Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: The Lair of DreamsPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Nick Edwards

Setting: Paris, 1890sProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Seven page, 330.92 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: What if art is the vector?Plot Hook: Has a down on his luck artist fallen back into his old ways?Plot Support: One Mythos monsterProduction Values: Plain
Pros# Inspired by ‘The Mask’ from The King in Yellow by R.W. Chambers# Short, direct, single session investigation# Easy to prepare and run# Easy to adapt to other cities and time periods# Xanthophobia# Oneirophobia# Automatonophobia
Cons# Keeper will need to provide NPC/monster stats# What happens if the Investigators fail?
Conclusion# Short, direct, and dreamy encounter with the servants of the Yellow King# Easy to run for Cthulhu by Gaslight (and other cities and time periods)

Time has long since passed since the Old World was destroyed in the End Times. Since that time, eight Mortal Realms have arisen from their remnants, each keyed to one of the eight Winds of Magic and connected by the magical portals known as Realmgates. Sigmar survived the End Times and was borne to the Mortal Realms, uniting the survivors and bringing the gift of civilisation, as well as finding the other gods and appointing them divine protectors of the Eight Realms. Grungni taught mortals metalcraft, Nagash imposed order on the spirits of the restless dead, the savage twin-god Gorkamorka cleared the wilderness of monsters, and Sigmar established a great Parliament of the Gods. It was a new golden age under the protection of the Pantheon of Order, but it was not to last. Rivalries and sins caused cracks and fractures in the world and it is though these that Chaos entered the Mortal Realms. Their worship spread and spread untold, until the emboldened Dark Gods unleashed their legions on all of the eight realms. The gods of the Pantheon of Order together had the strength to stand against the Chaos, but riven by rivalries and jealousies, they failed and what remained of the Pantheon of Order was catastrophically defeated at the Battle of the Burning Skies. Thus, was ushered in the Age of Chaos… It was compounded by the Necroquake, a great ritual by the Supreme Necromancer, Nagash, to harness the Winds of Magic that was undone by Chaos and forcing the dead to rise and changing the nature of magic as it flowed into the realms and unleashed devastatingly predatory living spells that stalked the lands.

All was not lost. Sigmar, the God-King still yet faced the forces of Chaos, rampaging Greenskin Hordes, and Nagash’s legions of spirits and undead servants, for he had his Stormcast Eternals, paragons of humanity whose mortal souls are reforged with the celestial energies of the Cosmic Storm and hammered into living weapons of Azyr upon the Anvil of Apotheosis. Yet they are few in number, and so he put out calls to former allies. Yet it was not enough, for not all answered his call, and so he turned to the people of the Mortal Realms. The mightiest of souls and most powerful of realms came together and entering into Bindings which bound small bands together to fight for the Mortal Realms. Together, they are SOULBOUND, and as a new era looms, the Age of Death, they are needed more than ever!

This is the set-up for Warhammer Age of Sigmar – Soulbound: Perilous Adventures in the Mortal Realms, a roleplaying game published by Cubicle 7 Entertainment based upon Warhammer Age of Sigmar, the miniatures wargame from Games Workshop. Warhammer Age of Sigmar was originally published in 2015 as a replacement for the venerable Warhammer Age of Sigmar—upon which Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition—and as of 2024, is on its fourth edition itself. Although perilous as the roleplaying game’s subtitle suggest, this is not as grim or as grotty as other roleplaying games set with the Warhammer universe, certainly not like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Instead, it is a world of high and heroic fantasy, one in which the Player Characters are bound—or Soulbound—into small groups, or Bindings, which last a lifetime. They embody hope against the death and chaos, and Chaos, and this can be expressed through Soulfire, that collectively, they can make them do amazing and truly heroic things!

A Player Character is primarily defined by an Archetype, which sets his starting Attributes, faction or cultural heritage, Species, and initial options in terms of Skills, Talents, and equipment. The five Species are Human, Stormcast Eternal, Aelf, Duardin, and Sylvaneth. A Stormcast Eternal is a reforged soul, the Aelf and Duardin are similar to the Elf and Dwarf, but not the same, and the Sylvaneth is a living tree. A Player Character has three attributes—Body, Mind, and Soul—which typically range between one and eight, with two being considered average. There are several different factions, such as the Daughters of Khaine, devoted to the Aelven god of battle and bloodshed, and the Idoneth Deepkin, said to have been saved from Slannesh’s gullet and now reside in the most hidden place of the Mortal Realms, its ocean floors; and the Duardin mercenaries of the Fyreslayers and the scientific privateers in their great airships, the Kharadron Overlords. There are twenty-three Archetypes. For the Human there is the Battle Mage and Excelsior Warpriest; For the Aelf there is the Black Ark Corsair, Darkling Sorceress, Hag Priestess, Witch Aelf, Akhelian Emissary, Isharann Soulscryer, and Isharann Tidecaster. For the Duardin there is Auric Runesmiter, Battlesmith, Doomseeker, Aether-Khemist, Endrinmaster, and Skymaster. For the Stormcast Eternal there is the Knight-Azyros, Knight-Incantor, Knight-Questor, and Knight-Venator. For the Sylvaneth, there is the Branchwych, Kurnoth Hunter, and Tree-Revenant Waypiper. Lastly, anyone can become a Trade Pioneer.
What is missing here is options for Orruks or Ogors and other Species. Not all other Species are suitable as Player Characters, the options are limited, as those especially for Humans, although the Stormcast Eternal are a variant of Human, one initially idealised, but each time a Stormcast Eternal dies and is reforged, he loses some of his humanity. To create a Player Character, a player selects an Archetype, several Talents from the Archetype’s list, and spends some given Experience Points on improving the Archetype’s skills. He also sets long and short term goals for his character and together with the other players, sets long and short term goals for the party. Completing these is a major way to earn Experience Points. Connections between the Player Characters are determined, either making them or rolling on the given table, and each player also has a set of questions to answer that help round out his character.

Krylla Heartseeker
Faction: Daughters of Khaine
Archetype: Hag Priestess
Age: 110
Height: 6’ 9”
Eye Colour: Gold Eye Type: Mesmerising
Hair Colour: Deep Red
Distinguishing Feature: Strange arcane markings on chest

Body 2 Mind 2 Soul 4

Melee 3 (Average) Accuracy 2 (Poor) Defence 3 (Average) Armour 1
Toughness 8 Wounds 4 Initiative 3 (Average) Natural Awareness 2 (Poor)
Mettle 2

Core Skill: Devotion (Training 1 Focus 1)
Skills: Awareness (Training 1 Focus 0), Determination (Training 1 Focus 0), Guile (Training 1 Focus 0), Reflexes (Training 1 Focus 0), Theology (Training 1 Focus 1), Weapon Skill (Training 1 Focus 0)

Core Talent: Blessed (Khaine)
Talents: Fearless, Forbidden Knowledge, Blood Binding, Red Mist

Equipment: Ceremonial armour (Light Armour), sacrificial blade (Dagger), a bloodstained ritual chalice (Holy Symbol), a whetstone, manacles, pestle and mortar, and 280 drops of Aqua Ghyranis.

Mechanically, Soulbound uses a dice pool using six-sided dice. The basic aim is for a player to roll dice and get results that equal or exceed a Difficulty Number to generate successes. Both the Difficulty Number and the number of successes required will vary. A Test adheres to the format, ‘DN X:Y Attribute (Skill), where ‘X’ is the Difficulty of the Test, ‘Y’ is the Complexity, or the number of successes required to succeed, and the Attribute and Skill indicating which should be used. For example, a Dexterity Test of Difficulty 4 and Complexity 2 is shown as DN 4:2 Body (Dexterity); a Channelling Test of Difficulty 3 and Complexity 4 is shown as DN 3:4 Mind (Channelling). Most Tests only require a single success, but Tests with greater Complexity will require more. Advantage and Disadvantage will adjust the Difficulty down or up as appropriate.

The number of dice a player will roll to perform a Test will depend on the appropriate Attribute for his character and the degree of Training the character has in the skill. If none, or Untrained, the player just rolls a number of dice equal to the Attribute. For each level of Training—either one, two, or three—a player will add an extra die. In addition to Training, a Player Character can have Focus in a skill, again, either one, two, or three levels. For each level in Focus, a player gains a single +1 bonus. These bonuses are used to adjust the results of the dice after they have been rolled.
For example, the high priestess is testing Krylla Heartseeker to determine if she is worthy of being assigned an important. To prove her worthiness, the Game Master sets the Test at DN 4:2 Soul (Devotion), meaning that Krylla Heartseeker’s player must roll two successes of four or more. Her player assembles her dice pool of four from Krylla Heartseeker’s Soul and adds another one for the single level of Training she has in the Devotion skill. In total, she is rolling five dice. Krylla Heartseeker’s player rolls two, three, four, five, and six. This gives Krylla three success, more than enough to success, but she also a level of Focus in the skill, so uses it to adjust the result of three to a four, and this gives her four success. Enough to succeed and Kyrlla to a give a very impressive answer that persuades the high priestess that not only is she worthy of the task, but is given some secret information about it as well.In addition, all Soulbound have access to Mettle. This partly regenerates every turn after use and can be used to take an extra action, use a Talent or Miracle, and temporarily either double the Training or Focus in a skill. The Binding as whole has access to Soulfire that can be spent to achieve the maximum successes on a Test instead of rolling, to reroll as many dice as necessary, to recover Toughness or all spent Mettle, or to cheat death. Soulfire is a shared resource and every member of the Binding must agree to its use. If a Binding does not agree, a player can still use the Soulfire, but this increases Doom by one. Doom is measure of the hopelessness in the Mortal Realms and it grows as the levels of fear, envy, doubt, and anger rise. On one level it reflects how bleak or tense the current state of the Mortal Realms, but on another, as it grows it draws the enemy to the Binding and will make them powerful foes, increasing their armour, giving them extra attacks, and granting access to powerful abilities. Doom can be decreased, but it takes time and effort.

Combat uses the same mechanics. Initiative is done in a fixed order according to Initiative values, each Player Character can act and move once per turn, and the engagements are fought out in zones. It is not overly tactical, but terrain and cover will be factor, and combatants can undertake actions such as charge, called shots, defend, dodge, grapple, improvise, dual wielding, and more. An attacker’s Melee or Accuracy values are compared with the defendant’s Defence to determine the Difficulty Number of an attack. Weapons inflict a base damage, plus the number of Successes rolled. Armour worn reduces damage and damage reduces a defendant’s Toughness and then his Wounds. Having no Wounds left means the defendant is mortally wounded. Wounds can be minor, serious, or deadly, depending on much damage they inflict. A mortally wounded defendant is stunned, cannot recover Toughness, and must death tests on subsequent rounds. Alternatively, a Player Character could choose to make a last stand, in which case, he is no longer stunned, regains all his Mettle, is immune to all damage, his Melee and Accuracy get better, and his damage ignores armour. This lasts only one turn before the Player character dies, so it had better count.

Beyond the basic rules, there is guide to the endeavours that the Soulbound can do between missions, though never lasting longer than a week, because Chaos never sleeps! This can be to increase the Bond between a Binding, Cleanse Corruption, Create a Spell, Repair Equipment, Train a Companion, and others. There is a full list of equipment, including Aetheric Devices, such as Kharadron devices, weapons, and armour wielded by the Kharadron Overlords and their forces. These include Aetheric Lenses, Arkanaut Armour, Rapid-Fire Rivet Gun, and a lot more. Most have a power requirement and can be plugged into the Basic Aether-rig used by the Kharadron, limiting the number of devices that can be wielded over the course of an adventure. The Regular Maintenance Endeavour is required to maintain an Aether-rig between adventures.
Background is given for the Mortal Realms—Azyr, the Realm of Heavens, Aqshy, the Realm of Fire, Chamon, the Realm of Metal, Ghur, the Realm of Beasts, Ghyran, the Realm of Life, Hysh, the Realm of Light, Shyish, the Realm of Death, and Ulgu, the Realm of Shadow—and the Realm Gates as well as daily life, safety, entertainment, and so on. These are accompanied by various adventure hooks, details on the Realm of Chaos, various factions, and a deeper description of The Great Parch. This is located in Aqshy, the Realm of Fire, where Sigmar first unleashed his Stormcast Eternals, and covers its geography and history and is designed to provide a starting region for the Game Master and her players. Religion is given a similar treatment, including such gods such as Gorkamorka, and Nagash, and the Chaos Gods—Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh, and Tzeentch. These traditional four, all of whom fear the rise in power of Nagash and his undead hordes, are joined by the Horned Rat.

Just as the Mortal Realms are divided into eight, so is magic lore, with each lore being tied to a specific realm. Magic energy churns and swirls throughout the Mortal Realms as it has done since Nagash’s Necroquake, empowering even the weakest of spellcasters. Worse, this roiling wave upon wave of aetheric energy have created Endless Spells that have proven to be danger to the original caster, his enemies, and anyone else they come in contact with. (Unfortunately, only one Endless Spell, the Purple Sun of Shyish, is given in the book.). Arcane spellcasting requires a successful Mind (Channelling) Test and extra successes can be used to Overcast a spell, often to increase its duration or the damage it inflicts. Bonus dice are rewarded when attempting to cast spell of a Magic Lore in its associated Realm, for example, casting Amethyst Magic in the Realm of Death, Shyish. If a Channelling Test is failed, then a player must roll on ‘The Price of failure’ Table, which can be anything from the caster simply losing control and suffering damage to inadvertently summoning an Endless Spell! (Depending on how unlucky your spellcasting Player Character is, again, the Purple Sun of Shyish is not enough.) Some ninety spells are listed across all eight Magic Lores and there is even a guide to creating new spells.

In comparison, Miracles are treated as individual Talents that require the ‘Use a Talent’ action to cast and one or more points of Mettle. There are some generic Miracles, but most are tied to particular god and his worship. Rounding out is a decent bestiary of nearly fifty entries, which covers automata, beasts, daemons, mortals, spirits, and undead, from minions, swarms, and warriors to champions and chosen in terms of power levels. They include the People of the Cities of Sigmar, pets and mounts, monstrous beasts, disciples of the Dark Gods, the legions of Nagash, and Greenskin hordes. This is a solid selection and provides a lot of depth in terms of NPCs and threats.

One of the best descriptions the mechanics in of Soulbound—and any roleplaying game—in the core rulebook for Warhammer Age of Sigmar – Soulbound: Perilous Adventures in the Mortal Realms is, “The dice and the rules are tools for you to use to create memories. They are little cuboid wildcards that can completely flip a story on its head, and turn a moment of crushing despair into one of joyous celebration.” There is further advice for the Game Master later in the rulebook, which actually suggests that if the prospective Game Master has not yet learned how to be a Game master, then she learn using the Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound Starter Set. The Game Master advice covers the rules, but also looks at setting up a game and making it feel like the Age of Sigmar. It states that Soulbound has four tones—mythic, hopeful, tragic, and dark—and takes the Game Monster through them one by one. Besides talking about humanising the setting despite it being about a continuing, often epic war against Chaos, it provides various tools for the Game Master to adjust Soulbound to get the game she wants. This includes using a Point Buy system to create Player Characters, setting up different campaign frameworks, such as making it grim and perilous rather than heroic and perilous, and more. Overall, the advice is good, but it does leave the basics to the Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound Starter Set. This does leave Soulbound with a disparity between the ease and lighter nature of the rules and the more advanced nature of the Game Master advice, as if the Game Master should be able to pick this book up and easily run a game from its pages without needing to refer to another product in order to learn how to use it.

Physically, Warhammer Age of Sigmar – Soulbound: Perilous Adventures in the Mortal Realms is very well presented with lots of excellent artwork. It is well written and benefits from lots of examples.

Warhammer Age of Sigmar – Soulbound: Perilous Adventures in the Mortal Realms offers both a new set of dice mechanics for playing in the Warhammer universe and a new—to roleplaying—setting within with universe. With it comes a lighter, faster set of rules and a more heroic style of play as well as a setting that is nicely detailed, but not as accessible as others in the Warhammer universe. This is due to the lack of familiarity with it and the differences between it and the Old World, as well as the lack of a scenario which would have provided a way into the setting of the Mortal Realms. What this means is that it requires some adjustment, because Soulbound really is its own thing in terms of roleplaying and has relatively little in common with its forebear, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The easier, faster style of play could have been eased with advice on why player would want to roleplay a particular archetype and there could have more options for humans compared to the other species. Lastly the lack of scenario also hampers that process, intentionally speedy, of getting into the game.
For the player and the Game Master who wants to get out of the mud and muck of a grim and perilous world, and take a heroic stand, push the fight forwards, and face the forces of Chaos, the Dark Lords, and the undead in righteous fury and make a difference—as heroes—in the Warhammer universe, then Warhammer Age of Sigmar – Soulbound: Perilous Adventures in the Mortal Realms is exactly what they want. High fantasy in a heroic and perilous world.
For the player and the Game Master who wants to get out of the mud and muck of a grim and perilous world, and take a heroic stand, push the fight forwards, and face the forces of Chaos, the Dark Lords, and the undead in righteous fury and make a difference—as heroes—in the Warhammer universe, then Warhammer Age of Sigmar – Soulbound: Perilous Adventures in the Mortal Realms is exactly what they want. High fantasy in a heroic and perilous world.

