-page ‘PSI World: Role Playing Game of Psionic Powers’ rulebook, the thirty-page ‘The Psi World Adventure’, a Referee’s Screen, a character sheet, and two ten-sided dice and two six-sided dice. Bar the lid of the box, which is in powder blue with a very eighties cartoon-style cover by Bill Willingham, everything is in black and white. ‘PSI World: Role Playing Game of Psionic Powers’ rulebook opens with a three-paragraph introduction, two of which provide an overview of the setting, before leaping into character creation.

A Player Character in PSI World has seven attributes. These are Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Will, and Psionic Power. These are rated between two and twenty. Various values are derived from these including Initiative Factor, Defence Bonus, Bonus to Hit, Damage Bonus, Hit Points, Shock Resistance, and Heal Rate. To create a character, a player rolls two ten-sided dice for each attribute, works out the derived factors, and then rolls for Hit Points, before rolling for educational background. The latter is a percentile roll, with a bonus for Intelligence. Non-Psis gain this and a general bonus. Options for educational background include General Education, Vocational Education, Military, Advanced Education, and Spacer. Advanced Education represents studying at college. Skills are divided between ‘Level’ skills and ‘Non-Level’ skills. ‘Level’ skills are straightforward percentile skills, whilst ‘Non-Level’ skills are those are either known or not known, and rely on the appropriate Attribute Saving Throw to use. If a Player Character has psionic powers, then he has either one Major discipline or two Minor disciplines, or they can be rolled for randomly.

Name: Rachel Rosen
Education: Military
Strength 08 (AST 32), Agility 14 (AST 56) Dexterity 16 (AST 64), Endurance 14 (AST 56), Intelligence 18 (AST 72), Will 12 (AST 48), Psionic Power 14 (AST 56)
Initiative Factor: +13
Defence Bonus: -7
Bonus to Hit: +10
Damage Bonus: +2 (Projectile) 0 (Hand-held Weapons)
Hit Points: 25 (Base), Head – 7, Chest – 14, Abdomen – 14, Left/Right Arm – 6/6, Left/Right Leg – 6/6
Shock Resistance: 60%
Heal Rate: 1½/day

Skills: Interrogation 50%, Police Techniques 50%, Police Weapons 50%, Drive Car, Gambling, Streetwise 50%, Unarmed Combat 50%, Stealth 30%, Swimming, Street Combat

Psionic Disciplines: Precog (Major), Time Shifter (Minor)

The core mechanic in PSI World is percentile, a player typically rolling against either a skill or an Attribute Saving Throw. For each complicating factor, the Referee applies a Level of Difficulty, a ten-point penalty. Regardless of the Level of Difficulty, a Player Character always has a minimum chance of success, equal to one twentieth of the skill level. A roll of 95% and above is always a failure. A failure can result in equipment or materials being damaged. To avoid this, the player will need to roll an Attribute Saving Throw, modified by the degree of failure. A roll of one hundred indicates a major failure and a major penalty to the Attribute Saving Throw. However, whilst there is scope for a major failure, there is no room in PSI World for its counterpart, a major success.

Combat is played out in a series of ten-second rounds and covers unarmed, melee, and ranged combat. The attacker’s skill is modified by his Bonus to Hit and the defender’s Defence Bonus. There are processes given each for Throws, Throws/Pins, Throws/Chokes, and Strikes, and then again for melee and ranged attacks. Where attacks affect specific hit locations, damage is applied to both them and general Hit Points. Damage that exceeds the Hit Point total for a location indicates a wound which will have different effect depending upon the location. This is followed by various weapons lists, most of which consists of typical weapons from the eighties like the .357 magnum revolver or the .44 auto magnum. They are joined by needlers, tangle guns, essentially Science Fiction weapons.

Between the combat rules and the skill lists are listed the psionic powers and their use. Psionic powers are divided between major and minor disciplines. All require the expenditure of Psionic Power Points to use, each Player Character possessing a number equal to double to his Psionic Power attribute. The major disciplines consist of Precog, Telepath, Teleport, Telekinetic, Self-Aware, Healer, and Empath. The minor disciplines include Time Shifter, Pyrokinetic, Ghost, Weakness Understanding, Psi Amplifier, and more. Some of the minor disciplines, such as Genius which adds extra points to the Intelligence attribute and adds more skill points, are permanent effects, but at a cost of permanent reduction in the Psionic Power attribute. Major disciplines have numerous sub-abilities. For example, Precog has Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, Sense Danger, Locate Danger, Detect Psi, all the way up to Augury, Vision, Combat precog, and Luck. Each of these costs its own amount of power points to use. For example, Sense Danger costs five points to use, but Psychometry on an object costs twenty points. The list of powers is compressive, though it should be noted that the Healer includes reverse effects. So, Harm and Heal, Reverse Major Wound and Cause Major Wound, Curse Disease and Cause Disease, and so on. However, the one aspect missing here which is integral to the genre, that of psionic duels of will and power.

The ‘PSI World: Role Playing Game of Psionic Powers’ rulebook comes to a close with a chapter called ‘The World’. Except, it really is not about the world. Rather that it takes a cursory look at some of the changes that might affect the neighbourhood where the Referee is setting her campaign, the suggestion being that the this should be her neighbourhood, only changed to account for the advances in technology and the presence of the psionically capable. The rest is devoted to a price list. The result is distinctly anaemic and indicative of the problem that pervades the roleplaying game as a whole.

The second book ‘The Psi World Adventure’ contains two scenarios. It also expands upon the setting. Three generations previously, the world was divided between two superpowers and a host of neutral nations. The two superpowers were the People’s Confederacy and the United Commonwealth, the former based on Communist China, the latter on the then modern U.S.A. The neutral nations formed trade blocs. The appearance of Psis disrupted society and led to the collapse of the People’s Confederacy into a patchwork of warring states, often led by Psis who set themselves as petty dictators and warlords. Similarly, a wave of psi-related crime swept across the United Commonwealth, but unlike the People’s Confederacy, it was able to survive this due to strong central government and effective police force. The United Commonwealth established the Psionic Protection Agency, a federal organisation dedicated to protecting the general population. Psionic crimes are subject to a warning and several years of probation on the first offence, and then psionic lobotomy on a second. Most who suffer this migrate to space. Violently opposed to the Psis is the League for Human Genetic Purity.

Both scenarios are set in the fictional commonwealth of New Arlin, in Bishop County, located on the heavily forested edge of a western mountain range. It is known for its furniture products and a range of breakfast cereals. In ‘Scenario I’, the former ghost town of Enclave has been opened up again and re-established its bauxite mine, and offered a sanctuary for Psis. The town council asks the Player Characters to travel to the nearby town of Bently where they have detected someone whose psionic abilities are beginning to express. The Player Characters are to monitor the situation, avoid any entanglement with the Psionic Protection Agency and the League for Human Genetic Purity, and in particular, avoid a radical psionic revolutionary known as ‘Bonzo’ and said to be in the area. In ‘Scenario II’, the Player Characters are recently graduated agents of the Psionic Protection Agency who are assigned to help local law enforcement investigate organised crime activity in the area.

Both scenarios are fairly open with the Player Characters free to go about their investigation. There is more advice about running ‘Scenario II’ than ‘Scenario I’, and both are supported by decent maps and lots of detailed NPCs. Neither scenario is all that interesting and neither develops PSI World in terms of a setting. This highlights the issue with the roleplaying game. PSI World does not have a setting except that of ‘tomorrow’, but with gifted individuals being persecuted and facing bigotry and violence. As the designers state in the ‘PSI World: Role Playing Game of Psionic Powers’ rulebook, “Background chrome has been kept to a minimum to the rules sections to allow more referee freedom in setting creation. For a closeup of part of the authors’ playtest world, see Book 2, The Psi World Adventures’ for scenarios and design ideas.” To be fair, the authors have kept ‘background chrome’ to a minimum in the rules sections, but to be equally fair, they have also kept it to a minimum in ‘The Psi World Adventure’ and both of its scenarios. It is frustrating because it leaves the Referee with a lot of work to do in developing her setting and it does not address any of the ideas or themes intrinsic to PSI World and its game play—resistance and rebellion, oppression and suppression by the government and hate groups, bigotry and misunderstanding, and so on. This is the core problem with PSI World. The Referee with left with all of the work to do, but given none of the advice with which to help her do it.

PSI World was supported by three supplements. Published in 1985, The Hammer Shall Strike contained new psionic powers and two scenarios, whilst Underground Railroad, also published in 1985 and Cause for War, published in 1986, contained five linked scenarios. These would do more to develop a setting to PSI World and explore some of its themes.

Physically, PSI World is decently presented. The writing and layout are clean and clear rather than adventurous. The artwork is good, much of it by Bill Willingham and Matt Wagner, and the cartography is decent.

—oOo—PSI World was reviewed in ‘Games Reviews’ in Imagine No. 21 (December 1984). Reviewer Chris Baylis wrote, “I would suggest that this is a system for the slightly more mature player, not for the young and blood-thirsty beat-’em-up brigade. Much thought and planning is required by both GM and player, and character interaction and party cooperation is a must for survival and enjoyment.”

Scott A. Dillinger reviewed PSI World in ‘Game Reviews’ in Different Worlds Issue 44 (November/December 1986). He was in general, positive about the game, but said that one “…[A]rea with which I have a bit of problem is the reverse healing. For every curative function listed there exists an opposite damage producing function. As a mental health professional I question the probability that anyone who is sensitive enough to the life force to be able to sense and restore it would under any circumstance harm another human being with such a power. I might concede that if such actions are used to save more lives, then the healer might harm someone but they would be loathe to do so. This is a matter for the individual gamemaster to decide but it does tend to put some limits on an incredibly powerful character-a character with the ability to literally give and take life at will.” Ultimately though he was positive about the open nature of the roleplaying game in that it did not tie the Game Master to a setting, but left room for her to create one of her own and awarded it three stars and said, “It’s a lot of fun for a little money.”

Stewart Wick reviewed PSI World in White Wolf #7 (April 1987), awarding it a rating of seven out of ten, and said, “Thru and thru, Psi-World is an interesting and pleasing game. It is fairly simple, but does not achieve this by sacrificing either playability or campaign development.”
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There is no denying that PSI World is workmanlike and serviceable. It provides solid mechanics for both its then modern, near-future setting and its psionics. In fact, mechanics which are far less complex and much easier to comprehend than those presented in other roleplaying games from Fantasy Games Unlimited. However, that is all it does. The setting included is so underwritten and underdeveloped as to be no better or no more useful than the Referee could come up with herself. Without a fully realised setting, PSI World cannot even begin to address or explore any of the themes and storylines that it wants to lend itself towards. Ultimately, GURPS Psionics would do it better. The result is a roleplaying game that does not go out of its way to make itself distinctive, bar the simplicity of its mechanics in comparison to other roleplaying games from Fantasy Games Unlimited. PSI World: Role Playing Game of Psionic Powers is mechanically solid, but in every other way, is just too generic and simply underdeveloped for what it wants to do.

Sanction: A Tabletop Roleplaying Game of Challenges & Hacks describes itself as a set of “Universal Rules for Challenge-driven Games.” If that sounds pretentious, then what it really is a roleplaying game with a set of mechanics that are designed for simplicity and flexibility in play, the intention being that they do not intrude unnecessarily and that rolls are only made when there is a chance of a Player Character failing and suffering consequences. That is the ‘Challenges’ aspect of the subtitle. The ‘Hacks’ are adventures and Genre Set-Ups that influence the way in which Sanction is played, but not the how. Published by Just Crunch Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Sanction is derived from three roleplaying games. The first is The Black Hack, an Old School Renaissance roleplaying designed for Dungeons & Dragons-style play, whilst the second is Cthulhu Hack, the roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror. Both would lead to the third, The Dee Sanction, the roleplaying game of ‘Covert Enochian Intelligence’, which like Cthulhu Hack, is published by Just Crunch Games. Sanction includes the full rules and two Genre Set-Ups, one of which is very, very good.

Sanction: A Tabletop Roleplaying Game of Challenges & Hacks begins with an explanation of its mechanics. A Player Character has three Resources rather than attributes or traits. The default are Physical, Mental, and Willpower, but will vary according to the Genre Set-Up. Each Resource is represented by a die type, ranging from ‘D4’ to ‘D12’, but ‘D4’, ‘D6’, and ‘D8’ being the most typical. If a Player Character is faced with a Challenge where the outcome is unknown, his player rolls the appropriate Resource. The Game Moderator decides the terms and goal of the Challenge, what happens if the Player Character succeeds and the Consequences if he fails, and if the Resource can have a ‘Step Up’ or ‘Step Down’, and thus be changed to a higher or lower die size depending upon the circumstances. The player rolls the die and if he rolls three or more, his character succeeds. However, if he rolls one or two, the Challenge Falters and the character suffers the stated Consequences. (Throughout the rules, options are given for using cards from an ordinary deck of playing cards instead of dice.)

A Player Character can also have an Ability which applies to a Challenge. This Ability can be a skill, a knowledge, or a power, depending upon the Genre Set-Up. The Game Moderator can decide that the Ability simply lets the Player Character undertake the task without the need to roll or that it provides him with an edge in the situation which will be represented by a ‘Step Up’. Alternatively, an Ability lets the Player Character undertake the task because it is so specialised. For example, the ‘Concealment’ Ability might simply let the Player Character hide in the undergrowth surrounding a castle or give him a ‘Step Up’ if there are guards on patrol. Whereas, a Player Character with the ‘Cantrips’ can cast minor magical spells that he would otherwise be unable to.

If a ‘Step Down’ decreases the die size to below a ‘D4’, the Game Moderator may still allow the Player Character to act. This is known as a ‘Call to Fail’ and the Player Character will suffer severe Consequences. In general, this option is for the Player Character who wants to cause a distraction.

The most obvious type of Consequence is the Hit. This might be due to a fall, poison, or being hit in combat, but Sanction is not a roleplaying game that emphasises combat. Morse so given that a Player Character only has three Hits before being severely injured or dead. Instead, Consequences can take the form of delays, susceptibilities, breakages, or losses. Their aim is to present interesting narrative outcomes and to test the Player Characters in ways other than being slashed with a sword.

