How do you like your GM Screen?

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

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

Once you have decided upon your screen format, the next question is what you have put with it. Do you include a poster or poster map, such as Chaosium, Inc.’s last screen for Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition?  Or a reference work like the GM Resource Book for Pelgrane Press’ Trail of Cthulhu? Or scenarios such as ‘Blackwater Creek’ and ‘Missed Dues’ from the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition? Or even better, a book of background and scenarios as well as the screen, maps, and forms, like that of the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack published by Chaosium, Inc. In general, the heavier and sturdier the screen, the more likely it is that the screen will be sold unaccompanied, such as those published by Cubicle Seven Entertainment for the Starblazer Adventures: The Rock & Roll Space Opera Adventure Game  and Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG.
So how do I like my GM Screen?
The Mörk Borg GM Screen comes as a five-panel screen, very sturdy, in portrait format. The outside of the screen is perhaps anything unlike which has been seen before for Mörk Borg, the pitch-black pre-apocalyptic fantasy roleplaying game which brings a Nordic death metal sensibility to the Old School Renaissance. Instead of the riotous assault of electrically vibrant yellow and pink highlights on swathes of black, abrupt font changes, and metallic embellishments. Instead, we have a polyptych of images in white and red on black depicting scenes from the last days of Tveland’s pre-apocalypse. Bloodied demonic skulls, ominously dark towers in the distance, a cultist with sacrifice, a headless statue—or is it?—of angel in a graveyard, and great beasts scrapping over a mound of corpses. The end is nigh and the Mörk Borg GM Screen lest you know it…
The inside of the Mörk Borg GM Screen reverts to its traditional vibrant yellow and with various tables laid out across the inner panels. Working from the left, the first panel provides the means for the Game Master to create NPCs on the fly, including name (both male and female) and trade, along with a concern, a want, what he or she thinks of the forthcoming apocalypse, and lastly a trait to help make him or her memorable. Thus, Urkin the Shitshoveller, who walks with a limp, is concerned because she has kidnapped kin and wants bloodshed in response, but ultimately believes that mankind is doomed. Should the Game Master want it, an optional table can add a twist like Urkin actually being the head of a murder cult or an inquisitor! The next panel—‘Prices May Vary’—covers just about everything that the Player Characters might want to purchase, from chalk and chewing tobacco to scissors and scrolls, as well as weapons, services, armour repairs, and beasts.
The middle panel is the meat of the game and comes with the admonition that the Game Master ‘Only ever roll when failure is interesting’. So here the Game Master can see the Difficulty Ratings, rules for Violence—who Goes First?, Attack, and Defence—and tables for ‘Where Does it Hurt?’ and when an NPC, or probably a Player Character, is ‘Broken’, all at a glance. The next panel provides the stats for Sword Fodder, Worthy Foes, and The Big Bad, whether that is an Underpaid, tired guard, something all Claws, eyes, spidery legs, or The Demon Appears! Beneath this is pair of tables, one for ‘Unclean Powers’ and one ‘Sacred Powers’. All together—and in some cases combined with the NPC creation tables on the first panel—the Game Master can quickly pick and modify an opponent without the need to refer to the rulebook. The last panel is more perfunctory, proving a big table of ‘Items and Trinkets’ and another for the weather, but the entries on the former can be quite intriguing.
Across the top of the panels are pointers for the Game Master. For example, ‘Stores might be understocked’ and ‘Some will try to scam the PCs’ on the prices panel, which add just a little extra. Now initially, it does look as if the Mörk Borg GM Screen does not come with anything extra. This is in part because the extras it does come with are slim, the same shade of yellow as the inside of the screen, and are actually attached to the screen by means of corner pockets that the sheets neatly slip into—perhaps a little too neatly as they are slightly awkward to slot back in. On the front of the first sheet is devoted to Traps—how Player Character triggered the trap, what the trap is, who or what built it. On the reverse, is ‘Somewhere to Drink’ with a select menu, a menu for those who lack funds, patron traits, and answers to the question, ‘Why is the Innkeeper Twitching?’, all of which goes to creating an encounter or even an adventure in itself should the Game Minister want it. On the other separate sheet on the one side is ‘The Tablets of Ochre Obscurity’ is a set of random spell effects worked into tablets, whilst on the other, is a big table of ‘Forty City Events’.
Physically, the Mörk Borg GM Screen is a sturdy game aid. It feels solid in the hands and should withstand reasonable handling, as well as stand up on the table. Everything on the inside of the screen is easy to read—the black on yellow is very clear—including the cursive founts used. If there is an issue with the durability of the Mörk Borg GM Screen, it is that two separate sheets, as cleverly stored with the actual screen as they are, are not as solid and are likely to get separated and lost.
As a roleplaying game, Mörk Borg is mechanically light enough that the Game Master can get away without needing to resort to a screen. However, the Mörk Borg GM Screen is useful in both providing the tables routinely referenced during play and tables of prompts and ideas that the Game Master can very quickly pick or roll up—even at the table if necessary. Ultimately, the Mörk Borg GM Screen is not a necessity, but if you have one, it is perfectly functional and serviceable.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: The Catcott CollectionPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Peter Willington

Setting: Jazz Age Bristol, United Kingdom
Product: Scenario
What You Get: Fifteen page, 1.96 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Mirrors don’t lie. They only show a part of truth.”Plot Hook: Getting lost in your studies may cost you more than your Sanity...Plot Support: Detailed plot, staging advice for the Keeper, one floorplan, two handouts, and one NPC (sort of).Production Values: Excellent.
Pros# One-to-one format more engaging# Good staging advice for the Keeper
# Short, one-session, one-to-one scenario# Strong sense of personal horror# Strong sense of isolation# Nicely done feel of decay and dream-like uncertainty# Would work as an introduction for any Academic Investigator# Easy to adjust to Cthulhu by Gaslight or Cthulhu Now
Cons
# Requires a slight edit# Tome at the heart of the scenario not written up# One-to-one format more demanding than traditional scenario# Pre-generated Investigator not given as an Investigator sheet# The intimacy of the personal horror may not suit all players
Conclusion
# Isolated, intimate horror one-shot# Nicely done feel of decay and dream-like uncertainty# Demanding horror scenario for both player and Keeper

The year is 1965. On March 19th, 1964, a joint Japanese-French mission landed on the Moon aboard the giant atomic rocket Kaguyahime, the Moon Princess – affectionately called Monsieur Renard (‘Mister Fox’) in France because of its orange-red paint job. Two space stations orbit the Earth—the US Aurora and the Soviet Budushcheye-1. In the skies over Europe and far-flung cities, the Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde carries passengers at the speed of sound with BOAC, Air France, and Air Majestique. Around the world the Cold War continues between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, with Europe divided by the ‘Iron Curtain’. This includes Arenwald, the alpine principality formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, squeezed in between Hungary, Sylveria, and Yugoslavia, famous as a stop on the Arlberg Orient Express line from London to Athens, and its Soviet counterpart, the Socialist Republic of Sylveria. The Cold War is not the only threat to the world, a secret organisation known as the Octopus, a centuries-old criminal organisation, has designs on world domination. There are other dangers too, as well as mysteries and conspiracies, many of which the authorities are not best-placed to deal with. Step forward the Troubleshooters, bands of friends and adventurers who are prepared to travel the world and investigate the mysteries, crimes, and dangers that the authorities decline to do. And if they can have fun along the way, all the better!
This is the set-up for The Troubleshooters: An Action-Adventure Roleplaying Game inspired by French and Belgian comics—bande dessinée or bédé—such as Tintin, Spirou et Fantasio, Blake & Mortimer, and Yoko Tsuno. Published by Helmgast following a successful Kickstarter campaign, this is an action-adventure roleplaying game set in the second half of the sixties and first half of the seventies, an era of glamour, optimism, and technological advances. Its outlook is optimistic and exciting, a metropolitan world primarily set across a Europe full of diverse and exotic locations. The players will take the roles of the Troubleshooters, freelance adventurers and investigators, friends ready to look into mysteries and crimes, travel to exotic locales, and have adventures! The Troubleshooters can have a theme and thus be a band of curious adventurers, sleuths, agents, or criminals (in the tone of ‘gentleman thieves’)—and The Troubleshooters starts off by discussing these and giving sample inspirations. Each Troubleshooter should be competent, have a particular role in the group—such as the Doer, Investigator, or Muscle, want to adventure, possess a weakness which enhances the story, be fun to play, and fun to play with.

A character in The Troubleshooters is defined by Skills, Max Vitality, Plot Hooks, Traits, Abilities, Complications, and Story Points. Skills—rated as percentiles—are broken down into Background, Social, Investigation, Action, and Combat skills, and they include skills such as Agility, Endurance, Strength, and Willpower, which in other roleplaying games would be used as attributes. Plot Hooks, such as ‘Do-Gooder’ or ‘Media Darling’, are used to pull Troubleshooters into a scenario, and published scenarios will use specific Plot Hooks to involve Troubleshooters. Abilities mark the Troubleshooter out as a special and come in three Tiers with increasingly harder requirements, but at each Tier provide a means for the Troubleshooter to spend Story Points. For example, the Actor Ability requires the Entertainment skill at 65%, and when used with other skills like Charm or Subterfuge, enables a Troubleshooter pretend to be another person. For one Story Point, the Troubleshooter can flip a Subterfuge task check when pretending to be someone else, but for two, he can make a new task check for Entertainment or Charm, and keep the new roll. Complications are roleplaying hooks, for both the player and the Director of Operations—as the Game Master is known in The Troubleshooters is known—and also a source of Story Points. For example, a Troubleshooter with the ‘Amorous’ Complication will earn three Story Points when distracted by his emotions and receives a −2 pips modification to task checks not related to said emotions, three Story Points if a romantic interlude causes him trouble, and six Story Points when a date or romantic interlude prevents him from participating in an important scene.

Troubleshooter creation is template based, though guidelines are included which allow a new template to be built or a Troubleshooter to be built without using a template. Fifteen templates are included from Adventurous Scholar, Aspiring Student, and Caring Veterinarian to Racing Driver, Suffering Artist, and Vigilante Lawyer. Each template includes some background, eleven skills, five Abilities, three Complications, Vitality, extra languages, three gear kits, and some Plot Hook suggestions. A player can modify the skills, but must choose two Abilities, one Complication, five gear kits (this is three more than the template gives, but there is an extensive list of gear included in the book), and two Plot Hooks. He also chooses languages if his Troubleshooter has any and finally decide—or roll—where he met the other Troubleshooters. (Alternatively, the players could just use the six signature Troubleshooters included as examples who figure in all of the examples through the book.)

Dickie Jones – Curious Engineer
Skills: Contacts 45%, Electronics 65%, Engineering 75%, Investigation 45%, Machinery 65%, Science 65%, Search 65%, Security 45%, Melee 45%, Vehicles 45%, Willpower 45%. (All other Skills 15%.)
Abilities: Curious, Tech Wiz
Complications: Combat Paralysis, Crude
Vitality: 5
Languages: –
Gear: Camping Gear, Ham radio set, Electronics toolbox, First Aid Kit, Mechanic’s toolbox (Signature)
Plot Hooks: Friends in High Places, I Owe You

Mechanically, The Troubleshooters is a percentile system. To undertake a Task, a Troubleshooter’s player rolls percentile dice and if the result is equal to or less than the skill and the Troubleshooter succeeds. If the roll is a double and below the Skill value, then the Troubleshooter earns Good Karma, succeeding with a bonus and gains a Story Point. Conversely, Bad Karma is gained if a double is rolled and it is above the Skill value. The Karma can be mechanical or storytelling in nature. The former might be +2 or -2 Pips for Good or Bad Karma, the latter reinforcements turn up, either to help or hinder the Troubleshooters, depending upon whether it is Good or Bad Karma. Modifiers to the roll come in the form of Pips, which range from +5 to -5. If the number of Pips is positive, then any result equal to, or less than the number of Pips on the Ones die will always succeed, even if the actual percentile roll is greater than the Skill value. Conversely, if the number of Pips is negative, then any result equal to, or less than the number of Pips on the Ones die will always fail, even if the actual percentile roll is less than the Skill value. Pips can be applied because the environment, such as in the middle of a storm, or equipment used, such as a tool kit. The Pips system does feel a little weird, even counterintuitive, but it does not take much adjusting to, and once you have, it is very workable.

Notably, if a test is failed, it cannot be repeated, either by the current Troubleshooter or any other Troubleshooter—unless circumstances have changed significantly. Failure though is not intended be an absolute, but rather that the Troubleshooter ‘Fail Forward’ and either learn from the failure or push the story on in interesting ways. For example, in a fight, a Troubleshooter might not be killed, but rather captured, or if a Troubleshooter fails to defuse a bomb in time, he at least learns something about the design. In addition, every Troubleshooter has Story Points. Their most common use is to flip the results of a percentile roll. However, they can also be spent to activate Abilities, get gadgets beyond the standard five a Troubleshooter starts play with, gain clues, and either add something major or minor to the ongoing story. Adding something to the story may require a little negotiation with the Director.

For example, Dickie Jones is participating in a rally across Sylveria. He is the co-driver in a car driven by his fellow Troubleshooter, Tristan Narbrough, but in addition to wanting to place well in the event, they are after a Soviet spy who is heading for the Socialist Republic of Sylveria with some information stolen from one of the sponsors of their car. However, during a night stage, in the middle of a storm, their car, a Mini-Cooper breaks down. Dickie leaps out of his seat, tool kit in hand, and pulls up the bonnet. To determine the fault and fix is going to require a Machinery 65% Test. The Director of Operations sets the Task at ‘-2 Pips’ for the storm, but Tristan’s player describes how he is holding a torch to make sure that Dickie can see what he is doing, which negates the ‘-2 Pips’. Plus, of course, Dickie has his signature Mechanic’s toolbox, which gives him two Pips. So, Dickie’s player is rolling his Machinery 65% Skill at ‘+2 Pips’. Dickie’s player rolls 99%! Not only is this a failure, but it is also one with Bad Karma. This could be bad news for both Dickie and Tristian, but Dickie has the Tech Wiz Ability, which enables his player to reroll an Electronics, Engineering, or Machinery Task for one Story Point. Dickie’s player spends the Story Point and rerolls, but the result is a 71%--better but still a failure… Except no, the value on the Ones die is less than the Pips, which means that Dickie finds the fault, fixes it, and they are back on the road again, driving hard to catch up with and capture the industrial spy!

Combat in The Troubleshooters is more complex and is built around opposed Tests between attacking and defensive Skills, for example, Melee versus Melee Skill or Ranged Combat versus the Agility Skill. The Troubleshooters, as Player Characters, have Defence Skills, but unless they are important, Director characters (or NPCs) do not. Initiative is handled with an Agility Test, with the rests of the two dice added together if successful. Damage is rolled on six-sided dice, typically just two for unarmed attacks, all the way up to seven for machine guns. Rolls of four, five, and six inflict a point of Vitality damage per die, with results of six exploding and potentially doing more damage. Armour allows Soak rolls which negate points of damage, but do not explode. Recovery rolls, made to recover Vitality work the same as Soak rolls. A Troubleshooter or an important Director character is out Cold when they run out of Vitality, although either can take the Wounded or the Mortal Peril Condition instead of suffering Vitality loss. This typically to void being Out Cold, but both have consequences after the fight and take time to heal. What is stressed throughout The Troubleshooters is that it is not a roleplaying game about killing and that it is very difficult for a Troubleshooter to die. Indeed, the most common way of a Troubleshooter dying is when it is dramatically appropriate and the Director has stated that it is a possibility in a scene. As to killing, if a player has his Troubleshooter kill a Director character in cold blood, then the Director is advised to deny the Troubleshooter any free improvement checks at the end of the adventure, and remove all of the Troubleshooter’s Story Points, as well as half of the Story Points of those Troubleshooters’ who could have stopped him. This is harsh, but The Troubleshooters is intended as a positive roleplaying and roleplaying experience.

For the Director of Operations, there is good advice on setting up combat scenes to make them interesting and challenging, adjudicating the use and awarding of Story Points, an extensive list of Gear—including Weird Tech with which to equip the bad guys or interest any budding Tech Wiz Troubleshooter. The advice also covers hosting and running the game, portraying the Director’s characters—including how to make the bigger villains camp, and creating adventures and campaign. She is accorded a full description of the Octopus, its organisation, members, aims, and technology, plus plenty of stats and write-ups of various Director characters and animals. In terms of background, ‘The World of The Troubleshooters’ presents the period and setting in some detail, highlighting not just the differences between the sixties that we know from history and the sixties of The Troubleshooters, but also the similarities. It covers technology, travel, and more before providing a whirlwind guide to some of the interesting places and cities around the world, from Paris and Berlin to Buenos Aries to Ice Station X-14. These are really good, describing each location in a couple of pages including lists of where to stay, things to do, and why that location is being visited as part of the Troubleshooters’ adventure. In fact, these location descriptions feel reminiscent of the Thrilling Locations supplement for the James Bond 007 roleplaying game from 1983 and certainly that sourcebook could be useful until The Troubleshooters gets one of its own. Rounding out The Troubleshooters is a set of appendices which include a calendar for 1965, lists of first names in various languages, a table of character traits, and several lists of profanities, but not profanities, which should allow a Troubleshooter to swear, but not swear, and still maintain the spirit of the bande dessinée. “Blue blistering barnacles!” indeed.

Physically, The Troubleshooters is a stunning looking book. The artwork, done in the ‘Ligne claire’ style pioneered by Hergé, nicely sets the signature cast of The Troubleshooters against the well-drawn backdrop of the real world. Make no mistake, the artwork is excellent throughout, really capturing the feel of the roleplaying’s inspiration. Although it needs a slight edit in places, The Troubleshooters is well written and an engaging read from start to finish. Throughout, the rules and situations are explained in numerous examples of play, all using the signature cast of The Troubleshooters and narrated by Graf Albrecht Vogelin Erwin von Zadrith, the Number Two of the Octopus, as the Director. These are all entertaining to read and tell a story as much as they inform about the rules.

If there are any issues with The Troubleshooters, then there are two. First, there is no scenario. Second, the other thing is that although it references various bande dessinée, it does not list actual titles. Fortunately, there are three scenarios available for the roleplaying game in The Troubleshooters’ Archive. The lack of a bibliography can be got around using the pointers included here as a starting point. In addition, The U-boat Mystery scenario is already available.