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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En Garde! is one of the first five roleplaying games to be published and it was the first to be published by Game Designer’s Workshop. It was not the first historical roleplaying game—that likely would have been Boot Hill from TSR, Inc., published like En Garde! in 1975—but subtitled, “Being in the Main a Game of the Life and Times of a Gentleman Adventurer and his Several Companions”, it was definitely the first swashbuckling roleplaying game and the first to emphasis what a Player Character was doing socially and what a Player Character’s social status and standing was. Although it began life as a set of rules for handling duels, the expanded rules provided the scope for roleplaying as gentlemen attended their clubs and caroused and quaffed and gambled, spied pretty ladies and courted them as potential mistresses, joined a regiment and went off on campaign to fight either the Habsburgs, the Spanish, or the Protestants, aiming to win prestige, promotion, and position, all the whilst attempting to maintain sufficient monies to support themselves and their mistresses in the lifestyles they have become accustomed and want to become accustomed to! There is always the danger of death and penury, and insults flung, leading to a duel and its consequences.

Yet, En Garde! has always been overlooked as a roleplaying game and may not even be a roleplaying game in the traditional sense of even the Dungeons & Dragons of 1974. There are good reasons for this. The game play is rarely one of being sat round the table in the traditional sense because a player programs the actions of his character a month in advance. There is none of the immediacy of a traditional roleplaying game, no back and forth between the players and their characters, or indeed between the players, their characters, and the Game Master’s NPCs. Nor is there a real strong sense of place, since the Player Characters move between locations automatically, whether between their club and their barracks, between their mistress’ apartments and the duelling ground, and between Paris and wherever the French army is in campaign. Consequently, En Garde! abstracts France rather giving it any sense of place or geography.

Consequently, the baton of the swashbuckling genre and the period of Alexander Dumas’ The Three Musketeers would be taken up other roleplaying games, most notably Flashing Blades from Fantasy Games Unlimited. Yet En Garde! has had a long life of its own parallel to the roleplaying hobby. This is because its pre-programmed style of play lent itself very easily to what was then Play by Mail, turns and results being sent and received through the mail, and more recently Play by E-Mail. It thus found a home in fanzines devoted to postal games such as Chess and Diplomacy. The current owner of En Garde! began running postal games of En Garde!, and convention games of it, before becoming the publisher.

To be fair, just because the game is played in a procedural fashion, it does not mean that it is truly lacking roleplaying possibilities. En Garde! does have a definitive aim for every Player Characters and that is to acquire better social standing and status—and keep it. That desire to better oneself and maintain it drives a Player Character’s decisions and how he reacts to the outcomes of those decisions and those of the other Player Characters, and it is this space that En Garde! has scope for roleplaying? If a Player Character discovers another man has been courting his mistress, what should he do? If facing certain death on the field of battle, an act of poltroonery might save him, but should the act be exposed, should the Player Character challenge his accusers to a duel and protect his honour or confess and suffer the consequences? As a King’s Musketeer, what insults should he be taunting members of the Cardina’s guard with? Answering them spurs a roleplaying response in character, even if only written down, and in being written, unlike in most roleplaying games, you have a specific chronicle of the actions, reactions, and responses of all of the Player Characters.

A Player Character in En Garde! is simply defined. He has four stats, Strength, Expertise, Constitution, and Endurance. The first three are rolled on three six-sided dice, whilst Endurance is determined by multiplying Strength by Constitution. Strength is a Player Character’s ability to inflict damage, Expertise his skill with a sword, Constitution his health, and Endurance his ability to withstand punishment. His Social Level is determined by rolling on tables for his Birth, Sibling Rank, Father’s Position, and Father’s Title (if Noble). His Military Ability, used when he is on campaign, is rolled a single six-sided die.

Our sample Player Character, Cyrille Mageau, is of a very lowly origins, with barely a Louis d’or to his name. His lack of status means that his prospects are equally as low, but Cyril is ambitious and not without potential. Given his very high Military Ability, his best option is to enlist and prove himself on campaign. If he is successful there, he may improve his fortunes in Paris.

Cyrille Mageau
Social Level: 1
Class: Commoner
Sibling Rank: Bastard
Father’s Position: Peasant
Strength 09 Expertise 13 Constitution 13 Endurance 117
Military Ability: 6
Initial Funds: 9 Allowance: 0 Inheritance: 0

Mechanically, En Garde! does not really offer much in the way that looks like a roleplaying game. It starts by offering the mechanics out of which the rest of the game grew. These are the duelling rules, with participants programming manoeuvres such as Close, Cut, Slash, Lunge, Throw, and more. This is written out in a sequence of letters as a routine, for example, ‘-X-L-X-’ for a Lunge, ‘-CL-K-X-X-X-’ for Kick, ‘-P-(R)-’ for Parry and possible Riposte, and so on, with the ‘X’ standing for Rest or Guard. These sequences are then compared step-by-step and the results determined, with duellist’s Strength, manoeuvre, and weapon type. The latter includes rapier, dagger, foil, sabre, cutlass, and even two-handed sword! A duellist who has a lower Swordsmanship—later called Expertise—will be slower against a duellist who has a higher Swordsmanship, and this is represented by the player having to be put in more ‘X’s. Duels are played out until one participant either surrenders or is killed. Winners will gain Status Points and Social Levels in general, depending upon the Status Points and Social Levels of the participants.

The actual play structure is based on four weeks per month, three months per season, and four seasons per year. A player will program his character’s activities four weeks at a time. These could be to a club with a friend, practice with a weapon, carouse at a bawdyhouse, and court a mistress. A Player Character can also join clubs, gamble, take out loans, join a regiment, and so on. The aim throughout is for the Player Character to maintain his Social Level at the very least, but really the aim is to increase his Social Level. To do this he needs to acquire Status Points. If at the end of a month, the Player Character has acquired Status Points equal to his current Social Level, he maintains it, but he acquires Status Points three times the next Social Level, he can increase it. Just as a Player Character can rise in Social Level, he can also fall, but he will also be seeking out actions that will gain him Status Points. Being a member of a club, carousing, toadying to someone of higher Social Level, successfully gambling, winning duels—especially members of rival regiments, and belonging to a regiment. Actions such as losing when gambling, losing duels, and not spending enough money to maintain his Social Level will lose a Player Character Status Points and his Social Level. Most of these actions will cost a Player Character money. Most Player Characters have some income, but can gain more from gambling, taking out a loan, making successful investments, receiving an inheritance, being in the military and returning from a campaign with plunder. Conversely, loss of loss money and income will lead to bankruptcy and a Player Character enlisting in a lowly frontier regiment in the hope of restoring his name and fortune.

Once per year, members of a regiment will have to go on campaign for a complete season. There is a chance of a Player Character being killed in battle, but he could try to be heroic and make a name for himself, get mentioned in dispatches, get promoted, and take some battlefield plunder. Being mentioned in dispatches gains a Player Character national recognition and ongoing Status Points. In the long term, a Player Character can apply for various positions in both the military and the government. For example, being appointed regimental adjutant, Army Quartermaster-General, or Inspector-General of the Infantry, or Commissioner of Public Safety, Minster of War, or Minister Without Portfolio. Titles can also be won. Once a Player Character achieves a high position, he gains some Influence that can be used to help others.

Of course, En Garde! is a profoundly masculine game. As the subtitle says, it is, “Being in the Main a Game of the Life and Times of a Gentleman Adventurer and his Several Companions”. Women are not really characters at all, merely dalliances there to prove a Player Character’s masculinity and bolster his social standing. It is difficult to get around this, since the role of women both at the time when En Garde! is set and in the fiction it draws upon, is not as protagonists, but even as in some cases in both, as antagonists.

En Garde! is not a roleplaying game that looks beyond achieving high rank, position, or social status. So, there is a limit to how much play potential there is beyond this. Certainly, in a typical group of players, this would be the case. In a larger group, there is greater room for maneuvering and jostling for status and rivalry with players being members of rival regiments, competing for the same positions, even for the same mistresses, and so on. This lends itself to play at a club if it has plenty of members or simply playing with a more dispersed group of players by mail—electronic or otherwise.
One way in which En Garde! is not a roleplaying game is in how little scope there is for the players to roleplay and affect the world around the characters through roleplaying. Perhaps through delivering an insult to a member of a rival from another regiment? Further, players will find themselves playing at odds with each other when they join rival regiments or compete for the same mistress or position. In some ways, to get the most out of En Garde! it is best for the players to play characters who are rivals and so it is adversarial to one degree or another.

Physically, En Garde! is surprisingly well presented and written. Illustrated with a mix of period pieces, the only real downside is that it starts talking about duels rather than characters and what they do and who interact with each other beyond duels. This organisation lends itself to the idea that the rest of the rules grew out of wanting more to the game and more reasons to duel.

—oOo— It appears that En Garde! was never reviewed in the roleplaying hobby press, though it was covered by magazines and publications devoted to games. The designer and publisher, Charles Vasey reviewed it in Games & Puzzles Issue 55 (December 1976) saying that GDW has, “…[P]icked a really splendid period for the new duelling game.” He was critical though, saying, “Despite its complexity, the system does not play as well as one might think. Often duels end very swiftly.” and “It is complex and convoluted, and it feels like real life. Players will soon find they have natural enemies and rivals who must be crushed directly or by a hired blade. One must seek to be in the best set, but beware bankruptcy or it’s the frontier regiment and disgrace until you pay off your debts.”

Similarly, games designer Greg Costikyan reviewed En Garde! in ‘Games fen will Play’ in Fantastic Science Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 10. (July 1980). He was very positive, calling En Garde! “[T]he the first well-written set of role-playing rules.... En Garde! was the first role-playing game by a major company and by established designers; and, as one might expect, it set new standards for role-playing rules — standards to which few subsequent games have risen.”

Perhaps the oddest vehicle for a review was The Playboy Winner’s Guide to Board Games (Playboy Press, 1979). Author John Jackson said that, “There is a minimum of player interaction; play is geared toward individual deeds rather than group action.”, but that, “Although lacking neither color nor detail, the rules to En Garde! are clear and comprehensible.” He concluded that, “If it lacks the scope of true fantasy role-playing games, it’s not as time-consuming, either, and it appears to be a pleasant diversion.”—oOo—
En Garde! is not a roleplaying game per se. There is more of a simulation to it, a means of modelling the life of an officer and gentlemen in the early seventeenth century as he makes his way in life and attempt to better himself. Yet like any simulation, the result of dice rolls on the roleplaying game’s various tables sets up interesting, intriguing, and involving results that draw you in and make you want to explore how to resolve them and how to respond to them. This is where the roleplaying potential lies in En Garde!, even if it is not written to support roleplaying and all but ignores it. Ultimately, it has been shown again and again, in multiple games, all this is best handled and roleplayed away from the table and at distance, whether by mail or email.

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The current version of En Garde! is available here.

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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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Arkham Horror: Comets of Kingsport – A Quickstart Adventure is the contribution to Free RPG Day 2025 from Edge Studio. It is a quick-start and scenario for Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game, the roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror derived from Arkham Horror board game and Arkham Horror Living Card game from Fantasy Flight Games, both of which are derived from the original version of the Arkham Horror board game published by Chaosium, Inc. in 1987. Ultimately, Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game shares a great deal of setting elements with Call of Cthulhu, but they are not the same roleplaying game. Mechanically, Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game has more in common with the GUMSHOE System of Trail of Cthulhu from Pelgrane Press, but plays very differently. Whilst Trail of Cthulhu leans more into a Purist style of play emphasising an atmosphere of menace and growing as a default, Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game—at least as far as the Arkham Horror: Comets of Kingsport – A Quickstart Adventure is concerned—is more of a Pulp affair, playing up action and adventure and including Investigators who are not only aware of the Mythos, but also know a few spells too. There are elements too, drawn from EDGE Studio’s Genesys System, used to handle the perils of investigating the Mythos.
Arkham Horror: Comets of Kingsport – A Quickstart Adventure includes everything that a gaming group needs. It explains the rules, provides a full scenario that can be played in a single session or so, and gives a set of six pre-generated Investigators. Apart from copies of the pre-generated Investigators, the only thing it needs is a set of six six-sided per player, plus a lot more for the Keeper and some dice of a different colour. Arkham Horror: Comets of Kingsport – A Quickstart Adventure and Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game use what is called the ‘Dynamic Pool System’. An Investigator is primarily defined by ten skills—Agility, Athletics, Intuition, Knowledge, Lore, Melee Combat, Presence, Ranged Combat, Resolve, and Wits. Of these, Lore is how much an Investigator knows about the occult and how to apply it, if necessary. Skills are rated between two and six. He has a variety of Knacks, special abilities that might grant him extra dice, alter the number of dice rolled, allow special actions, cast spells, rerolls of the dice, and more. There is a wide variety of Knacks, even presented in the six pre-generated Investigators in Arkham Horror: Comets of Kingsport – A Quickstart Adventure.
Lastly, an Investigator has a pool of six-sided dice, typically six. These are used and refreshed from one scene to the next and they represent a combination of an Investigator’s effort and health. In the case of the latter, when an Investigator is injured, he loses dice, limiting his actions until he can rest, heal, and receive medical attention.
When a player wants his Investigator to undertake a Complex action, such as climbing a fence in a chase, shooting cultist in a gunfight, researching a newspaper morgue for clues, or casting a spell, he takes as many dice as he wants from his pool and rolls them, comparing the results with the skill being used. For each die result equal to, or greater than, the value of the skill, a success is scored. In general, only a single success is required to achieve whatever an Investigator wants to do, but more successes are needed to trigger the effects of some Knacks. For example, Silas Marsh has ‘Skilled Shot’ and can throw a harpoon as a ranged combat action, and if his player rolls three successes, the target cannot use a reaction to avoid the attack. (This is in addition to the weapon itself, which inflicts a base of two damage—most weapons inflict one or two points of damage, and if three or more success are rolled on an attack, in Injury is inflicted and extra damage is inflicted per Injury, making it a very deadly weapon.) Complex actions can also be rolled with Advantage or Disadvantage, rolling with one more or one less die in either case.
In addition, an Investigator has a supply of Insight points. These can be spent to add an additional success to a complex action, take a Complex Action with Advantage, to add a narrative element to a scene, or to avoid certain trauma.
Play itself in Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game is handled as a series of scenes, either Narrative or Structured scenes in which Simple and Complex Actions are attempted. Narrative scenes rarely involve peril, and allow an Investigator to undertake Simple Actions without his player needing to roll dice, whereas Structured scenes do involve peril or great difficulty, such as a combat scene or a confrontation with the Mythos, require a player to roll for both Simple and Complex Actions. Although a player only has access to six dice in his pool—or less depending upon trauma and Injury, this pool refreshes from one scene to the next, and in combat, they are refreshed at the start of an Investigator’s turn. In combat, damage is inflicted in two ways. Primarily by reducing a defendant’s dice pool, limiting his capacity to act, wounding him if the dice pool is reduced to zero, after which he can strain himself to restore his dice pool to full at the cost of suffering an Injury. The other way is by a weapon specifically inflicting an Injury. Injuries are determined by rolling on the Injury Table. These are rolled on a single die, to which are added the number of injuries already suffered. Since the Injury roll is made on a single die, it takes a lot of injuries—at least five—before someone can be killed straight off. There is no little grievous Injury in the meantime, but it is difficult to kill a defendant and certainly an Investigator.
The way of handling Horror Damage or exposure to the cosmic truths of the universe is more interesting, though similar to that used for injuries. When an Investigator suffers Horror Damage—whether from a spell cast at him, seeing a creature of the Mythos, or reading a horrific tome—his player replaces a number of dice in his dice pool with Horror Dice equal to the Horror Damage suffered. Horror Dice work exactly like normal dice in a player’s dice pool and can be lost if an Investigator suffers damage. However, should a player roll a one on any single Horror Die, his Investigator gains a Trauma. The rolls a single die and consults the Trauma Table, adding one for each one rolled on the Horror Dice. Where an Investigator is physically resilient, the same cannot be said mentally. It is a lot easier in comparison to get Horror Dice, roll ones, and suffer Trauma and since there are fewer results on the Trauma Table, for an Investigator to be ‘Lost Forever’.
Horror Dice can be healed from one round to the next, as well as by certain Knacks and spells, replacing them with standard dice. This is an action though and in a Structured Scene, the Investigators might not have the opportunity. Whereas injuries can be healed though, traumas cannot, although they can recede over time. The combination of Horror Dice and Trauma is intriguing as a means of handling the escalating danger of being exposed to cosmic threat, but it does feel undercut by the ability to heal Horror Dice within a scene.
In terms of pre-generated Investigators, Arkham Horror: Comets of Kingsport – A Quickstart Adventure gives six. They include a clever and helpful postal woman; strong sailor armed with a harpoon; a student with first aid skills and good at improvising weapons; a librarian who can cast spells and draw upon the horrors she has seen to gain Horror Dice and bonus dice to a roll; a prepared researcher who is good with people; and a professor who can choose to suffer an Injury or Horror Dice and who is also a skilled shot. All also have a section of equipment and besides a short background, there is also an explanation of the basic rules and the use of Insight on the back. All of the Investigators have travelled to Kingsport, some of them from Arkham’s Miskatonic University, to conduct an anthropological survey in the New England port. Players with a bit of history with roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror will appreciate that the professor in the included Investigators is none other than Harvey Walters, who appeared as the sample Investigator for the first time all the way back in the first edition of Call of Cthulhu.
The included scenario in Arkham Horror: Comets of Kingsport – A Quickstart Adventure opens with the Investigators visiting the Hall School in Kingsport to examine its rare book collection. Both the school secretary and the headmaster are welcoming, but they are concerned about a member of staff, Cecil Blackburn, who has been behaving oddly, even erratically. When they encounter him, he is found in a bath of salt water, weirdly mishappen, and rage-fuelled! The question is, what has happened to him? The plot and clues link to other citizens of Kingsport acting strangely and ultimately to somewhere otherworldly and further confrontation with something even stranger. It is a solid mix of investigation and interaction leavened with some action, decently presented and written. The primary difficulty with the scenario is the need to make slight adjustments to the plot links with fewer players and Investigators.
Physically, Arkham Horror: Comets of Kingsport – A Quickstart Adventure is decently presented and written. The artwork is disappointingly restricted to just the front cover and the Investigator illustrations, but still very good. A map or two might have been useful, whether of Kingsport or the scene of the scenario’s climax, and it does feel odd that the scenario is presented before the rules are explained.
Arkham Horror: Comets of Kingsport – A Quickstart Adventure provides everything that a group will need to try out Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game. It is accessible and comes with a decent investigative and interactive scenario that has a certain weirdness to it. The rules are clearly explained and easy to grasp with a good explanation of the ‘Dynamic Pool System’ on the back of each Investigator sheet, making them also easily accessible. The ‘Dynamic Pool System’ itself lies at the lighter and Pulpier end of the Lovecraftian investigative horror spectrum, both mechanically and thematically. The Investigators are tougher and even augmented in comparison to other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror spectrum and because of this, the likelihood is that Arkham Horror: Comets of Kingsport – A Quickstart Adventure is going to divide its intended audience very much along the Purist-Pulp faultline.