Character creation involves first assigning dice steps to the three Resources. The base for each is a ‘D4’, and once the dice steps have been applied, all three will be at ‘D6’ or one at ‘D4’, one at ‘D6’, and one at ‘D8’. The next step is to take the Player Character through a Lifepath. This consists of three steps. In the default setting, this is a Past, a Diversion, and an Influence. The Past is typically an occupation, the Diversion is why the Player Character is in his current predicament, and Influence is an aspiration. Each of these provides an Ability. The Player Character also receives some equipment. Many items have a Supply Die which, like a Resource, ranges in value from ‘D4’ to ‘D12’. When a Player Character uses any items with a Supply Die, the die is rolled. If a one is rolled, the Supply Die is stepped down to the next die size until this happens on a ‘D4’ and the items are exhausted. A Player Character’s Past, Diversion, and Influence can either be rolled for or the player selects them.

Geoffren is a failed petty wizard. His bursary ran out and he turned to petty theft in order to fund his further studies. It turned out that he was as bad at that as he was at handling his money. His tutors bailed him out in order to prevent any embarrassment to the academy. Now he owes them. He has joined one of the Lesser Orders of the Grand Guild, a minor adventurer assigned to clean-up teams working through dungeons already battled through by mighty Warriors. He notes down everything that his team discovers and recovers and reports back to his true masters in between assignments.

Geoffren
Physical D4 Mental D8 Willpower D6
Past: Scholar
Diversion: Petty Crime
Influence: Sage
Abilities: Blather, Burglary, Folklore
Equipment: Journal
Hits: 3

Sanction is a player-facing roleplaying game. This means that the player always rolls whilst the Game Moderator never does. Nowhere does this show more than in combat or facing Threats. Here the player rolls for his character to attack a Threat and also rolls to avoid being attacked by a Threat. When facing Threats in Sanction, it extends to the order of play as well. Thus, whilst the Game Moderator states the goals for the Threats first and the players states their second, the players resolve their characters’ actions first and then the Game Moderator does for the Threats. Combat is fought out in Moments, each lasting a few seconds, during which time a Player Character can typically attack or act once and react once. A Player Character will typically inflict one Hit with a successful attack, whereas an NPC has its own damage table. The results are determined randomly and can be to move to a more advantageous position, inflict bruises or leave him bloody, or do one Hit. With doing a Hit being only one of the four options, this again emphasises the narrative Consequences of the rules rather than simply doing mechanical damage. This is the most basic range of damage, meant to represent an ordinary person. Sanction includes a range of Threats, each with its own range of damaging Consequences. For example, the Damage options for the Giant Spider consist of ‘Move’ which imposes a ‘Step Down’ on attacks against it; ‘Catch & Throw’ triggers a physical Challenge which inflicts the Restrained condition on a success, but Restrained and a Hit on a failure; ‘Impale’ for one Hit; and ‘Poison’ which inflicts a Hit, causes Bleeding, and injects venom.

For the Game Moderator, there is advice on creating encounters, supported by sample creatures and Threats, and on resolving hazards. The ‘Hacker’s Toolbox’ offers a guide to using the various parts of character creation to enforce and foster the flavour and feel of a Genre Set-up in Sanction as well as adding unique elements. This is further supported by advice on creating Threats suitable for the Genre Set-Up. Given the size of Sanction, it should be no surprise that the ‘Hacker’s Toolbox’ is short, but it is succinct, helpful, and to the point.

The Game Moderator is supported with not one, but two Genre Set-Ups. ‘With Guile, Incantation, & Faith’, or ‘.GIF’, is the default, threaded throughout the pages of Sanction as an example. In ‘.GIF’, the Player Characters are second rate adventurers, investigating and clearing out dungeons on behalf of the Grand Guild. A mighty Warrior on a euphoric ‘Weird Out’ has already been through the dungeon and done the hard job of slaughtering the major—and most of the minor—Threats. Now it is the job of the members of the Lesser Orders to investigate and clean up. Having failed to become a true Adventurer like the Warrior, the Player Characters have become blue collar dungeoneers, collecting treasure, recording details, mapping out the complexes, and so on, all while wondering where it went wrong for them. Inspired by B1, In Search of the Unknown for Basic Dungeons & Dragons, the ultimate abandoned-clean-up dungeon, ‘.GIF’ does two things. First is to give characters who would otherwise have been the role of the hireling in traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games a greater role and agency of their own, whilst the second is to provide a means to play just about any dungeon all over again, ideally after the players’ actual adventurers have battled their way through it.

The second Genre Set-Up comes at the end of the book, complete rather than threaded through the book. ‘Agency: Outlet Work’ shifts Sanction from the fantasy genre of ‘.GIF’ to the espionage genre. Not though the action espionage of the superspy James Bond, but the grim, grimy, and pathetic espionage of the Slow Horses series by Mick Herron with dash of John Le Carré. The Player Characters are ex-agents, failures and fuck-ups, washed out of active service, but not out of the service. Exactly why is something that will have to be worked out between the player and the Game Moderator during Agent creation. Reassigned to small towns and cities like Wolverhampton or Grimsby, the Agents do data processing, combing through reports and archives, and so on, before sorting it and sending it back to head office, with no explanations as to why or what the information is for. It is make-work, a window job, and that is all that the Agent will have until he retires. Yet the agent hopes, and worse, he cannot help but want to apply his tradecraft.

‘Agency: Outlet Work’ changes its Resources to Network, Cover, and Tradecraft. It has its own Lifepath table and it adds Espionage Specialties, Bonds, and a Burn Track. Bonds are connections to NPCs who might help the Agent, whilst the Burn Track measures his stress. Rolling a one or two on a Resource when undertaking a Challenge in public or dealing with an actual intelligence asset, calling in a favour, or resorting to an act of violence, will increase an Agent’s Burn Track. As it increases, there will be Consequences, which get worse and worse, until the Agent washes out completely, is killed, or arrested. What is noticeable here is how bad violence and fights are in ‘Agency: Outlet Work’. There is not a fight-related Resource and fights are so stressful that in the long term, the Consequences are career or life ending, taking into account the fact that the Agents of ‘Agency: Outlet Work’ have no career. There is advice for the Game Moderator and a table of prompts, but no scenario. Admittedly there is no scenario for ‘.GIF’, but you really wish that there were for ‘Agency: Outlet Work’. (Fortunately, there is one available, For A Rainy Day.) ‘Agency: Outlet Work’ is deliciously pathetic and rife with roleplaying possibilities.

Physically, Sanction is a well presented, tidy book. The artwork is decent and the book is easy to read.

Although its heritage lies in the Old School Renaissance, Sanction is not part of it, but more tangentially adjacent to it, having adopted a more narrative approach in terms of its mechanics and storytelling. The simplicity of the mechanics make it very easy to learn and play, and they also make it easy to adjust to other Genre Set-Ups. Perhaps a third Genre Set-Up might have been included in Sanction to showcase its flexibility more fully, but there can be no doubt that ‘Agency: Outlet Work’ not only does that, but is also worth the price of admission alone. It would also be good to see other Genre Set-Ups, perhaps as an anthology from a variety of authors, showing off Sanction in other genres. Overall, Sanction: A Tabletop Roleplaying Game of Challenges & Hacks is an impressive design, providing simple, but not simplistic, mechanics that encourage roleplaying and storytelling whilst also being flexible enough to adapt to different genres and settings.

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

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

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What is it?
Conan: The Hyborian Age – Quick Start is the quick-start for Conan: The Hyborian Age, the roleplaying game based on the Swords & Sorcery short stories by Robert E. Howard and published by Monolith Board Games SARL.

It is designed to be played by five players, plus the Game Master.

It is a fifty-two page, 16.52 MB full colour PDF.

The quick-start is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is excellent and exciting. The rules are a slightly stripped down version from the core rulebook, but do include examples of the rules which speed the learning of the game.

The themes and nature of Conan: The Hyborian Age and thus the Conan: The Hyborian Age – Quick Start, specifically the lurid and sometimes uncomfortable nature of the source material may require the X-Card depending on the gaming group. However, there is nothing controversial or potentially offensive about the content of the Conan: The Hyborian Age – Quick Start.

How long will it take to play?
The Conan: The Hyborian Age – Quick Start and its adventure or ‘Tale’, ‘The Seal of Acheron’, is designed to be played through in one session, two at most.

What else do you need to play?
The Conan: The Hyborian Age – Quick Start requires a set of polyhedral dice per player. Each player also requires a single extra ten-sided die which should be a different colour.

Who do you play?
The five Player Characters in the Conan: The Hyborian Age – Quick Start consist of a born on the streets assassin, a warrior from the hills, a female wanderer, a sorcerer who can call wolves to his side, and a warrior from the icy north.

How is a Player Character defined?
A Player Character has four stats—Might, Edge, Grit, and Wits. Stats are rated between zero and eight, though most are capped at six. Each stat also has an associated Stat Die. This is either a six-, eight-, or ten-sided die. Skills are not traditional skills per se, but rather special abilities that grant a bonus to a particular action or access to a specific ability. ‘Of the Shadows’ is an example of the former, granting a bonus to all Edge checks involving or detecting acts of stealth, whilst ‘Assassin’ is an example of the latter, enabling the Player Character to apply Edge rather than Might when using one-handed light or medium melee weapons.

Besides Physical Defence and Sorcery Defence and Life Points, a Player Character also has Stamina Points and a Flex Die. Stamina Points are expended to access a range of bonuses or to activate certain Skills. The Flex Die is a special die rolled in addition to any dice rolled by a player for any reason. It can either be a six-, eight-, or ten-sided die.

How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, Conan: The Hyborian Age – Quick Start has a player roll either a Check or an Attack. To make a Check, a player rolls the appropriate Stat Die for the action and adds to it the value of the Stat and any modifiers. ‘The Rule of Threes’ means that the modifiers do not go above ‘+3’ or below ‘-3’. The Difficulty ranges between four and six for Easy, seven and nine for Moderate, ten and twelve for Difficult, and thirteen or more for Legendary. A roll of one on the Stat Die means that the Check or Attack fails.

When any Check or Attack roll is made, the Flex Die is rolled as part of it. When the maximum on the Flex Die is rolled, it triggers a Flex and grants access to various boons. This always includes giving the Player Character a bonus point of Stamina, but the options given in the Conan: The Hyborian Age – Quick Start consist of guaranteeing that an attack or action succeeds or inflicting Massive Damage on a damage roll. Consequently, the smaller the die size, the more chance of Flex being triggered.

There is no effect if one is rolled on the Flex Die.

How does combat work?
Combat in the Conan: The Hyborian Age – Quick Start is designed to be desperate and dangerous. A Player Character can conduct two actions per turn, though certain Skills or expenditure of Stamina Points can add more. A Move is one action, an Attack is one action, a Focused Attack is one action with a bonus, Defend is one Action to gain a bonus to Physical Defence, and Cast a Spell is one or two Actions depending upon the spell. If a Player Character has enough actions, he can take two actions that are the same. Thus two Move actions or two Attack actions. Range is determined by zones around a Player Character. Melee Attacks use the Might Stat; Ranged and Thrown Attacks use the Edge Stat; and Sorcery Attacks use the Wits Stat. If the result of the Attack roll is equal to or greater than the opponent’s Physical Defence, a Melee, Ranged, or Thrown Attack succeeds, whilst a Sorcery Attack succeeds if the Sorcery is equal to or greater than the opponent’s Sorcery Defence.

Melee and Thrown Damage is determined by adding the Might Stat to the result of the weapon’s Damage roll; Ranged Damage is determined by a Ranged weapon’s Damage die only; and Sorcery Damage is determined by the spell being cast. Skills can also add to this damage.

The Armour Rating of any armour worn reduces damage. Armour worn has other effects, including penalising Sorcery Attacks.

Damage suffered is deducted from the Life Points. If a Player Character has his Life Points reduced to zero, he is heavily wounded and unconscious. If a subsequent Grit Check is failed, he dies. If alive, two Recovery checks can be made per tale or session to restore Life Points.

If a Player Character does die, a Game Master can opt for a ‘Fateful Intervention’. Four narrative suggestions are given, such as the Player Characters’ foes leaving them for dead and allowing them to crawl from the battlefield. All four are appropriate to the genre.

Enemy Antagonists have Life Points just as the Player Characters do. Minions have a Threshold value. If this Threshhold is exceeded with a Damage Roll in a single blow, the Minion is killed.

Stamina Points can be spent during combat to react to a situation in unexpected and daring ways that ordinary men and women do not. This includes to make an additional Move Action, to increase the damage inflicted by a single, successful attack, to increase the Range of a Thrown weapon, and with a Player Character’s final Stamina Point to inflict Massive Damage as per the Flex Massive Damage result.

How does Sorcery work?
Sorcery in Conan: The Hyborian Age is divided into five Disciplines. Each Discipline grants access to a number of inherent spells. Casting spells costs Life Points or Stamina Points to cast. Only one Discipline, the White Magic Dscipline, appears in the Conan: The Hyborian Age – Quick Start, and only one Player Character can cast spells.

What do you play?
The Tale in the Conan: The Hyborian Age – Quick Start is ‘The Seal of Acheron’. In part inspired by Robert E. Howard’s ‘The Slithering Shadow’ and ‘A Witch Shall be Born’, it opens with the Player Characters with their fellow Dog Brothers in a tavern following several days of battle on the border. A fellow mercenary offers them information about a recently exposed ruin in the nearby desert. Wounded in the recent clashes, he cannot explore it himself, so suggests that he share the information in exchange for a share of whatever they manage to loot from the ruin. The Player Characters may be harassed by bandits (oddly armed with just knives) or wild dogs or hyenas on the way there, but the bulk of the adventure focuses on the underground ruins. The emphasis is on exploration, action, and combat combined with elements of horror. ‘The Seal of Acheron’ is straightforward and atmospheric.

Is there anything missing?
The Conan: The Hyborian Age – Quick Start is complete. It includes a good overview of the genre and core themes of Conan: The Hyborian Age. These are adventure, big versus big reward, sword and sorcery, and forward momentum. There is also decent advice for the Game Master on running ‘The Seal of Acheron’.

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in the Conan: The Hyborian Age – Quick Start are relatively easy to prepare.
Is it worth it?
Yes. The Conan: The Hyborian Age – Quick Start provides a solid introduction to Conan: The Hyborian Age and gives a good as to what it feels like to play.
Where can you get it?
The Conan: The Hyborian Age – Quick Start is available to download here.