The obvious thing about The Troubleshooters is that could be used to run a James Bond style roleplaying game. It could be, and it would work well as a James Bond roleplaying game, but The Troubleshooters is not as cynical in tone or even as murderous as the world of James Bond is in comparison. Much lighter in tone, The Troubleshooters is of course a roleplaying game of adventure tourism in the style of bande dessinée, but also that of the ITC Entertainment television series of the period. For example, The Saint, The Persuaders!, and The Protectors, and whilst it is specific in its bande dessinée inspiration, The Troubleshooters is really the first roleplaying game to look back to the period since Agents of S.W.I.N.G..

The Troubleshooters: An Action-Adventure Roleplaying Game is great looking book with artwork which wonderfully evokes its source material. The rules and mechanics support play in the style of that source material, enabling the players to create fun Troubleshooters, and jet or drive off on amazing, exciting adventures with each other and tell great stories. With its comic book or bande dessinée sensibilities, there can be no doubt that The Troubleshooters takes us back to a simpler, if headier and more optimistic time. The combination means The Troubleshooters is engagingly, delightfully European and charmingly chic.

The mystery—as opposed to the mysterious, which has always been there—has long been a part of roleplaying, all the way back to The Maltese Clue, the scenario published by Judges Guild in 1979.  It really came to the fore with roleplaying games like Call of Cthulhu, Gangbusters, and Justice, Inc. and more recently seen in the GUMSHOE System with roleplaying games such as Mutant City Blues, which combines superheroes with the police procedural. What these all do with the mystery is provide the Game Matron with a plot and a set of clues that the players and their characters investigate the mystery and hopefully piece together the clues to uncover the mystery. However, what if the mystery and its investigation was set up the other way around? What if there was no set solution and instead the solution to the mystery could be constructed from the clues uncovered by the players and their characters and would be, if not absolutely correct, then very nearly so? This is what Matrons of Mystery—and Brindlewood Bay, the roleplaying game by Jason Cordova it is derived from—both do.

Both Matrons of Mystery and Brindlewood Bay are Powered by the Apocalypse roleplaying games in which players take the roles of women of a certain age who investigate murder—often much to the consternation of local law enforcement. Brindlewood Bay has an American feel and behind the series of murders a Lovecraftian conspiracy, whereas Matrons of Mystery focuses entirely on the murder mysteries, employs a parred back version of the Powered by the Apocalypse mechanics, and has a decidedly British sensibility being inspired by television series such as Miss Marple, Rosemary & Thyme, Agatha Raisin, Queens of Mystery, Father Brown, and so on. This is not the world of the hardboiled mystery, or even mystery on a medium heat, but that of the ‘cozy’ mystery, set in a small town or village where everyone knows everyone—except that recently arrived stranger, and of course, everyone’s secrets—and there is a strong sense of community, and is of course, suitable for afternoon or Sunday night viewing with all of the family gathered round the television.

Matrons of Mystery: A cozy mystery roleplaying game is designed for three or four players, plus the Game Matron, and each mystery ideally takes a session to solve. This makes it good for one shots or convention games, and the familiarity of its genre means that Matrons of Mystery will be easy to grasp and familiar to most players. In Matrons of Mystery, players take the roles of ladies of a certain age, who are perhaps single, widowed, or divorced, certainly retired or have more than enough time to throw themselves into their community and various activities and charities. For example, keeping the parish church clean, attending meetings of the W.I., helping run Meals on Wheels, doing the village Christmas Pantomime, and so on. Of course, when murder strikes—as it invariably does in their surprisingly high murder count communities—it is the ‘Matrons of Mystery’ who take up their handbags, put down their trowels, and ever ready to make a nice hot cup of tea, discover whodunnit before the local bobby on the beat, Police Constable Plodd, and Inspector Witless from the nearest big town, can work it all out.

Character generation and game set-up in Matrons of Mystery is quite quick. First, the players name and decide on some details about their Matrons’ village. Then, every Matron has a name, a Personal Style, a Hobby, a Background, an Investigation Style, and a Contact. So a Name might be Audrey or Nettie, a Personal Style could be ‘Smart and Classic’, ‘Punk’, or ‘Twinset and Pearl’, and a Hobby Baking, Gardening, Collecting, or Amateur Dramatics. The Background consists of answers to three questions—the first is about a Matron’s former partner or whether or not she was married, what was her career before she retired, and whether she has any children, or if not, young relatives she is fond of. Her Investigation Style—Physical, Logical, Intuitive, or Gregarious—represents different approaches to solving mysteries, and the Contact is someone that the Matron knows well from her past and can rely upon to help out in a pinch. To create a Matron, a player decides upon all of these factors, answers the three questions for her Background, and then assigns +2 to her primary Investigation Style, +1 to her secondary Investigation Style, sets a third at 0, and assigns -1 to her least favoured Investigation Style.

Henrietta Wyndham
Personal Style: Punk
Hobby: Painting
Background: Divorced (to Nigel Wyndham, Stage name: Nasty Nigel), Former Record Producer, Children include Freddy, Pandora, Ned
Contact: Gordon Blythe-White (Record Exec)
Physical 0 Logical -1 Intuitive +1 Gregarious +2

Mechanically, Matrons of Mystery uses Powered by the Apocalypse. To undertake an action or ‘Move’, a player rolls two six-sided dice, adds his Matron’s Investigative Style and aims to roll high. The results fall into the ‘Yes’, ‘Yes, but…’, and ‘No and…’ Roll ten and more and the Move is successful; roll between seven and nine, and the Move is successful, but comes with a Complication; and roll six or less, and the Move not only fails, but adds a Complication. A Complication hinders the Matron’s investigative efforts, such as her slipping and injuring herself climbing in or out of a window or the suspect taking umbrage at one or more of the questions posed to him. This can lead to an ongoing Condition, such as a sprained ankle or being thrown out of a society dinner. (If there is one issue with Matrons of Mystery, it is that it could have done with a bigger list of Complications and especially Conditions to inspire the Game Matron.)

Rules are provided for gaining Experience Points and either using them in play to improve dice rolls or saving them to improve a Matron’s Investigative Styles. They do feel optional though.

Unlike most versions of Powered by the Apocalypse, the rules in Matrons of Mystery include an Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic. Thus when a Matron has the Advantage, which can come from her Personal Style, Hobby, Background, or the situation, three six-sided dice are rolled instead of two, and the best used. Conversely, when she is at a Disadvantage, her player rolls three dice and keeps the lowest two. Another difference between other roleplaying games using Powered by the Apocalypse and Matrons of Mystery is that it does not make use of Playbooks, each of which provide an archetypal character and its associated Moves. Instead, Matrons of Mystery provides a standard set of nine Moves that all of the Matrons can use. The first five Moves—‘Investigate’, ‘Interrogate’, ‘Take Action’, ‘Lend A Hand’, and ‘Ask A Favour’ are used to gain clues and conduct the Investigation. The next three, ‘Reminisce’, ‘Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down’, and ‘Go To Adverts’, enforce both the genre and the format of the genre. ‘Reminisce’ enables a Matron to recall something from her past which will help with the current investigation; ‘Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down’ lets two or more Matrons sit down, have a nice hot cup of tea, have a chat with each other, and in doing so, each remove a single Condition; and ‘Go To Adverts’ enforces a break in the story when a Matron is in danger, ends the scene on a cliffhanger, and lets the players discuss how the cliffhanger is resolved with the imperilled Matron unharmed when the adverts end!

The final Move is ‘Put It All Together’. This happens at the end or near the end of the game when the Matrons gather their collected clues and deduce the identity of the murderer. Instead of using an Investigative Style to modify the roll, the player uses the number of clues and secrets found out so far, minus the number of suspects involved in the murder. Typically, there are eight suspects per murder, so the Matrons will need to have gathered at least eight clues and secrets to negate this, plus more to gain a modifier to the roll. Roll ten or more and the Move is successful, the Matrons are correct in their deductions and have identified the Murderer and his motive; roll between seven and nine, and the Move is successful, the Matrons are correct in their deductions and have identified the Murderer and his motive, but there a Complication which the Matrons will need to overcome in order to apprehend the Murderer; and roll six or less, and the Move fails, indicating that the Matron’s deductions are incorrect. The Game Matron has to explain why and then sends the Matrons back off to continue their investigations and try again.

For the Game Matron, there is good advice on designing a mystery, from the theme and the set-up through to defining the secrets and listing the clues. There is also good advice on running the game—both online and at the gaming table, how to handle clues, secrets, Complications and Conditions, and so on, as well as optional rules for one-on-one play and playing away from the Matrons’ home village. A short bibliography provides some inspiration for the Game Matron. Then there are three ready-to-play Mysteries, complete with set-up, teaser, eight suspects, and a long list of clues. The first is ‘Gardner’s Question Crime’ in which the village hosts the popular radio show, Gardeners’ Answers in the grounds of Hatherly Hall. With most of the village present, the guest speaker, celebrity gardener and host of the television series, Gardener’s Life, Alan Jefferson, drops dead as he is about to take to the stage. This is followed by ‘Dicing With Death’ in which the village hosts a roleplaying convention (!) and award-winning game designer, Scott Sallow, is found dead on the last day of the convention with his mouth stuffed full of polyhedrals! Lastly, ‘Ding Dong Death’ is takes place just before national bell ringing championships and with the village wanting to put on a good performance, the bell ringing team is getting in some last-minute practice. Unfortunately, the lead bell ringer, Walter Bell, is found hanging upside down from one of the bell ropes. All three scenarios are great set-ups, though ‘Dicing With Death’ feels both improbable and a direct appeal to its intended audience.

Physically, Matrons of Mystery is a tidily done digest-sized book. The cover is appropriately rural, whilst the internal artwork, all publicly sourced, is there to break up the page rather than necessarily illustrate the game. The book is well written and easy to read—especially with the slightly larger fount size.

Matrons of Mystery is fun to play and it is simple to play. Having just the one set of nine Basic Moves eases play no end. Given the age of the Matrons, it is much more of a social game than physical game necessarily, although some sneaking around is probably going to be necessary and perfectly in keeping with the genre. Although it does present her with eight suspects to roleplay, the lighter nature of the rules do provide the Game Matron with the opportunity to really focus on her roleplaying and have fun with it too. The nature of the game and its ‘no given perpetrator’ set-up also strips Matrons of Mystery of any sense of stress or competition which might arise in the players and the Game Matron as they worry whether their deductions and solution to the crime is actually right. Instead, the players and their Matrons construct the murder solution and motive from the clues, thus emphasising storytelling—both the storytelling of the murder and the storytelling of it being solved.

Matrons of Mystery: A cozy mystery roleplaying game is cleverly cozy, taking the structure of Brindlewood Bay and parring it back to focus on its core game play. It is a smart, sprightly roleplaying game which delightfully evokes its genre from the page to the table. And if you are going to play this at the table, a nice hot cup of tea is an absolute necessity.

Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been 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. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.

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Goodman Games provided two titles to support Free RPG 2021, both of which were highly anticipated. Perhaps the more interesting of the two was Dark Tower: The Sunken Temple of Set, an expansion for Dark Tower, the classic  and highly regarded scenario written by Jennell Jaquays and published by Judges Guild in 1979. However, the other was as eagerly anticipated since it was for Goodman Games’ highly popular Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. In past years, the support for Free RPG Day has come in the form of a quick-start, either for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game or Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, but for Free RPG Day 2021, the support came in the form of a scenario, Tomb of the Savage Kings.
Tomb of the Savage Kings is a short adventure for Second Level characters which shares an Egyptian theme with Dark Tower: The Sunken Temple of Set. There the similarities end, for Tomb of the Savage Kings, for although there is a Pulp sensibility to both, that sensibility is one of Pulp Fantasy and Swords & Sorcery in Dark Tower: The Sunken Temple of Set, whereas it one of Pulp Horror for Tomb of the Savage Kings as it draws on Universal Studio’s The Mummy and The Mummy’s Hand, as well as Hammer Studio’s The Mummy for its inspiration. In fact, the sensibility is so strong in Tomb of the Savage Kings, that if there was such a thing as Pulp Crawl Classics, this would be a perfect scenario for it.
The scenario begins with the players being hired by Portnelle’s most popular and wealthy socialite, the widow Zita Aztur. Her sister, Isobel, smitten with a mysterious suitor who fancies himself as an adventurer, and has gone missing. The widow fears that she has run off with this would be adventurer in search of the Moon Spear of Andoheb, said to be located in the latter’s pyramid tomb. If true, she fears for her sister’s life as everyone  up until now who has searched for the spear has never been seen again. With promise of a handsome payout and the good widow’s Halfling servant along as a guide, the scenario begins with the Player Characters outside of the tomb looking for a way in…
Once inside, the Player Characters find a classic Egyptian tomb complex. It consists of just nine locations and packs into that the traps, undead, treasures, and clues typical of the genre. It is definitely worth the Player Characters’ searching for clues as there are signs that someone has been here before—and recently! Those clues are nicely done in a grand depiction of the life of Andoheb, and the Judge should definitely provide it as a handout to her players. Following these and exploring the pyramid should bring the Player Characters to a fantastic climatic confrontation which plays much on the inspiration for Tomb of the Savage Kings and depending on what happens, have some interesting outcomes. Two of these have links to the scenarios, Dungeon Crawl Classics #66.5 Doom of the Savage King and Dungeon Crawl Classics #77.5 The Tower out of Time, and so the Judge may want to have access to those. 
Physically, Tomb of the Savage Kings is as well presented as you would expect for a scenario from Goodman Games. The artwork, the cartography clear, and the scenario is well written, though it needs an edit in place.
Tomb of the Savage Kings is a great adventure for Free RPG Day which can be played in a single session. The theme—and probably the plot—will be familiar to many a gamer, especially if the players like Pulp Horror depictions of Egypt. It does also suggest that perhaps there is further potential in an Egypt-set or Egypt-like setting for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game or a more Pulp Horror setting. For fans of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game who like their fantasy with steamy mix of Pulp Horror, Tomb of the Savage Kings is fun adventure.

Imagine if you will a haunted house home to several ghosts in danger of being woken up by the constant ringing of bell stolen from the nearest village by a giant, enraged and dressed only in a silk bathrobe, who is trying to find the three ne’er do wells who have stolen his golden goose and run into the house to hide. The house is called Willowby Hall, the goose is called Mildred, the giant is called Bonebreaker Tom, the ghosts are Elias Fenwick, evil occultist, the aristocratic Lavinia Coldwater, the footman, Horatio, and a Taxidermied Owl Bear, the adventurers are Helmut Halfsword, Lisbet Grund, and Apocalypse Ann, and they all really, really want something. And as the bell rings out, the house shudders and shudders until floors collapse, rooms catch alight spontaneously, the Taxidermied Owl Bear goes on the hunt, and the undead rise from where they are buried about the house… This is a recipe for, if not a pantomime a la Mother Goose, then a dark farce best played out on Halloween or at Christmas, but either way is the set-up for the scenario, The Waking of Willowby Hall. Written by the host of the YouTube channel, Questing Beast, it is designed for a party of Third Level characters for the retroclone of your choice and can easily be adapted to other roleplaying games too. It would work with Hypertellurians: Fantastic Thrills Through the Ultracosm or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay as much as it would Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy.

The Waking of Willowby Hall was funded via a Kickstarter campaign as part of ZineQuest 2. It comes as a thirty-two-page adventure built around thirty-three named locations across the three floors of Willowby Hall and eight NPCs plus various monsters. The house is not mapped out and detailed once, but twice. First in the module’s opening pages, marked with thumbnail descriptions and page number references, the latter actually more useful than simple numbers. Second, in the latter half of the book where full room descriptions are given accompanied by a complete floorplan with the particular rooms highlighted. It feels a little odd at first, but flipping between the two is actually not as awkward as it first seems. None of the individual rooms in Willowby Hall are mapped, but it is a classic mansion which when combined with the engagingly detailed descriptions is easy to visualise and portray. The NPCs are each given half a page, including stats, personality, and wants (or motivations) , plus a fetching illustration. This includes Mildred the Goose, who is essentially there to do two things. One is to motivate her previous owner, Tom Bonebreaker, and the other is to annoy the hell of out the players and their characters. If it appears that the Dungeon Master is playing Untitled Goose Game with Mildred, then both she and Mildred are probably doing their job. Tom Bonebreaker however, is accorded a full page to himself as he is the scenario’s main threat. The scenario’s other threat is also given its own page.

For the Player Characters, the first difficulty is getting into Willowby Hall. Several reasons are suggested as to why they might want to enter the mansion. This includes a couple of classics—one of the Player Characters inheriting the mansion, the other the mansion being the retreat of an occult society which collected rare artefacts and books—as well as the Player Characters merely passing and being hired by the local villagers to retrieve the bell. The latter will probably lead to the Player Characters negotiating with the giant campanologist for the bell and he will want his goose back, which means they will have to enter Willowby Hall. With the other ideas, they will are unlikely to encounter this and instead the Player Characters will just need to make a run for the mansion. This is made easier in the scenario because it advises that Tom Bonebreaker be on the other side of the building when they make their run across the overgrown lawns to the mansion. Alternatively, the Player Characters could begin in the mansion itself and the adventurers simply charge in with goose in hand and the giant on their tails. Once inside, the Player Characters are free to explore as is their wont, but then their problems are only beginning…

The Player Characters’ first aim is probably going to be working out what is going in the house as they explore its halls and rooms, the second being to locate the trio of adventurers and probably, Mildred. As they make their search, there is the constant sound of the bell being rung outside and the eye of Tom Bonebreaker appearing at one window after another, and if the giant spots anyone, the immediate danger of him reaching in to grab whomever he can. The tolling of the bell though is a timing mechanism and as it clangs again and again, the house changes. Slowly at first, and only slightly, but then more rapidly and more obviously. This builds and builds, giving The Waking of Willowby Hall a timing mechanism, one which can easily be adjusted for single, one-off play at a convention or slightly longer play as part of campaign. It gives a sense of dynamism to the scenario.