It is rare that scenarios are set during the period of the Spanish Inquisition, despite it lasting over three-hundred-and-fifty years. ‘Fires of Hatred Defile the Sky’ from Red Eye of Azathoth, a singular foray into the Cthulhu Mythos for Kobold Press, and Chaosium, Inc.’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ from Strange Aeons, both published for Call of Cthulhu, are exceptions. Medieval Mysteries takes gamers back to early period of the Spanish Inquisition with two scenarios designed to be played in two hours each. The first is ‘The Shroud of Pestilence’ in which the Player Characters investigate what looks to be an outbreak of the Black Death in a nearby village, but which turns out to be something else, whilst in ‘Heresy’, they attempt to save a group of conversos—Jews who converted to Christianity—from what is effectively, two monsters! This is all packaged with a framing device which lends itself to an ongoing campaign. Published by Yeti Spaghetti and Friends, Medieval Mysteries is a duology of short play time, one-night horror scenarios, the first entry in the series of historical horror adventures in the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line. Ostensibly written for use with Chill or Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained, the percentile mechanics of the scenario mean that it could easily be adapted to run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and similar roleplaying games.
Medieval Mysteries is set in Spain in about 1490. Whilst the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, as well as much of Spain, are united through marriage of Queen Isabella I (of Castile) and King Ferdinand II (of Aragon), but they remain separate entities. What unites the Iberian peninsula is religion and the growing power of the Inquisition under the command of Inquisitor General Tomas de Torquemada which not only enforces Catholic orthodoxy, but also investigates possible acts of heresy, apostasy, blasphemy, witchcraft, and customs considered to be deviant—often in the most violent of ways. As a default, the Player Characters are all associated with the Santa Maria de Soria monastery, some hundred miles or so north-east of Madrid. The monastery offers a place of relative safety, but hides its own benign secrets. It is led by an abbot whose gift of foresight enables him to see paranormal abilities in others and dangers elsewhere, directing such individuals to seek out, investigate, and defeat supernatural and monstrous threats. Such efforts have to be conducted with great care, since any paranormal ability would be regarded by the Inquisition as mysticism and thus heresy.
In addition to a brief description of the monastery, Medieval Mysteries describes two new skills and two new paranormal abilities. The two new skills are Blacksmithing and Religious Mysticism, which will be of a specific faith, like Taoist Mysticism or Judaic Mysticism. The paranormal abilities are Exorcism and True Sight, both of which are likely to find their way into other scenarios. The pre-generated Player Characters consist of a mix of monks, nuns, and peasants, some with paranormal abilities, some without, but all with some background, a description, and a phobia. Perhaps the only thing missing here is advice on creating Player Characters suitable for the period and setting, since the set-up lends itself to a campaign in the style of The X-Files, but set in medieval Spain.
In ‘Adventure 1: The Shroud of Pestilence’, the Player Characters are directed to the village of Herrero which he initially believed to be suffering from an outbreak of the plague, but after receiving a vision, believes that there is an evil dark shadow looming over both it and its inhabitants. He wants them to investigate the possibility of the infernal. The Player Characters will initially encounter a plague doctor attempting to treat the terrible symptoms. The Player Characters get to examine the bodies that have not yet been buried and examine them for the terrible signs of the plague and interview the very concerned remaining villagers. Although many suspect that the devil himself is responsible, but very quickly, the Player Characters should discover signs indicating that something else is responsible, more monstrous than devilish. The Sense Monsters paranormal skill will be useful confronting this creature.
Despite its brevity, ‘Adventure 1: The Shroud of Pestilence’ packs in a decent amount of investigation and interaction before the Player Characters ascend into the hills and the second half of the scenario, which involves a confrontation with the culprit. This is a combat scene in a cave, a nasty encounter that has a chance, more or less, of instantly killing a Player Character, and that is even before the battle commences. Only one of the Player Characters is equipped with an effective weapon, so he should absolutely be selected. Ultimately, the players and their characters should try and get the creature out of its comfort zone, otherwise, a ‘Total Party Kill’ is a possibility. Which is fine for a one-shot, but not if the players want to continue playing their characters in the next scenario.
In ‘Adventure 2: Heresy’, the abbot sends the Player Characters to the city of Sigüenza where he has learned the Inquisition is about to begin an investigation into rumours of heresy and witchcraft among the conversos, those Jews who converted to Christianity. The abbot wants the Player Characters to investigate such rumours before the Inquisition begins its own heavy-handed inquiries. Talking to people in the converso quarter of the city will reveal that there is a young woman who talks to herself. Use of paranormal may confirm more and if confronted, she will tell the Player Characters that there is heresy being committed in the city, but not amongst the conversos. Rather it is occurring in the St. Jerome Monastery attached to the College of San Antonio de Portaceli, the city’s famed university.
‘Adventure 2: Heresy’ follows the same format as ‘Adventure 1: The Shroud of Pestilence’, but the combat encounter is not quite as deadly and does not mark the end of the scenario. Ideally, it should end with a trial of the culprit after the Player Characters have captured him, with them giving testimony against him. This is not the only way that the scenario can end, another possibility being trials of the conversos. Either way, the Game Master will need to run this to best effect, perhaps playing up the drama and theatre of any such trial more than the scenario does, which really only provides broad details. Overall, ‘Adventure 2: Heresy’ is a more sophisticated and more interesting affair than ‘Adventure 1: The Shroud of Pestilence’. The only thing that the Game Master might want to do is create some Inquisition NPCs as none are provided.
Physically, Medieval Mysteries is a decent looking affair behind a somewhere murky cover. The artwork inside is reasonable and the scenarios are generally well written. The cartography is plain and serviceable.
Both scenarios in Medieval Mysteries end in a little sign-off as if presented by the host of a late-night horror anthology series, so making them slightly different to traditional horror roleplaying scenarios. There is an ominous threat of lurking power and paranoia that pervades both scenarios, though definitely more so in the second scenario than the first. The short, two-hour running time for both scenarios does also means that ‘Adventure 2: Heresy’ is underwritten given no stats for the Inquisitors and the lack of staging for the trial. Nevertheless, it is the better and more interesting of the two scenarios in the book. Overall, the brevity of both scenarios in Medieval Mysteries means that they are easy to prepare and run, with scope to develop them a little further and scope to explore the setting in future releases.

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

The Pocket Sized Perils series uses the same A4 sheet folded down to A6 as the titles from Leyline Press, or rather the titles from Leyline Press use the same A4 sheet folded down to A6 sheet as Pocket Sized Perils series. Funded via a Kickstarter campaign as part of the inaugural ZineQuest—although it debatable whether the one sheet of paper folded down counts as an actual fanzine—this is a series of six mini-scenarios designed for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, but actually rules light enough to be used with any retroclone, whether that is the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game or Old School Essentials. Just because it says ‘5e’ on the cover, do not let that dissuade you from taking a look at this series and see whether individual entries can be added to your game. The mechanics are kept to a minimum, the emphasis is on the Player Characters and their decisions, and the actual adventures are fully drawn and sketched out rather than being all text and maps.

Flaming Fandango in Faratusa is the sixth and final entry in the Pocket Sized Perils series following on from An Ambush in Avenwood, The Beast of Bleakmarsh, Call of the Catacombs, and Death in Dinglebrook, and Echoes of Ebonthul. Designed for Sixth Level Player Characters, this is essentially a fantasy version of Ocean's Eleven, a heist at a big party—rather than a casino—and up front, it is a lot of fun with all of the clichés of the genre left in and it has quite possibly the most Australian of titles! Further, the fact that it contains all of the clichés means that it is easy to run and it is easy to adapt, whether that is to another fantasy genre or roleplaying game or to another genre or roleplaying game all together.
The scenario opens on the night of a masquerade ball hosted by Ortolan, the Governor of Faratusa in honour of Sir Aroldo Tuft, who recently defeated the infamous Fire Chain Pirates and returned with the Salt-Ember Crown. Its set-up quickly throws the Player Characters into the action, with the Game Master being expected to ask their players some questions that somehow link them to Governor Ortolan, establish rumours about the Salt-Ember Crown, and explain how they got into the party, and then giving the players fifteen minutes to devise a plan to get into the vault where the Salt-Ember Crown is being held, get hold of it, and then get out of the governor’s mansion. After that, the scenario begins with the party in full swing, the masked guests enjoying themselves, and the governor’s newly installed Brass Servant automata providing both security and silver (brass) service.
After that, Flaming Fandango in Faratusa is all about whatever the Player Character want to do and how they want to go about the heist in what is a very player driven encounter. Stats and details are provided for Governor Ortolan, Sir Aroldo Tuft, and the governor’s Brass Servants, including in the case of the latter, what they do in the vent that they encounter an anomaly, such as the Player Characters being in the wrong place. There are tables two for random guests, things that the Player Characters might find in the process of searching the governor’s mansion, and for tracking increased security by the Brass Servants. Space constraints mean that the tables for both the guests and the items found are short, so the Game Master might want to expand these to add more colour and detail to the building and the party itself.
So far, so good, but the expanding and unfolding nature of design to the Pocket Sized Perils series is used to very good effect in Flaming Fandango in Faratusa. Flip through the first few pages and everything looks fine, but the first unfold opens up to reveal a fantastic map of all three floors to the governor’s mansion. Done in three dimensions, it has enough detail for the Game Master to describe each room or location in broad details, but leaves her to interpret the specifics. Overall, the look of the governor’s mansion is slightly Italianate and since it sits on the docks, it feels as if it should be in a Pirates of the Caribbean film (the scenario would be a great addition to a Pirate Borg game). Yet, Flaming Fandango in Faratusa is not done for there is one last reveal as the whole of the scenario pulls open for one last reveal. This is what is actually in the vault and the secret plans of some of the guests at the party upstairs! The revelations are anything other than astounding, but they fit the style of the scenario and its set-up to a tee.

Physically, Flaming Fandango in Faratusa is very nicely presented, being more drawn than actually written. It has a nice sense of scale and the combination of having been drawn and the cartoonish artwork with the high quality of the paper stock also gives Flaming Fandango in Faratusa a physical feel which feels genuinely good in the hand. Its small size means that it is very easy to transport.

As written, Flaming Fandango in Faratusa is a serviceable scenario, but not a standout one, since the set-up and plot are familiar. That does mean though, that it is easy to run and easy to adapt to other genres and roleplaying games. Yet Flaming Fandango in Faratusa is elevated by its format which quickly presents the Game Master with its set-up and various details before allowing the Game Master to pull it apart to reveal first the locations for the scenario and then second, the plot complications. There is a lovely sense of a story being told also in these reveals, but of course, the Player Characters are going to tell everyone ultimately, how their heist plays out. It is sad that just as the author seemed to master the format of the Pocket Size Perils, Flaming Fandango in Faratusa marked the end of the series. It is a good design with which to end the series though.

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

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What is it?The Battle of Gavren Bridge is a short, supplementary scenario designed to be run during the first season of The Company of the Dragon.

“A 5 page plot with 2 parts” for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha which presents a short mystery that the Game Master can run as a single session’s worth of play or possibly longer.

It is a fourteen page, full colour 3.16 MB PDF.

The layout is clean and tidy, but the artwork does vary in quality. The cartography is decent. It needs an edit.
The scenario hook is specifically designed for use with The Company of the Dragon, but it can be adapted to any pre-Dragonrise campaign.

It can be played through in a single session, but will probably take two.
Where is it set?The Battle of Gavren Bridge is set during the events of the Siege of Whitewall, 1619 ST to 1621 ST, as the Player Characters attempt to free Gavreena, Naiad of the Gavren, the river that runs below Whitewall, from the Lunars who are holding her in chains, as well as disrupt the flow of troops to the city from the Lunar Heartlands. By default, the events of this scenario should take place sometime during Sea, Fire, or Earth season of 1621.
Who do you play?
The Battle of Gavren Bridge does not suggest any specific character type, but as written, the Player Characters should be members of the Haraborn, the sundered Clan of the Black Stag.
What do you need?
The Battle of Gavren Bridge requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha only. Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way and Armies and Enemies of Dragon Pass may also be useful.
What do you get?The Battle of Gavren Bridge is a strike mission. The Player Characters have to rescue Gavreena, Naiad of the Gavren, from her Lunar captors and in the process will gain a powerful ally. If used wisely, she will greatly aid in any attempt to stop the Lunar counterattack led by Iada of Kostaddi, a itch of Jakaleel. The scenario discusses the possible tactics that both Iada of Kostaddi and her allies, including some vile spirits (trapped and allied), a force of light cavalry and Danfive Xaron Penitent Legion Soldiers, as well as those that the Player Characters might also deploy. The ideal plan for the Player Characters is to ambush Iada of Kostaddi and her allies, preferably at the Gavren Bridge, just below the village of Gavren.

In the main, the scenario is combat focused. There will be some roleplaying involved in dealing with the suffering villagers in Gavren, who have too longer been under the Lunar heel, but ultimately, the scenario is about freeing the river spirit and unleashing its magic and that of the Player Characters upon the Lunars.
The Battle of Gavren Bridge can be run as is intended, a scenario that can be inserted in a The Company of the Dragon campaign, and in doing so, highlights the possibility of further scenarios not being written by Andrew Logan Montgomery, and added to the campaign. Alternatively it could be adjusted to another location or it could even be run as a flashaback.
Is it worth your time?Yes—The Battle of Gavren Bridge is a straightforward, easy to prepare scenario that slots easily into The Company of the Dragon campaign.No—The Battle of Gavren Bridge is set before the Dragonwise and a Game Master’s might all be about what happens after.Maybe—The Battle of Gavren Bridge is serviceable enough and is easy to add to a campaign, perhaps as a flashback or shifted to another river altogether.