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 2024’, which takes place today on Saturday, July 20th, 2024, the publisher is releasing not one, not two, but three scenarios, plus a limited edition printing of Dungeon Crawl Classics #104: Return to the Starless Sea. Two of the scenarios, ‘The Grinding Keep’ and ‘Tuscon Death Storm’, appear in the duology, the DCC Day 2024 Adventure Pack. The third is DCC Day #5: Gods of the Earth. Both DCC Day #5: Gods of the Earth and ‘The Grinding Keep’ are written for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, whilst ‘Tuscon Death Storm!’ is the first scenario for use with the Xcrawl Classics Role-Playing Game, the ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics’ adaptation and upgrade of the earlier Xcrawl Core Rulebook for use with Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, which turns the concept of dungeoneering into an arena spot and monetises it!

Designed to be played with between six and eight First Level Player Characters, DCC Day #5: Gods of the Earth opens with the Player Characters at the death-feast of the great jarl, Horwend, who recently died and left his queen, Gerutha, a widow. They are outsiders this far north in Isvik, but tradition demands that the new jarl, Horwend’s brother, Feng, include strangers in the celebration of his brother’s life. Horwend’s body lies on the table as his men around drink, feats, arm wrestle, sing, and merry. At midnight, Feng stands up and proclaims that is as is traditional, a body of men should have the honour of standing vigil over the late jarl’s body following his death-feast, and that Gerutha has cast the bones and determined that it should be none other than the Player Characters who undertake this task. They will be well-rewarded, in addition to the honour of standing vigil. Of course, the Player Characters have little choice and find themselves in the late jarl’s tomb on a nearby rocky island with the wind and the rain lashing walls of the barrow outside. As is to be expected this is not going to be quiet night for the Player Characters, let alone Horwend. There are portents and there are pleas, the latter from Horwend’s spirit—prevent his body from being taken and his spirit from being sacrificed to the old chaos Gods of the Earth in their final hatching of the Chaos-Egg.
It is a great set-up which sends the Player Characters into the blood-red stone-lined tunnels and rooms below Horwend’s tomb. This is a complex dedicated to the service of the Gods of the Earth, deities of Chaos awaiting the birth of the great End-Wolf and with it their dominion over all of the lands. Fortunately, the heroes of the Sky Gods put an end to this long ago, but could it be that someone is to bring about the birth of the End-Wolf once again? The complex is infested with Chaos-infused Larvalings, home to monstrous—but fortunately sleeping Formorians, the last stand of the Horwend’s forebears, and the workshop of the true villain of the piece as well as their throne. The complex consists of eleven locations, but all of them are highly detailed, interesting, and challenging. Perhaps overly challenging so for First Level Player Characters, but there are moments of respite and the Player Characters can find small boons here and there which might give them the edge they need. What the Player Characters will find is a lot of treasure. In fact, if the Player Characters survive and get out of the complex, they will quite wealthy. And that in addition to any reward promised by the ghostly Horwend.
DCC Day #5: Gods of the Earth does not necessarily end quite there with the Player Characters defeating the villain and their plans, grabbing the treasure and escaping both the tomb and Isvik. An appendix with six other separate areas connected to the complex under Horwend’s tomb. These are the tombs of his forebears, fallen in various states of disrepair since they were plundered for the Gods of the Earth’s plan. Like the other parts of the complex there is a lot of treasure to be found in these tombs, as well as one or two interesting magical items. These are all optional though.
Physically, DCC Day #5: Gods of the Earth is as well done as you would expect for a release from Goodman Games. The artwork is decent and the cartography well done. The cover is very nicely done, showing the moment when Horwend appears before the Player Characters. The handouts are also decently done.
DCC Day #5: Gods of the Earth has a grim and grimy feel, much of it a nod to the Vikings and Norse mythology. The fact that it is set in the North means that it could be adapted to any Viking-type setting, or even the Lankhmar setting of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. In whatever way it is used, DCC Day #5: Gods of the Earth should provide two or so sessions’ worth of play, especially if the Player Characters search the other tombs. Overall, DCC Day #5: Gods of the Earth is an enjoyably entertaining scenario with a great hook.

The land where the two towers now stand was bright and clean. Then they appeared and from their base grew a circle spreading blight which destroys all that it touches, creating a zone where nothing lives and nothing grows. The rivers are poisoned and empty. No birds fly overhead. Armies have been sent to assault and topple the towers to bring an end to the spreading blight. None have returned. The blight continues to grow. Will the world become a jet-black desert or can anything be done about it? Perhaps brave adventurers will venture forth and investigate the towers? Perhaps they have their objectives—to recover an object from inside one of the towers, to access a gateway to another world inside, to kidnap or rescue someone from inside the tower, and so on… The two towers are not what they seem, though they are the source of the blight. They are the bodies of two powerful sorcerers who travel from world to world, drawing energy from each one, but rarely staying long. The question is, what is it that keeps them in this world? Although each tower is actually the body of a great sorcerer, each is occupied—by sorcerers, Apeman guards, staff, and the occasional monster. Each can be fully navigated and each is full of mysteries.

This is the set-up for Slate & Chalcedony. Slate & Chalcedony is both the names of the two wizards and thus the two towers and the name of an adventure for TROIKA!, the science-fantasy role-playing game of exploring the multiverse. Published by the Melsonian Arts Council, it presents the twisted towers, along with the NPCs and monsters, new spells, and prophecies, as an environment in which to explore and roleplay. Notably, both towers are presented in cross section as a whole, rather floor plans, level-by-level. This adds a certain degree of childish wonder to the weirdness and whimsy that pervades the two towers. This starts from the moment that the Player Characters enter either tower. In Slate they will find diplomatic Delegates in Pressure Suits who have been so harassed by the porcine Gentle Hurmin the Familiar that they have forgotten their purpose; a sphere of black liquid which collates prophecies that can be collected by the mouths in the room below and if drunk, will grant the imbiber some of those prophecies and possibly kill them; a would-be apprentice who specialises in magical dentistry and is so bored, she lets her teeth grow and replenish consistently; and more, whilst overhead Pig Harpies circle and inside the tower, Apemen formidable and loyal patrol and protect the tower, sometimes guarding, sometimes grooming, sometimes curious, sometimes hooting. In Chalcedony, Brain Clusters spark and flash on a great tree, but cannot seem to work or communicate together; Boneroach nests infest the walls; and the tower seems to breath through great gill slits that also happen to be very convenient for climbing. Slate is more extensive, more developed, and more detailed than the other, in places possessing the feel of strange rocket ship or upright submarine, whilst Chalcedony is less developed and not as extensive, being a rougher combination of stone and flesh.

There are short incident or encounter tables for both towers, whilst the first of several appendices provides stats and details of all of the ‘New Enemies’ to be found in both towers. These include the Apemen, Boneroaches, Cerebral Spiders, the Chalcedony Wizard, and a lot more. Their entries include Mien tables too, so that encounters with the various creatures can vary from one encounter to the next. This is especially so with the porcine Gentle Hurmin the Familiar, who can be encountered in either ‘Malevolent’ or ‘Benevolent’ mode. The new spells are inventive, but as weird and as icky as you would expect. Emetomancy forces vomiting and consumption of the result, Megadonsy causes teeth to grow and replace older teeth for as long as the caster wishes; and Metonomasy forces a name change on a victim and it sticks until the caster decides. It should be noted that the lightness of the mechanics to TROIKA! means that Slate & Chalcedony is easily adapted to the Old School Renaissance retroclone of the Game Master’s choice.

Physically, Slate & Chalcedony is very well presented. Even the cover—slate grey on one side and shot through with the red of carnelian on the other half—presages what lies inside, which is illustrated with rich colours. The illustrations are excellent and the cross sections of the two towers present a surprising amount of detail. The writing leans towards the succinct where necessary, adding more detail depending upon the location.

Where Slate & Chalcedony comes up short is in the ‘What If?’. It does not discuss the consequences of the Player Character actions or how exactly they go about preventing the spread of the blight emanating from the two towers. So, no mention of what happens if they stop the blight or what happens if they fail to stop the blight. Options are mentioned in the text, but not developed, leaving the Game Master with a number of questions to answer herself in preparing the scenario. More so than ideally should be necessary. Another issue is that some of the locations within the Slate tower are only accessible via the network of vents, but it is not made clear how those vents are accessed.

Slate & Chalcedony takes the fantasy motif of twin towers and twists them to the weirdness and wonder of TROIKA! The scenario provides a great set-up and situation, and if does not develop any possible outcomes as it really should, it does in the meantime deliver two wondrous and strange environments for the Player Characters to explore and interact with and so provide several sessions of rich adventure.

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

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

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Name: Flash Cthulhu – Alone on ObonPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michael Reid

Setting: Japan, 1992Product: One-Location, One-Hour Scenario
What You Get: Seven page, 784.18 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: ‘Alone on Halloween’, but Japan and the ninetiesPlot Hook: Not every distressed family member has to be alivePlot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, one handout, two NPCs, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Decent
Pros# Simple and short# Easy to adjust to other modern eras# Phasmophobia# Coimetrophobia# Aquaphobia
Cons# Unpleasant Investigators
# No Sanity loss for using blood
Conclusion# Short, punchy, spirit standoff# Not so much Spirited Away as spirited affray

At the heart of the land stands a fortress of reinforced iron, encircled by a broken stone wall. Set in the wall of the fortress are two things. A window with a beautiful flower in a vase and an eye of crystal and bronze. Should anyone approach the fortress, the great Arm and Hand stretches up out of a hatch in the roof of the fortress and reaches into the cage that stands beside the fortress. From this cage it pulls out a monster and propels it at the wayward intruders. Not that there are any intruders, for the fortress is home to Vaevalz, the self-proclaimed Vampire King. For centuries, Vaevalz has warred against the monsters of the land lest they proclaim rule over the humans that once lived in the land. Now they are long gone, dead or driven out by the war and all that is left is a forlorn land of monsters and a self-styled Vampire King! No monster can enter his lair, but what about men? Could they find a way past its magical barrier and put an end to the unlife that plagued the region for centuries?

This is the set-up for The Lair of the Vampire King. This is mini-adventure for use with Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. It consists of four locations outside of the fortress and three inside. Apart from the thrown monsters, who are unsurprisingly irked at having been thrown at the Player Characters, the locations outside are surprisingly benign. Those inside, however, are nasty and deadly. The rooms inside the Fortress are sparsely furnished, but highly detailed, two of them having larva traps that spray deadly gouts of hot liquid rock! There is also a trap that cannot be escaped unless the Player Characters explore the adventure fully. Then, of course, there is Vaevalz, the Vampire King, all head, arms, and legs and ambitious spite. He is a very tough monster with a lot of Hit Points and an attack that can reduce a defender’s Hit Points to one and another that unleashes a hailstorm of lava and blood, damaging everyone in the room. There is the possibility of talking to him, but the Player Characters would have to be very obsequious…

There are some nice touches to the adventure. Notably, the interaction with the monsters. None of them are inimical towards the Player Characters, except when thrown, of course. Some of them are actually friendly—including those in the cage outside the fortress. So the Game Master can have some fun roleplaying them!

So, The Lair of the Vampire King? Just another nasty, dirty, deadly adventure for Mörk Borg? Well, yes and no. What makes The Lair of the Vampire King different is the fact that it actually based on the drawings and ideas of Assar Nohr, the five-year-old son of Johan Nohr, the co-creator of Mörk Borg. These have been made gameable by Assar’s dad and turned in The Lair of the Vampire King. The original drawings themselves have been included in The Lair of the Vampire King and it is clear that the original ideas and visualisation of the dungeon remains intact in being adapted to Mörk Borg.

Physically, The Lair of the Vampire King is well presented. The artwork is scratchy and gloomy and overall, the adventure avoids the Artpunk style traditional to Mörk Borg.

The Lair of the Vampire King is entertaining and inventive and ridiculous all at the same time. It is also incredibly deadly, but that should not be held against the adventure itself. After all, what five-year-old cares about game balance? so, Assar can we have another adventure, now that you six?