Physically, The Waking of Willowby Hall is clearly and simply presented. The maps are easy to use, the descriptions of the various rooms engaging, and the illustrations excellent in capturing the personalities of the NPCs. In fact, they are so good that you almost wish that they and Willowby Hall itself was available as a doll’s house and a set of paper standees to use as the Player Characters explore the mansion and that giant eye keeps appearing at various windows. Add in some sound effects—at least the sound of the bell and the honking of the goose—and what a scenario that would be!

The Waking of Willowby Hall gives the Dungeon Master everything necessary to run the scenario, not least of which is a great cast of NPCs for her to roleplay—and that is before you even get to Mildred. After all, what good Dungeon Master would turn down the opportunity to roleplay a goose? The Waking of Willowby Hall is great fun, both raucous and ridiculous, combining elements of farce with a classic haunted house and a countdown ’til the bell tolls for thee.

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An unboxing of The Waking of Willowby Hall can be found here.

The God With No Name is a dungeon within the body of remains of a giant beast or god. Published by Leyline Press this is a setting more recently seen in Genial Jack Vol. 2 from Lost Pages and Into the Würmhole, the Free RPG Day release in 2021 for Vast Grimm. Instead of the dry, hard rock walls of caves and worked stone of corridors and rooms, such dungeons possess an organic, moist, often pulsating, and even fetid environment. However, they may also have calcified and fossilised over time, leaving behind an organic imprint of caves and tunnels. The God With No Name combines elements of both—the organic and the calcified. It is also noticeable for its format. Like The Isle of Glaslyn before it, The God With No Name manages to fit an adventure onto the equivalent of four pages and then present it on a pamphlet which folds down to roughly four-by-six inches. It contains all of the room descriptions on one side and the maps and various tables on the other. It is the very definition of a clever little design. Ultimately however, it is a design which places constraints on the scenario.

The God With No Name is designed for use with Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy and ostensibly details a network of tunnels and caves mined by ancient Dwarves for its very pure salt deposits. It is still said that not all of those deposits have been mined out, but the mine has long been abandoned and it is said that the local Mountain Folk revere the mine as a god. The valley below the mine is said to be infested with trolls and the mine full of secrets. There is a truth to a great many of the rumours about the mine… The mine consists of two levels, a longer main tunnel and a shorter cliff tunnel. The entrance to the main tunnel is at ground level, the entrance to the cliff tunnel above in the cliff face. Above that is a small tower. It is depicted in both cross section and a floorplan with cartography by Dyson Logos.

The long abandoned mine has in parts the feel of Tolkien’s Moria, a sense of mystery and age, but there is also something squamous to it too, as well as something of the film Alien, for parts of the mine—or rather ‘The God With No Name’—are still alive and the shadows seem to move… This is because the god is not merely dead, but slumbering, even if for time immemorial, and the shadows are infested by the Void Doppler, the shadow child of ‘The God With No Name’ who stalks the living in search of body parts so that it can be reborn and walk under the sun. It leaves behind secretions of the void, and those void secretions spread as the Player Characters delve deeper and deeper, blocking off access to parts of the mine, including the way back out…

In addition to the descriptions of the mine’s locations and maps, The God With No Name is supported with a set of tables which provide rumours, encounters outside and inside the mine, and the contents of unmarked rooms. The table of rumours also works as a set of hooks to involve the Player Characters as there is no given set-up or hook to the scenario, and the table of valley encounters as a means to expand the adventure and flesh the scenario out a little more. The size and isolated nature of The God With No Name also means that it is relatively easy to drop into a Dungeon Master’s campaign.

There is scope in The God With No Name for some nasty, horrifying sessions of play, as the Player Characters are hunted from the shadows and their body parts are stolen one by one. However, the scenario is not without its issues, which either stem from its physical design or its tone. Physically, the fold up pamphlet design of The God With No Name means that its content feels constrained and having the descriptions on one side and the map on the other—when folded out, let alone folded up—does mean that in actual play, the scenario is not as easy as it should be to use. The scenario has no set-up or hooks for the Player Characters to get involved, so the Dungeon Master will have to create those, though she can, of course, make use of the given rumours table. Perhaps the biggest issue with the scenario is the tone and genre. Although this is a dungeon adventure, it is very much a ‘you’re locked in a room with a monster’ horror scenario a la the film Alien, its horror is not just of the dark and the shadows, but also of the body. As a body horror scenario, it creeps up on both the Player Characters and the Dungeon Master, and whilst it should be doing the former, it should not be doing the latter. Some warning to the prospective Dungeon Master should have been given upfront. Also, the scenario does not state what Player Characters Levels it is designed for, but the nature of the monsters encountered—trolls in the valley and the Void Doppler in the mine—suggest at least Fifth and Sixth Levels.

Physically, The God With No Name is a piece of design concision. It is compact and thus easy to store, but format does not make it easy to use. It is not illustrated bar the front cover and as to the cartography, Dyson Logos’ maps here are not his best, or even his most clear. The scenario does require a slight edit though.

Its compact size and content means it needs a little development upon the part of the Dungeon Master, but The God With No Name is creepy and not a little weird. If the Dungeon Master wants a short—two sessions or so—body horror scenario for her campaign, then The God With No Name certainly delivers.

Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been 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. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.

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Published by Magpie Games, Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game is a roleplaying game based on the award-winning Root: A Game of Woodland Might & Right board game, about conflict and power, featuring struggles between cats, birds, mice, and more. The Woodland consists of dense forest interspersed by ‘Clearings’ where its many inhabitants—dominated by foxes, mice, rabbits, and birds live, work, and trade from their villages. Birds can also be found spread out in the canopy throughout the forest. Recently, the Woodland was thrown into chaos when the ruling Eyrie Dynasties tore themselves apart in a civil war and left power vacuums throughout the Woodland. With no single governing power, the many Clearings of the Woodland have coped as best they can—or not at all, but many fell under the sway or the occupation of the forces of the Marquise de Cat, leader of an industrious empire from far away. More recently, the civil war between the Eyrie Dynasties has ended and is regroupings its forces to retake its ancestral domains, whilst other denizens of the Woodland, wanting to be free of both the Marquisate and the Eyrie Dynasties, have formed the Woodland Alliance and secretly foment for independence.

Between the Clearings and the Paths which connect them, creatures, individuals, and bands live in the dense, often dangerous forest. Amongst these are the Vagabonds—exiles, outcasts, strangers, oddities, idealists, rebels, criminals, freethinkers. They are hardened to the toughness of life in the forest, but whilst some turn to crime and banditry, others come to Clearings to trade, work, and sometimes take jobs that no other upstanding citizens of any Clearing would do—or have the skill to undertake. Of course, in Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game, Vagabonds are the Player Characters.

Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game is ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’, the mechanics based on the award-winning post-apocalyptic roleplaying game, Apocalypse World, published by Lumpley Games in 2010. At the heart of these mechanics are Playbooks and their sets of Moves. Now, Playbooks are really Player Characters and their character sheets, and Moves are actions, skills, and knowledges, and every Playbook is a collection of Moves. Some of these Moves are generic in nature, such as ‘Persuade an NPC’ or ‘Attempt a Roguish Feat’, and every Player Character or Vagabond can attempt them. Others are particular to a Playbook, for example, ‘Silent Paws’ for a Ranger Vagabond or ‘Arsonist’ for the Scoundrel Vagabond.

To undertake an action or Move in a ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ roleplaying game—or Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game, a character’s player rolls two six-sided dice and adds the value of an attribute such as Charm, Cunning, Finesse, Luck, or Might, or Reputation, to the result. A full success is achieved on a result of ten or more; a partial success is achieved with a cost, complication, or consequence on a result of seven, eight, or nine; and a failure is scored on a result of six or less. Essentially, this generates results of ‘yes’, ‘yes, but…’ with consequences, and ‘no’. Notably though, the Game Master does not roll in ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ roleplaying game—or Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game. 

So for example, if a Player Character wants to ‘Read a Tense Situation’, his player is rolling to have his character learn the answers to questions such as ‘What’s my best way out/in/through?’, ‘Who or what is the biggest threat?’, ‘Who or what is most vulnerable to me?’, ‘What should I be on the lookout for?’, or ‘Who is in control here?’. To make the Move, the player rolls the dice and his character’s Cunning to the result. On a result of ten or more, the player can ask three of these questions, whilst on a result of seven, eight, or nine, he only gets to ask one.

Moves particular to a Playbook can add to an attribute, such as ‘Master Thief’, which adds one to a character’s Finesse or allow another attribute to be substituted for a particular Move, for example, ‘Threatening Visage’, which enables a Player Character to use his Might instead of Charm when using open threats or naked steel on attempts to ‘Persuade an NPC’. Others are fully detailed Moves, such as ‘Guardian’. When a Player Character wants to defend someone or something from an immediate NPC or environmental threat, his player rolls the character’s Might in a test. The Move gives three possible benefits—‘ Draw the attention of the threat; they focus on you now’, ‘Put the threat in a vulnerable spot; take +1 forward to counterstrike’, and ‘Push the threat back; you and your protected have a chance to manoeuvre or flee’. On a successful roll of ten or more, the character keeps them safe and his player cans elect one of the three benefits’; on a result of seven, eight, or nine, the Player Character is either exposed to the danger or the situation is escalated; and on a roll of six or less, the Player Character suffers the full brunt of the blow intended for his protected, and the threat has the Player Character where it wants him.

Root: The Bertram’s Cove Quickstart is the Free RPG Day 2021 from Magpie Games for Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game. It includes an explanation of the core rules, six pregenerated Player Characters or Vagabonds and their Playbooks, and a complete setting or Clearing for them to explore. From the overview of the game and an explanation of the characters to playing the game and its many Moves, the introduction to the Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game in Root: The Bertram’s Cove Quickstart is well-written. It is notable that all of the Vagabonds are essentially roguish in nature, so in addition to the Basic Moves, such as ‘Figure Someone Out’, ‘Persuade an NPC’, ‘Trick an NPC’, ‘Trust Fate’, and ‘Wreck Something’, they can ‘Attempt a Roguish Feat’. This covers Acrobatics, Blindside, Counterfeit, Disable Device, Hide, Pick Lock, Pick Pocket, Sleight of Hand, and Sneak. Each of these requires an associated Feat to attempt, and each of the six pregenerated Vagabonds has one, two, or more of the Feats depending just how roguish they are. Otherwise, a Vagabond’s player rolls the ‘Trust to Fate’ Move.

The six pregenerated Vagabonds include Dara the Adventurer, a kindly Owl in search of friends and justice who prefers to subdue her opponents; Sherwin the Harrier, a highly competitive Squirrel always on the move; Clip the Ronin, a well-mannered Raccoon Dog who knows how to trick those in charge; Umberto the Raider, a sturdy axe-wielding Mouse and former bandit with a love of battle; Rattler the Pirate, a Mouse who is truly at home on the water; and Lucasta the Raconteur, a Weasel who is an outstanding performer. Most of these Vagabonds have links to the given Clearing in Root: The Bertram’s Cove Quickstart and all are complete with Natures and Drives, stats, backgrounds, Moves, Feats, and equipment. All a player has to do is decide on a couple of connections and each Playbook is ready to play.

As its title suggests, the given Clearing in Root: The Bertram’s Cove Quickstart is Bertram’s Cove. Its description comes with an overarching issue and conflicts within the Clearing, important NPCs, places to go, and more. Once again, the overarching issue is the independence of the Clearing. Bertram’s Cove is an important fishing port at the mouth of the Alberdon River on the eastern shore of the Grand Lake. An important Marquisate military and supply base, the Woodland Alliance has been providing support to the local rebels and spurred on by mysterious rebel hero, Captain Sparrowhawk, rebel pirates have been harrying Marquisate shipping in the area. The townsfolk of Bertram’s Cove have done well under the obedient peace of Marquisate military occupation, but many want their freedom and will do anything to achieve it. The conflicts include determining quite how far the rebels in the town are willing to go, finding a missing spy who might be able to identify the rebels in Bertram’s Cove for the Marquisate governor, searching for the treasure lost aboard a sunken Marquisate courier vessel, and ultimately, saving Captain Sparrowhawk. There is advice on how these Conflicts might play out if the Vagabonds do not get involved and there are no set solutions to any of the situations. For example, an attempted bombing by the rebels will go wrong if the Vagabonds do not intervene or get involved, leading to martial law and all fishing on the lake being banned—which would be a disaster for the port. All of Bertram’s Cove’s important NPCs are detailed, as are several important locations. Bertram’s Cove is a scenario in the true meaning—a set-up and situation ready for the Vagabonds to enter into and explore, rather than a plot and set of encounters and the like. There is a lot of detail here and playing through the Bertram’s Cove Clearing should provide multiple sessions’ worth of play.

The overarching issue is the independence of the Clearing. The Goshawk have managed to remain neutral in the Eyrie Dynasties civil war and in the face of the advance of Marquisate forces, but the future is uncertain. The Conflicts include the future leadership of the Denizens of Pellenicky Glade, made all the more uncertain by the murder of Alton Goshawk, the Mayor of Pellenicky Glade. There is advice on how these Conflicts might play out if the Vagabonds do not get involved and there are no set solutions to any of the situations. For example, there is no given culprit for the murder of Alton Goshawk, but several solutions are given. Pellenicky Glade is a scenario in the true meaning—a set-up and situation ready for the Vagabonds to enter into and explore, rather than a plot and set of encounters and the like. There is a lot of detail here and playing through the Pellenicky Glade Clearing should provide multiple sessions’ worth of play.

Physically, Root: The Bertram’s Cove Quickstart is a fantastic looking booklet, done in full colour and printed on heavy paper stock. It is well written and the artwork, taken from or inspired by the Root: A Game of Woodland Might & Right board game, is bright and breezy, and really attractive. Even cute. Simply, just as Root: The Pellenicky Glade Quickstart was for Free RPG Day 2020, Root: The Bertram’s Cove Quickstart is physically the most impressive of all the releases for Free RPG Day 2020.

If there is an issue with Root: The Bertram’s Cove Quickstart it is that it looks busy and it looks complex—something that often besets ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ roleplaying games. Not only do players need their Vagabond’s Playbooks, but also reference sheets for all of the game’s Basic Moves and Weapon Moves—and that is a lot of information. However, it means that a player has all of the information he needs to play his Vagabond to hand, he does not need to refer to the rules for explanations of the rules or his Vagabond’s Moves. That also means that there is some preparation required to make sure that each player has the lists of Moves his Vagabond needs. Another issue is that the relative complexity and the density of the information in Root: The Bertram’s Cove Quickstart means that it is not a beginner’s game and the Game Master will need a bit of experience to run the Pellenicky Glade and its conflicts.

Ultimately, Root: The Bertram’s Cove Quickstart comes with everything necessary to play and keep the attention of a playing group for probably three or four sessions, possibly more. Although it needs a careful read through and preparation by the Game Master, Root: The Bertram’s Cove Quickstart is a very good introduction to the rules, the setting, and conflicts in Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game—and it looks damned good too.

Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been 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. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.

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Goodman Games provided two titles to support Free RPG 2021, both of which were highly anticipated. One was Tomb of the Savage Kings, an adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. The other was potentially much more interesting. As its name suggests, Dark Tower: The Sunken Temple of Set is an expansion for Dark Tower, the scenario written by Jennell Jaquays and published by Judges Guild in 1979. The scenario details a dungeon built around two buried towers contested over by followers of Set and Mitra and the surrounding lands and has a strong Eastern Mediterranean and Egyptian flavour. Regarded as a classic, Dark Tower was included in ‘The 30 Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time’ at number twenty-one in the ‘Dungeon Design Panel’ in Dungeon #116 (November 2004)—notable because it was the only third-party scenario to be included on the list. In March, 2021, Goodman Games announced it had acquired Dark Tower from the Judges’ Guild, and would republish it for use with both Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.
Dark Tower: The Sunken Temple of Set is a mini-adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition which adds an extra area which can be added to the new edition of the Dark Tower scenario. This is a flooded box canyon to the east of the village of Mitra’s Fist at the far end of which stands a partially flooded, and as the Player Characters will discover, cursed temple. At first, it appears to be abandoned, but as they explore further, they are warned off, and then ultimately, will find signs of occupation. Here resides more agents of Set and their allies, each pursuing their own agenda—whether for or against the god of deserts, storms, disorder, violence, and foreigners. And that agenda may even see them giving aid to the invading Player Characters. The valley and temple complex are described in just eleven locations, but each location is highly detailed and easy to place on the nicely done map. The temple itself contains a good mix of traps, secret doors, a puzzle or two, and of course, nasty crocodilian and serpentine threats, many of which will be a challenge to defeat by the Player Characters. There is a decent amount of treasure to be found, as well as some singular magical items which do tie with the Dark Tower scenario.
Dark Tower: The Sunken Temple of Set is designed to be played by four to sixth Player Characters of Seventh and Eighth Level. In addition to the nasty reptilian threats they will encounter, the main challenge in the scenario is the environment—much of the temple is flooded. This will make fighting and exploring in those locations difficult. The scenario includes a decent background and several hooks which the Dungeon Master can use to persuade her players and their characters to investigate the valley and the temple. These work even if Dark Tower: The Sunken Temple of Set is not used as an expansion to Dark Tower, but work better if they are. In addition to detailing new weapons and magical items, the module details two new spells—Snake Charm and Ticks to Snakes.
Physically, Dark Tower: The Sunken Temple of Set is decently presented. The artwork is excellent, the cartography good, and whilst it needs a slight edit in places, the scenario is well written. Dark Tower: The Sunken Temple of Set is a good module which should challenge the Player Characters and provide everyone with a session or two’s worth of play. Dark Tower: The Sunken Temple of Set will make a fine addition to Goodman Games’ new version of Dark Tower, and is probably worth putting on hold until the two can be run together.

Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been 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. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.