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: The List of Historical & Fictional Figures Statted for Call of CthulhuPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Andy Miller

Setting: All of time and spaceProduct: Supplement
What You Get: Seventy page, 9.76 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Who (or what) appeared where and when?Plot Hook: Have I got that scenario or supplement?Plot Support: No staging advice, actual NPCs, handouts, maps, Mythos artefacts, Mythos or occult tomes, Mythos entities, or indeed, plot (in the traditional sense, otherwise lots of NPCs and Mythos entities)Production Values: Plain
Pros# Annotated list of historical and fictional figures itemised by product from Call of Cthulhu, Third Edition to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition# Listed separately by history and fiction # Index of all individuals, great old ones, gods, and unique entities listed in The List of Historical & Fictional Figures Statted for Call of Cthulhu# Engaging foreword and afterword# There does not appear to be a phobia of lists, but there really should be
Cons# Annotated list of historical and fictional figures itemised by product from Call of Cthulhu, Third Edition to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition# Listed separately by history and fiction # Index of all individuals, great old ones, gods, and unique entities listed in The List of Historical & Fictional Figures Statted for Call of Cthulhu# There does not appear to be a phobia of lists, but there really should be# Highlights the fact that there really should be a similar product for scenarios
Conclusion# Exhaustive reference guide to everyone and every ‘thing’ that has appeared in Call of Cthulhu# Highlights the fact that there really should be a similar product for scenarios

The hunter rides the range, armed with a Sharps Model 1874 rifle in the .50-90 Sharps, a gun big enough to take down Nightcrawlers, the twenty-foot long earthworms that wear the skin of past prey and burrow out of the earth to take down their new. As the vampire-lord looms over her on the ground, the gunslinger loads her last Hellfire round that will surely send the undead monster and its soul into damnation. The inveterate gambler stands up from the table and points at Robo Doc, Joe Bones, of cheating and having a hidden card slot. At high noon, the duellists face off against each other, one ready to pull a Colt Single Action Army, but wondering how much of a threat his Kengu opponent is with its daishō, from which it will draw a katana. The Concord stagecoach rides along its regular route, the bearded veteran sitting alongside the driver, holding a shotgun in his lap, loaded with holy shot lest the vehicle lose a wheel or a horse throws a shoe and everyone be swarmed by the zombies that linger just off the trail. Secret Service agents fly the night skies in their black Zeppelin, ready to respond to descend on the latest threat to the United States. The US Marshal dukes it out with the Hex Gunner that raiding trains all along the transcontinental route, ducking and dodging as the servant of Hell snaps off one shot after another from its demonic six-shooter, the bullets smoking with necromantic energy and screaming with hellish fury when fired in search of more souls to collect and send to damnation! The Risen claws his way out of the grave, bearing a demonic brand on his chest and swearing to take vengeance upon his former comrades who put him in the ground. The frontier of the West might well have once been wild, but now it has definitely turned weird and horrifying. This is not the set-up for one game—though it could be, but a range of options, and more, presented in the pages of High Noon at Midnight.

High Noon at Midnight is a genre supplement for the Cypher System, first seen in Numenera in 2013. Published by Monte Cook Games as part of the Knights of Dust and Neon project on Backerkit, it is inspired by the films Cowboys & Aliens, Wild Wild West, and Back to the Future III, television series such as The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., West World, and Firefly, comic books like Jonah Hex and Preacher, and even roleplaying games such as Deadlands. It is interesting to see the inclusion of Deadlands mentioned in the list of inspirational reading and watching for High Noon at Midnight, since it is from a rival publisher and it is the obvious roleplaying game when anyone ever thinks of the term, ‘Weird West’. After all, Deadlands was the first to really coin the term—right in its very subtitle—and it has dominated the genre ever since it was published in 1996. So, the obvious question is, “Why even look at High Noon at Midnight when Deadlands is not only easily available, but also richly supported?” The simple answer is, ‘setting versus tools’. Deadlands is a genuinely great, genre defining, and iconic roleplaying game, it is its own thing and its own setting. High Noon at Midnight is not that, but rather offers the tools and means for the Game Master to create and run games in a weird west setting of her own devising. It can do magic, horror, advanced and even alien technology, steampunk, time travel, and so on in the way that the Game Master wants rather than is given. This is not to say that either option of tools versus setting is better or worse than the other, but rather that they offer different choices.

After some explanation of what High Noon at Midnight is, that it is a non-historical treatment of the period and the genre, combined weird, and what that Weird West could be through various other different media, the supplement really begins looking at the tools that the Game Master is going to need to create her own weird west. This includes borrowing from different sources, such as Deadwood or the James Bond films, creating a brand new series based on alternate history, and keeping a setting mostly historically accurate, whilst still being weird. It explores the classic themes of the Wild West, or Old West, genres, such as justice, vengeance, redemption, freedom, and survival, as well as weird themes like magic, magic versus technology, and horror. Throughout there are pointers and suggestions, and tables of options, and this continues throughout much of the book. For example, the ‘Weird West Game World’ table suggests ‘West Mars’, a “[S]parsley settled Martian frontier, six-shooters fire laser rounds, water is as valuable as gold, and terraforming gangs fight for primacy.” and ‘Camelot Gunslingers’ with “Law-sworn knights with long rifles pursue outlaw wizards, despot dragons, and malign fey beings.” Furter tables suggest inflection points when the West changed, how pervasive the Weird is, what the Player Characters do, and lots of plots seeds. The Game Master is free to pick or roll on these tables, or simply use them as inspiration.

The Game Master advice suggests that ‘A little Weird goes a long way’, but gives a lot of Weird for her to choose from. Instead of horses, the Player Characters might be riding water buffalo, lions, ostriches, or even stegosauruses, or ogres, griffons, or hellfire steeds, or jet packs, hover cycles, or motorcycles. There is discussion to, of other forms of travel, including train and aerial travel, and supported by lists of Intrusions—the means by which the Game Master can challenge a Player Character, make a situation more interesting, and the Player Character can earn Experience Points—that the Game Master can use. Options are suggested in terms of what groups might be operating in the weird west, including the law, outlaws, and indigenous groups. Traditional groups include US Marshals and train-robbing gangs, but added to this are weird west groups. For example, a weird version of the Secret Service might use advanced technology or magic to protect the president and other important people from assassination or harm, let alone protect the currency, whilst the Pinkerton Rail Agency which rides five rail cars to protect the railways, he Dawn Rangers, who wear grave-stone shaped badges inscribed with RIP and are known for their arrogance, hunt the undead, and the Skinless Six, outlaws who messed with the wrong treasure and now hunt and gamble for new skins! Guidance on the role of the Native Nations and including the indigenous peoples is also given. There is also a lengthy section on locations in the wild west, from uncanny saloons, alchemist’s shops, and uncanny jails to the Badlands, prairies, and mines, all also uncanny, which provides the Game Master with some great places to set her weird west campaign.

Optional rules in High Noon at Midnight enable the Game Master to run Poker games with multiple NPCs as well as the Player Characters, including handling player versus character skill (necessary since not everyone plays Poker and it is not as commonly played outside of the USA) and resolving a game with dice rather than dice. The Hands of Fate actually adds a Poker mechanic to play, each player drawing a personal Hand of Fate, consisting of two cards, at the beginning of each game day. These cards can be combined with community Hand of Fate cards for various effects. For example, a Straight Flush earns the Player Character a point of Experience, whilst a Full House replaces any roll of the twenty-sided die with a roll of twenty. This enforces the wild (or weird) west feel, but the Game Master can go even further by replacing the need to roll a twenty-sided die to determine the outcome of a situation with a deck of cards. The two do complement each other, but do make play more complex and outcomes less obvious in comparison to the standard Cypher System.

As well as curses and the benefits of telling tall tales, High Noon at Midnight adds several Paranormal Vices that the Player Characters or NPCs can suffer. These are similar to curses, but provide both benefits and banes. Every time a Player Character uses one of the abilities associated with the Paranormal Vice, a Connection roll is made. If a one is rolled, the Connection is made with the Paranormal cause behind the vice and the Player Character suffers an associated Repercussion. The range also increases from one to one to two, and so on, each time the Connection is made, until it reaches six and the Player Character is overcome with the Paranormal Vice. For example, the Drinking Paranormal Vice grants Inebriate abilities of ‘Deadeye’, ‘Hair-Trigger Reflexes’, ‘Iron Liver’, ‘Mean Drunk’, and ‘Unflinching’, which might require a Player Character to throw back a drink or two, but Repercussions might be that the Player Character goes ‘Blind in One Eye’ or suffer ‘Retching Summons’ in which he vomits up a pile of gelatinous goo that animates into a horrid thing! Other Paranormal Vices are gambling and swindling, which either case, gives advantages, but not without dangers of their own.

Threats include environmental ones alongside a bestiary of new creatures and a list of entries from the Cypher Bestiary, which are given abbreviated descriptions in this genre supplement. Old NPCs from the Cypher Bestiary include Gunfighters, whilst the new here include Alchemist, Hex Gunner, and Forgeborn golem. New creatures include the Death Binder, alchemists risen from the dead who invest their souls in the bullets in their Soul Pistols, which have devastating effects, but if the sixth and final shot is fired, so is the Death Binder, so they use their Alchemical Pistol instead; Frostwalkers—compacted snow over amalgams of bone, antlers, limbs, and heads of men and animals who died in the cold; and the Hollowed Ranger, a travelling portal to ‘elsewhere’, formed from an innocent gunned down in cold blood and dumped into a shallow grave, and returned to wreak vengeance on all and everyone!

In terms of character options High Noon at Midnight suggests ways in which classic Wild West characters can be created by adhering to the standard format that the Cypher System uses describe and encapsulate a Player Character. This is “I am a [adjective] [noun] who [verbs]”, where the noun is the character’s Type; the adjective a Descriptor, such as Clever or Swift, that defines the character and how he does things; and the verb is the Focus or what the character does that makes him unique. For example, “I am a Fast Warrior Who Needs No Weapons” or “I am a Clever Adept Who Commands Mental Powers”. Thus, a Lawman could be a Speaker with a combat flavour and a Swindler or Gambler could be an Explorer with a stealth flavour. Seven standard Descriptors and two Species Descriptors are added. The standard Descriptors are Grizzled, Laconic, Slick, Trailblazing, Trigger-Happy, Unforgiving, and Wily, whilst the Species Descriptors are Forgeborn and Risen. The Forgeborn is a figure of metal, reanimated flesh, or similar, often constructed by alchemists as guards, but since been emancipated or lost the desire to keep the alchemist safe. The Forgeborn is tough, but slow, hard to damage, but difficult to repair and knows its own kind well. The Risen has returned from the grave, bearing the sigil of a demon, tougher and able to comeback from the dead again, though not as supple and animals hate him.

Similarly, High Noon at Midnight provides new Foci as well as suggesting those suitable from the Cypher System. The new ones consist of ‘Blazes Paths’ (in the wilderness), ‘Collects Bounties’, ‘Gambles it All Away’, ‘Hits the Saloon’, ‘Rides Like the Wind’, ‘Spits Fire and Lead’, and ‘Strikes Like a Rattler’. ‘Spits Fire and Lead’ combines a love of fire (and possibly brimstone) with gunfighting, whilst with ‘Strikes Like a Rattler’, the Player Character has a supernatural connection to venomous snakes and applies that to his unarmed combat.

There is a full list of equipment in High Noon at Midnight, but more importantly it explains how Cyphers—the means by which the Cypher System awards Player Character one-time bonuses, whether potions or scrolls, software, luck, divine favour, or influence—can be brought into the Weird West genre of High Noon at Midnight. In this setting, there is no one way to handle Cyphers, but it depends how weird the Weird West that the Game Master wants to create and run actually is. Cyphers can either be Subtle, perhaps good fortune, inspiration, an occult or alien concept, a blessing, an ear worm, or the like, or Manifest, such as an alchemical potion, a clockwork device, a demonic scroll, and so on. A Weird West setting can use one or the other or a mix, and it is suggested that there is a geographical limit of Cyphers, Manifest Cyphers being harder to find in more remote locations rather than civilised ones. It also adds Power Words for one of the settings in the supplement as a memetic means of presenting Cyphers both Subtle and Manifest, and describes a range of different Cyphers, including a wide range of alchemical rounds and slugs, and Weird West Artifacts, such as the ‘Deck of Second Chances’, ‘Demon Pistol’, ‘Philosopher Gun’, and ‘Shadow Duster’. In fact, there are more Weird West Artifacts given than there are new Cyphers.

High Noon at Midnight details one setting, ‘The Ghost Range’. This is a Weird West setting, but not a historical one. Magic pervades The Ghost Range and demons, ghosts, and other supernatural creatures stalk its Badlands and beyond, whilst Dustfalls occur at night and can be predicted with some accuracy according to the almanacs owned by certain alchemists. Such Dustfalls are of Stardust, sometimes used as currency, but is mostly used by alchemists in their concoctions and designs. Where exactly Stardust originates and what it is, is the subject of much speculation, but prospectors go out of a night in search of it, knowing that its presence keeps demons away, though there is the danger of becoming mesmerised in an active Dustfall. In millennia past, two mysterious races, the Ilu and the Nihilal, warred with each other, and the Ilu left behind hollow cavities in the earth containing strange devices, weapons of war, and even prisoners still held captive. These are known as ‘Proscribed Zones’, and whilst access to them is not strictly prohibited, the indigenous peoples who on the range and beyond, even on the Moon, advise against it.

Midnight is the only city on the Ghost Range, notably home to the Trail’s End Cantina, where demons, vampires, and other supernatural creatures can be seen as long as they adhere to the Ghost Accords, which keeps them from being attacked. The city is nicely detailed as are the Outer Range and Otherlands which lie beyond its outskirts. In the latter can be found the Moon upon which can be seen a tribe of natives living there and the town of Perdition, populated by demons hiding behind a façade and which stands on Hell’s doorstep. Worse is the Tomb Moon, which rarely shares the same sky and never the same orbit, its appearance sparking off an outbreak of undead activity.

‘The Ghost Range’ setting is further supported by three full scenarios and two Cypher Shorts. They include being formed into a posse and investigating a shootout outside the premises of Midnight’s preeminent alchemist and following the trail out of the city in search of the outlaws responsible; getting involved in a poker tournament at the Trail’s End Cantina and investigating a treasure map; and even travel to the Tomb Moon to prevent a notorious warlock from bringing about the end of the world! The two Cypher Shorts are within the genre, but more generic in nature, though they could easily be used in ‘The Ghost Range’. One sees an undead outlaw return from the grave for revenge against the Player Characters, whilst the other casts the Player Characters as outlaws attempting to rob a train. Both Cypher Shorts could also be run as one-shots or even demonstration scenarios.

Overall, ‘The Ghost Range’ provides High Noon at Midnight with a detailed example of a non-historical Weird West setting. It is an intriguingly different setting that enables the exploration of the genre without of the potential controversies of a more historically based setting. Now whilst ‘The Ghost Range’ setting is well supported with plenty of detail and three decent scenarios, it does mean that there is no space given to other possible settings, so that High Noon at Midnight does not fully showcase the genre with examples as fully as it could have done. This does not mean that it does not suggest other possibilities, in fact, it suggests a lot of them through its many tables of prompts and ideas, but it does not develop them. As a consequence, High Noon at Midnight explores some of the genres associated with the Weird West genre better than others. These are horror and magic, both closely associated with the Weird West genre, whereas steampunk, Science Fiction, time travel, and so on, do not get as much attention. Although ‘The Ghost Range’ is done well, this is nevertheless disappointing and it would be interesting to see these other associated genres given their due in an anthology of settings for the Weird West.

Physically, High Noon at Midnight is very well presented. It is also well written and the artwork and cartography are both excellent.

High Noon at Midnight does showcase the potential of its genre in a well realised and supported setting in the form of ‘The Ghost Range’, but not quite as fully as it could have done. Nevertheless, High Noon at Midnight is a solid introduction to the Weird West genre and its potential with lots and lots of ideas.

It begins with an interview deep in the Rep-Detect Unit headquarters of the LAPD Tower. On one side of the table is a ‘Blade Runner’, an officer belonging to the unit dedicated to apprehending and retiring rogue replicants. On the other is suspected replicant, a service technician at the headquarters of the Wallace Corporation apprehended after breaking into the company’s Replicant Memory Vault. The suspect lacks a serial number which would indicate that he is a registered Nexus-8 or Nexus-9 model. Surely there cannot be any Nexus-6’s surviving? Unable to determine if the suspect is a Replicant, the officer has turned to an older method to detecting his status. A Voight-Kampff wheezes between the officer and the suspect. On the table is a list of questions the officer will put to the suspect. Quickly though, the suspect’s brazen refusal to engage with the emotional nature of the questions turns to violence and the interviewee turns on the interviewer. A bruising, bloody fracas ensues. The interviewer is bruised and battered, but his colleagues on the other side of the glass to the interview room were able to come to his help. The suspect is dead, his status is uncertain. Are there unregistered Replicants on the starts of LA?

This is the set-up to Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game – Case File 02: Fiery Angels—and it is a great set-up, one that clearly echoes the begin of the film, Blade Runner, itself, when Blade Runner, Dave Holden, is seen conducting a Voight-Kampff test on Leon Kowalski. Dave Holden is, of course, by this time, the head of the Rep-Detect Unit, huffing and puffing through the replacement lungs that Kowalski shot out of him. Further, this is not the only reference to Blade Runner to be found during the course of the investigation. For example, the officers pay a visit to the Yukon Hotel on Hunterwasser Street where Leon Kowalski stayed, and both Ray McCoy and Runciter’s Live Animals appear from the 1997 Blade Runner video game from Westwood Studios. The Case File is littered with such references which the fan of Blade Runner will appreciate and which will also help to pull the players into the future of 2037. Such refences are not the only immersive elements in the Case File either, for just like ‘Case File 01: Electric Dreams’ in the Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set, the investigation is supported with numerous handouts that give points of reference and clues to the players and their characters. 

Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game – Case File 02: Fiery Angels is a scenario for Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game, published by Free League Publishing. Although it can be run on its own, it specifically designed as a sequel to ‘Case File 01: Electric Dreams’ in the Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set, being part of ‘The Immortal Game’ campaign arc. Even then, the Game Master may need to make some alterations to this new Case File as some NPCs who appear in ‘Case File 01: Electric Dreams’ may have died. Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game – Case File 02: Fiery Angels comes as a boxed set which contains not only the sixty-page book for the case file, but also a set of fourteen Mugshot cards, seven maps depicting locations pertinent to the case, and a sturdy, buff envelope marked ‘RDU – LAPD REP–Detect’. This contains another eleven clues and Esper images that the Player Characters can search for clues. 

The interview and subsequent death of the service technician triggers an investigation into the possibility of there being rogue Replicants at large in LA and if so the possibility that someone else is using technology stolen from the Tyrell Corporation, technology that is now solely owned by the Wallace Corporation. The investigation is against the clock, just four days before the antagonists’ plans come to a fruition, with numerous leads to follow. As in Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game, the investigation is carried out in shifts—four per day, with one required for Downtime—with the Player Characters, not just encouraged, but actually needing to split up to cover everything and everywhere. Information can be shared and updated between the Player Characters via their KIAs, Knowledge Integration Assistant units. The investigation is very well organised by NPCs and locations, clearly listing what the Player Characters might find should they interview the persons there and look at scenes. Some of the locations are not directly linked to the investigation, but may be places that a Player Character might go to speak to a contact.

In terms of structure, there are scenes in Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game – Case File 02: Fiery Angels where the action and story are quite directed, even forced. This is intentional, designed to ramp up the tension and even set up events in the sequel to the scenario. One Player Character, ideally a Human, will also find himself in the spotlight for much of the scenario, his integrity and humanity much tested. Other than that, there are tables of Downtime Events for Player Characters, including a special set for the Player Character in the spotlight, plus a list of Promotion and Humanity awards. The Case File is designed to be played by between one and four Player Characters and if played by one, the single player will find his character placed in the spotlight in more ways than one. 

Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game – Case File 02: Fiery Angels should provide two or three sessions’ worth of grim, grimy, and uncertain play. Although its Case File could be run as a standalone investigation, it works best as a continuation of  ‘Case File 01: Electric Dreams’ from the Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set, and as such, this is an in between scenario, which continues the overall plot, but does not finish it. The only difficulty really is making adjustments to take account of the changes between this Case File and ‘Case File 01: Electric Dreams’, primarily if certain NPCs were killed in ‘Case File 01: Electric Dreams’.

Physically, Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game – Case File 02: Fiery Angels is superbly presented. It is a fantastic boxed with superb handouts and good maps, many of which could easily be used by the Game Master again for her own scenarios. The scenario is well written and organised and the artwork throughout is stunning, everywhere and everyone seeming to step out of the shadows in Film Noir fashion. 

The unfortunate truth is that there is not great deal of support for Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game, but there can be no doubt that Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game – Case File 02: Fiery Angels is a brilliant addition to what is a very short line. It explores identity and the nature of what it is to be human from start to finish, really placing one Player Character in the spotlight, and does so in an incredibly good looking package.

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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.

—oOo—

The Well of Shadows is certainly not the weirdest item released for Free RPG Day 2025. That prize goes the Emergency D20! scratch card from Foam Brain Games, an idea so bizarre and superfluous it is barely worth consideration. That does not mean that The Well of Shadows is not weird. It is. Simply, it is not as weird as the Emergency D20! scratch card. No, The Well of Shadows is weird because of its format and the way that it is written. The Well of Shadows is an adventure for Tales of the Valiant, the alternative to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition from Kobold Press. It designed to be played by a party of four Third Level Player Characters and it comes with a quick-start guide, the adventure itself, a wraparound map that hold the two together, and a band that holds them all together.

The Well of Shadows is also weird because of the Tales of the Valiant Quick Start Guide. This is because the Tales of the Valiant Quick Start Guide is not a quick-start in the traditional sense. A quick-start will explain the different aspects of a roleplaying game and how it is played. It will explain what a Player Character and what it looks like in the roleplaying game and it will provide advice for the Game Master on how to run the game and the included scenario in the quick-start. The Tales of the Valiant Quick Start Guide does some, but not all of this, radically de-emphasising the mechanical aspects of Tales of the Valiant. To be honest, it gets little beyond having to roll a twenty-sided die and get equal to, or above, a Difficulty Class, to achieve what a player and his character might want to do, with the other dice being rolled for damage and other effects. It does also include four pre-generated Player Characters at the end—an Elven Battle Mage, Human Cleric of Solana, Human Waysmith (Ranger), and a Minotaur Trooper (Fighter)—but it does not discuss them in any real detail. So, what then, does the Tales of the Valiant Quick Start Guide actually include?

Really, the Tales of the Valiant Quick Start Guide is an introduction to roleplaying games in general, in good play, and to the idea of playing Tails of the Valiant. It starts off by stating that Tales of the Valiant is gateway to other games. This is delightfully refreshing, since it is not trying to lock the reader into the one true Tails of the Valiant from the start. Its introduction to roleplaying is multi-faceted, explain that it is a game, that it is a shared experience, that it is a conversation, and so on. Along with a lengthy example of play, it makes clear that the play is meant to be fun, and it explains the basic elements of the hobby, ones that we take for granted. It also explains the role of the Game Master and how to be good one, as well as how to be a good player. Whilst it does stress the useful nature of safety tools, telling the reader that their use can make everyone’s experience at the table both comfortable and safe, it acknowledges too, that some people might not need them and says that this is okay too. This is a nice way of handling an issue that some see as contentious when it really does not have to be and this approach supports that. Overall, the focus in the Tales of the Valiant Quick Start Guide is very much on the player rather than the Game Master, though she is given good advice and should read through the rest of the introduction as well.

However, since the Tales of the Valiant Quick Start Guide is not really a quick-start in the traditional sense, the Game Master is going to need to the full Tales of the Valiant rules to run the accompanying adventure, ‘The Well of Shadows’. This is designed as an introductory scenario for four to five Player Characters of Third Level. The ones included in the Tales of the Valiant Quick Start Guide are suitable, though a Thief type might be useful. The setting for the scenario is the Labyrinth Worldbook for Tales of the Valiant in which the Player Characters are employed by the Concord of Stars to investigate the Fane of Mot, a shrine dedicated to Mot, the ancient god of death. The Concord of Stars previously sent agents—the two-headed Dragonborn Warlock, Daarzelyn and the Human Fighter, Verric Stormheart—to investigate and shut it down, but neither of them has returned or reported back. Some are not happy with the Concord of Stars hiring outsiders and a friend of Verric will confront the Player Characters before they set out to explore the shrine. This gives the opportunity for the players see the combat system in action as Verric’s friend is likely to want satisfaction from the best fighter amongst their number and see if they are worthy of the task. The fight though, is not to the death, and however it ends, the Player Characters will walk away with a little more information and perhaps better means of healing.

At the Fane of Mot, the Player Characters can learn some more information and perhaps purchase a magical scroll or potion, from a merchant (who though benign, is not quite what he seems) before entering. The Fane of Mot consists of seven locations, placed one after another, in a u-shape. What they find inside is a shrine to death that has long been abandoned, left to spread its blight to the immediate surrounds, but which is now occupied and guarded by Shadow Orcs. Further, it is being studied and perhaps in danger of being revived and returned to its original use. Ultimately, the Player Characters will need to clear the simple complex, defeat the guards, defeat the person they are guarding, and find a way of sealing the planar portal to the Dry Lands, home to Mot himself. There is advice through on staging and even on what might happen if one or more of the Player Characters ends up in the Dry Lands!

The plot to ‘The Well of Shadows’ is quite straightforward and the players should be able to work out what is going on relatively easily. There is the option to run it with miniatures as the wraparound cover to The Well of Shadows as a whole includes a map of the Fane of Mot on its inside. The scenario should take a single or so to play through.

Physically, The Well of Shadows is decently presented and well-written. The artwork is excellent and the map clear and easy to read.

The Well of Shadows is a disappointing in the sense that it is not really a quick-start in the true sense. A Game Master and her players will need The Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide at the least to run it. That said, ‘The Well of Shadows’ is solid scenario, suitable for a single session, whether as a demonstration or not, and the Tales of the Valiant Quick Start Guide is an engaging introduction to roleplaying in general, let alone Tales of the Valiant.

‘Trouble down mine’ is the least of the problems facing the Player Characters in The Magonium Mine Murders, a scenario which details the many plots and mysteries that have beset the settlements of the Halbeck Valley. The kingdom in which the Halbeck Valley sits is moderately wealthy with an awareness of magic that sees it put to war in the long running conflict with the neighbouring barbarian tribes. The government is notoriously corrupt, its nobles and politicians accepting bribes and when not corrupt, likely incompetent. The war is unpopular, more so since conscript was instituted. Those workers dubbed essential are not subject to the draft and wear a magical token to indicate their exemption. This includes the workers at the mine in the Halbeck Valley where magonium ore, a rare mineral with magical properties important to the war, is dug out of the ground. Prisoners captured from the barbarian tribes are also made to work in the mines. There are reports of deaths in the mines, but the money that the actual miners are making from the extra demand for magonium has made them relatively wealthy and they are spending it in the taverns and brothel that have sprung to cater for them in a nearby village, turning it into a ‘new’ town, much to the annoyance of the villagers. There are rumours too, of bandits attacking travellers in the valley, and there is very much likely to be more than this going on, but now, there is news that Reith Alba, boss of the mine, has been found dead with a crossbow bolt in her back!

The Magonium Mine Murders is a scenario published by Gonzo History Project, better known as James Holloway, the host of the Monster Man podcast. It written for use with Old School Essentials, Necrotic Gnome’s interpretation and redesign of the 1981 revision of Basic Dungeons & Dragons by Tom Moldvay and its accompanying Expert Set by Dave Cook and Stephen M. Marsh. Designed to be played by a party of Second to Third Level Player Characters—up to Fourth Level—it is what the author calls a ‘Cluebox’. What this really means is that it combines elements of a murder mystery with a sandbox, so a “sandbox-style murder-mystery scenario” according to the author. The scenario requires some set-up in terms of the setting, primarily the two warring kingdoms and the importance of a magical ore and its associated industrialisation. Beyond that, the plots—of which the scenario has a total of seven—are easily adaptable. For example, The Magonium Mine Murders could be run in a Science Fiction or a Wild West setting with some retheming and some renaming, or the scenario could just simply be adapted to the fantasy roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice.

Part of that is due to the easy presentation of the content. Two pages labelled ‘What’s Going on’ sum up the scenario’s many, varied, and highly interconnected plots, followed by pages that provide detailed summaries of the Halbeck Valley, the two towns—the old and the new, the mining camp, the mine itself, and more. The information is really very well organised and accessible for the Game Master. The starting point for the scenario is the page actually called ‘Getting Started’, which offers several hooks to pull the Player Characters into its plots. These include investigating Magonium poisoning in the river, infiltrating a gambling ring, delving into the mine to determine the cause of a recent spate of accidents, and even do some debt collection! Any one of these can be used as the initial hook and then the others introduced as necessary when the Player Characters interact with the associated NPCs. Alternatively, the hooks could be tailored to specific character types. For example, a Druid Player Character could be asked to investigate the Magonium polluting the river, a Thief Player Character instructed to collect the debt, a Dwarf Fighter hired to investigate the mine, and so on. This would provide the players and their characters with more individual hooks and motivations. Of course, the main hook for the scenario is the murder of the head of the mine.

The murder site is the office of the head of the mine and is one of the few detailed locations in the scenario. The others include the ruined temple where the bandits stash their loot and some caverns under the under the mine, though the former is not as pertinent to the scenario’s plots as the latter is. The investigation is supported by a series of events that occur over the course of the investigation and by details of some fifteen NPCs. Their descriptions are thumbnail in nature and include details of what they know and any activities or reasons that the Player Characters might become suspicious of them. Each is also accompanied by a portrait. These vary in quality and style, but in general suggest that the scenario is set during the Industrial Revolution. This is followed by rules for Magonium poisoning, handling the prize fights being run in the New Town, a bestiary with full stats for the NPCs, and the various items, magical and otherwise, to be found in the scenario. The rules for handling prize fights do not add anything mechanical, even though Old School Essentials and similar retroclones are poor at handling unarmed combat. (As an option, the Game Master might want to look at Brancalonia – SpaghettiFantasy Setting Book for its non-lethal combat rules.) Rather, they add narrative detail and track the course of the prize fights—which are, of course, rigged.

Rounding out The Magonium Mine Murders is advice on running the scenario, necessary, as the author points out, since the scenario is not a natural fit to Dungeons & Dragons-style adventures with its heavy emphasis on investigation. The advice primarily consists of letting the players drive the investigation, relying upon their descriptions of what their characters are doing rather than on dice rolls and being generous with the clues to keep the story and their investigation going. This even extends to possible solutions to the various situations in the Halbeck Valley. Although there is a solution as to who committed the murder of the mine chief, how the other plotlines in the scenario are concluded is really up to the Player Characters and that is even if they engage with a particular plotline. With so many, the Player Characters may not encounter all of them and even if they do, not always follow up on them.

Overall, what The Magonium Mine Murders presents is a set of plots, places, and NPCs that the Game Master can present to her players and their characters and have them pull and push on them as they like. In places though, the Game Master is likely going to wish that there were more detail. The towns in particular are underwritten and feel as if they are in need of colour, especially New Town, which has the rough and tumble feel of a frontier town that has struck it rich. The Game Master is going to want to add some incidental NPCs and events to add colour and flavour and so enforce a sense of place. This is less of an issue in the Old Town. Similarly, the NPC descriptions are a bit tight and with so many of them, the Game Master, will need to work hard to make them stand out from each other. What this means is that the Game Master will need to do development work in addition to the usual preparation effort.

Physically, The Magonium Mine Murders is decently presented and organised. Both artwork and cartography are serviceable, and the writing is decent, if terse in places. The format of the adventure is fanzine style, but is not fanzine in the traditional sense.

The Magonium Mine Murders is an interesting attempt to combine a sandbox with a murder mystery—and it is an attempt that does work. The Game Master is certainly given enough information to run it and its numerous plots from the page, but the scenario is underwritten and lacks colour in places. What this means is that the Game Master is probably going to want to develop and flesh out some aspects of the scenario to enhance its roleplaying aspects and make it come alive, at the very least. Despite possessing a tendency toward succinctness, The Magonium Mine Murders packs a lot of play into its pages and is likely to be a decent, player-driven investigation.

Everyone has agreed that the best way of getting off the island is to build a raft. However, nobody can agree on the best way to build a raft, or even how to build a raft. Whilst everyone has also agreed that the best way to get off the island with their treasure is the raft, the raft is so rickety that it is in danger of collapsing and dumping everyone into the sea. Fortunately, there are no sharks, but when you fall into the sea, it is everyone for themselves as they try to rescue their treasure. It is perfectly possible to rescue your own treasure, but not the treasures belonging to your fellow raft builders, and if you lose their treasure, they will get mad at you and throw you off the raft! This is the set-up for Rafter Five, a fast-playing dexterity game for one to six players, ages seven and up. Published by Oink Games—best known for the games Scout and Deep Sea Rescue—Rafter Five is a game that uses all of its components, including the box lid and base, looks great on the table, plays in twenty minutes or so (but probably faster depending on the dexterity of the players), and surprisingly for an Oink Games title, is not a squeeze to get back in the box!

Rafter Five consists of five Rafters, forty-two Treasure Chests, six Penalty Boards, one Raft Card, forty-two Lumber Cards, and the rules leaflet. The Rafters are the game’s meeples, ones that the players will move around from one turn to the next. They are much larger than standard meeples and vary in size and shape, tall, fat, thin, short, and really help to give the game much of its character. Plus, they feel good in the hand. The Treasure Chests come in six colours, so that each player has a set of seven. The Penalty Boards also come in six colours to match the Treasure Chests and have five slots marked with an ‘X’. If a player’s Penalty Board is filled up with the Treasure Chests of the other players, he loses and is out of the game. The Raft card forms the base for the players’ raft, whilst the Lumber Cards are slightly wavey lengths of card, marked with the sea on one side and wood on the other.

Set up is simple. The game’s box is turned upside down, placed in the centre of the table, and the lid to the box is placed on top, also upside down. The Raft Card is put on top of the lid, as are all five Rafters. Each player receives the Penalty Board and Treasure Chests of his colour. In two- and three-player games, each player will be given Penalty Boards and Treasure Chests of multiple colours.