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It pitches the Allied Agents of Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance into a secret war against those Nazi Agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. They are willing to risk their lives and their sanity against malicious Nazi villains and the unfathomable gods and monsters of the Mythos themselves, each striving for supremacy in mankind’s darkest yet finest hour! Yet even the darkest of drives to take advantage of the Mythos is riven by differing ideologies and approaches pandering to Hitler’s whims. The Black Sun consists of Nazi warrior-sorcerers supreme who use foul magic and summoned creatures from nameless dimensions to dominate the battlefields of men, whilst Nachtwölfe, the Night Wolves, utilise technology, biological enhancements, and wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) to win the war for Germany. Ultimately, both utilise and fall under the malign influence of the Mythos, the forces of which have their own unknowable designs…
Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis is a world-spanning campaign and the fourth release for Achtung! Cthulhu. An adaptation to the 2d20 System of the earlier version for Call of Cthulhu, the release of a campaign so early in the line makes sense chronologically. It takes place between August, 1939, before the start of the war and May/June, 1940, the period of the Phoney War when full hostilities had yet to break out and France was not yet invaded. The campaign will take the Player Characters or Agents from Vienna to Greenland via Rome, Cairo, Nepal, India, Persia, and more, in a desperate effort to prevent an incredibly ancient artefact from falling into Nazi hands. The period is rife with tension, but the Player Characters have a greater freedom of movement than might be imagined during the rest of the war and whilst they are not in danger of running into German military forces, they will be stalked in the shadows by Nachtwölfe agents and encounter many of their proxies.
In addition to being set early in the war, Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis not just the first campaign for Achtung! Cthulhu, but also the first campaign for the Game Master and her players. This shows most obviously in the series of three sets of boxed text. ‘Roving Red Line’ handles the travels of the Agents around the world, summarising the options, but also giving a nod to those interstitial moments of map movements in the Indiana Jones series of films; ‘U.L.T.R.A.’ gives the Game Master extra details about NPCs and plot information; ‘Basic Training’, a simple guide to handling the mechanics of the 2d20 System in Achtung! Cthulhu in a particular scene as well as possible Threat expenditures for the Game Master to make the Agents’ more challenging. It also shows in the path and tone of the campaign. Apart from a framing device, the individual chapters of the campaign are not connected and there is no set path from its start to its end, so there is much less of an emphasis upon the collection and analysis of clues to move from one chapter to another. The tone is muscular, very much more action-orientated and in the realm of the Pulp genre rather than the horror genre. This is not to say that the campaign is not lacking in monsters or scary situations, but Shadows of Atlantis primarily involves encountering Nachtwölfe agents and its local, sometimes indigenous proxies as well as monsters based on local legends. Thus, there is a marked lack of monsters and entities drawn from the Cthulhu Mythos. In fact, almost none of the classic creations from H.P. Lovecraft’s oeuvre appears in Shadows of Atlantis. This does not mean that there is not a Mythos presence in the campaign, since Nachtwölfe plays a major role in the campaign, whilst Black Sun plays a minor role, but it remains offscreen for much of the campaign and the backstory to the campaign is unlikely to be revealed to the Agents. This does, however, fit the period, that of the Phoney War, when there is a high degree of uncertainty as to the nature of the enemy faced by the Allies and what that enemy would do next.
The campaign opens in August 1939. The Agents are in Vienna, Austria, working for Section D before what becomes Section M is established, to contact a German agent who feels betrayed by her masters following the death of her husband, Doctor Botho Ehrlichmann, under strange circumstances. He was a noted archaeologist and she believes that he was killed to keep his research a secret. This research concerned the translation and study of the scripts carved on an ancient black stone found in Egypt by a previous German archaeological team. Now his notes are missing and his wife does not want the Nazis to have them. The paper chase will lead the Agents across Vienna with the Nazis at their heels and subsequently out of Austria, south to Rome. By this time, war will have broken between Germany and Great Britain, but no such state exists between Italy and Great Britain. Nevertheless, Italy under Mussolini is a police state and the Nazis are already in Rome, conducting an archaeological dig deep under the streets of the Eternal City. By now, the preliminary research that the Agents will have done into Ehrlichmann’s notes reveals that the stone was linked to a powerful ancient artefact that was split up into five parts and hidden in various locations around the world. One of the locations was in Rome, which is why the Germans were digging into the tunnels under the city.
This sets up the framework for Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis. Researchers back in Section D in England will continue to translate and decode Doctor Ehrlichmann’s notes. This provides the clues as to the next location where another part of the device can be found and what it is called. These assignments will take the Agents to Cairo, Nepal, India, and Persia, but beyond Vienna, these can be tackled in any order. In many cases, the Agents will find that the Nazis already have their own operatives or proxies on the ground, conducting archaeological excavations, often oblivious or uncaring of the dangerous consequences they are triggering. All involve fantastically monstrous situations, whilst the Cairo and Nepal chapters stand out for their weirdness. The Nepal chapter takes the Agents to an almost Shangri-La-like location, whilst the Cairo chapter sends the Agents into a version of the Dreamlands. The latter is the more engaging of the two, the other often exposition heavy and reading more like a travelogue.
Prior to the campaign finale in Greenland—and beyond, Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis includes an extra location, new to this version of the campaign. This is British Honduras. With the Agents busy in Asia and the Middle East, when Section M learns of the location of another part of the artefact, it sends another team to secure it. Unfortunately, nothing has been heard from this team, ostensibly conducting an archaeological dig, for quite some time, so Section M arranges for a second expedition to locate the missing team and recover the piece of the artefact. However, word has got out about the missing team and the authorities have already agreed to an offer of help in finding it from the German Ambassador. Though this is with the proviso that neutral observers accompany the rescue mission. The twist here is that these neutral observers will not be the Agents who have been following up on details from Doctor Ehrlichmann’s notes in Vienna, Cairo, Nepal, India, and Persia, that is, in the rest of the campaign. They will instead be entirely different and new Player Characters. This is intended to provide a change for the players, both in terms of perspective and challenge, in roleplaying other characters, but it is a jarring shift. It is also a shift in tone, since the characters and the players will be dealing with Germans and German agents, not as direct threats, but as individuals—supposedly—helping to find missing archaeologists. So, this sets up some tensions between the Player Characters and the NPCs, as well as presenting more roleplaying opportunities than in the other chapters. However, the chapter does take the campaign to an off-scene location and so out of the flow of the campaign’s story. Alternatively, it provides a change of pace and focus before the big finale.
The finale takes place in Greenland and beyond—way beyond. The finale delivers on the title of the campaign and drops the Agents into the most mythological of places. In other words, Atlantis. Since this is Atlantis, this is on its last day, the day of its collapse. As the city falls apart around them, the Agents need to rush through the panicking and fleeing citizenry to stop Nachtwölfe from bringing its plans to fruition. It is a big, exciting conclusion to the campaign and there are some pleasing payoffs to the rest of the campaign as well as little Easter eggs for Achtung! Cthulhu as a whole. The campaign finale discusses various outcomes including failure upon the part of the Agents.

In terms of support, the appendices for Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis provides stats for the major NPCs and monsters in the campaign and details of the new tomes, spells, and artefacts that appear in the campaign, including the one that forms the major driver for the campaign. There are also several related scenario seeds, quite detailed, but take place after the events of the campaign, all of the handouts, and four pre-generated Agents. They consist of a German émigré Private Investigator, an American secret agent, a British engineer and explosives expert, and an Irish-Czech circus performer turned mystic! If the players are choosing to create their own, then an Agent with knowledge of archaeology will be useful, as will a mystic.
Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis is a great looking book, neatly laid out and illustrated with some excellent artwork. It is also well organised, each chapter opening with a Mission Overview, followed by its three scenes, and then brought to a close with a Debriefing. Where the campaign is lacking is in illustrations of the moving parts of the campaign, all the parts that the Agents will interact with. So there are no illustrations or portraits of the NPCs (though some do appear in the artwork) and certainly no illustrations of the various objects and parts of the artefact to be found. This is a major omission in either case, as the illustrations would make the identification of both objects and NPCs faster and easier and so made the campaign more real for the players and their Agents. There is also very little in terms of text to be read out or paraphrased by the Game Master, leaving her with quite a lot of description for her to parse and present to her players. Overall, given that Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis is intended as a first campaign, certainly for Achtung! Cthulhu, the campaign is not always as helpful as it could or should be.
Given the Pulpy tone of the campaign, what is surprising about Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis is the lack of good NPCs. Or the lack of scenery-chewing villains who appear over and over to make the lives of the Agents difficult before making their escape vowing to have their revenge after being defeated by the Agents. Part of this is due to the lack of illustrations to help the NPCs to life in general, but it is also due to the true villains of the piece working through proxies—often over-the-hill archaeologists with questionable morals—so they do not get a chance to strut their stuff as much as the style of the campaign warrants it.

Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis is a campaign of the opening moves in the secret occult war between the Allies and Nazi Germany, but very much one of Lovecraftian action horror rather than Lovecraftian investigative horror. Not without its moments of intrigue and stealth, especially in the opening chapters in Vienna and Rome, Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis is action-orientated, fists-flying, pedal to the metal, cosmic horror.

Doctor Who: Adventures in Space is a supplement for the Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition published by Cubicle 7 Entertainment. Doctor Who is all about ‘Adventures in Time and Space’ and as the title suggests, Doctor Who: Adventures in Space, is all about the ‘Space’ of Adventures in Time and Space’. This is a guide to the new worlds, new life, and the ways to get there and what might found there once the travellers do, along with the rules to create all four for the Game Master (or Game Missy) creating his or her own content. That is not all though, for Doctor Who: Adventures in Space includes a traveller’s guide to some of the most interesting planets that the Doctor has visited in the course of thirteen generations, drawn from both Classic Who and NuWho, and all given the same attention to detail. Lastly, there is a complete adventure which is easy to drop into an easy into an ongoing campaign. As with other supplements for Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition, this one is compatible with the first edition, Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space – The Roleplaying Game.

Doctor Who: Adventures in Space begins with a discussion of the whys and wherefores of the Doctor’s travels in time and space, looking at some of the types of stories that have been told in Doctor Who on various types of planets. There is the satire on pollution and traffic congestion on New earth in Gridlock, the fears of joining a Galactic Federation in The Curse of Peladon at a time when Britain was joining the European Common Market, and of bureaucracy and taxation in The Sun Makers. The Doctor is often cast as rebel such as in The Happiness Patrol against a totalitarian regime or a solver of mysteries as in The Ark in Space, the very pointedly titled, Mummy on the Orient Express, or Earth that is actually not Earth, as in The Android Invasion. What is being suggested here is that Game Master look to the real world for themes, they are contemporary or not, but another source of inspiration is fiction. Examples given include The Brain of Morbius and Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and Paradise Towers and J.G. Ballard’s High Rise. Planets are not the only places to adventure, of course, Doctor Who: Adventures in Space providing a briefer look at space as a location before providing an overview of humanity’s ventures into space from the British Army on Mars in 1881 in Empress of Mars all way to the end of the Earth in The End of the World. Overall, the advice is solid rather than spectacular, along with a good set of pointers and episodes to take inspirations from as classics of their various types.

In terms of new mechanics, Doctor Who: Adventures in Space begins with spaceships. Spaceship design is matter of deciding a concept and focus, and then assigning Attributes and Distinctions—much like Player Character generation. Concept and focus, such as a scout, freighter, command, or ark, will influence the choice of Attributes and Distinctions. Particular ship types favour particular Attributes, like Co-ordination for a scout or racing ship, Presence for luxury liner and command ship. When operating a spaceship, any roll will a combination of the ship’s Attribute and the character’s Skill. Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition is a not a roleplaying game which focuses on combat, favouring ‘Talkers’ followed by ‘Movers’ and ‘Doers’ before it gets to ‘Fighters’. This applies space combat as much as it does personal combat. Distinctions, such as Advanced Sensors or having a Fate, all reduce the spaceship’s own pool of Story Points, whilst the Game Master answers questions such as “Who built the ship?”, “Are there any other ships like it?”, and so on, as finishing touches. The ‘Spaceship Recognition Guide’ in gives the details of various vessels from Doctor Who, including the Cyberships of the Cybermen, the Saucers of the Daleks, a Judoon Enforcer, Sontaran Scout Spheres, and more, all the way up to Ark Ships and Space Stations.

Doctor Who: Adventures in Space then does the same for worlds, starting with a concept and focus, and then assigning an Attribute and Distinctions. The options for focus—meeting place, battlefield, contested ground, place of beauty, and more—provide interesting starting points, and unlike spaceships or alien races, they only have the one attribute. This is a favoured Attribute on the world itself, for example awareness where there are lots of traps or deception, or Ingenuity for a world with lots of puzzles. Planets have few Distinctions, for example, Seasonal Shift or Renowned Structure, essentially to make them stand out, but not overwhelm the setting. Finishing touches include deciding upon many suns or planets there is in the system, what the planetary environment is, and more. There is also a discussion of deadly environments, accompanied by a surprisingly lengthy section on poisons!

Where there are no examples of planets per se, there are several given for various plants and creatures, prior to creating various forms of life—monsters, constructs, aliens, and celestials. Again, this starts with the Focus before moving onto Favoured Attributes—positive and negative, Favoured Skilled, Society, and Distinctions. The Focus, like Informant, Fighter, Mystery, Villain, and Foil, is primarily an individual alien’s role in the story. Overall, the options given for creating aliens of all types are excellent and when combined with the questions asked should spur the Game Master to create some interesting species.

Instead of giving sample planets created using the given rules and guidelines, Doctor Who: Adventures in Space presents ‘A Guide to Known Worlds’. This details twenty-four worlds visited by the Doctor over the course of his adventures, some of them more than once. From Akhaten, Androzani Major and minor, and Argolis to Skaro, Telos, and Trenzalore, these are all given two-page spreads, and list its location, environment, inhabitants, and background. They also include a scenario hook or three as well, so that the Game Master can take her group back to any one of these familiar worlds. There are some great choices included here, such as The Library, Metebellis III, and Karn. There are also some classics such as the aforementioned Skaro, Telos, and Mondas, so that the Player Characters can go back to the home worlds of the Daleks and the Cybermen.

Doctor Who: Adventures in Space comes to close with ‘The Terror of Elbonia-2’. This opens with the Doctor—or Player Characters—receiving a distress signal. A nearby, newly settled colony has suffered a number of disasters and is in danger of failing. Coming to the colony’s aid sets up the traditional scenes of distrust between the Player Characters and the colonists, but once trust is established and the situation begun to be fixed, the scenario shifts to investigating the cause of the accidents and the mysteries of the world. This brings the attention of outside interests and tensions between the colonists and the outside authorities who are surprisingly militaristic for archaeologists! The scenario is nicely detailed and fairly open-ended. It should provide the Game Master and her players with several sessions’ worth of game play. Lastly, Doctor Who: Adventures in Space ends with some fifteen or so adventure hooks that the Game Master can develop into full scenarios.

Physically, Doctor Who: Adventures in Space is another decent book from Cubicle 7 Entertainment. The cover is good, though not necessarily representative of the book’s contents, suggesting its focus is particular characters or species from Doctor Who when it very much not that. That said, the book is well written, pleasing to read, and decently illustrated with images from throughout the series’ sixty-year history.

Doctor Who: Adventures in Space keeps its mechanics simple and easy to use, meaning that they better serve the story rather than getting in the way of it. The descriptions of the various alien planets and spaceships are excellent, adding to the wider setting of Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition, as does the history of mankind’s progress into space. Combine this with good advice on creating planetary or spaceship set adventures, and Doctor Who: Adventures in Space is a solid guide to creating planets, spaceships, and aliens and using them in adventures.

Cyberspace is enticing. The idea of riding the electrons in the vastness of cyberspace between fortresses of digital data in a cityscape at night, ready make a run on a corporate presence in the virtual world, to unleash demons and code cracking programs all the while dodging or destroying I.C.E. or Intrusion Counter Electronics. Yet as enticing as it is, it has always been a solo affair, something going in virtual space whilst anyone else on the job was hustling time in meat space. It is a problem that has always beset the roleplaying game where hacking played a prominent role, such as Cyberpunk Red or Shadowrun – Sixth World. In these roleplaying games, hacking often becomes a solo game between the Game Master and the Player Character hacker or netrunner, effectively playing a rules subsystem or subgame within the roleplaying game whilst the other players and their characters waited for the hack or netrun to play out. In game time, it might only take a few seconds, but in real time, effectively, too long. In truth, roleplaying games subsequently published since the first Cyberpunk roleplaying game have all attempted to address this issue in one form or another. Typically, making the netrunner or hacker go on the mission with the rest of the Player Characters and need to be on the spot to access the local grid to perform his role. What though, if the whole were need, or could, go on the netrun and work together to perform the necessary in the cyberspace that is the WorldNet? This is the set-up for Netcrawl.