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In 2020, the most radical release for Free RPG Day was LEVEL 1 – volume 1 2020. Published by 9th Level Games, Level 1 is an annual RPG anthology series of ‘Independent Roleplaying Games’ specifically released for Free RPG Day. LEVEL 1 – volume 1 2020 consisted of fifteen featuring role-playing games, standalone adventures, two-hundred-word Roleplaying Games, One Page Dungeons, and more! Where the other offerings for Free RPG Day 2020—or any other Free RPG Day—provide one-shots, one use quick-starts, or adventures, LEVEL 1 is something that can be dipped into multiple times, in some cases its contents can played once, twice, or more—even in the space of a single evening! The subject matters for these entries ranges from the adult to the weird and back again, but what they have in common is that they are non-commercial in nature and they often tell stories in non-commercial fashion compared to the other offerings for Free RPG Day 2020. The other differences are that Level 1 includes notes on audience—from Kid Friendly to Mature Adults, and tone—from Action and Cozy to Serious and Strange. Many of the games ask questions of the players and possess an internalised nature—more ‘How do I feel?’ than ‘I stride forth and do *this*’, and for some players, this may be uncomfortable or simply too different from traditional roleplaying games. So the anthology includes ‘Be Safe, Have fun’, a set of tools and terms for ensuring that everyone can play within their comfort zone. It is a good essay and useful not just for the fifteen or so games in LEVEL 1 – volume 1 2020.
LEVEL 1 – volume 2 2021—‘The Free RPG Day Anthology of Indie Roleplaying Games’—was made available on Free RPG Day in 2021 and once again provides some fifteen different roleplaying games of varying sizes, subject matters, and maturity in terms of tone. Once again, the volume opens with the same guidelines on safe play, consent, lines and veils, and so on, all useful reminders, especially given the subject matter for the issue, which is ‘Masks’. The issue is thus exploring questions and ideas about identity, different roles, and revelations (or unmasking).
LEVEL 1 – volume 2 2021 opens with Nat Mesnard’s ‘Ball of the Wild’, in which all of the animals shall go to the ball, but not as themselves. Instead they go as glamorous, crossdressing, speciesdressing dragged up attendees who bring all of their flamboyance and their joy as they participate in contests of dance, fashion, makeovers, lip syncing, comedy, and acting. Inspired by RuPaul’s Drag Race, this gets the anthology off to a good start with a layering of roleplaying upon roleplaying, before coming to a close with an unmasking. This is followed by ‘Once This Land Was One’. Written by Alexi Sergeant, this is a short storytelling game of cities attempting to survive following the Cataclysm and ultimately competing against each other. More timely and more in keeping with the anthology’s theme is Whitney Delaglio’s ‘Tiny Tusks’ in which half-orcs come together to talk about themselves and their families. This encourages the players to get behind the supposed perceptions of half-orcs and upfront states that the game is “…[A] self-indulgent game about being biracial.” What this means is that players can explore what for most is an unfamiliar experience through the mask of fantasy.
MV’s ‘Let’s wear masks & hide from humans’ is a vampiric game for two players. One takes the role of the City, the other the Vampire. Both are hiding behind masks—the City between night and day, the Vampire between a Human and a Vampire face. The Vampire hunts for victims to drain of the blood he needs across a city that the City player builds and is subsequently changed by the Vampire’s predations. Ultimately, this will culminate in the Vampire attempting to sneak into a Grand Ball where another immortal, vampire hunter, the city mayor, or distant family is also in attendance, and the Vampire may be unnoticed, captured, or identified, but escapes. ‘Faeries on the Run’ by Helena Real is a dark twist upon the changeling myth and the fae exchanging Human babies for their own. The players take of the roles of the changelings, each with a powerful Façade and magics of a Faerie Domain, who are hunted by the Humans who grew up in Faerie. Designed as a one-night affair of pure survival in which the Player Characters—in and out of game—taking place from dusk to dawn, this a horror game using simple mechanics in which the Player Characters must balance the sometimes need to use the powers of their Façade against the loss their human face and thus revealing their true nature and being banished back to Faerieland. Joel Salda’s ‘Heavy is the Mask’ is the second city-themed game in the collection in which unseen individuals—the Masks—who can be an Artist, Diplomat, Innkeeper, or more, work to build and shape the future of a city. From round to round, the players take control of these Masks and narrate how they attempt to solve problems and issues caused by the unclaimed Masks and created by the players in turn. This is an engaging storytelling and city-building game which could even be used to create a city’s history for another game.
‘Getting Away With It’ by Adam Bell is more complex than the previous entries and requires the use of a deck of tarot cards rather than a standard deck. It is about loosely affiliated supervillains in a long-term struggle against a league of heroes. Primarily, each villain is pursuing their own master plan, but can interact with the plans of their evil cohorts and of course, can sometimes be thwarted by a do-gooding superhero. This has plenty of scope for storytelling, but consequently requires a lot of input by the players. The complexity continues with ‘Friends on a Walk’, the contribution from Tim Hutchings, the designer of the ENnie award winning Thousand Year Old Vampire. This is a procedural game in which the players create and explore a tableau of changing scenery as several characters go on a walk. It is played silently, and that combined with the point-by-point of the way the game is presented and it feels not a little sterile. Mara Li’s ‘Restoration’ is a two-player game in which one player is Veteran returned from the Great War with an injury to his face, the other the Artist charged with creating a Mask which will restore his features. Based on the movement following the Great War to help restore damaged veterans’ faces (detailed here), this is a short game with the potential for personal intimacy and emotion as it does involve one of the player’s face. It does require a photograph and potentially some artwork too, as well as strong degree of trust.
Jonathon ‘Starshine’ Greenall’s ‘We Are The Order’ is about cultists, their rituals, and their masks. The players take the roles of Detectives undercover infiltrating The Order’s grand party with the Game Master as the Cult Order. Rituals are part of the party and so the Player Characters have to perform them even as they conduct their undercover operation. Unfortunately, the rituals have an almost brainwashing effect, turning The Order’s strongest critics into happy members, seemingly without resistance—and that means the Detectives. This is an interesting adversarial game in which first the Game Master is against the players and if one of them defects, then the player against the others. In ‘The Ascent of Todd’ by Michael Faulk, the players are faced by a terrible choice. They have travelled far to ritually destroy an ancient MASK, but their friend Todd has put it on! The players need to decide if their characters will try thwarting Todd or continue with the ritual. The powers and strength of an unthwarted Todd grow and grow, ultimately to the game ends and the ritual cannot be performed. The game comes with four pre-generated characters and can be played solo or with up to four players. This the game to play in remembrance of that one player who invariably did the most inappropriate thing at the most inappropriate time. In Josh Hittie’s ‘Death Mask’ the players take the roles of Revenants protecting Tomb City unsure of why they are bound to it and what lies beyond… As they explore Tomb City and protect it from Aberrations, they will uncover truths about it, strengthen their Reliquary or Fracture their Mask until they either become an unholy saint bound to Tomb City or their spirit is freed and they move toward the light…
‘The Chaos Café’ by Tim McCracken is about robots who think they are humans. Not just robots, but ‘Wrecks’ who and emotionally unstable and prone to giving into one single emotion, who have each set themselves three goals in life, such as ‘List out date ideas’ or ‘Work out self-doubt’, all whilst occasionally suffering from random acts of chaos. Players take it in turns to be the Game Master in this slice of silicon silliness, focusing on one Wreck with the others as possible NPCs. Lysa Penrose’s ‘Coven of Crones’ is about crones protecting the Loom of Destiny despite it having been broken and thus damaging your ability to do magic. They undertake mortal missions at any point in time and space, but their capacity to do magic is not only limited on the mortal realms, it causes chaos too! This is modelled with Spell Tokens which are flipped to become Chaos Tokens, and then back again when the Game Master uses them to cause mayhem about the crones. A balancing act is required between the two, but towards the end of the mission, the Game Master should be using and flipping more Chaos Tokens to ensure that the crones have the Spell Tokens to achieve their objective. Ultimately ‘Coven of Crones’ is about how the Player Characters succeed rather than if they will. Jack Rosetree’s ‘Skeletal Remains’ is set in world where everyone is undead and the Player Characters are skeletons attempting to fill in time when they have no objectives, but only memories. This is an interesting idea, but it is underdeveloped as it does not effectively bring the memories into play and acknowledges the lack of motivations for the characters by then offering three story ideas.
Maxwell Lander’s ‘Vis-a-Visage’ is a two-player game in which each has an opposing goal or opinion. Each character has a goal, a weakness, something that he will not compromise on, and a tell. This on the top half of the sheet, whilst his physical details and contacts are on the bottom half. This divide is because the players will swap the bottom halves of the sheets with each other. What this means is that each player will be trying to achieve a mission hindered—and sometimes even helped—by their characters looking like each. Essentially, the Player Characters Face-off until one has achieved his goal and then wants his face back to replace the mask he is currently using. The included character sheet is definitely needed to fully explain the game’s set-up. ‘Tooth or Truth’ by Dawn Metcalf is a game about building trust in which the characters answer questions truthfully—the aim of the game, or get drunk, and the drunker they get, the greater the chance of their swallowing a tooth. Presumably the tooth is in the drink, the rules are not quite clear on this. It is designed as an in-game drinking game and a means of developing and further roleplaying the Player Characters. The default is for Dungeons & Dragons, but ‘Tooth or Truth’ could be adapted to any rules or setting. It comes with twenty-five questions of increasing maturity, but it is easy to replace them. Playing this live would be another matter… Lastly, R.K. Payne’s ‘STALAG 14’ is about allied prisoners of war who have allowed themselves to be captured in order to conduct missions of sabotage, disruption, and disinformation deep inside of Nazi Germany, inspired by Hogan’s Heroes, Stalag 17, and The Great Escape. Instead of escaping, the Player Characters are using the tunnels to get out, complete their missions, and get back in. They take the roles like Medic, Fixer, Conman, Scrounger, Grunt, and Snitch and have Story Points which can be used to modify dice rolls or buy off stress. Mechanically, more dice are rolled depending upon how dramatic a scene and any doubles rolled means that a character has failed and suffered Stress. A Player Character can suffer a maximum of two Stress, whereas NPCs only one. Complete with a mission generator, ‘STALAG 14’ is intended to be a light-hearted game, more action-orientated than an accurate depiction of the war.

LEVEL 1 – volume 2 2021 is a slim, digest-sized book. Although it needs an edit in places, the book is well presented, and reasonably illustrated. In general, it is an easy read, and everything is easy to grasp. It should be noted that the issue carries advertising, so it does have the feel of a magazine.

As with LEVEL 1 – volume 1 2020 before it, LEVEL 1 – volume 2 2021 is the richest and deepest of the releases for Free RPG Day 2021. Not every one of the fifteen games in the anthology explores its theme of masks, but for the most part, the fifteen are interesting, even challenging, and will provide good sessions of roleplaying. The standouts are ‘Ball of the Wild’ and ‘Tiny Tusks’ as these nicely explore to issue’s theme to its best. Once again, despite the variable quality of its content, of all the releases for Free RPG Day 2021, LEVEL 1 - volume 2 2021 is the title that playing groups will come back to again and again to try something new each time.

Since 2001, Reviews from R’lyeh have contributed to a series of Christmas lists at Ogrecave.com—and at RPGaction.com before that, suggesting not necessarily the best board and roleplaying games of the preceding year, but the titles from the last twelve months that you might like to receive and give. Continuing the break with tradition—in that the following is just the one list and in that for reasons beyond its control, OgreCave.com is not running its own lists—Reviews from R’lyeh would once again like present its own list. Further, as is also traditional, Reviews from R’lyeh has not devolved into the need to cast about ‘Baleful Blandishments’ to all concerned or otherwise based upon the arbitrary organisation of days. So as Reviews from R’lyeh presents its annual (Post-)Christmas Dozen, I can only hope that the following list includes one of your favourites, or even better still, includes a game that you did not have and someone was happy to hide in gaudy paper and place under that dead tree for you. If not, then this is a list of what would have been good under that tree and what you should purchase yourself to read and play in the months to come.

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The Eldritch New England Holiday CollectionGolden Goblin Press ($50)The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection originated as a series of scenarios in the Miskatonic University Library Association monograph line, but Golden Goblin Press has collected and updated them to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, and presented them as a fully playable campaign set in Lovecraft Country. Not though as traditional Investigators of Call of Cthulhu, but as children growing up and attending family holidays—Halloween in Dunwich, Christmas in Kingsport, Easter in Arkham, and Independence Day off Innsmouth. They are aware that their hometowns are different, that horrors—both human and inhuman—lurk in dark places and even beyond the Veil of Sleep. As friends and family, they must face the dangerous truths of the secret world around them, including their relatives… The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection combines a sense of magical realism with Lovecraft’s cosmic horror and infuses traditional Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying with a sense of warmth and charm not found elsewhere in Call of Cthulhu.
Colonial Marines Operations ManualFree League Publishing ($41.99/£32)One of the big questions about the Alien: The Roleplaying Game is whether or not it could be played in Campaign mode. Alien: The Roleplaying Game can be played in two modes—Cinematic and Campaign. Cinematic mode is designed to emulate the drama of a film set within the Alien universe, and so emphasises high stakes, faster, more brutal play, and will be deadlier, whilst the Campaign mode is for longer, more traditional play, still brutal, if not deadly, but more survivable. However, until the publication of the Colonial Marines Operations Manual, a Campaign was something that the roleplaying game lacked. With its release, we got both a sourcebook on the history, organisation, and equipment of the United States Colonial Marine Corps, and a full blown, seven-part campaign for Alien: The Roleplaying Game. This is Frontier War, a horrifying campaign in which multiple factions vie for control of the biotechnology derived from the Xenomorphs. Frontier War consists of seven parts and combines Space Horror, Sci-Fi Action, and a Sense of Wonder, in a horrifically good, desperately deadly (but not too deadly), and epically grand military-conspiracy horror campaign.
Desert Moon of KarthJoel Hines ($24/£18)Desert Moon of Karth is a complete scenario for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game in a different vein for the Blue Collar Sci-Fi horror roleplaying game. It is a Space Western sandbox scenario inspired by Dune, Firefly, Alien, John Carter of Mars, Cowboy Bebop, and The Dark Tower. Located on the far edge of the galaxy, the Desert Moon of Karth is the only source of Coral Dust, the addictive powder harvested and ground from the bones of the ancient, almost mythic species known as the Wigoy. Thus there has been a ‘gold rush’ to Karth, plus its remoteness means that it has become a haven for criminals and the galaxy’s most wanted, all behind a world protected and blocked by a network of relic orbital satellites which shoot down all ships or flying objects—incoming or outgoing. The setting is built around ten locations of the sandbox and four factions, each with their own motivations and tasks for hire. Armed with an incredible set of inspiring tables, including the ever faithful, ‘What you find on the body’ table, the Game Master can support Desert Moon of Karth’s player-driven campaign as they and their characters—bounty hunters, on-the run criminals, prospectors, journalists wanting a story, and so on—explore the weirdness of this alien world. The rules-light Desert Moon of Karth is good not just for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game, but is a great little toolkit and scenario for almost any Science Fiction roleplaying game.
RuneQuest Starter SetChaosium, Inc. ($29.99/£29.99)If you thought the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set was good, then prepare to be amazed because the RuneQuest Starter Set is actually better. It uses the same format of rules, sample Player Characters, a solo scenario, and several scenarios you can play with your friends, plus dice, but there is more background content, fourteen ready-to-play Player Characters, a lengthy solo scenario, three lengthy scenarios to play with your friends, plus dice, play aids, and maps—maps that are gorgeously detailed in their depiction of Glorantha’s Sartar. Designed as an introduction to RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the RuneQuest Starter Set provides the prospective Game Master and her players with everything needed to start playing in the mythic world of Glorantha and then keep playing for multiple sessions. All of which is presented in an easy-to-learn fashion with the rules in one booklet, the background in another, the solo adventure in a third, and three adventures in the fourth. Further, the adventures booklet includes the complete details and a lovely map of the city of Jonstown, the perfect starting base for the Player Characters and provide further background that will be enjoyed by the veteran players of the game. No starter set has been as comprehensive as the RuneQuest Starter Set, making it the perfect entry point for both Glorantha and RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.
Knock! #1 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac The Merry Mushmen ($35/£25.99)2021 saw the continued rise of the gaming magazine and the Old School Renaissance got its own with Knock!, of which two issues were released in 2021. It came crammed with content—polemics and treatises, ideas and suggestions, rules and rules, treasures, maps and monsters, adventures and Classes, and random tables and tables, followed by random tables in random tables! All of which is jam-packed into a vibrant-looking book. Primarily designed for use with Necrotic Gnome’s Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy, the contents of Knock! are readily and easily adapted to the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice, making the magazine an incredible resource. It includes contributions from a wide array of the movement’s most influential writers, publishers, and commentators, some of the best entries being the ‘Dungeon Checklist’, ‘What Do Monsters Want?’, ‘300 Useless Magic Loot’, and ‘Borderlands’—the latter a surprisingly learned examination of B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Fantastically presented, it was followed up by a second issue which had even more content and thus more ideas and support for your Old School Renaissance campaign.
The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their IdentityMIT Press ($35/£30)The author of Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People and Fantastic Adventures, from Chess to Role-Playing Games explores the first decade of the roleplaying hobby in search of the answer to the question, “What was the first roleplaying game?” Or rather, when did the wargame, Dungeons & Dragons, and the similar games which followed it, actually become roleplaying games? In doing so, he charts the debate over questions such as the role and impartiality of the Referee, the right way to create characters, character competency versus player competency, who should roll the dice—the Referee or the players, how much should the player know about the game’s mechanics, how should Alignment work and affect a character, and what is the point of play—to acquire Experience Points and become superhuman, to explore and tell a story, or a combination of the two? This is a fascinating account of the earliest days of the hobby and its fandom, capturing it for posterity.
Matrons of MysterySavage Spiel ($6.75/£5)Inspired by the mystery stories of Miss Marple, Jessica Fletcher, and Father Brown, murder comes to your small cosy village and it is up to the ladies of a certain age to gather the clues, identify the culprit, and solve the murder! Based on Jason Cordova’s Brindlewood Bay, this storytelling roleplaying focuses entirely on the mystery. Using stripped down Powered by the Apocalypse mechanics, the matrons search for clues and chat with the suspects, each applying their own investigative style. Sometimes finding a clue is easy, but sometimes it comes with a complication or a condition, and when that happens, the Matrons can always have a ‘Nice Cup of Tea’ and so remove the condition. If the investigation gets really hairy and a Matron finds herself in trouble, she can always ‘Go to the Adverts’ and have everyone help resolve tense moment during the break! Once the Matrons have acquired enough clues, they can ‘Put It All Together’, make their accusation, and explain their deductions. The clever aspect of all of this is that every mystery comes with a potential set of suspects, complete with clues pointing towards their guilt, but no predetermined murderer. Who exactly committed the murder is all up to the Matrons of Mystery to deduce.
Jackals – Bronze Age Fantasy RoleplayingOsprey Games ($35/£25)Inspired by both history and the epic myth cycles of the Ancient Near East—The Iliad, The Odyssey, and Gilgamesh—Jackals – Bronze Age Fantasy Roleplaying takes place in Zaharets, the Land of Risings, a fantastic version of the Levant whose peoples have only recently risen up and over thrown the monstrously bestial kingdom of Barak Barad whose Taken enslaved humanity and staked their claim to the region by establishing cities at both ends of the War Road, the north-south route which helps ensure peace and prosperity. Yet dangers lurk beyond the road, dark secrets left over from Barak Barad, bandits raid the caravans on the road, and dark powers whisper promises of power to the ambitious. There is another danger—Jackals. Men and women who give up the safety of community and law and order to face the threats and mysteries which lie beyond the road. No good community would have truck with the Jackals. For who knows what evil, what chaos they might bring back with them? Yet Jackals keep the community safe when it cannot and some become Zaharets’ mightiest heroes, even leaders when they retire. This is an excellent set-up and makes for great community tension even as the Jackals give protection, and there is even a campaign available, Jackals: The Fall of the Children of Bronze.
Impossible LandscapesArc Dream Publishing ($64.99/£47.99)The first campaign for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game pulls the Agents into a world of twisted apartments and improbable architecture before dumping them out again and then pulling them back in again decades later to twist the world around them in a paranoia-infused mystery that defies both answers and conception. When even reality cannot be trusted there is only each other to rely upon in this insidious investigation into madness and mayhem whose answers—if not the solution, may lie on the shores of Lake Carcosa. Will you answer the call of the Yellow King? Can you withstand his influence which seems to change the reality around you? And if you can, just who are you working for and can you trust each other? Impossible Landscapes is a truly disturbing and brilliantly weird campaign, as both a book and a campaign, and the latter is supported by some incredibly rich, detailed, and layered handouts—handouts that constantly raise questions more they provide answers. 
Dune: Adventures in the ImperiumModiphius Entertainment ($63/£44.99)Finally, after twenty years of waiting since the release of Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium and with the release of the new film, the hobby got the Dune roleplaying game it deserved. Dune: Adventures in the Imperium the player take on roles of members of one the noble Houses of the Imperium and must guide its fortunes through the conflicts, conspiracies, and connivances which play out just under the veneer of formality and civility that every House projects. How this is played out—espionage, political or diplomatic manoeuvring, forging alliances, black operations, and even open warfare are potentially useful tools if the result can elevate the House to an even greater status. In game terms, this is played at the level of the House itself as an organisation, but as Player Characters—Bene Gesserit, Mentats, Smugglers, Spy Masters, Sword Masters, and more—they will not be influenced by such decisions, but they have the potential to affect their outcome with the success or failure of individual missions. Dune: Adventures in the Imperium combines the simple mechanics of the 2d20 System with an incredible amount of background detail. This is fantastic gaming adaptation of a highly detailed and much revered setting, and a must for any gamer who is a fan of Frank Herbert’s Dune.
Original Adventures Reincarnated #6: Temple of Elemental EvilGoodman Games ($63/£79.99)The sixth in the Original Adventures Reincarnated line from Goodman Games, this takes another classic scenario or campaign and combines high-quality scans from multiple printings of the original first edition adventure modules, commentary by gaming luminaries, and a complete adaptation of the original module for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition—and more. Coming as a two-book slipcase set, Original Adventures Reincarnated #6: Temple of Elemental Evil takes us back to T1 The Village of Hommlet and T1-4: The Temple of Elemental Evil as the region around Hommlet is once again beset by bandits and monsters. Has the great evil, defeated many years ago, returned to prey upon lands hereabout? Of course it has! Beginning with a classic village imperiled by evil—indeed, T1 The Village of Hommlet was one of the first villages to be so imperiled—brave adventurers will gather clues and investigate, eventually venturing into the Temple of Elemental Evil itself and delving deep into the complex below where it is said the evil still lies undefeated. Not just a great reproduction, Original Adventures Reincarnated #6: Temple of Elemental Evil is an expansion too into a complete mega-dungeon and mini-campaign designed for First Level through to Seventh Level. Original Adventures Reincarnated #6: Temple of Elemental Evil can be played through as of old, but the new addition brings new mysteries and encounters which will enhance the nostalgia.
The Company of the DragonChaosium, Inc. ($74.95/£55.49)Last year, the Jonstown Compendium, the community content programme for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, gave us a great starting campaign with Six Seasons in Sartar. Now the author of that campaign returns with an even bigger campaign, one that can be run as a standalone, but really works best as a sequel to Six Seasons in Sartar. In The Company of the Dragon the Player Characters must guide the survivors of their clan as they are forced to go on the run from the Lunar Empire. As they do, they must build and maintain their own community, to create their own myth, and ultimately, as they become involved in some of the major events leading up and including the Dragonrise, have them forge their own destiny. Superbly supported with tools, advice, and discussion, as well as numerous episodes to run, The Company of the Dragon is exactly what both the campaign and the sequel that Six Seasons in Sartar needed, as well as being a great prequel to the events of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and the forthcoming Sartar Campaign.