The aim of Rafter Five is to build as big a raft as possible, whilst loading it up with treasure, without it collapsing. When it does collapse, the player who caused the collapse receives all of the Treasure Chests tipped into the sea. He keeps his own Treasure Chests to place again, but Treasure Chests belonging to the other players must be put onto his Penalty Board. If a player accrues five Treasure Chests belonging to other players on his Penalty Board, the game ends, and he is the loser, whilst everyone else wins! The game also ends when there are no more Lumber cards to place or all of the players have put their Treasure Chests on the raft. In either case, the player with the most Treasure Chests belonging to other players on his Penalty Board is the loser and everyone else wins.

On his turn, a player does three things. He picks up a single Rafter from the raft and then a Lumber Card. He must then place the Lumber Card on the raft and the Rafter on top of that. The Lumber Card must be placed so that part of it is on top of another Lumber Card on the raft (except on the first turn, when a player is free to place the Lumber card how he wants). Lastly, he put one of his Treasure Chests anywhere on the Lumber Card he just placed.

Rafter Five is as simple as that, but the longer a game goes on and the more that Lumber Cards and Treasure Cards are added, the more precarious the splay of the Lumber cards that make up the poorly constructed raft grows. The Rafters are the balancing factor, acting as a counterweight to lengths of Lumber Card hanging over the edge of the raft with their Treasure Chests perched precariously on their lengths. Picking the right one can the key to a tense, but safe turn, but pick the wrong one and everything goes tumbling into the sea! Placing a Treasure Chest where it is more likely to tip into the sea, such as at the end of a Lumber Card, dangling over the edge, is a legitimate move, but this highlights the key aspect to Rafter Five. Most dexterity games are about placing one thing or removing one thing to a stack. Rafter Five is about placing three—the Rafter, the Lumber Card, and the Treasure Chest!

Physically, Rafter Five is very nicely presented and packaged. The components are of good quality and the Rafter pieces are nice and sturdy in the hand, and ever so cute! The simplicity of the game means that the rules are easy to read and grasp.

Rafter Five does include a solo-mode, but it is more of a stacking puzzle than a game, so consequently less interesting. That said, the game plays well at whatever player count, with four or five being about right, and it is suited to play by the family, being very easy to teach and learn. Rafter Five is a great filler game, easy to learn, quick to play, but full of tension that grows and grows as more Lumber Cards are added to the raft.

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, The Companions of Arthur is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon. It enables creators to sell their own original content for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition. This can be original scenarios, background material, alternate Arthurian settings, and more, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Pendragon Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Pendragon campaigns.

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What is the Nature of the Quest?The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline is a scenario for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition. It is primarily designed to be played using its four pre-generated Player Characters.

It is inspired by the traditional folksong, Sir Cawline.

It is a full colour, forty-eight page, 74.89 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy, though it does need a slight edit.
Where is the Quest Set?The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline is a scenario for Pendragon, Sixth Edition. It can be set in any year, ideally after 515 CE, at Pentecost (or Whitsun), in late May. Due to the traditional activities its events celebrate, it should also ideally take place near Cooper’s Hill, at Brockworth near Gloucester, England.
Who should go on this Quest?
As written, the four pre-generated Player Characters should be used to play The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline, one of whom is Sir Cauline of the title. He can be roleplayed if there is only one player, but others include a squire, a household knight, and an ex-knight, now friar.

If the scenario is played in more traditional fashion, there is no limit upon the type of Player-knight that can be played. Knights with a strong Spiritual Trait, the skills of Religion (Christian), Religion (Pagan), and Folklore will have an advantage in certain situations. Skills associated with courtship will also be very useful for any Player-knight involved in the romance at the heart of the scenario.

What does the Quest require?
The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition Core Rulebook and the Pendragon: Gamemaster’s Handbook.

Where will the Quest take the Knights?
In The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline, the Player-knights travel to Aldric castle, home to King Aleric and Queen Gwendoline, as well as their daughter, the Lady Christabelle, in order to celebrate Pentecost. There are opportunities to worship, feast, and enjoy the peasant activities. Any Player Character who is not a knight may even join in, including even a cheese-rolling contest! However, Sir Cauline is soon not be seen, taken to his bed in deep melancholy as the Lady Christabelle is the subject of his deep adoration. This requires some directed roleplaying upon the part of Sir Cauline’s player, but he should soon perk up when the Lady Christabelle suggests some deeds of arms to prove himself worthy. This is to face the Eldrige Knight on Eldrige Hill and return with the thorn atop the hill. If he is successful, the romance between the Lady Christabelle and Sir Cawline begins to blossom, but faces several hurdles in the coming days. This includes revenge, treachery, and promises tested, plus there is scope to extend the scenario and add labours of love as well.
The scenario is very nicely detailed and shows how to play out a romance and its difficulties. The primary problem is that this means that it focuses upon Sir Cawline and his relationship with the Lady Christabelle, so that the other Player Characters are not as intrinsic to the plot and despite using pre-generated Player Characters, it does not make The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline a good demonstration scenario and it is certainly too long to be run as a convention scenario. This is also means that as strictly written, the scenario is not particularly suitable to be run as a campaign.
However, the scenario could be run as part of campaign without any of the pre-generated Player Characters if a Player-knight has developed an Adoration for an NPC whom he is not quite of sufficient station to marry, thus having to prove himself worthy of the NPC’s affection. In this way, The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline could be run to place a particular Player-knight in the spotlight or as an adventure separate to the main campaign with even just the one Player-knight involved.
Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline is an engagingly detailed scenario that gives time for ardor to be proven and a romance to develop as told in the folksong that inspired it. However, as written its set-up is quite restraining given its primary focus upon the one Player-knight, limiting its usefulness. With some adjustments upon the part of the Game Master this need not be the case and it could prove to be a worthy addition to a campaign.

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: The HaunterPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Joshua S. Vallejo

Setting: Jazz Age BaltimoreProduct: Outline
What You Get: Twenty-seven page, 2.94 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: What if the Investigators failed both ‘The Haunting’ and ‘Of Wrath and Blood’?Plot Hook: Walter J. Corbitt lives!Plot Support: Staging advice, six NPCs, sixteen handouts, one map, six Mythos artefacts, thirteen Mythos & occult tomes, & four Mythos entitiesProduction Values: Plain
Pros# Sequel to a sequel, Of Wrath and Blood, sequel to the classic, ‘The Haunting’# Turns the ‘The Haunting’ into a trilogy# One half-investigation, one half-bloody battle# Atychiphobia# Cloacaphobia# Coimetrophobia
Cons# Sequel to a sequel, Of Wrath and Blood, sequel to the classic, ‘The Haunting’# Turns the ‘The Haunting’ into a trilogy
# Really, really encourages the Investigators to arm up for ghouls
Conclusion# Absolutely only necessary of the Investigators failed both ‘The Haunting’ and ‘Of Wrath and Blood’# Assault on the Chapel of Contemplation

It was always feared that avian influenza—or bird flu—would be the one to get us. Despite numerous outbreaks over the past few decades, the world has been lucky. No worldwide bird flu pandemic. Instead, it was a coronavirus—COVID-19—that did for us, killing millions between 2019 and 2022, and forcing the world into a series of lockdowns that brought societies to a halt. In the world of Chew, it was bird flu that killed one hundred millions, including twenty-three million in the USA. In response the US government banned chicken and other poultry and like the War on Terror declared war on terrorism and sponsors of terrorism, declared war on all fowl. It poured billions of dollars into the funding of both the U.S. Food and Drug Agency (FDA) and the U.S. Dairy and Agriculture Administration (USDA), weaponizing both of them, and taking the FDA’s Special Crimes Division with investigating all food-related crimes, especially those connected to the farming, smuggling, and selling of chicken. Narcotics are not so much of a problem in the world of Chew, when there is more money to be made from dealing in chicken and terrorists with other issues will farm and smuggle them to fund their activities. Tony Chu, former Philadelphia police detective, is an agent for the FDA, not just a highly dedicated agent, but also a ‘cibopath’, which means he psychically reads the history of anything he bites—where it has been, who touched it, what is in it, and so on. It helps him with his investigations, but it also means that eating is not something he and others with his gift can enjoy. Chew is a sixty-issue comic published by Image Comics between 2009 and 2016 and the winner of numerous comic book awards during its run.

Chew: The Roleplaying Game, ‘A Foodie Crime Drama Roleplaying’, is the roleplaying adaptation published by Imagining Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign. It is a police procedural in which the core concept, best described as ‘Poultry Prohibition’, so think Elliot Ness, but with chickens, is the least weird thing about it. There is also cannibal crime, gourmet grievances, DNA dereliction, cockfighting capers, and a whole lot more. And when that is not enough, there is office politics, inter-agency rivalries, and the complicated home lives of the agents to deal with. Chew: The Roleplaying Game is a ‘Forged in the dark’ roleplaying game, meaning that it uses the rules first seen in Blades in the Dark and is a narrative roleplaying game with an emphasis on investigation. Its play is intended to be built around a ‘Conspiracy Board’, complete with different coloured sticky notes, connected, of course, by string, which the players and their characters can follow and amend to track their current case, combined with the use of Progress Clocks to track time, challenges, danger, and more.

The Player Characters are built around a set of Playbooks. These are ‘The Expert’, ‘The Hotshot’, ‘The Inspector’, ‘The Lowlife’, ‘The Mascot’, ‘The Prodigy’, ‘The Veteran’, and ‘The Wronged’. These are all derived from the comic book series. A Player Character has four attributes. These are Charm, Guts, Instinct, and Training, and they are rated between one and three. He also has three ‘Approaches’, traits representing physical or personality traits. These are all food-related. For example, ‘100% Raw’ means that the Player Character cannot tell a lie, whilst ‘Sunny Side Up’ means that you are always, always positive about life. These will affect the ‘Position’ and ‘Effect’ of any action a Player Character takes. Then there is the Player Character’s Quirk, his special power, like Tony Chu’s cibopathy. Suggestions include ‘USDAnimal’, a specially-trained cybernetic animal assigned to partner a USA special agent and serve as a Wi-Fi hotspot, being an actual cyborg, being a celebrity of some kind, having undergone some special training, and so on. Some are detailed, but players are allowed to create and name their own, with a table being provided for this. Perks represent a Player Character’s skills and are provided by the Playbook, whilst his Appetite Dice, refreshed at the start of each new case, can be spent to improve the action roll of any Player Character, to make a Resistance roll, to propose a flashback, or to grab an unscheduled break. Trouble will bring the Player Character intermittent difficulties, suggested categories including Debt, Family, Secret, Rivalry, Romance, and Vice. Over the long term, a Player Character can overcome his Trouble and ‘Stick a Fork in it’, but will then acquire a new Trouble. A Trouble has three dice of its own, which can be spent to reroll a failed Action roll, but means he automatically acquires a Condition and a worse Position.

Creating a Player Character involves choosing three Approaches, a Playbook, two Perks from the Playbook, detailing the Playbook’s Gear, and picking a Job. Three Attribute points are assigned in addition to the one provided by the Playbook. A Quirk is selected and lastly, a look is defined for the Player Character. Tables of Approaches and Quirks are provided that the player can choose from or roll on.

Our sample Player Character is Zillah Murgia, a scientist renowned for her study of the industrial properties of the hyperbolic paraboloid in age of food terrorism. Her brilliance is offset by an unpleasant manner instilled in her by an equally bitter, if not more so, mother, who to this day, claims that her daughter will amount to nothing, and a know-it-all attitude. At the age of fifty-four, Zillah still lives at home with her mother after a failed marriage, and to keep her mother happy, still wears what her mother suggests and gets her hair cut the same way. This does nor make her mother happy. After graduating from Harvard, Zillah attended graduate school. Unfortunately, her arrogance and unpleasantness antagonised the faculty and they attempted to persuade her to leave, which only made her more bitter and feeling further betrayed. Zillah typically found that a bowl of soup seemed to change the mind of whatever member of the faculty was sent to inform her and if that did not quite work, the hint afterwards that Zillah would go to H.R. seemed to solve the problem for her. After getting her PH.D., Zillah was asked to leave Harvard, but was quietly given a letter of recommendation, a pattern that has seen her bounce from one Ivy League college after another. Currently, she is permanent sabbatical from Dartmouth College where she has tenure and is working for the FDA to do something other spend more time with her mother.

Zillah Murgia
PLAYBOOK: The Expert
JOB: FDA Egghead

ATTRIBUTES
Charm 0 Guts 1 Instinct 1 Training 2

APPROACHES
Lemonhead – Cynical and leaves a sour taste in people’s mouths
Egg Head – Tried and True Nerd
Bitter – Holds a grudge

PERKS
Knowledge Bomb
Think Tank

QUIRKS
Donepulmentar – Onlookers lust after you when you slurp soup

GEAR
Tools of the Trade, A Goddamn PH.D., Portable Lab, Sat-Link, Tenure

LOOK
How your mother would dress as a Federal Agent

Mechanically, to have his character undertake an action or attempt to gather information, a player rolls a number of dice equal to the appropriate attribute, plus any bonus dice from special action or perks. The Gourmet Master sets the Position and Effect—abbreviated to ‘PEE’—for the Action Roll. The Position represents the Threat Level, ranging from zero and ‘No Risk’ to three and ‘Nuts’, and determines how many consequences a Player Character will suffer if the roll is failed. Whereas, the Effect level is the reward, ranging from zero or ‘None’ to three and ‘Great’. The Effect can be narrative or it can advance a Progress Clock. Only the highest result is counted. A roll of six is a success, a roll of four or five is a mixed result or a result with Consequences, and a roll of one, two, or three is a bad outcome. A critical roll is made if more than a single six is rolled, whilst a fumble occurs on a roll of one when the Position is ‘Nuts’. Consequences can result in complications, a worse position, lost opportunity, and/or Conditions. There are four Conditions and they apply directly to a Player Character’s Attributes. These will make a Player Character’s Position for an Action Roll worse and if a Player Characters all four, he suffers a Knock Out. Consequences can be withstood by making a Resistance Roll, which requires the expenditure of Appetite Dice, and if they are all used up, a Player Character will also suffer a Knock Out and Burnout, meaning he will also permanently lose one of his Appetite Die.

All of this is player-facing, that is, the players make the rolls rather the Gourmet Master. This applies to combat too, the NPCs acting as consequence of the rolls and decisions made by the players, and then the players making Action or Resistance in response. The players are encouraged to add to the narrative as much as the Gourmet Master—and use as much food-based terminology as they can when doing so, and whilst the rules look more complex than they actually are, they are quite straightforward. It also helps that the book includes plenty of examples, including a thirty-four page example of play.

Play and investigation of a Case is structured into three phases. These consist of ‘Off Duty’, where the Player Characters’ can be explored away from an active case or their jobs; ‘Investigation’ beginning with a briefing and then continuing with the search for the case’s three key details in an attempt to crack the case; and the ‘Action Phase’ where the perpetrators are caught or identified. The three phases are followed by a ‘Debriefing’, which can be both in game and out.

For the Gourmet Master there is a breakdown of a Case File and how to create one, backed up with a table of crime names and tables to generate random crimes, as well as advice on handling and resolving the investigation, handling conspiracies, unscheduled breaks, and more. All covering the game play’s core phases. The background covers both the FDA and USDA as employers of the Player Characters, and advice on how to portray their boss. Numerous factions are detailed and categorised according to the threat they pose to the Player Characters, from Tier I and limited influence to Tier V and possessing global influence. For example, a Tier I threat might be the Crime Alley Ramblers and the Philly Goths, whilst an Amazon Necromantic Death Cult and the Chicken Colonels are Tier II. All of these factions are nicely detailed, with their typical looks, possible Clocks, assets, notable NPCs, allies and enemies, and so on. Some eighty or so factions are detailed in this fashion. Various places of interest, again drawn from the comic book, are also detailed, including their first appearance, locations, notable details and reasons to go there, possible NPCs and scenes, and these together with the earlier descriptions of the main characters from the comic book and the multiple factions, the Chew: The Roleplaying Game serves as a decent sourcebook for the comic book.

Rounding out the Chew: The Roleplaying Game are two scenarios. This is in addition to a couple of case file descriptions slotted earlier into the book which could be adapted for play by the Gourmet Master. The first scenario is ‘Over an Open Flame’ by Banana Chan’ in which the Player Characters have to solve the kidnapping of reality television chefs to make them cook over an open volcano whilst in Bridgett Jefferies’ ‘Thigh Man, Thigh Man’, the Player Characters have to identify and track down the mysterious prankster who has been breaking into the homes of FDA agents and broadcasting from there. This offers the opportunity for the Gourmet Master to play lots of tricks and pranks on the Player Characters, increasingly frustrating them. The Player Characters are ‘Rogue Agents’, recognising something of the prankster’s escapades and in investigating and potentially capturing him, perhaps proving themselves to be FDA agents once again. Both scenarios are entertaining, both are spiced with food puns aplenty, and both coming with plenty of cooking tips, as the advice for Gourmet Master is called.