Netcrawl is a supplement for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, both published by Goodman Games. Published by Horse Shark Games, it shifts the Player Characters, or ‘Users’, out of ‘Reality’ and into ‘Cyberspace’ as ‘Avatars’. Inside this virtual world, they face not I.C.E. or Intrusion Counter Electronics per se, but Intrusion Counter Entities. There is not so much a virtual world as a cyberdungeon. These are not the only dangers in Netcrawl. There is a chance of being detected and worse being noticed by the deities that are the A.I.s. Netcrawl is a setting suitable for one-shots as perhaps the Player Characters from another setting suddenly find themselves transported into a virtual world, hacking into a system in a Science Fiction setting like Mutant Crawl Classics as well as various also third-party settings such as Cyber Sprawl Classics, Crawljammer, Umerica, Terror of the Stratosfiend, and Star Crawl Classics. Plus, of course, it can simply be a roleplaying setting all of its own.
An Avatar in Netcrawl have six characteristics—Power, Agility, Vitality, Wits, Psyche, and Hack. The latter enables an Avatar to manipulate the code which runs the WorldNet and its modifier affects critical hits, fumbles, and the like, and points of it can be permanently expended to gain a one-time bonus. It is the equivalent of Luck and can only be regained by great acts or courage, the Ciphomorph and Grifter Classes. An Avatar has access to three categories of skills—Security, Investigative, and Code Execution—of which he will typically be trained in one. Security covers breaking into and avoiding hazards in secured systems; Investigative skills provide clues; and Code Execution is exactly that. An Avatar will also have a certain amount of RAM. This varies by Class and Level, but is spent to purchase Daemons or equipment, Mod Chips, Programs, and Scripts.

Netcrawl has five Classes. The Avartarist sees the WorldNet as being alive and can Repattern WorldNet and holographic objects to heal them, receives a bonus Holo Die to run programs, and is bonded to an A.I. The Ciphomorph is native to the WorldNet and gains bonuses when rolling for Execute Program and the use of Hack, as well as being able to share Hack with others. The Cybernaut specialises in running Programs and can Burndown Vitality, Wits, or Psyche score to enhance the Program check. The Grifter specialises as either an Intrusion Specialist, Threat Eliminator, or Data Savant. The Intrusion Specialist is good at breaking into systems and hiding his tracks; the Threat Eliminator can harm ICE; and the Data Savant focuses on finding, analysing, and synthesising data. The Grifter also uses finished Scripts, programs with a static outcome and is also good at using skills. The Wardriver focuses on speed and power, relying on Mod Chips rather than Programs or Scripts, as well as Daemons for offensive and defensive countermeasures. Mod Chips give bonuses in combat and the Wardriver has a number of slots for his Mod Chips, being to swap and activate them, as necessary. There are different models for each type of Mod Chip, each proving a better bonus than the earlier ones and as the Wardriver’s Mod Die improves the better the bonus he gains from the Mod Chip. For example, the Brute Mk. I Mod Chip grants a +1 bonus to unarmed attacks, but the Brute Mk. II Mod Chip gives a bonus to both unarmed attacks and damage. Then with a Mod Die of three, the Wardriver gains +1 to his Armour Class whilst unarmed, whereas with a Mod Die of three, he gains the Armour Class modifier and an additional attack with a fourteen-sided die. The various Mod Chips cover ranged attacks, rate of fire, initiative, and more.

Daemons are divided in several categories—Melee, Ranged, Protective, and Support. The weapons and armour are mix of the old and the new, but all with a Cyberpunk theme. Thus, the katana alongside razor claws and the monowire whip. Some of these are nicely adjusted so that nunchuku has a bonus to Fumble rolls and the ICE pick will subvert ICE! In general, the melee weapons are more fun than the ranged weapons, though going into battle with a screamin’ skull that fires a cone attack or a viral gun that shoots malware is entertaining. The Protective daemons are more descriptive, but it is possible to use a Firewall as temporary ablative armour, although some versions reduce a character’s Action die. There are also Datagrams which provide small, one-off boosts to an action, such as ‘Electric jolt’, which forces a target to lose its next action if it fails a Reflex saving throw or ‘Logon credentials’, which grants a bonus to a False Identity check.

In general, combat in Netcrawl works like combat in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. However, there are some changes to account for the change in genre and setting. This includes ICE being able to enact ‘Traceback’ and track and even attack an intruding Avatar, HupLock an Avatar to prevent it from logging out or a Kick to force a disconnection. Lost Health is regained in Maintenance Cycles, whilst an Avatar reduced to zero Hit Points is de-rezzed, begins to pixelate and lose digital cohesion, but can be re-rezzed, either through certain programs or the Avartarist’s Repattern ability and restored to positive Hit Points. Some Avatars—Ciphomorph or Grifter—can channel their Hacking ability to attack opponents, shatter objects, and even launch a counterattack against program assaults. This requires the expenditure of points of Psyche, the result determined by a roll on the ‘Hacking Result Table’ or compared with the roll made for the program targeting the hacker, this being resolved as per the rules for spell duelling in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

Netcrawl has a repository of Programs. Seven are given. They include Decrypt/Decompile, which makes the source code of a program human readable; Glitch causes a robot, A.I., or computerised target to buzz quietly and do nothing for one or more rounds; and Exploit allows an Avatar to implant malice code—computer virus, worm, backdoor, and the like—and so mechanically, impose a penalty into a creature biological or artificial. This can be imposed by upon Luck, a characteristic, attack or damage rolls, saving throws, Armour Class, and more. The Programs have variable effects like those of spells in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game or mutant powers in the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game.

In terms of running the game, Netcrawl does discuss the possibility of ‘The Gig’. This is the entry-level scenario, designed for Zero Level Avatars. This is the equivalent of the Funnel, one of the signature features of both the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game that Netcrawl is mechanically based upon—in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. As entry-level software, the Avatars are essentially network & system software, developer toolkits, and hacker tools. Netcrawl also includes the short adventure, ‘The Core Queen Slumber’. It is designed for First Level Avatars, who have to infiltrate a data server and locate a one-eyed wizard who has the information that they are looking for. They will need to manipulate the systems around the data server, hopefully without alerting the Core Queen, in order access it. There is a puzzle element to the adventure, which will definitely take a playing group less than a session to complete. It works as a taster for the setting or as task to slot into a loner and fuller scenario.

Physically, Netcrawl is decently written, but the layout is often jarring because it uses different colour text on a black background in several places. This can be difficult to read. The switch to the standard layout for spells in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game or mutant powers in the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game for the Programs is also jarring, although more easily red. The artwork is decent and a nice touch for ‘The Core Queen Slumber’ adventure is that the locations are drawn as per the ray-traced depiction of the virtual world a la the film Tron.

Netcrawl has a problem and that is that it a far more technical roleplaying game than either the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game or the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, both of which provide the architectural underpinnings upon which it is built. There is shift conceptually, in terms of what the game is about and what the Player Characters do, and a shift—in some ways a more radical shift—in terms of terminology and language. Both shifts are some things that the Judge and her players are going to have to accommodate when running and playing Netcrawl, especially if they have been playing the other two roleplaying games and also in conceptualising the game. The lack of examples of play and the rules does hinder the shift. Otherwise, Netcrawl is in some ways a standard Cyberpunk roleplaying game except that it is all played within the virtual space and the Player Characters are all Avatars and there is no ‘meatspace’, at least not in the basic version of Netcrawl. Also, this version does not explore who wants the data that the Avatars are after and what it is used for, so there is no push or pull in terms of Avatar motivation. That said, a Judge can easily develop these or explore the genre for source ideas.

Netcrawl contains all of the basic rules needed to explore a virtual world in classic Cyberpunk style. However, it is begging for that virtual world to be developed and presented as a setting that can be explored. Both will be expanded upon the Netcrawl Roleplaying Game and its first supplement, Netcrawl Arcologies.

—oOo—
Both the Netcrawl Roleplaying Game and its first supplement, Netcrawl Arcologies are currently being funded on Backerkit.

Kelvin Green must have had a horrible childhood and it must have taken place in a small village. After all he seems intent on twisting and destroying one toy or characters from childhood after another and inflicting the consequences upon some poor settlement of innocent villagers. It was Superman with Green Messiah and it was the Transformers with More Than Meets The Eye: A Short Adventure with Lots of Tentacles and it was… well probably best to even think about it with Fish Fuckers – Or, a Record, Compil’d in Truth, of the Sordid Activities of the People of Innsmouth, Devon. The latest addition in the author’s programme to destroy, or at least besmirch, everything about his childhood—let alone our childhoods—is Winnie-the-Pooh. Yes, the loveable, yellow-haired, honey loving bear of very little brain, which Disney has been bringing us… Or not. Because the bear in question is Winnie-the-Pooh, but not the one that everyone knows and loves from the silver screen. No, this is the Winnie-the-Pooh of creator A.A. Milne, whose U.S. copyright expired at the beginning of 2022, meaning that Disney no longer held the exclusive copyright and other creators could thus make content based on this version of the character. Very quickly, the British slasher-horror film, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, appeared as a result of that. It is also why we now have Winnie-the-Shit.

Winnie-the-Shit is a scenario for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Designed for Player Characters of between Second and Fourth Levels, it is set in the roleplaying game’s default period of the seventeenth century, the early modern era. Specifically, Sussex, not far from Town Littleworth, the location for Green Messiah, before the English Civil War. So, Winnie-the-Shit could be run before or after the events of Green Messiah, and the author suggests ways in which this can be done. Other ways of getting the Player Characters involved include their wanting to contact, study with, or simply rob the Magic-User rumoured to be active in the area, find out why he has imported a live bear from Europe, their having been paid to deal with some recalcitrant commoners in the area, or simply even because they are just passing through and spot something odd. Although that said, the author really, really hates that last option.* Another is that agents of Doctor John Dee—the seventeenth century equivalent of the Men in Black (doublet and hose)—have also heard of the new weirdness going on in the area and want it investigated.

* So the last thing you do as the Game Master is use this option and you definitely do not tell him about it on social media.

The scenario is a sandbox, a wooded area known as Lancaster Great Park. A wizard recently arrived in Lancaster Great Park and began a series of experiments that resulted in the creation of human-animal hybrids he called ‘New Men’. Believing them to be better than humanity, he planned to replace mankind with the superior New Men, a plan that was wholly embraced by the newly created creatures and saw the wizard himself being imprisoned for his inferior humanity. Now, the New Men, led by the brutish Edward Bear, a creature small of brain, big of ambition, small of attention span, and lover of mead, have taken over the area, captured anyone who has not fled, and are looking to expand. Progress is slow, primarily because despite their teachings and their regularly updated laws, the New Men are not all that superior and Edward Bear is bloody lazy.

Edward Bear’s sense of lassitude runs throughout Winnie-the-Shit. Thus, whilst there are factions within the New Men of Lancaster Great Park, they are not particularly adversarial in their attitudes towards each other, but rather have their own interest. Edward Bear enjoys the trappings of power, he gets bored with the responsibility too easily; Owl is primarily interested in learning since he is the only one of the New Men able to read; and Rabbit, the very busy messenger of the New Men, is distracted by treasure—especially the treasure he has found in a Roman villa below the woods and secreted in the tunnels he has dug connected to the villa. Then there is ‘The Ass, Not Complaining, But There It Is’, who is as depressed as you think he is, such that the Player Characters are likely to have a hard time deciding whether they want to pity him or kill him. Although monstrous, none of these New Men are the true monsters of Winnie-the-Shit. That would be Allain Alexandre Moreau—or A. A. Moreau—experimental wizard and eugenicist, currently being held prisoner by Edward Bear so that he can daily cast the spell, The Ascendant Synthesis of the New Man and so create one of the New Men. He is, though, the most sociable of persons to be found in Lancaster Great Park, though that should be tempered by the fact that he is an actual sociopath. How the Player Characters decide to deal with him potentially affects the fate of the world…

Physically, Winnie-the-Shit is decently presented in red and orange because it is Winnie-the-Pooh-inspired. The artwork is suitably inspired by the drawings of E. H. Shepard. The cartography is serviceable. The scenario also includes numerous comments and sidebars by the author, some of them helpful, most of them simply informative.

The inclusion of A. A. Moreau points to A.A. Milne as being not the only author whose work inspired Winnie-the-Shit. The other, of course, being H. G. Wells and the work being The Island of Doctor Moreau, here transplanted to leafy Sussex and the equivalent of the Hundred Acre Wood. The resulting combination is disturbing and unpleasant, and certainly not as clever as Green Face or as Fish Fuckers – Or, a Record, Compil’d in Truth, of the Sordid Activities of the People of Innsmouth, Devon. At the same time, it is also absurd, the congruency of the Player Characters hunting for monsters when they are suddenly confronted by an axe-wielding bear bent on bloody violence! This where it is at its strongest and perhaps the realisation upon the part of the player and their characters that the monsters in woods are not monsters. If they go down to the woods of Winnie-the-Shit, the Player Characters are definitely in for a big surprise!