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

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What is it?
The Company of the Dragon is a campaign for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. It is based on a campaign developed on the author’s blog.

It is a sequel to the author’s earlier Six Seasons in Sartar: A Campaign for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, which can also be run as a standalone campaign.
Notes are included so that The Company of the Dragon can be run using Questworlds (formerly known as HeroQuest: Glorantha) or 13th Age Glorantha.
It is a two-hundred-and-seventy page, full colour, 222.29 MB PDF or alternatively a two-hundred-and-seventy page, full colour hardback book.

The layout is clean and tidy. It uses classic RuneQuest cartorgraphy,  the artwork is good, and although it requires an edit in places, is well written and easy to read.

Where is it set?
The Company of the Dragon is set across Sartar in Dragon Pass. Specifically, it is set between Earth Season, 1620 ST and Darkness Season, 1625 ST.

Who do you play?
If The Company of the Dragon is played as the direct sequel to Six Seasons in Sartar, the Player Characters will be dispossessed and on the run members of the Haraborn Clan, broken following a confrontation with the occupying forces of the Lunar Empire.
Alternatively, if The Company of the Dragon is played as a standalone campaign, the Player Characters should be Sartarites who have been rendered clanless due to the actions or influence of the Lunar Empire and therefore have a dislike of either Chaos or the Lunar Empire.
What do you need?
The Company of the Dragon requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the Glorantha Bestiary, the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack, and The Book of Red Magic. The Startar Campaign may also be useful.
What do you get?The truth of the matter is that like Six Seasons in Sartar before it, The Company of the Dragon is not one thing. Both are campaigns and both are more than the sum of their parts, for each and every one of those parts stands out on its own. Not necessarily because they are gameable, but together they contribute to the campaign as a very satisfactory whole.
First—and most obviously, The Company of the Dragon is a campaign and a sequel to Six Seasons in Sartar. In Six Seasons in Sartar, the players and their characters, newly initiated members of the Haraborn, the Clan of the Black Stag, the 13th Colymar clan play out the last year of existence before its sundering at the hands of the Lunar Empire. Brought to the attention of Kallyr Starbrow, the last few members of the clan—including the Player Characters—are on the run, hunted by both occupying Lunar forces and the empire’s indigent servants. They have taken to hills, one more dispossessed band of the clanless, relying at best on the generosity of those Sartarite hill clans prepared to support the victims of the Lunar Empire. Some—mostly the ‘gentrified’ Sartarites of the towns and cities—instead view them as bandits and rebels in the face of the peace and prosperity that comes with being a Lunar client state, and the divide between the Sartarites of the towns and the hills is an important aspect of the campaign.
As a campaign, the focus and setting for Six Seasons in Sartar was narrow—the Vale that is home to the Haraborn and the six seasons which run from 1619 ST and into 1620 ST. It did not so much take the Player Characters out of those confines, as force them out at the end of the campaign. The Company of the Dragon takes place between Earth Season, 1620 ST and Darkness Season, 1625 ST, during which time the Player Characters and their band, will crisscross Sartar, often with the enemy dogging their heels, potentially participating in the great events of the period, such as the Battle of Auroch Hills. Ultimately, as the campaign comes to a climax, the Player Characters will participate in the Dragonrise (which takes place just weeks before the beginning of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha) and the ascension of Kallyr Starbrow. Chronologically, this equates to the same period that players are rolling the family backgrounds for the active five years of their characters’ own adventuring in character generation in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. What this means is that The Company of the Dragon could be used as a means not to simply generate the backgrounds for the Player Characters, but rather play them out. This would work playing the campaign as members of the Haraborn clan or simply the dispossessed if run as a standalone campaign.
As a campaign, The Company of the Dragon consists of some twenty-seven seasons, covering some five years, into each of which can be slotted the campaign’s episodes. Some of these come pre-filled, such as The Forging, the campaign’s starting point, and then The Battle of Auroch Hills, Famine, Dragonrise, and Kallyr Starbrow. The rest are left empty for the Game Master to populate as best suits her campaign and her players. Over half of the book is dedicated to these, each broken down into its what, when, where, who, why, and how, before presenting potential exits. Some are connected, but many are standalone and many can be repeated, such as encountering ‘rival’ bandits, escaping from capture, facing the famine which besets Sartar due to the Great Winter, being hunted by the authorities, and so on. In many cases, these episodes can be varied slightly so that they do not feel repetitive. The episodes range in tone, some are merely exciting, others epic, and some truly horrific and creepy. Depending upon the players, there are some episodes which are of a mature nature and so may not be suitable for all groups, even though their roleplaying potential is still very high. 
Second, The Company of the Dragon is a means to quantify and run an organisation—in this a band of rebels which will rise above mere banditry and become a warband associated with and allied to Kallyr Starbrow. As a band on the run, the organisation becomes the Player Characters’ community, a mobile one, but a community, nevertheless. This is the ‘Company of the Dragon’ itself and the Player Characters form its Ring, its heart and ruling body, along with any other surviving NPCs from the Haraborn Clan, if the campaign is being run as a sequel to Six Seasons in Sartar. The community/warband is done as a Player Character in its own right, complete with Community characteristics, Runes, Reputation, and even skills. The Community characteristics interact with the world around in two ways. One is directly against another organisation, for example, against a Lunar force sent to track them down, and this is handled with opposed rolls, whilst the other is as resources, for example, donating food to a starving Clan and in doing so, depleting the warband’s Community Constitution. Throughout the campaign, the Player Characters must constantly keep track of and maintain the Community characteristics to ensure the warband’s survival.
Third, The Company of the Dragon is also a guide to Illumination, for the warband is also its own cult and has its own Wyter. This stems from the final scenarios in the earlier Six Seasons in Sartar, and ultimately the loss and replacement of Clan Haraborn’s Wyter. The Illumination involved is neither that of Nysalor or the Red Goddess, but that of Draconic Consciousness. Here The Company of the Dragon resolutely veers into ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’ territory and the author’s interpretation may not match that of the Game Master running the campaign. However, it does push the members of the company to become something more than a mere warband and perhaps achieve the mythic, if in a very different fashion.
Fourth, The Company of the Dragon is an initiation into the mysteries of Glorantha. These are primarily explored through the alternative form of Illumination, but The Company of the Dragon continues the writings in Six Seasons in Sartar which examined initiation rituals. Six Seasons in Sartar included detailed initiations for both Orlanth lay worshippers and Ernalda lay worshippers, but here expands on that to detail the rituals involved for Orlanth Adventurous, Vinga, Humakt, Babeester Gor, and Storm Bull. The last one detailed is that for The Company of the Dragon itself.
Fifth, The Company of the Dragon, much like Six Seasons in Sartar, is a toolkit. Take the various bits of the campaign and what you have is a set of tools and elements which the Game Master can obviously use as part of running The Company of the Dragon, but can also take them and use them in her own campaign. So this is not just the advice and discussion as to the nature of initiations and how to run them, but also the rules for creating and running streamlined NPCs—supported by a wide range of NPCs which the Game Master can modify, a guide to running character and story arcs, running and handling communities, and of course, advice on running both the campaign and RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha in general.
Sixth, The Company of the Dragon, much like Six Seasons in Sartar, is a conceit. Throughout the campaign, commentary is provided by a number of notable Gloranthan scholars and experts in Third Age literature, not necessarily upon the campaign itself, but upon the events detailed The Warbands of Sartar Under the Pax Imperii by Temerin the Younger, a Lunarised Sartarite who was intrigued enough by the ‘rebels’ of The Company of the Dragon to want understand what motivated its members. Again there are excepts from later authors, such as ‘Bands of Brothers, Circles of Sisters’ – The Warbands of Ancient Sartar by Deborah Abadi, or Miguel Moreno’s ‘Between Two Nations: Temerin the Younger’s Identity Struggle’ from The Journal of Heortling Studies, October 1998. As before, this device enables the author himself to step out of the campaign itself and add further commentary, not just from his own point of view, but from opposing views. Beyond that, the conceit pushes The Company of the Dragon as a campaign from being a mere campaign into being an epic, because essentially, it is what a heroic poem does.
Of course, The Company of the Dragon comes to an end. The climax manages to be epic and monstrous, gloriously involving the Company of the Dragon and the Player Characters. It enables them to be involved in the most pivotal events of the recent Gloranthan history and likely prove themselves to heroes worthy of myth and legend. 
Is it worth your time?
Yes—The Company of the Dragon is a superb treatment of community, myth, and destiny in Glorantha, which pushes the players and their characters to build and maintain their own community, to create their own myth, and ultimately, have them forge their own destiny. Packed with tools, advice, and discussion, this is exactly the sequel that Six Seasons in Sartar needed and whether as a sequel or a standalone campaign, is a superb prequel to the events of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and the Sartar Campaign.
No—The Company of the Dragon presents an alternative campaign set-up, one which takes place prior to the default starting date for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and requires you to play out season by season—and you may already have begun your campaign.Maybe—The Company of the Dragon includes content which is useful beyond the limits of its campaign—the initiation rites, the notes on heroquests, rules for streamlined NPCs, quick resolution rules for battles, and more. That more consists of almost thirty fully detailed adventures and adventure seeds which can be drawn out and developed by the Game Master. All useful in an ongoing campaign. 