Physically, Chew: The Roleplaying Game is a frenzy of vibrant colour and action, liberally illustrated with artwork from the comic book, alongside what is actually quite a lot of text. In places it does feel dense and lean towards being overwritten, the numerous examples and the extended example of play very much serve to counter this. What this means is that Chew: The Roleplaying Game is actually a lot simpler than it first looks.

Chicken is kind of an everyman kind of food, a meat whose flavour and texture lends itself to a multitude of ingredients, herbs, and recipes, giving a great flexibility, whereas Chew: The Roleplaying Game is very much not that. It is specifically designed to handle the weird zaniness and wacky action depicted in the comic, a world of taco terrorism, food fears given form, alien invasive plants, cannibal crime, but definitely, definitely not vampires. Which means unlike the ubiquity of chicken, it is not a roleplaying game that is going to appeal to everyone and it definitely pays to have read the comics. Of course, fans of the comic will definitely want to get their teeth into Chew: The Roleplaying Game, and they will find generous servings of everything they enjoyed about Chew.

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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Fragments of Fear: The Second Cthulhu Companion was published in 1985. It was the second supplement for Call of Cthulhu, a roleplaying game which in its forty-year history has had relatively few supplements compared to the number of campaigns and scenario anthologies. Following on from its forebear, Cthulhu Companion – Ghastly adventures & Erudite Lore, which was published in 1983, it brings together a collection of essays and scenarios, some of which are drawn from the pages of Different Worlds, providing the Keeper with source material and extra scenarios, all set within the classic period of the Jazz Age. In comparison to the Cthulhu Companion, this second volume is noticeably slimmer, being forty-eight pages in length whereas the Cthulhu Companion is sixty-four pages.
Behind its gripping cover, Fragments of Fear opens with what almost feels like an editorial from Sandy Petersen. It is interesting to note that that the planned revision for Investigator creation for Call of Cthulhu, Second Edition had not been adopted since it was time consuming and spread an Investigator’s skill points too thinly. He added some errata from the Cthulhu Companion, but in particular, noted that as of time of writing (June, 1985), Call of Cthulhu was continuing to grow and prosper. By this time, Chaosium, Inc. had published nine books for the line and various licensees had published another six. That included two solo adventures, Alone Against the Wendigo (since republished as Alone Against the Frost) and Alone Against the Dark, and three campaigns, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, Masks of Nyarlathotep, and The Fungi from Yuggoth. Apart from the Cthulhu Companion, the rest were scenario anthologies, as were those from the licensees.
In terms of content, the bulk of Fragments of Fear is written by Sandy Petersen. The actual gaming content begins with ‘Call of Cthulhu Questions Answered’, the equivalent of an F.A.Q. by Sandy Petersen. This does what it says, answering and explaining three different aspects of the rules that require further clarification. They consist of “Why does it take so long to read a Cthulhu Mythos book?”, “How Do I Learn a Language in Call of Cthulhu?”, and “Why Can’t My Investigator Get ‘Used-To’ Seeing Common Types of Monsters?”. These look very familiar, having been asked and answered multiple times over the forty-year history of Call of Cthulhu, most notably in the highly regarded The Keeper’s Companion Vol. 1. Familiarity though, does not negate the usefulness of the questions or the answers, but rather highlighting their relative complexity compared to the rest of the rules.
‘Mythos Comparative SIZes’ provides the weight equivalency in pounds and tones from SIZ 1 to SIZ 330, so if the Keeper wants to know how much Great Cthulhu weighs, it is roughly 950 tons! It complements another feature in Fragments of Fear and that is the ‘Size Comparisons’ foldout that appears in the centre of the book. Four pages long (plus a half page nearby), this shows how various entities of the Cthulhu Mythos, from Mighty Cthulhu, a Star-Spawn of Cthulhu, and Ithaqua to a Star Vampire, Gug, and in the background, a Large Dhole, compare in size to the average Human. The artwork is all done as silhouettes as per the cutout standees provided in the Call of Cthulhu core boxed set. The result though is both useful and silly, many of them of such behemothic size that actual SIZ does not matter.
Flavour and verisimilitude comes in the form of Sandy Petersen’s ‘Ritual Curses’. Whether an ‘Excommunication Ritual by Pope Clement VI’ or an ‘Ancient Egyptian Curse to Inflict Catalepsy or Death’, these are delightful inspiration for the Keeper and thoroughly deserve to be inflicted upon the Investigators in one form or another. It continues with ‘On the Ubiquity of Cthulhu’ by William Hamblin, which is itself a continuation of his translation [sic] of the Bulgarian scholar, Phileus P. Sadowsky’s ‘Further Notes on the Necronomicon’ from the Cthulhu Companion. It examines the linguistic appearance of Cthulhu in a variety of languages, including Hebrew, Arabic, and Sanskrit. Though short it lends itself to a linguistic underpinning of a global campaign against various cults dedicated to Cthulhu, especially in conjunction with the first article. Obviously, such a campaign would need a fair degree of effort, but together there two articles have potential.
Elsewhere, there is a map of Innsmouth, but perhaps the most useful inclusion in Fragments of Fear is ‘A Cthulhu Grimoire’, in which Sandy Petersen collates all of the spells from the nine supplements, campaigns, and anthologies so far then published by Chaosium. Some of these are very specific, such as Call the Beast from The Fungi from Yuggoth and Curse of the Stone from The Asylum & Other Tales, but there are many spells here that are regarded as classics of the roleplaying game, such as Cloud Memory, Consume Likeness, Flesh Ward, and Wither Limb. He also adds stats for numerous creatures and Mythos entities. First with ‘Lions and Tigers and Bears, etc.’, which adds a mix of big, dangerous, but mundane animals’, whilst ‘New Mythos Deities, Races, and Monsters’ gives stats and descriptions of entities including Bast, Doaloth, Glaaki and its servants, Insects from Shaggai, and Beings From Xiclotl, these entries making their first appearance here for Call of Cthulhu.
There are two scenarios in Fragments of Fear, one short, one long. The first, the uncredited ‘The Underground Menace’, originally appeared in Different Worlds Issue 19, runs to four pages and is set in northern Michigan, on the shores of Lake Superior. The area around the town of Winnemuck, has been beset by earthquakes, despite not being seismically active and the Investigators are hired to investigate. However, there is little investigation to really do, as even the townsfolk will reluctantly point out the likely cause, Bill Whittaker, who was run out of town a while back. With no other leads, the Investigators trek out into the deep woods and there confront him, making the awful discovery that he has transformed into a Ghoul and is about to summon something awful out of the woods in an effort to spread the influence of Cthulhu. Unfortunately, the only solution offered is a fight and that is against a very nasty opponent and the thing that he summoned. If the Investigators do not come armed for bear, they are going to find this a daunting encounter to survive. Perhaps the best part of this scenario is dealing with the scared townsfolk of Winnemuck, but overall, this is an underwhelming scenario that presents a tough challenge that the players and their Investigators are unlikely to be prepared for, and if they do survive, rewards the Investigators with some surprisingly high Sanity bonuses.
The second scenario is ‘Valley of the Four Shrines’. Written by Bob Heggie, at seventeen pages, it takes up the last third of the supplement. It is a rare scenario set in Africa outside of Egypt, taking place in the Belgian Congo. It begins with the discovery of a map and a few pages of a journal that falls out of a copy of Unausprechlichen Kulten in the Investigators’ possession. Both are written in German and describe a journey to a location identified as the ‘Valley of the Gods’, entered via the carved maw of a statue of Great Cthulhu. The scenario details the journey to this location via Cape Town in South Africa to the seaport of Banana, and from there up the Congo River to Leopoldville via various methods as travel along the river is blocked by multiple cataracts. Passing through several villages, the Investigators will reach the statue described in the journal and enter its maw. This leads into the valley of the title. The valley is infested with zombies, although they are magically constrained from certain paths and from entering the village at the head of the valley. The villagers fear and worship the zombies, which together with their awareness of the Mythos, means that they could be described as cultists. Yet they are not evil, but are in general, very happy with their lot and surprisingly benign in outlook.
Further exploration of the valley reveals several locations of note. One appears to float above the Lake of the Gods that dominates the valley. This is the very top of a Great Race city, one that collapsed millions of year before and now lies below the waters of the lake. Described as a floating temple, the only thing of note it contains is a member of the Great Race who has survived in stasis from since before the city’s destruction at the hands of the Flying Polyps, one of which lurks in the valley walls. It is possible, but very difficult, to communicate with this surviving member of the Great Race, and although the Investigators might gain its help against the Flying Polyp, what form this aid might take is left up to the Keeper’s imagination to determine. The other four are the shrines of the scenario’s title, in turn dedicated to Cthulhu, Cthugha, Hastur (or ‘He Who is Not to Be Named’), and an unknown Great Old One. These four are all identical offering a variety of strange effects and experiences and magical gewgaws that are best left untouched. Although it is very far obvious, destroying these shrines is the only way in the scenario to regain any lost Sanity.
‘Valley of the Four Shrines’ is problematic in many ways and fails to answer any questions that the Keeper and her players might have. The first of which is, “Why?” Apart from being set in the Belgian Congo and offering the opportunity for the Investigators to visit the remnants of a Great Race, why would the Keeper even run this scenario? The Investigators will only have an inkling of what might be found there, so why would they make the dangerous trek into the jungles of deepest Africa? The scenario certainly does not offer any suggestions and barring the possibility of aiding or hampering a coup d’état in a village the Investigators pass through, the scenario is completely devoid of any plot or story. It does not help that the author of the journal, Mannheim Dorffman, is left completely undescribed and that one person mentioned in that journal shares the surname with an NPC that the Investigators can meet, but no connection is made between the two. Thus, leaving the Keeper to wonder if there is something missing from the scenario or if the name is a pure coincidence.
The depiction of the inhabitants of various villages is mostly transactional and those outside the villages hostile, whilst beyond the dangers and details of journey up the Congo river, including an extensive list of encounters, the description of the Belgian Congo is non-existent. It would be a little rich to expect details of the terrible colonial history of the Belgian Congo, but there is nothing. There is no background, no history, no context, and it all feels like an overly ambitious, but poorly shot Saturday morning serial filmed on a backlot. ‘Valley of the Four Shrines’ is a terrible travelogue and an unremittingly uninteresting scenario.
Physically, Fragments of Fear is very well presented. The artwork is uniformly good, whilst the cartography is serviceable enough. In general, the supplement is well written and presented and an easy read.—oOo—
Fragments of Fear was reviewed three times following its release in 1985. The first was by Phil Frances in Open Box in White Dwarf Issue 75 (March, 1986). From the start, he was not positive, opening with, “Chaosium’s companion packs should be pretty familiar by now, and the company’s intention to publish bits of lore to fit in elsewhere is essentially an admirable one. The latest collection of oddities is the Second Cthulhu Companion, also known as Fragments of Fear, which unfortunately falls into most of the pits that its predecessor managed to avoid.” He continued by describing ‘Valley of the Four Shrines’ as “[T]he direst scenario for Call of Cthulhu I have ever seen”, before concluding that, “Overall, Fragments of Fear disappoints me, especially as it follows in the wake of Masks of Nyarlathotep, the best CoC campaign to date. The biggest weakness is the ‘Valley’ scenario; surely Chaosium has better works than this on file? It lowers the whole tone of the supplement and takes up so much space that the other items truly appear to be Fragments.” Nevertheless, he awarded it an overall score of seven out of ten.
The supplement was reviewed in ‘Game Reviews’ by Michael Szymanski in Different Worlds Issue 43 (July/August, 1986). He was more positive, stating that, “The greatest achievement of this companion has to be the Cthulhu Grimoire, which lists and describes all new spells that were created for the previous seven supplements for the game.”, which was, “[A]n excellent timesaving reference for those Keepers who wish to create their own scenarios.” He also described ‘Valley of Fear’ as “[A]n excellent adventure for experienced Investigators, and it will certainly make them work for their rewards.” Before awarding it three stars, Szymanski, finished by saying, “Overall, Fragments Of Fear is an excellent supplement; though some may argue over the inclusion of certain pieces, everything in it can be used in one form or another, either to enhance the game or to provide for smoother play.” and “The book was well thought out and put together in an orderly manner. Fragments Of Fear displays the brand of quality we’ve come to expect from Chaosium, and this supplement is a definite step forward for a very unique game.”
Guy Hail reviewed Fragments of Fear in Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer Issue 79 (August/September, 1987). Although he complained that ‘A Cthulhu Grimoire’ was not complete, omitting one spell from Masks of Nyarlathotep, he commented that, “Aside from this slip the supplement is better than the supplement for the first edition. The Sadowsky material is extremely fanciful and has thankfully been kept to entertaining length.” and of the other content, he said, “ The other miscellany here is offbeat or potentially useful.” Hail was positive about ‘Valley of the Four Shrines’ suggesting that, “Keeper emphasizing the remoteness of the valley and harmlessness of its human inhabitants will stun the investigating party with the strangeness of the uninhabited city of the Great Race.” He concluded by saying that, “Chaosium has published a lightly flawed and reasonably priced supplement for the many feverish fans of Call of Cthulhu.”
—oOo—Ultimately, Fragments of Fear is always going to compared to the Cthulhu Companion, and unlike the Cthulhu Companion, little of the contents of Fragments of Fear would be collected into later editions of the Call of Cthulhu rules or subsequent supplements. In fact, only the new Mythos entities from ‘New Mythos Deities, Races, and Monsters’ would appear in subsequent editions of the roleplaying game, and it was not until the publication of the Call of Cthulhu Classic box set that celebrated the fortieth anniversary of Call of Cthulhu that it would be reprinted. What this indicates is both how highly the Cthulhu Companion is regarded, then and now, and how poorly Fragments of Fear is regarded in comparison, then and now. When this was published in 1985, it was highly anticipated like any scenario for Call of Cthulhu, but even in 1985, reading Fragments of Fear was disappointing.
Had it not been republished as part of the Call of Cthulhu Classic box set, the honest truth is that Fragments of Fear might have remained a forgotten supplement. There is no denying the then usefulness of some of the content in the supplement when it was originally published, but really there is there is nothing in its pages that really stands out as being worthy of a Keeper’s attention, either today or in 1985. What does stand out is just how underwhelmingly dissatisfying Fragments of Fear: The Second Cthulhu Companion very much was and is.
—oOo—
An unboxing of Fragments of Fear: The Second Cthulhu Companion can be found here.

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

—oOo—
What is it?
Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is the quick-start for Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age, the latest version of the venerable fantasy roleplaying game first published in 1975 by Flying Buffalo, Inc. It is being published by Rebellion Unplugged, best known as the games arm of Rebellion, the publisher of long running British Science Fiction comic, 2000 AD, but in game terms for republishing the Games Workshop classics, Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One and Block Mania.

It is a thirty-two page, 730 MB full colour PDF.

However, it it does need an edit and the authors need to beg for forgiveness for the use of the word ‘stunting’ as a verb instead of the correct English language phrasing, ‘performing a stunt’.

The use of the word, ‘Knackered’, as a Tag though, is delightfully British, but in no way makes up for the erroneous error of ‘stunting’.

How long will it take to play?
Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is designed to be played through in a single session, two at the very most. This includes Player Character creation.
What else do you need to play?
The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide needs a handful of six-sided dice per player plus some tokens to represent Threat.
Who do you play?
The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide does not come with any pre-generated Player Characters. Instead, rules are provided for the players to create their own.
How is a Player Character defined?An Adventurer the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide has six attributes—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Willpower, Intelligence, and Charisma, as well as three stats—Luck, Mana, and Stamina. These range in value between two and four. He also has a Kindred, of which six are suggested. These are Humankin, Halfkin, Dwarfkin, Elfkin, Orckin, and Goblinkin. The Kindred is a Player Character’s background, whilst his Motto sums up his approach to life and his traits provide a once-per-session ability. A Player Character’s Kindred provides both a trait and a motto, whilst a second trait will come from his choice of Path. Six paths are given. These are Path of Might, Path of Shadow, Path of Endurance, Path of Spirit, Path of Craft, and Path of Wizardry.