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

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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The Shining Shrine is a preview of Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting, a supplement for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition published by Loot Tavern. The supplement contains adventures as well as rules for tracking, crafting, and harvesting, and also new monsters, spells, and Player Character options. The Shining Shrine includes just a little of that, making it essentially, a mini-version of the full book. Thus, it contains a full adventure and not one, not two, but seven appendices. These in turn provide new magical items, spells, creatures, familiars, a wizard, and more—including a QR code for a soundtrack! All of which is illustrated with some lovely artwork. The Shining Shrine opens with the eponymously named scenario. This is a short affair designed to be played in roughly one or two sessions, and contains the stats and details necessary to run it for between three and seven Player Characters of Second, Seventh, or Twelfth Level. Ideally though, there should be an average of four Player Characters. The scenario takes place in the Springarden, a bounteous and blossom-filled estate at the heart of the Springwood. Here the barrier between the Plane of Fey and the Material Plane is at its thinnest, enabling the fey to slip into our world. The barrier is at its weakest during a confluence of stars and this when Feyfest is held. Unfortunately, during the most recent confluence a creature called the Suneater Owlbear slipped in the Springarden and has subsequently made its home in a shrine holy to the Blossom Union, a sect of druid-monks that cares for the surrounding Springwood.
The scenario set-up is nicely detailed and gives a clear explanation of what is going on as well as some adventure hooks. The scenario is itself is quite structured. Designed as a hunt, it is split into two parts. In the first, much shorter part, the Player Characters have the opportunity to gather three clues pertinent to the hunt itself. These are primarily delivered by Threeflowers, a timid Gnome Druid who would rather be in some quiet corner smoking a pipe, but there are other means of gathering clues too. The authors both make it clear what the clues and their significance are and that the players and their characters need to know all three. It is not subtle about this. Once the Player Characters have their clues, they are ready to face the creature, a Sun-powered version of the Owlbear. The battle is fought in three stages, or waves, and each is described in detail including the tactics that the Suneater Owlbear and its minions will use each time. Making use of the given clues will at least ameliorate some of the deadlier attacks that the creature can deploy. Ultimately, the scenario is a one-session affair, primarily combat-based, but with a little bit of roleplaying and puzzle solving thrown.
There is treasure to be found at the end of the scenario. Some of these are magical items held in the Blossom Union, whilst others can be crafted from the unique components that can be harvested from the Suneater Owlbear. These and others are detailed in the first appendix in The Shining Shrine. They include the Bonze’s Bokken, Wind Ripper, a wooden sword which can create increasingly strong gusts of wind; the Suncatcher, a staff which can catch and absorb radiant energy, and even imbue spell attacks with radiant agency; and the Sunwing Bow, which requires no ammunition in sunlight and marks targets with radiant energy. There are magical meals such as Suneater Steak and Eggs, that grant healing every hour spent in sunlight, and so on.
The other appendices contain spells like The Bends, which creates bubbles of nitrogen in a target’s blood, effectively poisoning him and Endoleech, which with a touch allows the caster to absorb the energy from the target and slow its metabolism. It also inflicts cold damage. These two spells come from the new school of magic given in The Shining Shrine and thus in Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting. The school specialises in the manipulation of the biology of both the caster and others. This includes ‘Self Improvement’, by which the caster can give himself an extra appendage like a prehensile tail or an arm, make a hand detachable, owl eyes to see in the dark, and spidersense to gain a bonus to his initiative. The main feature of the new creatures is the Suneater Owlbear, a fey rather than beast-aligned creature with radiant energy abilities. Three versions are given—young, adult, and ancient—complete with stats so that the Dungeon Master has the right version to match the Level of the Player Characters for adventure in The Shining Shrine.
Although the Tamer Class, new to Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting, but not detailed here, The Shining Shrine gives tantalising glimpses of what it can do. This includes the ability to harvest and craft familiars from remains of powerful creatures. The accompanying example is of a Sunsnacker, a tiny Fey creature that can grow with the Tamer as the Player Character gains Levels. In doing so, it gets bigger and it gains abilities like a Solar Beam and eventually, the power to appear to be an Eye Tyrant in low light or darkness. More obviously playable is the ‘Rakin’, a playable raccoon-like race known for their practical jokes. It has three subraces consisting of the Urkin, the Posskin, and the Tanukin. Of these, only the streetwise Urkin with a penchant for theft and the nomadic and tough Posskin who will play dead when in a dire situation.
Physically, The Shining Shrine is very well done. It is decently written and the artwork is excellent throughout.
The Shining Shrine is a mixture of playable content and hints at what is to be found in the pages of Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting. The latter is intriguing, whereas the playable content is decent, the adventure in particular, presenting a tough challenge for the Player Characters whatever their Level. Overall, The Shining Shrine is an engaging preview that nicely showcases a little of what is to be found in Heliana’s Guide to Monster Hunting.

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It is pitches the Allied Agents of the Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance into a secret war against those Nazi Agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. They are willing to risk their lives and their sanity against malicious Nazi villains and the unfathomable gods and monsters of the Mythos themselves, each striving for supremacy in mankind’s darkest yet finest hour! Yet even the darkest of drives to take advantage of the Mythos is riven by differing ideologies and approaches pandering to Hitler’s whims. The Black Sun consists of Nazi warrior-sorcerers supreme who use foul magic and summoned creatures from nameless dimensions to dominate the battlefields of men, whilst Nachtwölfe, the Night Wolves, utilise technology, biological enhancements, and wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) to win the war for Germany. Ultimately, both utilise and fall under the malign influence of the Mythos, the forces of which have their own unknowable designs…

In addition to any number of scenarios for Achtung! Cthulhu, Modiphius Entertainment also publishes what it calls ‘Section M: Priority Missions’. These are smaller missions and scenarios intended to help a Game Master is hard-pressed for time or needs an alternate scenario when there are fewer players. Alternatively, they can be used as one-shots or woven into ongoing campaigns. Each though, provides a single mission that can be played in a single session as well as adventure hooks should the Game Master want to expand the scenario.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 2: Our Lady of the Eternal Sapphire is the second entry in the series. It opens with the Player Characters having been sent to Cairo by Section M to investigate a monastery belonging to the Order of St. Barbara, patron saint of miners. The monks of this monastery are known to wear brooches that depict a serene female face and are notably carved from a strikingly blue stone. Section M has been sent one of these brooches and has identified the stone as being Blauer Kristall. Nachtwölfe is known to have an extreme interest in this rare mineral and constantly scours the world for sources from which it can develop science, technology, progress, biological enhancements, and wonder weapons powered by Blauer Kristall. The monastery, located a few miles outside of Cairo, is also said to be home to a relic, a skull of similar blue stone, purported to be the cranium of the saint, transfigured in sapphire. The Player Characters are ordered to get into the monastery and determine if the skull really is made of Blauer Kristall and if the monks have a bigger source.

The scenario primarily consists of a map of the monastery and a description of its various buildings. The map, along with an unlabeled one for the players, is nicely done. The basic details of what is going on in the Order of St. Barbara is also described, but without any discussion of the motivations of either the monks or their Mythos allies. There are also no stats, so the Game Master will need to consult the Gamemaster’s Guide and alter the Truths as necessary. Some possible motivations and suggestions as to what might be going is instead suggested in the several adventure seeds included in the scenario. At the most basic, the monks are innocent of any Mythos connection, but Nachtwölfe are definitely interested in gaining possession of whatever Blauer Kristall is being held in the monastery. Other seeds see the Player Characters tracking Mi-Go through tunnels under Cairo and find themselves in the caves below the monastery; Nachtwölfe is there when the Player Characters arrive and they have to stop the Nazis getting away with the Blauer Kristall; and Cairo is haunted by the ‘Ghost of St. Barbara’, a glowing blue apparition stalking the streets of the city, whose appearances seem to coincide with a series of thefts of ancient manuscripts from antiquities museums and private collections.

One other way to use the scenario is as a side mission for the campaign, Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis. The campaign involves Nachtwölfe and its third mission is set in Cairo and Egypt. Yet in whatever way in which the Game Master decides to use Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 2: Our Lady of the Eternal Sapphire, she will still need to develop some motivations for both the monks and the Mythos presence at the monastery. This will vary depending upon how strong the links are between the monks and the Mythos. The stronger they are, the more the scenario will need the Game Master to develop those motivations and the more the scenario needs this attention, the more input is required from the Game Master, and the less immediately useful the scenario is as written.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 2: Our Lady of the Eternal Sapphire is cleanly and tidily laid out. It is not illustrated, but the map of the monastery is nicely done.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 – Priority Mission 2: Our Lady of the Eternal Sapphire is not quite ready to run, and depending upon how the Game Master wants to use it, needs more input and development than it necessarily should. Consequently, it is not quite the download and play scenario that the publisher intended.

It is 1936 and as the world marches towards a greater conflict, there is a secret war being fought from one archaeological dig site to the next. Agents from the major nations are scouring the past to gain advantage and power in the present, unearthing and discovering ancient artefacts and objects of awe before the other side can. In this mix steps an archaeologist dedicated to keeping the past out of Nazi hands and in a museum, even if does involve working with Washington, D.C. and Army Intelligence. It is not though, Doctor Henry Jones, Jnr. Otherwise known as ‘Indiana Jones’ and this is not pitch for the third Indiana Jones roleplaying game. It is instead the set-up for Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark. Putting aside the fact that ‘Montana Drones’ is undoubtedly the worst name imaginable, beyond groanworthy, for any Indiana Jones-style, whip-cracking, fists flying archaeologist, Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark is an adventure and mini-supplement for ACE!—or the Awfully Cheerful Engine!—the roleplaying game of fast, cinematic, action comedy. Published by EN Publishing, best known for the W.O.I.N. or What’s Old is New roleplaying System, as used in Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD and Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition, the scenario is primarily intended as a one-shot, film night special.
Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark is an adventure for four adventurers—cocky archaeologist, Montana Drones, optimistic socialite, Lou Boble, clumsy professor Johan Henry, Jr., and cynical botanist, Johnnie Cobbler—available to download from here. Alternatively, the players can create their own, inspired by the source material, and Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark does include details of several new Occupations, including Botanist, Double-Agent, Socialite, and Witch. Of course, changing the characters likely means changing name of the adventure too as Montana Drones will no longer be the star. There are relatively few additions to the Awfully Cheerful Engine! and relatively little setting background given in Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark because, after all, everyone is going to be familiar with the genre and the setting from the films which inspire this supplement.
‘Raiders of the Cutty Sark’ is not named for the famous tea clipper from the nineteenth century, but for the Cutty-Sark, the famous shift worn by the witch character in Tam o’ Shanter, the poem by Robert Burns. The Nazis are after it because they think it possess some kind of sorcerous power and stealing it from under the nose of the British government would be a major coup. The adventure will take the Player Characters from Jordan and the Middle East, around the world back to Halcyon Hall at Bennett College in upstate New York where Montana Drones teaches, and then out again to Scotland and a showdown with Nazis! The scenario is not very long, divided into three parts, and has room for the Game Master to insert her own content and so expand it beyond a single night’s worth of play. For example, for the third part, the Player Characters travel from London to Scotland and the scenario suggests that the Game Master run a ‘Murder on the Scottish Express’ mystery rather than describe the journey in narrative terms.
The scenario begins in Jordan with ‘Buried Secrets’ and essentially where Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade left off—Petra. The Player Characters are on the track of an ancient Greek artefact said to be in the Soldier Tomb, but in the course of finding and taking it, have to avoid a series of traps before they can escape the tomb. This leads to the Player Characters’ first big decision—how to deal with the scenario’s villain who turns up just at the wrong moment. Do they hand over the artefact or do they make a run for it. The scene is straight out of the start pf Raiders of the Lost Ark, as is the villain, right down to the white linen suit and Panama hat! This is mercenary archaeologist, Eric Freeman, neatly named after Paul Freeman who played archaeologist René Belloq in the film. If ‘Buried Secrets’ is all action and traps, ‘Horror at Halcyon’ brings the Player Characters back home and to weirdness at Bennett College with a strange mystery, but not before they have a chance to play a game of Oubliettes & Occultists for those who want to play a roleplaying game within a roleplaying game! Something is causing vines to grow all over the walls of the college, trapping teachers and professors alike, so the Player Characters will have to hack their way through the foliage to find and confront the source. There are lots of Lovecraftian references in this adventure, but the pulpy tone means that the Player Characters are unlikely to be driven mad.
The third and final part of ‘Raiders of the Cutty Sark’ takes the Player Characters to Scotland. ‘A Breath of Fresh Ayr’ begins though in London where the Player Characters need to find out what the Nazis and their archaeological agent, Eric Freeman, are up to. This requires a mixture of charm and stealth because that information is held only at the German embassy, which fortunately, is holding a reception. What they will discover is that Freeman, and thus his Nazi masters have discovered the location of the Cutty-Sark. Unfortunately, the protectors of the Cutty-Sark know everyone is coming, so not only will the Player Characters have to deal with Freeman and the Nazis, but also with whatever those protectors have in readiness to prevent anyone taking the Cutty-Sark away.

Physically, Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark is a bright and breezy affair. The artwork is decent and the supplement is well written.
Each of the acts in ‘Raiders of the Cutty Sark’ is short and solid, but together they do not form a cohesive whole. This is because each act is about an entirely different situation and an entirely different archaeological treasure, and there is nothing to connect the three except the Player Characters. Act one, ‘Buried Secrets’ does set everything up very nicely in Indiana Jones style, but the second act is a diversion and where the third should be the main plot of the scenario, it is not. It does not help that equal focus is paid to each of the acts and ultimately, ‘Raiders of the Cutty Sark’ is episodic rather than a whole. It might be the case that the Game Master adjust it to give more of a lead in time for the Cutty-Sark and its importance to the Nazis to grow in terms of story significance, but that is moving away from the intended one-night, cinematic style of Montana Drones and the Raiders of the Cutty Sark.

It is 1979. Those that find themselves not fitting into ordinary society, feeling like an outsider, or being rejected because they do not fit the norms in terms of gender, sexuality, and identity have the need to escape, to find a place not only where they will fit in, but where they are also the norm. Not easy in this day and age, when to be gay or lesbian or transgendered is reason enough to be despised and decried, to be regarded as monstrous or perverse. There is, though, such a place. Isolated and on the edge of America as far from middle America—both geographically and figuratively—as you can get. This is Roseville Beach. Located on a barrier island just a short ferry ride off the coast of the North American Atlantic or Gulf Coast, this is a community where ‘queer’ is the norm. Where visitors come because it is accepted and those that stay do so because they find acceptance and a family that they create for who they are. A family that they also have to rely upon, for the authorities and particularly the police rarely bother with Roseville Beach—and if they did, it would not be to the benefit of anyone within the community. Thus, if the ‘queerdom’ of Roseville Beach have an issue, it is they who sort it out, but it is not just because they are queer that see to their own and prefer to deal with their own problems, for the community of Roseville Beach has other secrets. As much as it is a haven for ‘queerdom’, it is also a haven for magic and the supernatural, for the witch and the wizard, for the shapechanger, for the familiar without a mistress or master, for secret societies and cabals. They are not the norm within Roseville Beach, but they are known, and there are members of the town’s ‘queerdom’ who have gifts and magics themselves and will use it to investigate the strange and the supernatural, the mysterious and the magical, all to keep the community safe and avoid the undue attentions of the authorities on the mainland.