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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Published in 1981, the second entry in the ‘X’ series of modules for Basic Dungeons & Dragons designed for use in conjunction Expert Dungeons & Dragons could not have been more different than the first. Both are pulpy in their tone and inspirations, but where X1 The Isle of Dread is a lush mashup of King Kong and Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle’s The Lost World with a dash of H.P. Lovecraft, X2 Castle Amber combines its Pulp sensibilities with a mixture of horror—the Gothic and the Lovecraftian in particular, sybaritic ennui, dreamlike dread, and woozy whimsey. The locations are different too, the Player Characters expected to sail to and explore a large island in search of treasure in X1 The Isle of Dread, whilst in X2 Castle Amber, they are unceremoniously pulled into an alternate dimension—not once, but twice—and forced to go looking for answers (and solutions) to their predicament, again not once, but twice. The bulk of X2 Castle Amber take place in a castle—or technically, it takes place in Château d’Amberville and is therefore not actually very castle-like—followed by a potentially lengthy wilderness section. In fact, having the scenario’s location before the wilderness section, when it is normally set after it in a traditional wilderness module, is very strange indeed, and that is in a very strange, often weird module indeed.
X2 Castle Amber is designed for a party of six to ten Player Characters, between Third and Sixth Level. The total of the party’s Experience Levels should be between twenty-six and thirty-four, ideally averaging thirty in total. Both X1 The Isle of Dread and X2 Castle Amber begin with the Player Characters on the Continent of the ‘Known World’. In X1 The Isle of Dread, they discover the journal describing a trip to the Thanegioth Archipelago, and lured by the mention of great treasure, sail off on the thousand-mile journey as soon as possible. In X2 Castle Amber, they are traveling to the Glantri City where they are hoping to find employment with one of the princes, but along the way, they get lost and are forced to make camp. After a sleep filled with nightmares, they awake to find themselves in the foyer of a mansion—a French mansion no less! With the mansion surrounded by a strange and very deadly mist, the Player Characters have no choice but to go forward and explore. In room after room, they will be confronted by one strange encounter after another—a nobleman who wants to set-up a bare-knuckle boxing match between his magen (or magical men) and whomever the party nominates as their champion, with bets on the outcome encouraged; a great banquet attended by ghosts which the Player Characters can attend and eat their fill, and in doing so gain great benefits or dire consequences; a room with its floor covered in a Green Slime, ceiling in a Black Pudding, and its only furniture, a very full treasure chest, is covered in a Grey Ooze; an Ogre servant who killed his mistress and now dresses like her and attempts to emulate her; a river in an Indoor Forest crossed by a bridge under which lives a troll; a noblewoman buried accidentally alive in the chapel by her brother—in a very obvious nod to Edgar Allan Poe; a throne room populated by skeletons frozen in their last moments; and a mad, misshapen court jester with the power to charm others and turn them into white apes! And this is only the start.
X2 Castle Amber is home to the aristocratic Amber or D’Amberville family, and they are either incredibly bored or insane, often both. Their aim, when encountering the Player Characters is not necessarily to kill them, but toy with them and extract some entertainment value. This is not to say that Castle Amber is not deadly or that its inhabitants are all friendly—it is deadly in a great many places and many of the inhabitants are decidedly hostile. It is deadly—and weird—in another way too. There are multiple means of a Player Character dying simply by eating the wrong thing or making the wrong choice, notably at the banquet and later when picking cards from a tarot deck, and then failing a Saving Throw. However, death is not the only effect that a Player Character might suffer, such as having the spell Feeblemind cast on him or being turned into a ghost, and there are also many beneficial effects that a Player Character might gain. For example, he might gain a permanent increase in Hit Points or actual attributes or an increase by one Level upon the completion of his next adventure beyond that of Château d’Amberville. There is also quite a lot of treasure, both monetary and magical, to be found if the Player Characters are thorough and are prepared to brave the castle’s many dangers.
For the most part, X2 Castle Amber is fairly linear. The Player Characters start at the foyer of the castle and work their through the West Wing into the Indoor Forest and from there either into the East Wing or the Chapel. Although this is a mansion, it does not have a lived-in quality. It is all quite self-contained and all but frozen in time. This applies to many of the individual rooms and locations too, which often feel more like tableaus awaiting the arrival of the Player Characters and their involvement, the mix involving opportunities for roleplaying in interacting with the inhabitants and deduction in working out the tricks and traps to be found in the castle—as well as combat. This sense of the scenario being frozen in time applies to the Player Characters too, for at the end of each gaming session, they are encircled by a cloud of amber light, a space in which they are protected from the denizens of the castle, including wandering monsters, can recover Hit Points and spells, and even train to go up a Level if they have acquired enough Experience Points. This not only enhances the oddness of the Château d’Amberville, but it suggests a degree of agency upon the part of someone else… This though is only the first part of X2 Castle Amber.
Much of the first part of the scenario is presented as a mystery. Not so much a murder mystery—although that is sort of present in the scenario’s overall plot—but a mystery as what is going on and why the Player Characters have been pulled into the weird and whimsical world of Castle Amber. Plus of course, how they escape the castle and ultimately the grey mist. The scenario makes this relatively easy in placing a scroll in several places around the castle which gives explicit instructions as to the means of escape. This requires that the Player Characters locate several Silver Keys and then the Gate of the Silver Keys, which is located in the dungeons below Castle Amber, and from there travel to the original homeland of the D’Amberville family, Averoigne, and this is where the scenario opens up and again marks it out as something different to previous scenarios.
Averoigne is a mythical province of France and the setting of a series of short stories by Clark Ashton Smith which originally appeared in Weird Tales magazine. Used with permission, this marks X2 Castle Amber out as one of the first scenarios for Dungeons & Dragons to use licensed content and the module includes a list of all of the stories in its bibliography. Unlike in the castle, the Player Characters have far more freedom of movement in Averoigne—to an extent. No longer are they in a Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy land, but an ahistorical fantasy land, one based on mediaeval France in which magic is outlawed by the church and the likelihood is that any demi-human Player Character is likely to be regarded as an abomination. So as much as they freedom of movement, they are constricted by the society of the land they are in. Like any good wilderness scenario, the Averoigne section of X2 Castle Amber is a sandbox which the Player Characters must explore driven by the need to locate the four items they need to unravel the final scenes of the scenario. So there is a need for subterfuge here unless the Player Characters want to become outlaws and fugitives.
However, advice and background for the Dungeon Master for this section of the scenario is perhaps a little underwritten. X2 Castle Amber is definitely not a sourcebook for Clark Ashton Smith’s Averoigne—though it could certainly form the basis of one—and so states that, “The encounters in this part of the module are left sketchy since most take place in cities and would require more detail and space than is available in this module. The DM should flesh out each adventure as he or she desires, designing NPCs, town streets and other details as necessary.” Potentially, this does leave the Dungeon Master with a lot of work to develop encounters and NPCs should her Player Characters deviate too much from the four quests to find the items necessary for them to progress onwards. At the very least, the Dungeon Master will need to improvise some of the encounters and NPCs outside of the scenario’s plot, and as a consequence, X2 Castle Amber is best run by an experienced Dungeon Master rather than one new to Dungeons & Dragons.
Lastly, the Player Characters can enter the scenario’s final dungeon, The Tomb of Stephen Amber. This is X2 Castle Amber at its mostly deadly, a complex of nine rooms, containing in turn, a Blue Dragon, a Flame Salamander, a Wyvern, a Stone Giant, a Manticore, a Mud Golem, a Great White Shark, and a five-headed Hydra, and that is in addition to dangerous environments in these denizens reside. Now the Player Characters will not face all of these creatures, but they will face most of them, making for a tough physically challenging end to the module. If the Player Characters persevere and survive, they will encounter the NPC who has been sort of helping them along the way, be thanked, and richly rewarded for their efforts, including the resurrection four of their dead comrades—if they want. Surely, there can be no clearer indication of how tough a module if the Player Characters are being offered the chance of resurrection at the end?
Rounding out X2 Castle Amber is a bestiary of seventeen new—or mostly new—monsters. These include Amber Lotus Flowers, Giant Amoeba, Aranea, Brain Collector, Death Demon, Mud Golem, Grab Grass, Gremlin, Killer Trees, Lupin, Magen (of various types), Pagans, Phantoms, Rakasta, Slime Worm, Sun Brother, and Vampire Roses. Of these, the Aranea and the Rakasta originally appeared in X1 The Isle of Dread, and of the rest, the Pagans are worshippers of nature some of whom actually practice human sacrifice…! They can be found in the castle and in Averoigne, whilst some of the larger monsters are confined to the castle’s dungeon, including the Neh-Thalggu, or brain collector, and the Slime Worm.
Physically, X2 Castle Amber is done in the traditional format for TSR, Inc.’s modules—a wraparound cover with maps on the inside, containing a plain black and white booklet inside. The Errol Otus cover depicting a giant wielding a tree trunk and grabbing a castle tower is excellent, but not necessarily appropriate to the events of the scenario. The internal illustrations, many of them done by Jim Holloway are superb, imparting both the horror and the humour of the module.  
One interesting aspect of X2 Castle Amber is how in 1981 it prefigures I6 Ravenloft and Ravenloft itself as a campaign setting. Surrounded by a strange grey mist, Castle Amber is essentially a pocket dimension all of its very own—as is Averoigne in the later part of the module—and both would sit very easily on the Demiplane of Dread as Domains in their own right. Of course, the module is completely unconnected to Ravenloft for obvious reasons, but the similarities are there such that importing X2 Castle Amber into the Realm of Terror campaign setting for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition, without any difficulty at all. Further, given that both have the influence of Edgar Allan Poe in common, with some adjustment, X2 Castle Amber could also be adapted to be run as part of a Masque of the Red Death campaign as well.
As a complete scenario, X2 Castle Amber is principally a ‘funhouse’ dungeon, essentially a series of self-contained tests and challenges consisting of mostly puzzles and traps with little to any overarching plot or nod to consistency. Hence you have a weird room layered with puddings and oozes, and a ceiling with shafts in that hide a myriad of traps. The effect initially then, is to confuse both Dungeon Master and then her players. First the Dungeon Master, because the module provides a sort of over view and of course, advises her to read the module through carefully, yet until she has actually done so, she will not really grasp what is going on and what the full plot is. This is because it is not effectively explained in the introduction to an infuriating degree, leaving it to the Dungeon Master to thoroughly read through the module to find out what is going on. Second for the players and their characters. They will have no idea what is going with the characters’ abduction and limited choice but to go forward and explore. Only once the Player Characters find the scroll they will at least have an objective and even then, there is the possibility that they will find the scroll, collect everything they need in Averoigne, do everything necessary to solve the mystery of how to leave Castle Amber, but never work out or learn what the overall plot is. However, by this point, the Dungeon Master will of course know what is going on.
The funhouse aspect of X2 Castle Amber also comes out in the humour, often dark humour, of the scenario. This includes squirrels with the Midas touch, the Jester with his White Ape companions, and Gremlins whose Chaotic area of effect will reflect spells, prevent mechanical effects from working, trousers to fall down, helmets to slip down over the eyes, and the like, all at their whim and amusement. 
One issue with X2 Castle Amber which will require an experienced Game Master is the underwritten motivations of the NPCs, specifically the members of the D’Amberville family. Although the background to the Amber family is given and it is made clear that none of them is actually sane, ranging from slightly eccentric to completely insane, that they are Chaotic, uncooperative, bored, and looking for some diversion to relieve that boredom, individual motivations—apart from one or two—are sorely lacking. Which leaves the Dungeon Master with a lot of effort to put into the portrayal of these NPCs, many of them of high-Level Magic-users and Clerics beyond that possible in Basic Dungeons & Dragons and Expert Dungeons & Dragons at the time of the module’s publication.
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X2 Castle Amber was reviewed by Jim in White Dwarf No 35 (November, 1982), who said, “Castle Amber is the second module for use with the Expert Set and is an attempt to bring randomness back into D&D. The 3rd and 6th level party become trapped in Castle Amber where they are beset by the members of the Amber family. Escape lies into a wilderness on another world where magic is frowned upon and spell casters may well come to the attention of the Inquisition. Non-humans are going to have a hard time here as they will be very conspicuous. Amber Castle depends a lot on chance leaving little room for skill and at times can be deadly.” His conclusion was that “I don’t recommend X2 unless you like chaotic adventures and designing urban areas.” and gave it a score of six out of ten.
More recently, X2 Castle Amber was included in ‘The 30 Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time’ in the ‘Dungeon Design Panel’ in Dungeon #116 (November 2004). Author of Return to the Keep on the Borderlands, John Rateliff said, “A rare example of a licensed product that shines both for its treatment of the original setting and for its excellence as a D&D adventure. Inspired by the ‘Averoigne’ stories of Clarke Ashton Smith, the best of the Weird Tales writers, it has a distinctive quirkiness, dangerous and sensuous and slightly amused all at the same time. There’s a reason it inspired not one but two sequels.”
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By being set on an alternate plane of existence, X2 Castle Amber is very self-contained, which means that it is incredibly easy to adapt to other settings, whether that is as a Demiplane of Ravenloft or elsewhere. Yet initially, X2 Castle Amber feels incomprehensibly weird, leaving the Dungeon Master with little or no idea as to what exactly is going on, but give it the careful read through that every module demands—and is warranted here more than most—and the module’s weirdness and whimsy begins to come together. In places, underwritten and underdeveloped by modern standards though it is, X2 Castle Amber does have a coherency, eventually, that the archetypal ‘funhouse’ dungeon often lacks and the challenge perhaps lies in imparting that sense of coherency to the players. In addition to that, X2 Castle Amber does leave the Dungeon Master with a lot to develop to get the very most out of the adventure, whether that is fleshing out the motivations of individual D’Amberville family members or expanding upon the Averoigne wilderness section. The latter is arguably a not much more than a fascinating snapshot of the county which deserved further exploration which it never got in Dungeons & Dragons. It certainly would have made a fine addition to Ravenloft. 
X2 Castle Amber is not perfect and it requires a lot of input upon the part of the Dungeon Master, but it is a fantastic Dungeons & Dragons adventure, made all the more enjoyable by its whimsy and weirdness, its humour and its horror. This with the combination of the Gothic and the Pulp Horror push it away from the classic medievalism of earlier modules into a much darker fantasy than that typically found in Dungeons & Dragons, and that is why X2 Castle Amber is regarded as a classic.