The rules also cover the creation of the Player Character party, which explains why they are all together.
How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, Tunnels & Trolls has always employed a dice pool system, whether that is rolled against the monsters’ dice pool (derived from their combined Monster Rating) or as a Saving Throw against one of a Player Character’s attributes. The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide also uses dice pools, but they are radically scaled down and both the players and the Game Master will be rolling more often rather than rolling more dice.
To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to an attribute. A roll of four or more is counted as a hit, whilst three or less is a miss. The aim is to roll as many hits as possible. Target Numbers range between one and five, with two being the standard Target Number. A Blessed roll means that hits are rolled on three and over, misses on two or less, whilst a Cursed roll means that hits are rolled on five and over, misses on four or less. Rolls of multiple values result in the dice pool exploding and a player being able to add more dice to the roll. A double adds two more dice to roll, a triple adds three more dice, and so on. An exceptional success occurs if three sixes are rolled, whilst a dramatic setback happens if three ones are rolled.
Luck can be spent to reroll dice on a one-for-one basis.
How does combat work?
Combat in the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide starts with initiative, with Player Characters who succeed on the roll going before the monsters, and those who fail, after. A Player Character can perform one action per round, either a ‘Strike’, ‘Shoot’, ‘Spell’, or ‘Stunt’ action. A Stunt can be physical or verbal, and could be swinging on a chandelier to get across a room, taunting a villain, or diving into a pool of water to avoid a blast of magical fire. A Stunt can modify another action or an action in its own right. Most monsters will perform the ‘Strike’ action, whilst enemies or monsters with the ‘Elite’ tag are likely to have more options. The round ends when everyone has acted. If the Player Characters decide to keep going, they can each either gain a point of Stamina or a point of Luck. If they decide on the latter, they also gain a point of Threat, up to a maximum of three. If the monsters decide to keep going, they can trigger their escalation abilities, which might be special abilities, call for reinforcements, and so on.
To perform an attack, the player rolls a number of equal to the appropriate attribute, whilst the Game Master will roll the enemies’ Monster Rating. An enemy’s Monster Rating ranges between two and the average mook all the way up to six and thoroughly dangerous. The roll itself is an opposed roll, the aim being to roll more hits than the opponent. Tags, whether from the weapons and gear used, from the situation, or the monsters’ abilities, will affect the number of dice rolled, the amount of damage inflicted, and more.

Both sides will also add extra dice equal to their opponents’ Threat to the dice they roll. In addition, enemies will tend to target opponents who have higher Threat.
If the attacker rolls more hits than the defender, he wins, and the difference in the number of hits rolled is the amount of damage inflicted. If the defender rolls more hits than the attacker, no damage is inflicted. Armour reduces the damage suffered. Damage reduces Stamina. If reduced to zero for a monster, it is defeated, but for a Player Character, it means that he is wounded. His Stamina is then reset, but whilst he is wounded, if it is reduced to zero again, he is dead. For the enemies, Monster Rating does not reduce.
How does magic work?
Magic in the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is primarily gained from the Path of Wizardry selected during Player Character creation. A Player Character on the Path of Wizardry begins play with the ‘Wellspring’ Talent that enables him to regain or increase mana by spending Luck. His bonus talent will either be ‘Hexology’ or ‘Weaving’. The latter provides the Mending spell, whilst the latter gives Blasting Hex. Mending is actually a healing spell, restoring Stamina equal to the number of hits rolled. Blasting Hex is a damage spell, requiring an Intelligence roll versus an enemy’s Monster Rating. Damage inflicted ignores armour and the spell requires the caster to yell out something like, “Take That You Fiend!” in a nod to classic Tunnels & Trolls spell of the same name. All spells cost Mana to cast, with each point cast also increasing the number of dice a player rolls. 
What do you play?
The scenario in the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is ‘Trouble Brewing’. The world of Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age is one of trolls. In ages past, during the Eclipse, the Trolls smashed the great kingdoms and empires of the time, burying their secrets, technologies, and magic deep in the earth, where they remain today. When the sun returned, the Trolls fled and the world was rebuilt. Both Trolls and the past remain underground where would be heroes might find them. In ‘Trouble Brewing’, the Player Characters have come to Rust Bucket, the very run-down and only tavern in Market Tharnley where they have heard there is a tunnel entrance to be found. It is a detailed, two-act affair, initially focusing upon interaction and investigation along with some roleplay, as the Player Characters attempt to find out more from the Owlfolk barkeep, the adventuring patrons, and the locals. In the second act, the barkeep hires/cajoles/blackmails the Player Characters into investigating the cellar, having a fight with some surprisingly tough rats, and discovering a troll tunnel.
‘Trouble Brewing’ is more of a means to showcase the new Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age rules in play rather than provide a complete story from beginning to end.
Is there anything missing?
No. The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide has everything the Game Master and her players will need to play. However, the scenario is very much an introduction at only two scenes long and thus provides only a limited play experience.
Is it easy to prepare?
Unfortunately, the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is not as easy to prepare as it could have been as it is quite detailed and there is a lot to go through, including character generation, before play can begin. There is a greater number of factors—Luck, Mana, Tags, and so on—for the Game Master and her players to keep track off during play as well. Players of previous versions of Tunnels & Trolls will find a much changed game, although there elements present from those previous editions. The roleplaying game is also not as fast playing as those previous editions, but does offer more options in terms of what the Player Characters can do.
Is it worth it?
Yes—for the most part. The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide presents a solid introduction to the rules, including combat, character generation, and interaction. It is also supported by examples of both play and combat and there is advice for the Game Master. However, the included adventure, ‘Trouble Brewing’, is short and will only provide a limited play experience. 
The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is published by Rebellion Unplugged and 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’. 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 2025’, which took place today on Saturday, July 19th, 2025,* the publisher is releasing not one, not two, but three scenarios, plus a limited edition printing of Dungeon Crawl Classics #108: The Seventh Thrall of Sekrekan. Two of the scenarios, ‘The Fall of Al-Razi’ and ‘Balticrawl Blitz’, appear in the duology, the DCC Day 2025 Adventure Pack. The third is DCC Day #6: The Key to Castle Whiterock. Both DCC Day #6: The Key to Castle Whiterock and ‘The Fall of Al-Razi’ are written for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, whilst ‘Balticrawl Blitz’ 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 sport and monetises it!

* The late international delivery of titles for DCC Day #6 means that these reviews are also late. Apologies.

DCC Day #6: The Key to Castle Whiterock does come with a bit of backstory. It is a preview and adventure for Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told published by Goodman Games, which is the subject of a forthcoming crowdfunding campaign. This crowdfunding campaign brings back and updates Dungeon Crawl Classics #51: Castle Whiterock, originally published in 2007. It received its own preview for Free RPG Day, in 2007, in the form of Dungeon Crawl Classics #51.5: The Sinister Secret of Whiterock, and Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told has already been given a preview in the form of The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock, published for Free RPG Day 2025. Both Dungeon Crawl Classics #51: Castle Whiterock and Dungeon Crawl Classics #51.5: The Sinister Secret of Whiterock were written for use with Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, but both Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock and Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told are written for use with two separate roleplaying games. These are the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. DCC Day #6: The Key to Castle Whiterock differs in that it is solely written for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

DCC Day #6: The Key to Castle Whiterock is designed for a party of First Level Player Characters and designed to introduce Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told. If completed, the adventure will provide the Player Characters with a map of part of Castle Whiterock, details of one of its secrets, and some treasure, as well as some surprising allies. In doing so, they will go all the way back to Castle Whiterock’s origins as Clynnoise, a monastery that was home to the Order of the Dawning Sun, over a thousand years ago. Since that time, it has been sacked multiple times and been occupied by Orcs, cultists, a Red Dragon, and more recently, a band of slavers. In doing so, they will go all the way back to Castle Whiterock’s origins as Clynnoise, a monastery that was home to the Order of the Dawning Sun, over a thousand years ago. Since that time, it has been sacked multiple times and been occupied by Orcs, cultists, a Red Dragon, and more recently, a band of slavers. The Player Characters have set out to explore the dungeon of Castle Whiterock, but due to good fortune have come into possession of another map. This shows the location of a lone tomb in the Ul Dominor Mountains near Castle Whiterock. Deciphering the text on the map reveals that the tomb is the burial place of Reglee Callim, famed architect of the Clynnoise, and that she was buried with “[H]er wisdom, plans, and keys”. It suggests that she might have gone to her grave with notes about the building and layout of Clynnoise as well as the means to access the ancient ruins.

The adventure itself begins at the entrance as marked on the map, high up a circuitous path overlooking a valley. Beyond the entrance lies the Callim family tomb complex, a simple, two-level complex of tombs, chapels, and more, marked by sarcophagi, burial niches, and the like. There are undead and there are ghosts, just as you would expect in a tomb complex. There is also some treasure to loot, but not a great amount and barely a handful magical items. All in keeping with the low treasure rates to be expected of a Dungeon Crawl Classics scenario. However, the scenario is not just a tomb to be looted and there are a couple of good story strands to what is quite a simple dungeon. The first is that the dungeon is not infested with evil monsters, rather that the resting dead tends towards Law rather than Chaos. The second is that despite being dead for over a thousand years, the Player Characters can talk to Reglee Callim and gain some clues as to what to expect on the second level. However, whilst the third and final strand of the scenario is to be found on the second level, it is wholly unexpected. This is that the Player Characters are not the only invaders to the tomb. As the Player Characters have entered from above, a band of Goblins, lead by a would be Hobgoblin warlord, has entered from below and as the Player Characters discover, are looting from below.

The scenario offers two options in terms of how the Player Characters might react to the goblinoid presence. In classic style, they could slaughter the lot, though the band is quite large for a group of First Level Player Characters to defeat. Alternatively, the Player Characters could negotiate and even enter an alliance with the Hobgoblin warlord. For a share of the treasure, the warlord even provides several Goblins to fight alongside the Player Characters as well as to make sure their Hobgoblin boss gets her share. It brings a degree of co-operation to play that is not normally present in this style of roleplaying and often not at First Level as well as an unexpected element of roleplaying. The Hobgoblin warlord and her Goblin cohorts are nicely detailed, helping the Judge to portray them as they interact with the Player Characters.

Physically, DCC Day #6: The Key to Castle Whiterock is as well done as you would expect for a release from Goodman Games. The artwork is decent, but a little cartoonish in places, whilst the cartography is not as interesting as that usually found in Dungeon Crawl Classics scenarios. The cover is very nicely done, showing the moment the final confrontation in the dungeon.
DCC Day #6: The Key to Castle Whiterock has a lighter, though a not humorous, feel than most adventures for Dungeon Crawl Classics. If the Dungeon Master was willing, it is easily adapted to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition as per the guidelines given in Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock. If the scenario is lacking, it is perhaps a good hook to keep the players and their characters interested to want to explore Castle Whiterock, but as a prequel to the campaign and if a playing group has set out to play Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told, then DCC Day #6: The Key to Castle Whiterock is a solid addition to the campaign and sets the Player Characters with an advantage or two in readiness.

Shall we go shopping? Shopping can be a necessity, it can be a chore, and it can be fun. Whether online or in person, we need to shop for essentials, but there are times when it can be a pleasure. Perhaps browsing for a new book or looking for the perfect outfit for that big event. Shopping in roleplaying though? Exactly the same. For the Game Master, it can be an exercise in tedium as her players pick over the contents of the rulebook’s equipment list or the roleplaying game’s equipment guide. For the player, it can be all part of the roleplaying experience, building his characters with the right gear, whether for flavour or the right effect. It even has a certain mystique of its own, because in most cases, what a player is buying for his character, is not a pint of milk, a loaf of bread, and a box of tea bags, but everything he could never imagine buying for himself. A chain hauberk, a short sword, a silver mirror, sleeping furs, a bag of caltrops, a Geiger counter, a Bergmann M.P.18,I submachine gun, a vial of black scorpion contact poison, and whatnot and so on and so on… What then of the staff? The life of the shop worker is very rarely exciting, bar the occasional encounter with a shoplifter or a fire evacuation, but what if that was not the case? Could a day in the life of a shop worker actually be exciting, or even interesting? With Get It At Sutler’s, it could actually be both.
Get It At Sutler’s is a supplement for TROIKA!, the science-fantasy role-playing game of exploring the multiverse. It is published by the Melsonian Arts Council, and much like the recent Whalgravaak’s Warehouse and The Hand of God adventures, it presents another aspect of the great city of Troika which lies at the heart of said multiverse. Its focus is firmly upon shopping, but firmly upon the staff perspective, and upon the hijinks and misadventures they have as employees of the greatest, the most fashionable, and the most prestigious department store in all of Troika. Whether it is Harrods, Liberty, Selfridges, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Le Bon Marché, and even Grace Brothers from the BBC comedy series, Are You Being Served?, the department store not only sells you everything, but it does also so with courtesy and a degree of prestige. Its halls are places to be seen and its name carries a certain cachet, and its always polite staff have a certain way of doing things, for a department store is a world unto itself. Sutler’s is no different. It is just a whole weirder—and it really, really specialises in fish.
There is no call for any particular character type for Get It At Sutler’s. The Player Characters have simply applied for a job at the department store and in this age of the gig economy, can put in a shift at any time of the day or night. Except bank holidays, when Sutler’s is closed. The management pays only for shifts worked. After all, a Player Character cannot spend all of his time adventuring across the multiverse and does have rent and food to pay for. Plus, all that time spent adventuring across the multiverse does not always pay for said rent and food. Putting in a shift at Sutler’s might just mean keeping the turbot from the door.
What Get It At Sutler’s is not is a complete guide to a department store, from the basement to the top floor, from department to department, from deliveries in to deliveries out, from just out the back to the department’s café where being seen is all that matters, from its prestigious food hall to the office of the night manager. Rather, it is an adventure or encounter generator. All the players have to do is to decide that their characters are to put in a shift and the Game Master can make a roll on the ‘shop business matrix’ to determine the time of year, how busy the shift will be, and what the most exciting thing that will happen to the characters on that shift. The six categories are ‘Quiet Day’, ‘Helping Customers’, ‘Stock Control’, ‘Feast Day’, ‘Tourists’, and ‘Heaving Wall of Flesh’, the latter referring to a day when Sutler’s is very busy and the Player Characters are facing ‘Too Many Customers’.For example, a roll for ‘Heaving Wall of Flesh’ might be “A live-catch tank leaked overnight, and the stain looks like the gaping face of St Mungo. People looking for his blessings are queuing along every isle, mixed in with innocent fish buyers. Tensions flare.” whilst a roll for ‘Stock Control’ a day might involve, “The Society of Porters and Basin Fillers is on strike, meaning you must collect your own fish from the back warehouses. You may TEST YOUR LUCK or else get lost and trapped in the store overnight. Beware the Nightmanager.”Beyond an adventure or encounter generator, What Get It At Sutler’s is also a bestiary of Enemies that the Player Characters might face on a shift at the department store. From the All-Terrain Shark, the Cutter Clam that can be used as weapons with their fleshy siphons, and the Palyngers, the city’s eels that are known to be incumbent souls standing ready to be reborn, but are still a staple food, to the members of Troika’s great and good, such as the Alcalde, the city’s unpredictable peacekeepers and spies commanded by the Great Cairo, the Cocksure Gamins, juveniles on great adventures of armies, kings, and queens, which actually look delinquency, and simply, Too Many Customers. There are also members of Sutler’s’ staff, such as the genial Daymanager, who everyone sees once, but rarely sees again; the long-legged, pinstriped Floorwalkers whose bodies lurk near the ceiling, only descending to deal with violent incidences; and the well-built and sunburnt barbarians who work as Florists despite their violent sense of humour and toxic work culture. Then there is the Nightmanager, the counterbalance and sinister shadow to the Daymanager, again rarely seen, but known to break the rules, replenish the stock, and creepily observe the doings of the department store. As you would expect from a Troika! supplement, these are all weird and odd and intriguing, and there are even mini-adventures or hooks, like those for the Disciplinary Ordeal, that can take place instead of a Player Character being fired!
Get It At Sutler’s closes with three appendices. In turn, these detail the Troikan year, a selection of fish products, and ‘Pisceans in the Second House – A Sutler’s Adventure’. This introduces Sutler’s and takes the Player Characters from their interview with the beatific Daymanager and into their first shift as a probationary member of staff. It is an unsettlingly fishy affair, and rightly so. The suggestion is that this could happen after the events detailed in ‘The Blancmange & Thistle’, the scenario in the Troika! rulebook. Of course, it would be fascinating to see an anthology of scenarios set just within the halls and departments of Sutler’s.
Physically, Get It At Sutler’s is a delightful book. Troika!’s art is always off kilter and Get It At Sutler’s is no different. In between, full page greyscale pieces capture the vastness and scope of the department store, as well as just how busy it can get.
Get It At Sutler’s is not a campaign setting or a sourcebook in the traditional sense. It does depict and describe a setting, but rather than simply laying out the details, it places them in encounters to be found by the Game Master, and then developed and presented to her players. It gives ideas and encounters—and lots of them—in a world within a world, that of a department store, that the Player Characters will visit when they need money or the Game Master wants to run something in between fuller, more traditional scenarios. Such traditional scenarios might even be run as ‘Disciplinary Ordeals’ since the management at Sutler’s is loath to truly fire anyone. The supplement is thus particularly useful when not all of the players are present or the campaign is between scenarios.
Get It At Sutler’s is a delightfully unconventional framework and book of encounters and hooks for the Game Master to develop and so bring to life, the world of the department store, in true Troika! style. It is a world of piscine peculiarity and harrowing hierarchy, one that gives the Player Characters something to do and somewhere to be, on their quite literally, odd offdays.