This is the set-up for Moonlight on Roseville Beach: A Queer Game of Disco & Cosmic Horror, an urban fantasy roleplaying game in which the Player Characters are part of both communities in Roseville Beach and thus outsiders twice over. Published by R Rook Studio following a successful Kickstarter campaign, this is a storytelling roleplaying game of magic and mystery, community and care, and of family and fear. This is very much a roleplaying game for mature and accepting players, for it is set in a town where the majority of the population is LGBTQIA+ and it is explicit about this—though that does not mean that the roleplaying game is either explicit or exploitative in other ways. In other words, it is explicit in its social acceptance of LGBTQIA+ being the norm. However, there are issues attached to this. One is that it is not obviously accepting of all norms when it comes to people of colour. This is not to say that they are not present in the setting of Roseville Beach, but rather they are not depicted as being present in the roleplaying game’s artwork. This is because the artwork is public domain, all taken from LGBTQIA+ pulp novels and whilst thematically appropriate, the characters, luridly, suggestively depicted, are all Caucasian. The book does acknowledge that this is an issue, one caused by the artwork rather by intent. Another issue is with the term ‘queer’. The author uses it as a catchall to describe all members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and whilst it is period appropriate, it was used as a slur. It is not the intent of the author to use it in the pejorative sense, but there are members of the LGBTQIA+ community who may see it as an insult. Thus, as part of her Session Zero of Moonlight on Roseville Beach, the Game Master may want to discuss what is an appropriate term to use in her game.

A Player Character in Roseville Beach has an Origin which Provides a Background and Skills, as possible Troubles. They will also have a Job which provides a further Skill, a Strange Event that they had, plus Allies and Comforts. There are six Origins and each grants a special ability. The Fresh Face is the new kid who has fled his family to find out who he is in Roseville Beach and has the ‘Beginner’s Luck’ ability to let his player reroll ones when undertaking an action. The Scandalous has fled to Roseville Beach to avoid media attention and gains an extra contact, though it may not be one that the Player Character wants. Both the Fresh Face and the Scandalous have more Backgrounds and Skills than the other Origins. The Shifter can shift into an animal form and back again, and has two banes that force him into his animal form. The Witch has the Witch Background and Sorcery Skill and also knows three Words of Power that fuel his magic. The Familiar was once attached to a sorcerer, but no longer is, so knows a lot of magic and Words of Power, but is stuck in his animal form and must communicate telepathically and needs help to perform magic. Plus of course, the Familiar does not have a Job. The Stranger has come from somewhere else, and knows a little bit of magic, some of it innate, and has worked hard to acclimatise himself to the world of men. The Strange Event is shared between two players and their characters, such ‘The Monolith’, which seemed to follow them both, but was never seen to move, or ‘The Starry Form in the Dunes’, a glimmering figure seen in the dunes west of town one night which called something to either Player Character. The Strange Event can leave the Player Character with an extra Skill, an Ally, or Word of Power, or a Scare, a Trouble, or even an Injury. Besides an Ally, the three Comforts a Player Character has are a ‘Special Place’, a ‘Special Memento’, and a ‘Special Person’. During downtime, spending time with a Comfort can help to remove a Scare. Lastly, the Player Characters share a Bungalow. This is used as both a base of operations and a potential source of supplies, although that does not necessarily mean guns. Certainly, the Player Characters do not have ready access to guns and their use can lead to a Player Character suffering a Scare.

To create a character, a player selects an Origin and chooses his character’s Comforts and Allies. He then rolls for a Background, Skills, Troubles, Scandals, Words of Power, and so on as appropriate. Then the players establish the Strange Event between their characters and determine its effect.

Lana Jorgeson
Origins: The Witch
Age: 24
Backgrounds: Witch, Magic Shop
Skills: Sorcery, First Aid, Stagecraft, Charming
Job: Piano Player at Cedar Point Hotel
Words of Power: Flood, Bless, Heal
Troubles: Someone in Roseville Beach helped set me up with somewhere to live, a job, and some money.
People I Owe: Jon Amos
Ally: Ghost in the Bungalow
Strange Element: The Poltergeist
Comforts: Special Place – Violet Flame Candles &Gifts, Special Memento – Grandmother’s locket, Special Person – Mrs Esther Neilson (Oblivious Grandma)

Mechanically, Moonlight on Roseville Beach: A Queer Game of Disco & Cosmic Horror uses dice pools of six-sided dice, rolled whenever a Player Character undertakes a Risky Action. To assemble a dice pool, a player starts with a single die and adds further dice for relevant Backgrounds, Skills, for the situation being a Golden Opportunity, and if the Player Character is protecting a housemate, ally, and so on. These are all rolled with the aim being to roll as high as is possible on each die. No matter the results, they are then assigned individually to different tables. The standard set of tables are ‘Goal’, ‘Injured’, ‘Scared’, ‘Clue’, and ‘Trouble’. The Game Master decides which tables come into play, depending upon the situation and what the Player Character is trying to do. ‘Goal’ is the base table, but if the Player Character is investigating something, the Game Master will add the ‘Clue’ table, and if there is a chance of the Player Character being injured or scared as result of his actions, those tables are added to. The ‘Trouble’ table is added if the player has not rolled enough high results and wants to roll an extra die. However, it places an Ally, Trouble, or Comfort in danger. If the player does not have enough dice to assign to the tables the Game Master has set out, he either decides to approach the situation in another way to reduce the number of tables, or if he rolls, any tables without dice are counted as if ones are assigned to them—which is not good. In general, results of four or more on all of the tables bar the ‘Trouble’ table indicate progress or a positive outcome, but it is always the player who decides where the dice are placed and thus decides on the degree of success or failure for the action.

Magic uses the same mechanics. The Player Character must be a Witch, Familiar, or Stranger, possess the Sorcery skill, knows one or more appropriate Words of Power, and can gain more dice for taking time, having someone with the Sorcery spell help, using a spell book, casting the spell at an auspicious time, and so on. Magic always involves the ‘Scare’ table and always adds a table of its own which determines if control of the magic is lost.
For example, Lana has been lured to the house of a local dignitary after a strange magical encounter only to discover what she thinks is ritual that will see her mind supplanted by the dignitary’s. The dignitary’s aide, Georgina Wellman, has a revolver, a Saturday night special pointed at Lana in order to persuade her to co-operate. It is approaching midnight when the ritual needs to be performed and Lana, not liking the odds either way, decides upon a brute force solution. She will cast a spell using the ‘Flood’ Word of Power, drawing from the swimming pool outside the house, the aim being to disarm Georgina, disrupt the ritual, and cause chaos. Her player assembles the dice pool, beginning with the base, plus one each for the Witch Background, the Sorcery Skill, and the Game Master allows an extra die because it is an auspicious moment or midnight. That gives the player four dice to roll.

The Game Master lays out the tables that the player will be assigning dice too. These are ‘Goal’, ‘Injured’, ‘Scared’, and ‘Magic’. The player rolls two, three, five, and six. He assigns the six to the ‘Goal’ table, which means it is achieved and the five to the ‘Magic’ table, which means that Lana does not lose control of the magic. The two and three are assigned to the ‘Scared’ and the ‘Injured’ tables, meaning that either Lana or an ally is injured, and everyone is scared. The Game Master narrates how the water from the pool surges up and in through the window of the house and swirls around the room that Lana and Georgina are in. Both are knocked to the floor and bruised and battered as the furniture is shifted. The gun is knocked from Georgina’s hand and everyone screams in terror! Moonlight on Roseville Beach is thus mechanically quite simple and has two consequences. The first is that the Game Master will need to place the various results tables on the table before the players so that they can consult them and make choices. The second is that the players can make these choices. They determine the degree of outcome, which the Game Master narrates.

One odd addition is a set of Guest Stars that allow other players to step in and participate in a mystery on an occasional basis. Alternatively, these could be used as NPCs, but either way they include an interventive cast of characters, such as ‘The Haunted Ice Cream Vendor’, ‘Definitely Not An Occultist’, and ‘The Oblivious Grandma’, amusingly unaware of anything out of the ordinary going on in Roseville, either in terms of the LGBTQIA+ community or the outré. These are fantastically well-drawn characters, ones that contrast sharply with the standard types that the players roleplay, so that if the roleplaying game were being run as if it were a television series, they could potentially make highly memorable appearances. They could even be used as potential scenario ideas. For the Game Master, there is deeper background on the various locations in and around Roseville Beach, including a hotel whose young owner is missing, a rocky island occupied by overly curious otters, of bronze monoliths that are never seen to move, but clearly do, and more. These locations do come with hooks, some more detailed than others. There are threats discussed here too, some of which does involve the bigotry of the era. There is advice on setting up a mystery, giving out clues, and handling romance. The advice for the latter is nicely done and provides advice for relations between Player Characters and NPCs and between Player Characters. There are also several ready-to-play scenarios as well.

Physically, Moonlight on Roseville Beach: A Queer Game of Disco & Cosmic Horror is fantastically presented in its use of its period book covers and graphical style that luridly hint secrets and truths, of just somethings that are different at the edge of society. The book is also well written and an engaging read.

Moonlight on Roseville Beach: A Queer Game of Disco & Cosmic Horror is a roleplaying game about the othering of minorities and their agency. The othering of minorities is simply and directly handled—it is normalised. Roseville Beach normalises the LGBTQIA+ community in a way which could almost never happen in 1979 when it is set, and makes the Player Characters intrinsically part of it and wanting to be part of it. Then it normalises it by having the players accept and roleplay this norm. In doing so, it gives room to both characters and players to explore and investigate the second othering present in Roseville Beach, that of magic and the supernatural, as well as the agency to do so. The characters within the setting and the players within the mechanics that give them the capacity to decide the outcomes of their characters’ risky actions. It is a powerful combination in terms of storytelling and resolution.

Moonlight on Roseville Beach: A Queer Game of Disco & Cosmic Horror is a fantastic combination of acceptance and community with pulp horror and mystery, that like its setting of Roseville Beach, gives a space for the marginalised and scope to tell their stories as they confront horrors and mysteries, and so protect their new homes and family. This is a great storytelling roleplaying game, good for one-shots and conventions as it is for telling longer summer seasons.

The setting of Numenera is expansive one, potentially taking the adventurers into space, into other dimensions, and even deep under the sea, but always exploring the mysteries, secrets, and technologies of the past. Its detail lies in these places to be explored rather than the core setting of the Steadfast, as described in Numenera Discovery, the core rulebook. This also leaves plenty of space for the Game Master to add her own content and as described in Numenera Destiny, the players and their characters to make it their own by building and supporting a community. As open as the setting is, what it means is that Numenera does not have a ready starting point and it is perhaps in danger of overwhelming the prospective player or Game Master with just how expansive a setting it is. A solution then would be to provide a starting point. Somewhere small with a limited scope that is in no danger of overwhelming either player or Game Master and then builds from this basis with a story that will eventually take the players, their characters, and the Game Master out into the wider and more wondrous world of the Ninth Age. This is exactly what The Glimmering Valley does.
The Glimmering Valley is published by Monte Cook Games and everything that a Game Master and her players need to start their first Numenera campaign. A starting point, some plots and some storylines, some mysteries and some locations to be explored, a threat, and above, a place to call home. It does all this, but it also does something else—it keeps things limited. It does this in several ways. First, it restricts the Character Types available to the core three in v Discovery, that is, the Glaive, the Nano, and the Jack. The others, the Arkus, the Wright, and the Delve, from Numenera Destiny, do become available later in the campaign when it is possible to transition into one of the new three. Second, it limits the Special Abilities available to the Player Characters, as many of those with more overt effects, such as ‘Bears a Halo of Fire’ or ‘Wears a Sheen of Ice’, would be decried as sorcery, whilst those for which there is no training or reason for it, like ‘Works the Back Alleys’ or ‘Fuses Flesh and Steel’, are simply deemed inappropriate. The abilities available to the Player Characters in The Glimmering Valley tend towards skills and the mundane. Third, it grounds the campaign in the Glimmering Valley, a narrow valley some twenty-five miles long, with the minor settlement of Neandran at the head of the valley, and a larger settlement, Ketterach, at the bottom of the valley. The Player Characters have grown up in Neandran and like the majority of the other villagers, have never travelled more than a few miles into the surround forest, let alone as far as a metropolis as Ketterach. The Player Characters know almost everyone in Neandran and certainly have a relationship with many of the village’s notable figures—all of whom are detailed. Fourth, it applies Clarke’s Third Law, ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ assiduously. This is because the inhabitants of Neandran look upon the strange things around them and found elsewhere in the surrounding forest as magic rather than technology. Once the Player Characters reach Ketterach and the wider Ninth World, they are likely to discover that this is not the case and so have a revelation. It means though, that playing through The Glimmering Valley is going to be a very different experience to that of a standard Numenera campaign. And for any Numenera veteran, it means roleplaying a very different outlook.
So why do all this? Simply, simplicity. What The Glimmering Valley wants to do is avoid any possibility of overwhelming the prospective player or Game Master with a wealth of detail. To that end, it limits choices for the players, gives their characters a clear outlook on the world, and shifts the setting to the fantasy of its science fantasy rather than the science. Effectively, the world in which the Player Characters begin is akin to the fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons with the medievalism, and what they discover in end is the highly technological and weird world of Numenera. In addition, the last chapter in the book is specifically ‘The Player’s Guide’, provided to inform the players about the world in which their characters live in. When given a copy, this greatly aids the players’ knowledge about the setting and enables them to establish relationships with the NPC.
As the campaign begins, the nature of the dream that for generations the inhabitants of Neandran has changed. Just slightly, but enough to pique the interest of the Player Characters and they wonder why it has changed. For the Game Master, there is initially the same information she gives to her players and then descriptions of its various locations, flora, fauna, and more. There is strangeness all about—strange objects that protrude from the valley floor and walls, the infinite house of the local witch, a point in the river where the water flows into the air, a glade of six-foot square, translucent blue cubes in which can glimpsed some strange creature, and stairs which go up to nowhere. Some of these lead deep below and into the sides of the valley into highly detailed complexes, into what are effectively ‘science dungeons’. They are unlike any other dungeon in each case, in one case, more a puzzle that the Player Characters need to work out with their fingers, though there is guidance on using a more mechanical, rules-based for those playing groups who dislike puzzles. These complexes will take time to explore, but the campaign does allow for that time and even projects of the Player Characters’ own. Accompanying these are a number of encounters and more, including the movement and growth of factions into the Glimmering Valley. These include the arrival of biomechanical nomads, the rise of the machines, and even an invasion of ‘Skeksis’-like aliens! The movement and growth of all of these is slow at first, but becomes more apparent later in the campaign. This does allow time for the Player Characters to explore, learn, and prepare.
The campaign is supported with a bestiary and chapters for each of the factions. There is advice for the Game Master throughout, with the sidebars used extensively for references and stats. However, what The Glimmering Valley does not do is set the Game Master up as well it does the players. The set-up for the players is very good, preparing them for the campaign and telling them everything that they need to do so. For the Game Master, there is not this same level of information and consequently she does not learn anything about the event-based aspects of the campaign until she gets to the relevant chapters. There is no overview for her prior to this when there really should have been. Whilst The Glimmering Valley is good in its way as a starter campaign for the players, it is less so for the Game Master. There is not the step-by-step process for the Game Master as there is for the players, so it is not as suitable for the first time Game Master and certainly not as suitable as the author necessarily intended. For all the simplicity of The Glimmering Valley, the campaign needs more effort than it really should to set up for a first campaign.
Physically, The Glimmering Valley is very well done. Both the artwork and the cartography are as excellent as you would expect for a supplement for Numenera, and the book is well written.