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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The year 1991 gave the hobby two radical roleplaying games. Both focused on plots, intrigue, and story. One was Vampire: The Masquerade, which introduced us to the World of Darkness and playing monsters almost as a kind of unnatural superhero roleplaying game, and did so in a stunning looking book. It would go on to win the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Rules of 1991. The other was Amber Diceless Role-Playing, which as the title suggests, was radical in a wholly different way.
Amber Diceless Role-Playing is a licensed roleplaying game based on the Chronicles of Amber, the ten-book series by Roger Zelazny. The books are set in the one true reality that is the kingdom of  Amber with every other world or realm being a reflection or ‘Shadow’ of the kingdom—including Earth—all the way out to the Courts of Chaos. Amber is ruled by one family with many members who plot and scheme for the throne and who have mental and physical powers that are almost godlike. Not only that, but they also have the ability to walk through and manipulate the Shadows after having walked the Pattern, a symbol of the order of the universe, as well as use Trumps. These are playing card-sized decks illustrated with members of the family which can be used to contact each other, transport between their respective locations if they are willing, and even scry on each other—if they are careful. Given their long life and their ability to step out into a Shadow where time might run faster, an Amberite can also have almost any skill he wants, but ultimately that skill may not matter against the true mental and physical abilities of an Amberite.  There are seventeen or so brothers and sisters in the Amber royal family, all the children of Oberon, the first King of Amber who has disappeared at the time of the first book, Nine Princes in Amber. However, the players do not take the roles of these princes of Amber, but their children, and they can be as fractious as their parents and their aunts and uncles—and even towards their parents and their aunts and uncles. The fourth novel in the series, Hand of Oberon, asked, “What would have another generation have been like?” Amber Diceless Role-Playing sets out to answer that question.
A character or Amberite in Amber Diceless Role-Playing is defined by four attributes—Psyche, Strength, Endurance, and Warfare. Warfare covers fighting and strategy of any kind; Endurance is health, fortitude, and tenacity; Strength is raw physical power; and Psyche is mental strength and ability with a host of different magical powers. A Player Character begins play with all four attributes at Amberite level, which means that he is capable of defeating almost every person or creature that he might meet out in Shadow. At that level though, any Amberite with a higher value—even a slightly higher value—in an attribute will nearly always beat him. They can also be lower—Chaos or Human level. However, most Amberites will have attributes higher, much higher. Plus, there is no limit to how high an attribute can go. A Player Character can also have Powers. Pattern Imprint and Trump Artistry are common to most Amberites, whilst Logrus Mastery and Shapeshifting are found amongst the members of the Courts of Chaos. All are incredibly powerful and can be used with relative ease, often reflexively once known, whereas Magic takes time, effort, and study. Magic comes in three forms: Power Words are instantaneous effects primarily used defensively, Conjuration covers the creation and empowering of artefacts and creatures, and Sorcery details more complex, but inordinately more time-consuming spells. In addition, a Player Character can have allies, his own Shadow, and signature artefacts—arms and armour are common since swords are the most often wielded weapons in the setting.
Character creation in Amber Diceless Role-Playing is not only diceless, but co-operative and adversarial. Diceless because no dice are rolled, co-operative because it done together, and adversarial because the Player Characters will be better in one or more of the attributes than their cousins. This is because character creation is handled as an auction, the player bidding in each of the four attributes, if not to be the best, then at least be better than their potential rivals. This automatically sets up rivalries between the characters with the players outbidding each to see whose character is the best. Points bid are lost—or rather expended—to determine where each of the Player Characters ranked in terms of the four attributes, with a higher ranked character nearly always able to beat a lower ranked character. However, a player can decide to pass and buy up to just under another character’s in an attribute and do so in secret, adding a degree of uncertainty in deciding or knowing who is better. Then beyond the four attributes, a player is free to purchase the Powers, Shadows, allies, artefacts, and so that he wants his character to have. The problem here is that no player has enough points for all of this.
At the start of the attribute auction, each player has one hundred points on which to bid on his character’s attributes and purchase his powers. Each of the Powers is really good—and that is before a player considers the advanced versions, and the auction can get fiercely competitive, especially in the key Psyche and Warfare attributes. Options then might be for the player to decide to buy down at attribute, either to Chaos or even Human level. Then a player might opt to help the Game Master by contributing a diary or keeping a campaign log, or even writing poetry or stories, or he might opt for his character to have Bad Stuff. Essentially, Bad Stuff is bad luck and means that things invariably do not go the character’s way and that he suffers from a poor reputation. Should a player have points left over from character creation, they are converted to Good Stuff. Having Good Stuff means that the things invariably do go the character’s way and he benefits from a positive reputation. EdmundEdmund grew up an orphan out on a Shadow and only began to discover his heritage when he found Witherbrand, renowned for its cutting remarks, which began to teach him about the true nature of the universe. He has yet to discover which of the sons and daughters of Amber is his true parent and that is his primary goal.
PSYCHE: 5th [16 points]STRENGTH: 5th [5 points]ENDURANCE: 3rd [10 points]WARFARE: 3rd [24 points]
55 Total Points in AttributesPattern Imprint [50 points]WITHERBRAND – Sword [14 points]Deadly Damage [4 points]Able to Speak in Tongues and Voices [4 points]Sensitivity to Danger [2 points]Shadow Path [2 points]Alternate Forms, named and numbered [2 points]Bad Stuff [1 point]Personal Diary [+10 points]
Mechanically, in Amber Diceless Role-Playing—because it is diceless, a character can do almost anything as long he has the capability and can narrate it, and long as it is not challenging or he is not opposed. Further, Powers such as Pattern Imprint and Logrus enable a Player Character to literally manipulate the worlds around him. If a character is opposed, combat can ensue and whilst the character with the highest rank will likely win, there are circumstances when another attribute will influence the outcome. For example, in a contest of Warfare, the character with the higher Endurance might be able to outlast his opponent or laying his hands on his opponent with his higher Strength defeat him in a grapple. Like the rest of the game, combat is handled narratively, whether that is simple matter of affirming that a Player Character defeats an opponent out on a Shadow or when faced by one of his rival Amberite cousins or an agent from the Courts of Chaos, played out blow-by-blow, right down to the stances assumed and the manoeuvres made. If this sounds all too simple, then on one level it is. Yet, at the level of the blow-by-blow account of a duel—whether using swords, armies, magic, or even wits, it is far from simple. It takes narrative skill and judgement upon the part of the Game Master to unfold the outcome of such an encounter effectively and reasonably—though not necessarily fairly because stories are not always like that and a Player Character may just have some Bad Stuff which will probably influence the outcome too.
Fortunately, the handling of combat is liberally illustrated with not one, but eight examples of play, depending on the skill of the combatants. It is these examples where Amber Diceless Role-Playing begins to shine. There are not just examples of combat and of play, but a complete example of auctions for all four attributes, followed by examples of the Game Master working through the resulting characters with her players to get better more playable results that match their concepts. In addition, all of the Powers and the types of magic are explored in depth and detail, not just to understand how they work, but also how they can be brought into a campaign in interesting ways to challenge the Player Characters. To be fair, the advanced versions are not explored in as great depth as the standard versions, but the likelihood is that few of the Player Characters are going access to those at the start of a campaign. This is followed by an examination of twenty of the Elder Amberites, including different versions built with differing number of points, suggesting their roles in a campaign, and what each would be like as a parent. Plus allies and artefacts. Any fan of the Chronicles of Amber will enjoy both the examinations of the various powers and the Amberites in particular, especially the latter where the designer begins to diverge away from the baseline narrative and point of view that is Corwin’s in the first five books of the series. 
For the Game Master there is advice on running the game, which though may look obvious today, at the time of roleplaying game’s release would have been perhaps not quite as widely accepted. Much of this caps the advice throughout Amber Diceless Role-Playing, covering character backgrounds, outline hints for the rules of engagement for character information, choices, and other narrative elements. It even goes one step further into the radical by suggesting that “The best kind of roleplaying is pure role-playing. No rules, no points, and no mechanics.” and the playing group best ditch everything from character creation, points, magic, rules, and even the Game Master! This though may be step too far though given how much of a step change even the diceless, narrative style of play in Amber Diceless Role-Playing would have been at the time of its publication.
Rounding out Amber Diceless Role-Playing is a set of three scenarios, each of a differing nature. ‘The Throne War’ is an experimental way to play, intentionally designed as the opposite of an atypical game of Amber Diceless Role-Playing. In this, everything from attributes to Powers is up for bid in the auction and the Player Characters are actively campaigning—and thus the players playing—against each other in a bid to become King of Amber. As the first scenario in the book it is literally a swerve away from the way the game is typically played and is not really suitable as a first scenario. It is followed by ‘Battleground on Shadow Earth’ which is framework for a battle between Law and Chaos which the Player Characters need to cleave through to get to the source of the problem. The third scenario, ‘Opening the Abyess’ which does open with a deus ex machina, but is otherwise a better plotted and more interesting set-up at the very least, which the Game Master can extend into a campaign.
Physically, Amber Diceless Role-Playing is clearly written and laid out with some excellent black and white artwork. In terms of tone and style, it is clear that the author loves the Chronicles of Amber and is thoroughly engaged with the series and wants the reader to love it just as much. This infectious pervades the pages of Amber Diceless Role-Playing from start to finish and the book is an immensely enjoyable read.
If perhaps there is a downside to Amber Diceless Role-Playing, the most obvious is that the roleplaying game is a step too far into the radical and away from the accepted notions of what a roleplaying is and how a roleplaying game is actually played and run. They should have dice and a resolution mechanic, and the players should not have to compete for aspects of their characters like their attributes. Yet make that a hurdle to overcome and is it really a downside rather than an adjustment to be made, even if one that is not for everyone? Perhaps then the downside is the evangelising tone which the author of Amber Diceless Role-Playing takes in places, such as when it pushes the aforementioned radical step of ditching the rules or describes Amber as the grandest of settings or when it states that it is the Game Master’s job to encourage and teach good roleplaying and is accompanied by advice on how to deal with players who prefer bashing monsters, are indifferent, or rules lawyers. Perhaps it does go too far, but is it any worse than any other roleplaying game designer espousing ‘the one true way’? Certainly there have been plenty of tomes of advice on being a good Game Master and a good player, and the differences between them and Amber Diceless Role-Playing look negligible in hindsight. Lastly, there may be an issue with just how much detail there is in Amber Diceless Role-Playing and that it does not cover everything in the Chronicles of Amber in sufficient detail. Fair enough, but it is just the one book. There is Shadow Knight, a second supplement which explores the Courts of Chaos in more detail, as well issues of the fanzine, Amberzine.
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Dirk DeJong reviewed Amber Diceless Role-Playing in Challenge Issue 65 (October 1992) as a fan of the novels. He identified that, “The biggest problem with this endeavor, and its downfall, is the nature of the conflict systems. First, they are diceless, and don’t involve any sort of random factors at all, aside from those that you can introduce by roleplaying them out.” …although he countered with “Admitted, this does force more cautious play, as most fights are simply to test your opponent’s prowess, rather than for your blood.” He also said, “In Amber’s favor, I have to say the gamemaster help sections, the sections for players on how to be better roleplayer, and the amount of time spent on how to really create a flesh-out character were excellent. If more RPGs had this quality of work and obvious love of roleplaying put into them, the entire industry would benefit.” In his Evaluation, he said, “As to whether or not you should buy “Amber,” I have to profess that it is really up to you. If you love Zelazny and the Amber series, jump on it, as this is the premier sourcebook for the running an Amber campaign. Just don’t expect miracles from the game system itself. Personally, I just can’t get tuned on by a system that expects me to either be content with a simple subtraction of numbers to find out who won, or to describe an entire combat blow by blow, just so that I can attempt some trick to win. In my final estimation, the good and the bad pretty much balance out, leaving me with “Zero Stuff.””
Amber Diceless Role-Playing was given a feature review in White Wolf Magazine #31 (May/June 1992) which included opinions from multiple contributors. The lead reviewer, Steve Crow readily identified flaws in its auction attribute system, the combat rules and firearms, and the fact that “Amber is not a game for beginning gamemasters or players. Understandably, it is impossible to deal with every permutation of Zelazny's concepts in 256 pages. The gamemaster must have a good grasp of the material. If nothing else, he’ll need to know the material so he can explain it to theplayers and interpret their actions.” He concluded though with “Amber is, overall, an appealing game. It encourages the use of imagination, character development, and problem solving. Its main flaw is that it is, more often than not inaccessible to novice gamers and individuals unfamiliar with Zelazny’s work. It is undoubtedly a game for experienced gamers. While I would not recommend Amber to novices, it is a must buy for experienced gamemasters and players looking for new challenges.” He gave it a rating of four.
Sam Chupp also gave Amber Diceless Role-Playing a rating of four and said that, “This is a game for expert roleplayers, people who have outgrown Monty Haul and killer-dungeon style games and who are looking for something challenging.” Mark Rein-Hagen increased the rating to five and said, “Amber is an extraordinary game. Not so much because it is well put together and fun to play  (though it is), but because it is something entirely new.” describing Amber as “…[A] revolutionary work in roleplaying, deserving the highest accolades, but it is pioneering work and is not all it should be. I can hardly wait to see what is coming next. Whatever it is, it will owe a great deal to Amber.” before concluding that, “If you want to see what roleplaying might someday become, read Amber.”
However Robert Hatch only gave Amber Diceless Role-Playing a rating of three, saying that “As a sourcebook for Zelazny’s world, this product is unparalleled. As an actual game - well, it's not one, really, any more than a Choose Your Own Adventure book is. While Amber could work in  the hands of a very talented GM, I think all too many other campaigns will fail.” Lastly, Stewart Wieck was more positive and also gave it a rating of four. He said, “The game is certainly most valuable and understandable to those who read and enjoyed Zelazny’s exciting books, but the roleplaying conventions employed and introduced make this a game that really needs to be investigated by anyone interested in seeing this hobby develop. Additionally, the game would be less with dice.” He finished by saying, “In the end, Amber can be approached one of two ways. Either read it merely as an experience in “mature” roleplaying, or prepare to dig in and enjoy a long and complicated campaign.”
Amber Diceless Role-Playing was reviewed not once, but twice in Dragon Magazine #182 (June 1992). First by Lester Smith, who wrote, “As impressed as I am with the game, do I think it is the “end-all” of role-playing games, or that diceless systems are the wave of the future? I’ll give a firm “No” on both counts. First, the AMBER game is pretty much Amber-specific.” and “Second, as fun as the AMBER game can be, there are certainly times when I’m not up to such intense role-playing and would rather take part in a dungeon crawl.” He concluded that, “…[T]he AMBER DICELESS ROLE-PLAYING game is destined for great popularity and a niche among the most respected of role-playing game designs.” 
This was followed by a second opinion from Allen Varney. He was clear that, “The “attribute auction” in character generation is brilliant and elegant.”, but criticised it because, “Advancement comes slowly, perhaps too slowly. Players have little idea how their own characters improve, let alone other players’ characters.” He also advised that, “…AMBER game clearly targets the most experienced GMs (and players!). But it’s tough work. Proceed with caution.” Overall, he commented that Amber’s “…[B]old approach unsettles me. Politically, I must applaud the dominance of story values over rules. The text offers copious advice, including scripts that advise GMs how to stage a fight at varying levels of detail. But I betray my upbringing. I keep looking for a way to sequence combat, hit points, and all those training wheels I grew up with.”, before concluding that, “Yet the intensity of the AMBER game indicates Wujcik is on to something. When success in every action depends on the role and not the roll, players develop a sense of both control and urgency, along with creativity that borders on mania.”
Loyd Blankenship reviewed Amber Diceless Role-Playing in Pyramid #2 (July/Aug., 1993). He stated that “Amber is a valuable resource to a GM - even if he isn't running an Amber game. For gamers who have an aspiring actor or actress lurking within their breast, or for someone running a campaign via electronic mail or message base, Amber should be given serious consideration.”
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Amber Diceless Role-Playing is a fantastic sourcebook for any devotee of the Amber Chronicles, presenting the setting and its very many characters in an accessible fashion and exploring every facet of both them and their powers. However, when it came to the gaming, Amber Diceless Role-Playing broke every conceived notion of designing a roleplaying game, for although it had rules, it had no mechanics in terms of a resolution system, no means of randomly generating the outcome of an action. Instead, its resolution system consisted of the roleplaying skill and storytelling ability of both the player and the Game Master, as well as the capacity of the Game Master to interpret and narrate the rules and narrative as fairly as possible. In doing so, it not only emphasised storytelling capacity and skills, but demanded a high level of trust between player and Game Master that they both be the best roleplayers that they could. This is perhaps as demanding and as pure a roleplaying game as ever there was in making such demands. 
As a roleplaying game based upon the Chronicles of Amber, there can be no doubt that AAmber Diceless Role-Playing is a superb adaptation, and a satisfying examination of the setting and characters of Amber. As a roleplaying game or book just to read, it is an engaging, even enthralling joy to read from start to finish, whether in the rules examples and ideas or its exploration of the setting. Few roleplaying games are quite as much fun. 
In 1991, Amber Diceless Role-Playing was a ground-breaking design and it looks as radical now as was upon its release. Many of conventions ideas have been disseminated into designs since, but Amber Diceless Role-Playing was the pioneer. 

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showcased how another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

One of the trends in ZineQuest—the annual drive on Kickstarter to create fanzines, fan-created magazines supporting their favourite game—has been away from the more traditional format to the more focused. Traditionally, the fanzine consists of a collection of articles, covering a wide array of subjects. For example, in a fanzine devoted to Dungeons & Dragons or one of its many retroclones, such articles might provide new character Classes, spells, monsters, magical items, a scenario or dungeon, and so on. Although ZineQuest in 2021–ZineQuest #3–certainly included fanzines of that type, there were fanzines that were not so much fanzines as complete roleplaying games in themselves or complete supplements for existing roleplaying games. Desert Moon of Karth is a perfect example of the latter.

Desert Moon of Karth is a complete scenario for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game. Designed and published by Joel Hines following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is also quite a different scenario in tone and flavour and set-up for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game. The genre for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game is Blue Collar Sci-Fi horror, most obviously inspired by the films Alien and Outland, and the majority of the scenarios for the roleplaying game are horror one-shots. Not so, Desert Moon of Karth. Instead, Desert Moon of Karth is a sandbox scenario whose genre is that of the Space Western and whose inspirations include Dune, Firefly, Alien, John Carter of Mars, Cowboy Bebop, and The Dark Tower as well as A Pound of Flesh, Ultraviolet Grasslands, and Slumbering Ursine Dunes.

The setting for Desert Moon of Karth is a desert moon on the far edge of the galaxy. It is perhaps best known as being a source of Coral Dust, the addictive blue-grey powder harvested and ground from the bones of the ancient, almost mythic species known as the Wigoy, which have ossified into coral and when ingested stills the aging process and sharpens the mind. There has been a ‘gold rush’ to Karth, a ready flow of would be prospectors willing to brave the harsh environment and the attacks by the infamous Sandsquids attracted by their searches deep into the sand. Access to Karth is limited though via a rickety orbital elevator fiercely controlled by the colonial marines of the Manian Expeditionary Force, as a network of relic orbital satellites shoot down all ships or flying objects—incoming or outgoing. This combination of distance from the centre of the galaxy and inaccessibility means that Karth has gained another reputation—that of a haven for criminals and the galaxy’s most wanted. So the lawless desert moon attracts not just prospectors, but bounty hunters too.

Like any good sandbox—and Desert Moon of Karth really is set on a sandbox—Desert Moon of Karth is a toolkit of different elements. These start with ten highly detailed locations, beginning with the frontier boomtown, Larstown, and then continuing with the Shattered Visage of an angelic man, the Seahorse Mine, the played out location of the first Wigoy prospecting operation on Karth, the Silver Spire, home to a trio of immortal Old People known as the Dawnseekers who research and harvest organs to ensure their longevity, a Ship Graveyard of vessels brought down by the orbital defences, and the Krieg Ranch where the best though-flea-bitten camels for travel across the deserts of Karth can be hired, run by a cranky old woman who keeps her husband on ice in case he can be taken off world for treatment to a grievous injury. Around these locations, four factions dominate Karth. One consists of the Dawnseekers, another the Manian Expeditionary Force, but these are joined by the Valley Rangers, a cargo cult formed around the Lunar Park Service’s bureaucracy and conservationists who abhor technology and seek to maintain the world’s ecology, and the Wigoy themselves, aliens hiding from the other factions with long term aims for the whole of Karth and beyond…

All four factions and the majority of the locations include NPCs with often opposing aims and jobs—both known and secret—that the Player Characters might be employed to fulfil. These, though, are just the start in Desert Moon of Karth, because they are richly supported with table after table of random encounters, motivations, NPCs, rumours, and more! That ‘more’ includes tables of reasons why the Player Characters might have come to Karth, gifts that the Wigoy might grant, worn space hulks, bounty hunters and their possible quarries, oldtech artefacts, what happens when the Player Characters go Wigoy prospecting, and things to be found on bodies, and more.

Although there is potential future mapped out in Desert Moon of Karth, it really only plays out if the Player Characters do nothing. Ultimately then, the Player Characters have a huge opportunity to involve themselves in and influence events on the moon, but this is very much player driven. Once their characters have their motivations—either selected ahead of time or generated using the table in the book, it is very much up to the players to involve themselves in both life and the events going on across Karth.

Mechanically, Desert Moon of Karth is very light, and thus much in keeping with the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game. There are various stats for the NPCs of course, but they are percentile and easily adaptable, whilst the specific rules cover things such as travel across Karth and prospecting for Wigoy coral—and that is it. What this means is that Desert Moon of Karth is not only very light, but easily adapted to the mechanics of the roleplaying game of the Warden’s choice. Any version of the Star Wars roleplaying games, Cepheus Deluxe, Stars Without Number, Firefly, HOSTILE, and others would work with this supplement with a minimum of preparation, as would many a generic system too.

However, the tone of Desert Moon of Karth may not necessarily match the campaign being run by the Warden if for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game, and that likelihood increases if adapted to another Science Fiction roleplaying game. There is horror as you would expect for something written for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game, but there is also a weirdness too in the presence of the Wigoy and their secrets, and they might have a profound effect upon a Game Master’s campaign if certain events happen. Nevertheless, the self-contained nature of Karth itself and of Desert Moon of Karth makes it very easy to use. Nor need that be as an addition to an existing campaign. It could be a one-shot adventure, a mini-campaign of its own, or as a source of ideas and tables from which the Game Master can pick and choose elements to add to her own game.

Physically, Desert Moon of Karth is a compact fifty-two page supplement—perhaps a little too big to be really called a supplement. It is well written, it is easy to read, the illustrations are excellent, and the maps, whether of the moon itself, or Larstown or the interior of a Sandsquid are all great.

As a sandbox, and a sandbox space western at that, Desert Moon of Karth pushes MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game in a new direction and opens up the scope of gaming possible for those rules—especially with the new edition available. Whatever the system used, Desert Moon of Karth is crammed full of gaming content adding a weird world to the Science fiction roleplaying game of your choice, but really offering a fantastic mini-campaign. Not just a good fanzine, Desert Moon of Karth is really good good Science Fiction supplement.

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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In the beginning there was Dungeons & Dragons. This made a lot of people happy, but it also made some people unhappy, and it even made some people both happy and unhappy. The happy people played it, the unhappy people refused to play it and campaigned to stop the people playing it because their sense of fun was entirely devoted to doing something else which they felt the people playing it should be doing, and the people it made both happy and unhappy, thought they could do better, including the very people who were happy with Dungeons & Dragons because they had made it. And the people who thought they could do better than Dungeons & Dragons either tried to make new, better versions of Dungeons & Dragons, or they tried to create versions of their own which were better, faster, more fun, more realistic, and well, just not Dungeons & Dragons. Some would be very close to Dungeons & Dragons, others far away, and others…? Well however close these fantasy heartbreakers were, most would remain the province of the Game Master and his gaming group, but others would come to market and some would succeed, some fail… and some would achieve legendary, even cult status. None more so than The Spawn of Fashan.
Self-published by Kirby Lee Davis in 1981, The Spawn of Fashan would sell only a handful of copies, but gave rise to an infamous review in Dragon #60 by Lawrence Schick who could not believe that anyone would create a roleplaying game as dreadful as The Spawn of Fashan and very quickly concluded that, “The Spawn of Fashan is a great parody of role-playing rules!” That issue of Dragon was published in April, 1982, and a combination of an incredulous review and the possibility that the whole review was not about an actual roleplaying, but one entirely made up, and was thus an April Fool’s joke upon the part of Schick and Dragon magazine, meant that The Spawn of Fashan passed into legend. That legend would be kept alive by its inclusion on the ‘REAL MEN, REAL RÔLE-PLAYERS, LOONIES AND MUNCHKINS’ lists which parodied early gamer archetypes and stereotypes, as in Loonies “play a variant Spawn of Fashan” as their favourite SFRPG and as their Favourite King Arthurian RPG, “play a variant of Spawn of Fashan so variant it shouldn't be called Spawn of Fashan anymore”. However, The Spawn of Fashan is real, and due to actual demand, a number of reprints were published in 1998, followed by a fortieth anniversary edition in 2021. It is the latter version, which is being reviewed here, notably because, getting hold of any other version, is hideously expensive.