The Glimmering Valley is a good first campaign for the players, taking both them and their characters from positions of relative unawareness about the world to realising how big and how different it is by having them make discoveries and uncover dangers and face them. There is a genuine sense of growth and progress to the campaign which will all lead to the characters being prepared for the wider world, as well as both their players and the Game Master.

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

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

—oOo—

What is it?Tales of the Old West Quickdraw Rules and Adventure is an introduction to Tales of the Old West, a historical roleplaying game set on the American frontier using the Year Zero mechanics.

It is a sixty-four page, primarily black and white book with colour maps.

The quick-start is nicely illustrated with some decent maps.

How long will it take to play?
Tales of the Old West Quickdraw Rules and Adventure can be played through in a single session, or two sessions at most.

What else do you need to play?
Tales of the Old West Quickdraw Rules and Adventure requires multiple six-sided dice. These should be divided between two different colours.

Where is it set?
Tales of the Old West Quickdraw Rules and Adventure is set in and around the town of Carson’s Folly, a hunting and trapping town in Colfax County, New Mexico.

Who do you play?
There are five ready-to-play Player Characters given in Tales of the Old West Quickdraw Rules and Adventure. They consist of an African American fur trader, a Caucasian grifter, a Native American Ranch Hand, an Irish Settler Homesteader, and a Mexican Cibolero Tracker.

The diversity of the ready-to-play Player Characters reflects the efforts of the authors to make the setting as accessible as possible, without resorting to stereotypes. This is balanced against the need to make the game fun. There is no general advice and certainly mention of the X-card that might be appropriate given the genre.

How is a Player Character defined?
A Player Character has four attributes—Grit, Quick, Cunning, and Docity—and a single stat, Faith, plus several skills. Faith need not be religious faith, but can instead be a firmly held belief. Examples include ‘I want to make my father proud’ or ‘I will find myself a family on the frontier’ or ‘the Lord is my shepherd’. He also has two Talents, a big dream, some gear, and some background. Of the four stats, Docity is the ability of a character to learn.

How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, Tales of the Old West Quickdraw Rules and Adventure and thus Tales of the Old West, uses the Year Zero engine, first seen in Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days. To have a Player Character undertake an action, a player rolls a number of dice equal to a combination of attribute and skill. The pool of dice consists of ‘Trouble’ dice and standard dice. There will always be ‘Trouble’ dice in the dice pool, up to five. A single roll of a six on either die type indicates a success. Multiple successes improve the outcome and allow the Player Character to perform stunts. In combat, these might be to inflict extra damage or inflict a critical injury, but the players are free to create other effects as well.

If no sixes are rolled, the action fails. If ones are rolled on the ‘Trouble’ dice, these have no effect unless the player decides to ‘push’ the roll. This enables him to reroll any dice that did not roll a one or a six. However, if there are any ones remaining after the roll has been pushed, they trigger a check on the ‘Trouble Outcome Table’. There is a ‘Trouble Outcome Table’ for conflict and physical situations and for social and mental situations. The effects vary depending how many ones have been rolled.

For example, if a Player Character has generated two ones in a conflict, the outcome might be “You stumble, slip or trip. Lose your next slow action.” or “Your attack is underpowered, or your action is weak. Lose a 6 from your pool of successes.” This is a pleasingly random set of effects, and it is a pity that there is not a corresponding set of tables that can be used when a player rolls multiple successes, if only as inspiration.

However, it costs a point of Faith to trigger a Pushed roll and in roleplaying terms, it should ideally tie into the Player Character’s Faith statement as this is a way of gaining Experience Points, but it need not do. Faith can also be spent to negate the effects of ‘Trouble’ dice, on a one-for-one basis. In Tales of the Old West Quickdraw Rules and Adventure, a Player Character starts play with four points of Faith, but they can go up to ten. It is possible for a Player Character to lose his Faith and be Shaken.

How does combat work?
Conflict in Tales of the Old West Quickdraw Rules and Adventure uses the same core mechanics and allows a Player Character to act twice per round. This is either a fast action and a slow action, or two fast actions. A Slow Action might be ‘Shoot’, ‘Melee Attack’, and ‘Mount’, whilst a ‘Fast Action might be ‘Quick Shot’, ‘Aim’, and ‘Draw Weapon’. The conflict rules cover social situations as well as fist fights, shootouts, and of course, duels. The latter covers the face-off at the start of the duel followed by the duellists going for their guns. Along with a ‘Critical Injury Table’, the rules are fairly compressive and cover most situations in the accompanying situation.

What do you play?
The adventure in Tales of the Old West Quickdraw Rules and Adventure is ‘The Last Cibolero’. A ‘Cibolero’ is a Mexican buffalo hunter and the scenario is all about buffalo hunting. The Player Characters are involved in the fur and trapping trade, but like the rest of the townsfolk, do not hunt the herds of buffalo indiscriminately and this is the issue at the heart of the scenario. When the New Mexico Mercantile Cooperative, a well-backed outfit working out of Santa Fe, moves into the town to take as many hides as it can, it sets up a tension between the locals and the outsiders. As first one Cibolero and then another is found dead, this tension ratchets up and civility breaks down until the town is on the verge of open conflict...

The scenario includes four maps and floorplans. These are all well done. Besides the scenario, there is background information upon the local area and the town of Carson’s Folly and its inhabitants. The Game Master can develop more stories based on some of the secrets and wishes of the inhabitants with some effort.

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in Tales of the Old West Quickdraw Rules and Adventure are easy to prepare, especially if the Game Master has any experience with the Year Zero engine. The scenario itself is quite straightforward and overall, it requires relatively little in the way of preparation.
Is it worth it?
Yes. The Tales of the Old West Quickdraw Rules and Adventure are a solid introduction to both its setting and its concepts, which are very easy to grasp as everyone is familiar with the Wild West, although the included scenario, ‘The Last Cibolero’, will be unfamiliar and unlike almost any tale of the Wild West seen on screen.
Where can you get it?
The Tales of the Old West Quickdraw Rules and Adventure is available for purchase here.

The Kickstarter campaign for Tales of the Old West can be found here.

The poor village of Hendenburgh stands in the middle of the Kryptwood, an ancient forest steeped in legend and history. For years, the Kryptwood has encroached upon the village, covering the walls of its whitewashed cottages with ivy, but pulling the tendrils of the evergreen climber from the walls of their homes is something that the villagers can easily handle, whereas the most problem thing to beset Hendenburgh is one that they are ill-equipped to deal with. Murderous demon hounds haunt the Kryptwood, ripping apart anyone who dares enter its reaches and even snatching lone villagers from the streets of the small settlement. An attempt to drive the spectral hounds from the Kryptwood, led by Ulvar the Poacher, resulted in failure and the death of several villagers. The demon hounds and what they are, are just one of the dangers and secrets to be found in and around the village of Hendenburgh. Highwaymen lurk in the forest, ready to pounce on Hendenburgh’s misfortune; a coven of witches wants everything to be returned to normal; the old silver mine stands abandoned, infested with monsters that drove out the miners and sowed the seeds of Hendenburgh’s poverty; a Bridge Troll has gone on strike after a drunken pixie failed to pay the toll; and at its heart, the Tomb of the Tyrant, the last resting place of the Kryptwood Tyrant, a despot who ruled the region a thousand years ago.

This is the situation in The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh, a scenario published by The Merry Mushmen, best known for Black Sword Hack: Ultimate Chaos Edition and A Folklore Bestiary, as well as the fanzine, Knock! An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac. Funded via a Kickstarter campaign along with Raiding the Obsidian Keep, it is designed for Player Characters of Second to Fourth Level, it is adaptation and expansion for use with Old School Essentials of an earlier scenario, Hounds of Hendenburgh, written for use with the microclone, Cairn. It is essentially, a hexcrawl with multiple locations—some twenty-four of them, occupying half of the hexcrawl’s forty-eight hexes—and multiple, often interlinked plots. These plots will pull and push the Player Characters across the Kryptwood, ultimately to the scenario’s three big locations. These are the ‘The Infested Silver Mine’, ‘The Ancient Villa’, and ‘The Tyrant’s Tomb’. As written, it is also linked to Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow, the first adventure module published by The Merry Mushmen. Thus, it can be run, if not as a direct sequel, then as the next scenario in the Player Characters’ adventures. Alternatively, it can simply be dropped into a Game Master’s own setting and used without any links to Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow.

As with Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow, this is another digest-sized scenario which comes as a thick seventy or so page booklet in a wraparound card cover. The trade dress echoes that of classic TSR, though the artwork is more cartoonish. The cover has been purposely distressed and inside are maps of the three main adventuring locations in the Kryptwood, all done in a white on blue style that again echoes classic modules for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. The cartoonish style of artwork continues throughout in a duotone of blue and grey, depicting the sense of gloom and horror that pervades the region—and the adventure.

The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh is a very traditional in terms of its design. It begins with the ‘classic village in peril’ set-up in which Hendenburgh and its inhabitants are endangered by a major threat, that is, the demon hounds. Added to this are a handful of other, lesser threats—a band of highwaymen, the cause of the silver mine being abandoned which has led to the region’s decline, the village pastor having been defrocked for heresy, and so on. Understandably, the villagers are rightly worried about the danger that the demon hounds represent, but these are not their only concerns. There is the winsome and inappropriately young wife of the senile Lord of Hendenburgh, who wants to restore the village’s fortunes, but is also fascinated by the new learning, and regards the attacks by the demon hounds as peasant superstition, blaming them on a particularly vindictive badger. The pastor could be of great help to the Player Characters, but has become a spiteful drunk after being denounced by his flock! The town miller is in deep mourning for his wife, killed by the demon hounds, so no grain is being ground for flour, and thus there is no bread being baked, whereas in fact, his wife has run off with the highwaymen! The blacksmith cannot work out why the Widow Winstaple reviles him so, despite him loving her very much and having dosed her tea with a love potion he acquired from the three witches in the woods. These NPCs—and in fact, all of the NPCs in The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh, because there are also many to be found across Kryptwood Forest as well—are really great. Not only will interacting with them garner the Player Characters knowledge, but it will also create some great roleplaying between the players and the Game Master.

Beyond the limits of Hendenburgh, Kryptwood is rife with yet more encounters and locations. There is the aforementioned coven of witches and their squadron of flying monkeys, a fashionably employed hermit, that troll bridge with the striking troll, the Highwaymen and their louchely charismatic leader, and even ‘The Thirsty Sprite’, a tavern deep in the woods that caters to pixies and other creatures. Then, of course, there are the scenario’s three main adventure sites, ‘The Infested Silver Mine’, ‘The Ancient Villa’, and ‘The Tyrant’s Tomb’. These are not large, but they are highly detailed and they will keep the Player Characters busy for multiple sessions. They are also dangerous, if not outright deadly, and any party rushes into unprepared will find its numbers potentially severely depleted. These three locations, as well as the witches’ coven, are where the horror elements of scenario come to the fore. For make no mistake The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh is a horror scenario. Primarily that horror is folkloric and gothic in nature, but ‘The Infested Silver Mine’ feels like the film Alien as well. There is a touch of whimsy too, such as the drunken Pixies and bored Ogre bartender at ‘The Thirsty Sprite’ or the reluctant, but fashionably employed hermit. The combination is reminiscent of Hammer Horror film with a touch of bawdy grubbiness that will make the Game Master want to cast the scenario’s many NPCs and villains with their favourite character actors.

The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh is also very well supported and organised. It breaks down the various factions in the scenario, gives a handful of hooks to get the Player Characters there, provides tables of encounters for all of the main locations, and at the end lists what will happen to Hendenburgh once the Player Characters have left. This includes if they do nothing as well as the possible consequences if they get involved. Appendices list all of the scenario’s NPCs, new magical items, and potential retainers and/or replacement Player Characters. Again, these are all very good, the magical items in particular being unique and interesting in each and every case, such as a Clockwork Canary that attaches to the belt and sings whenever poisonous or explosive gas is detected or the Agoniser, a dagger that can inflict excruciating pain sufficient to paralyse temporarily the person stabbed!

Physically, The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh is very well presented. The writing is succinct and laid out in an easy to grasp style, whilst the artwork is entertaining throughout. The cartography of the various buildings and caves and dungeons in the scenario feel slightly grubbier than in Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow, but are still not as detailed as they could be. This will not hinder the Game Master running The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh, but none really help their locations come to life either.

The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh is a great horror hexcrawl, brimming with flavoursome detail and plot, populated with a fantastic cast of NPCs that the Game Master is going to enjoy roleplaying, and rife with adventure possibilities. It is a genuine joy to see how well this is designed and put together, but at the table, The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh is going to be so much fun to run, let alone play.