So what is The Spawn of Fashan and what is The Spawn of Fashan about? It is a Class and Level roleplaying game written in response to the lack of individuality in any one character in Dungeons & Dragons. As to what it is about, The Spawn of Fashan is not really a setting as such, more—definitely much more—a set of rules for character creation and combat. What background there is suggests that Fashan is a world reduced to the level of a mediaeval economy by a nuclear war and in addition to leaving high tech artefacts to be found, the nuclear war also resulted in areas of radiation and a background radiation high enough that minor psionic abilities are common amongst the all-Human descendants of the survivors. So technically, The Spawn of Fashan is not so much a fantasy roleplaying game as a post-apocalyptic one. Either way, it is actually based on The Annals of Fashan, a series of fantasy novels by the designer, the setting and background for which did not make it into the final draft of The Spawn of Fashan. Had it done so, the roleplaying game would have been longer, but it might actually have been more interesting in terms of setting, storytelling, and roleplaying potential. The designer though wanted to avoid giving away the plots of the novels. Nevertheless, any Referee and group of players roleplaying The Spawn of Fashan would still be roleplaying a version of Fahsan—though not the designer’s Fashan—hence every other campaign being a ‘spawn’ of Fashan. Which begs the question, ‘When are you playing The Spawn of Fashan, but not playing The Spawn of Fashan?’, since it is almost impossible to play in Fashan because there is so little of the setting in The Spawn of Fashan such that any campaign of The Spawn of Fashan cannot actually be set on Fashan…

That said, what do you play in The Spawn of Fashan? Well, all Player Characters The Spawn of Fashan are human. A character has eight statistics—Strength, Dexterity, Reflexes, Constitution, Intelligence, Charisma, Courage, and Senses. Actually, there ten statistics, as a Player Character can also have Courage and Courage as well as Courage, but only if he has extra special fighting abilities. Anyway, all but Senses are rolled on five six-sided dice (or as The Spawn of Fashan puts it, “five 1-6 dice”) and the lowest one dropped, except if a character is female, in which case, “The number of dice rolled at any time for strength, constitution, and hit points is halved.” This is despite the fact that in the book’s introduction the designer states that neither he nor his team are sexist in terms of the pronouns used in the book. Which is fine except he is sexist in terms of game design. Anyway, female characters are fine, because they gained increased Charisma and Intuition. Unfortunately, the designer ultimately never actually defines what Intuition is… and actually getting find that out involves following the instruction, “[see the ‘Destiny’ listing on the Mental Illness table].” which leaves to wonder why it is defined on a Mental Illness table and if that means that all female characters—because they have Intuition—on Fashan are mentally ill? Once you have found the Mental Illness table in the fifty-one pages of Section VII which both contains all of the charts for The Spawn of Fashan and take up more than half of The Spawn of Fashan, a section supposedly for the Referee’s eye’s only, the actual entry on that table reads, “Destinied. Character is destinied. Referee should roll on the Destiny Table for the character.” However this immediately followed by a note which states, “Due to the necessity of having the Destiny Table interlock with the Referee's cultures and history, it is not given here.” So essentially, not only are female characters impaired in The Spawn of Fashan, as written in The Spawn of Fashan, they cannot be created using its rules unless the Referee has already defined a world or campaign setting where intrinsically, they are not equal to men. The good news is that for The Spawn of Fashan, this is only the start.

First though, a character needs not one, but two character-types. These are occupations and include Bandits, Barbers, Beggars, Carpenters, Construction Workers, Creepers, Farmers, Healers, Mercenaries, Merchants, Metal Forgers, Miners, Misfits, Occultists, Priests, Sailors, Specialists, Stone Cutters, Swayers, Teachers, Thieves, Traders, Trappers, and Wood Cutters. Once the relevant table is found—and this is a phrase which could be repeated again and again with The Spawn of Fashan—the Referee rolls on the table according to area the Player Character is from to determine his Parents’ Choice of character-type and the player choses his character’s Childhood Choice character-type. This does not seem to have any effect except if the Parents’ Choice of character-type is Misfit, in which case, the Player Character’s character-type is also Misfit. The actual explanation of the character-types are listed in the dreaded section of Section VII and for the most part are fairly obvious and straightforward, sometimes giving statistic increases, equipment, and the like. The less obvious character-types include the Creeper, men of darkness known as Shadowers, the Occultist, renowned and hated for exerting control over the societies of Fashan with their mind control, and the Swayer, the dreaded masters of persuasion. In particular, Creepers can exude a black, inky cloud that most cannot see through; the Occultist can enter into a trance and cause anyone nearby to stutter and be indecisive or to suffer seizure, depending his Intelligence; and Swayers are so persuasive that their words can require a Saving Roll to withstand.

Some character-types, like, can have Senses, the ability to detect life and also food and provisions. There is, however, no magic in The Spawn of Fashan and no religion or gods in The Spawn of Fashan, the latter more because in The Spawn of Fashan there is no real setting. Which means that the Priest character-type has no role until the Referee has defined her own ‘spawn’ of Fashan. In addition to rolling for Statistics, a player rolls on fourteen tables for eyesight, sense of smell, hearing, taste, body (to give advantages and disadvantages rather than a body type), insight, intellect, mental illness, phobia, compulsion, hand usage, height and weight, learned abilities, and language. Some of these require Saving Rolls on a twenty-sided die, but for the most part they generate a completely random selection of abilities and facts. For example, the character has Independent Eye Movement, is allergic to particular type of animal which the Referee will determine, has Heavy Sound Good Hearing (bonus to initiative versus heavy plodders), can tell poison in the water and drink, is double-jointed and has superhuman strength, has Sense of Life, is a Gambler and gets bonuses the riskier the situation, is Destinied (see above for how that is left up to the Referee to determine), fortunately has no phobias, has the compulsions of being a Coward, suffers from Daydreams, and Practices every action, is 5’ 6” and 139 lbs, and because he has an Intelligence of twenty or more, is an ‘Expert on Subterrainian Passages’.

Without a doubt, character generation in The Spawn of Fashan is inaccessible, obtuse, overwritten and unnecessarily complex—and that is just the six or so steps of creating a character, including rolling for Luck Factor and starting Bank Notes, and does not take into account the numerous secondary and derived values the roleplaying game employs. Nor does it take into account the time needed. In fact, no matter how long that time is, it is simply too long. As much as the means and the rules do provide the degree of individuality that the designer wants, whether or not that degree of individuality is either wanted or warranted, they are simply not presented in a manner to help either the player or the Referee through the process.

Then there are the mechanics to The Spawn of Fashan. The core mechanic is the Saving Roll on a twenty-sided die and roll high, but for a roleplaying game of its vintage, it should be no surprise that the bulk of the mechanics in The Spawn of Fashan focus on combat. However, there is a sense of combat being a static affair with neither side involved actually moving, so just an exchange of blows, though movement is covered in surprise and initiative (including when neither party can detect the other because they are both dead—including the Player Characters). Combat involves yet another splurge of terms and terminology and factors that Referee and player has to take into account before either has to roll, including how hard the attacker wants to hit, where he wants to hit, then if the defender parries or dodges (rolled on a percentile dice rather than the standard twenty-sided die), consulting tables as necessary, and making a Saving Throw if the level of damage suffered is equal to or greater than the Serious Injury Tolerance Level. If the attack is successful, rolls are made to see if the armour itself is damaged, point by point, and… if the defender is not actually dead by this point, it is difficult not to believe that anyone—in the game or out—still has the will to live, let alone continue playing… Thankfully though, the people of Fashan are so insecure that they do not congregate in groups of more than thirty, so there are no armies on Fashan, and so need for rules handling army combat.

Surprisingly, the advice on ‘The Makings of a Campaign’ is a decent read and avoids much of the incoherency found throughout the rules. They are backed up by tables for random encounters and generating locations, including ruins and dungeons, and two examples. One is a setting, the other is of actual play. Whilst the monsters have absurd names such as Arl-Grats, Bactrolo, Bartaln, Bull Makl, Cronalk, Filcornect, Larnex, Lorsenfolo, Purtorfalm, Rolmtrokl, and Transgrusan, the setting is equally as silly, which describes the land of Boosboodle in the ‘Boosboodle Inner Human Habitation Zone’ (Bihhz) through which flows The River Mazoo, travel to the towns of Jugble and Crumbudz, and when all else fails, tells the Player Characters that they can go ‘North, where Melvin is Standing Now.’ It is both silly and intentionally humorous upon the part of the designer, but mostly comes across as just plain silly. The other is the example of play. It is without a doubt, the worst example of play in any roleplaying game before Hackmaster Basic. It recounts how a Player Character Thief, Sook, enters a general store in Biddles, the capital of Boosboodle and attempts to buy first some armour, then a religious artefact, followed by a hoe, and lastly, a metal chest. When that succeeds, the player has Sook throw it at the merchant and kill him. It is clear from the writing that boredom has set in on either side, with the Referee resorting to sarcasm and the player to random acts purely to get a response. It is a truly terrible, but funny piece of writing because it is at such odds with the po-faced tone to the rest of The Spawn of Fashan.

Where The Spawn of Fashan, 40th Anniversary Edition is actually interesting is in the essays which appear at the front of the reprint. Here the author talks how he brought the roleplaying game to fruition not once but three times! First at its conception and its subsequence appearance at Denvention II in 1981, followed by renewed interest from roleplayers in both the late eighties and the late nineties, the latter leading to a reprint and inclusion of the first essay. Third, and more recently, its publication upon its fortieth anniversary. Both retrospectives are interesting in highlighting how challenging it was to bring something like The Spawn of Fashan to print then, and how ambitious the author was in doing so. They also allow him time to reflect upon his creation and the hobby’s response to it, and it is clear that he readily accepts rather than resents the latter—especially with regard to the lack of a table of contents or index for example. There can be no doubt that a roleplaying game with as legendary a reputation as The Spawn of Fashan is deserving of both essays where other roleplaying games of such ilk may not be.

Physically, The Spawn of Fashan is as bad as you possibly imagine. It is laid out in the style of a newspaper rather than a book and its text is dense, and notoriously unedited, being riddled with spelling mistakes and inconsistencies and cross references which lead the reader down a blind alley. There are few illustrations and to be fair, they add very little to the overall tone or feel of the book. The Spawn of Fashan, 40th Anniversary Edition at least does come with an index and a table of contents—the original version and its reprint did not and one can only imagine how daunting it must have been to find anything—anything at all—in the book.

—oOo—
The Spawn of Fashan was reviewed three times following its initial publication, first by Charles Dale Martin in Different Worlds Issue 19 (February 1982). Amongst the many elements he criticised of the roleplaying game were the combat system, writing that, “The combat system is both complex and unwieldy. It imposes too great a strain on the players and the referee - using these rules is rather like playing Gladiator, Traveller and Arduin Grimoire simultaneously. Bunetluest, Bushido and Chivalry & Sorcery provide more realism for less effort.” He was equally critical of the game’s treatment of female characters and of the publisher wrote, “The Fashan co-op seems to be out of touch with the adventure gaming community. The game was released at a science fiction convention. The only other role-playing systems mentioned are D&D, AD&D, The Fantasy Trip and Magic Realm. I am familiar with fifteen fantasy role-playing systems and I must conclude that, despite honest effort, Spawn of Fashan is several years behind the state of the art.” However, concluded that, “…[I]t may still be worth buying. The referee’s notes are excellent guidelines for any fantasy campaign. Game masters of an eclectic bent may wish to use some of the new character classes and the many tables in their own game systems. And some adventurous souls might play the game and enjoy it.”

Then there was the infamous review in Dragon #60 (April 1982) by Lawrence Schick, titled ‘Don’t take Spawn of Fashan seriously’. His initial impression was of it being “…[O]ne more mediocre rewrite of the D&D® rules.” but then, “As I read the 96-page rulebook (list price $8.95), my initial boredom was gradually replaced by confusion, amazement, and finally delight. At first glance, the rules seem badly organized and poorly written. The opening sections are deluged with pages of ill-defined jargon and numerous confusing references to tables apparently placed elsewhere. By the time I reached the rules quagmire entitled “Combat,” I could only wonder in amazement that any set of rules could be this bad.” He continued, “Then the light started to dawn. Plowing through the monstrous Tables and Charts section, I began to grin, and by the end of the book, I was laughing loudly. The Spawn of Fashan is a great parody of role-playing rules!”.
Lastly, Ronald Pehr reviewed The Spawn of Fashan in The Space Gamer Number 49 (March 1982). He described The Spawn of Fashan as “…[A] fascinating set of fantasy combat rules which are trying to become a full role-playing game.” and that “…[I]ts current value seems limited to experienced FRPG players who want something novel. Beginners will be baffled, and gamers happy with their current rules will find little reason to journey to the far planet of Fashan.”

—oOo—
There have been some notoriously bad roleplaying games published over the course of the hobby’s history. Efforts like F.A.T.A.L., Myfarog, and Racial Holy War are justly reviled for their inherent offensiveness and the ignorance of the values espoused by the authors. Make no mistake, The Spawn of Fashan does not deserve to be placed alongside that excrescent trinity and it would be insulting to the author to think otherwise. However, that does not mean that The Spawn of Fashan is not a bad game—far from it. The Spawn of Fashan is terrible game. Dense, overwritten, and incomprehensible with a formidable learning curve  hampered by poor, oh so poor cross referencing and interminable page flipping, all accompanied by a hilariously awful example of play. Even trying to explain the rules in The Spawn of Fashan is akin to rewriting and not just simplifying them, but translating them. Yet there are flashes of potential here, for the notes for the Referee’s notes and philosophies on worldbuilding are not without merit, which leads the reader to wonder quite what a subsequent edition of The Spawn of Fashan could have been like in the hands of a more experienced production and development team. And wonder quite that because lurking within the game’s stodgy writing, there is a game which by the standards of the time could have been made better and more accessible and more playable. Of course, the appearance of any such subsequent edition might well have done much to negate the reputation of the first edition (at least partially). As the essays in the front of The Spawn of Fashan, 40th Anniversary Edition make clear, it was not to be. Despite its legendary reputation, The Spawn of Fashan is real, it is not a parody, and with the availability of The Spawn of Fashan, 40th Anniversary Edition, you too can find out just how bad it really is, what optimism and faith in your own vision can create, and how sometimes, even if you really do not like Dungeons & Dragons, you really cannot do better. As bad as it is, and because it is as bad as it is, Kirby Lee Davis is to be commended for reassessing it again and letting us reassess it with the release of The Spawn of Fashan, 40th Anniversary Edition.

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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On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showcased how another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. As new fanzines have appeared, there has been an interest in the fanzines of the past, and as that interest has grown, they have become highly collectible, and consequently more difficult to obtain and write about. However, in writing about them, the reader should be aware that these fanzines were written and published between thirty and forty years ago, typically by roleplayers in their teens and twenties. What this means is that sometimes the language and terminology used reflects this and though the language and terminology is not socially acceptable today, that use should not be held against the authors and publishers.

The Beholder was a British fanzine first published in April, 1979. Dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it ran to twenty-seven issues, the last being published in July, 1981. It was popular and would be awarded ‘Best Games Fanzine’ at the Games Day convention in 1980. After the final issue of The Beholder, the editors would go on to release a number of anthologies which collected content from the complete run of the fanzine. A total of five were planned and at least two were published. The first was Beholder Supplement Glossary of Magic, which collected many of the magical items which appeared in the fanzine and collated them into a series of tables for easy use by the Dungeon Master. The second, third, and fourth volumes would have collected the scenarios which appeared in the fanzine, whilst the fifth would have been a bestiary of monsters.

Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2 is the first anthology of scenarios taken from the pages of The Beholder. It contains “4 highly detailed, exciting and original scenarios” all written for use with Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. The collection  opens with ‘The Ring of Fire’, originally published in The Beholder Issue #11 and subsequently voted by its readership as the best scenario to appear in the fanzine. Designed for four to seven Player Characters of ‘moderate adventuring experience’, ‘The Ring of Fire’ is set entirely within the crater of an extinct volcano, rumoured to be the home of a dragon below the crater’s mists and fumes. Several miles distant from the nearest settlement, once the Player Characters have ascended to the lip the crater, the adventure proper begins and they begin the descent. This is along a path which spirals around the steep sides of the crater and it is along this path that most of the scenario will play out. As they follow the path down, the Player Characters encounter obstacles and lairs and fortresses, and more. These special encounter areas start off with almost a nod to Shelbob’s lair with the lair of the Giant Spider, Castra, followed by a wooden plank bridge past the lair of Minor the Harpy, through a vanquished outpost of Hobgoblins, through a maze, and yes, even into the lair of the Red Dragon, Faughon.

All of these encounters really are special. Essentially excerpts pulled from the main map of the volcano, they are beautifully drawn in detail and supported with engaging descriptions. Any one of these encounters could be pulled from the scenario and it would stand up if added to another location, perhaps an enormous dungeon cavern. The scenario is obviously linear as the Player Characters make their descent, but opens out into a swampy area on the crater floor. This is less interesting perhaps than the earlier encounters, but there is a sense of decay here that feels all the more constrictive in the fog-shrouded crater. There are no plot hooks as such to ‘The Ring of Fire’ as such, but it would be easy for the Dungeon Master to add them. Perhaps the Player Characters want something from the Red Dragon or the ancient, evil sorcerer whose remains are buried here, or simply be after the treasure which is said to have been left there by the ancient inhabitants. Essentially, the bottom of the crater is a blank canvas upon which the Dungeon Master can write elements from her campaign and so add ‘The Ring of Fire’ to her campaign. Whatever the Player Characters might find in the base of the crater, getting there is very much the play and the fun of the scenario.

The second scenario is ‘The Gorge of the Afterlife’. Designed for three to six Player Characters of ‘low to moderate adventuring experience’, it appeared in The Beholder Issue #14 and was a close runner up to ‘The Ring of Fire’ in the poll. The Player Characters should at least possess one magical weapon between them—if not more, and there should be a Cleric amongst their number. Again the scenario has a great sense of environment and geography, being set in a long narrow gorge once the burial ground to the local dignitaries. Water drains into the gorge and flows out via a series of waterfalls, which the Player Characters will need to ascend as they venture into the gorge. The outer section of the gorge is swampy and home to a band of brigands, whilst the inner section consists of a lake surrounded by individual tombs, mausolea, and barrows. Here the authors repeat the format of ‘The Ring of Fire’ with individually mapped areas for greater detail, offering a range of different challenges to any Player Characters wanting to raid them. Some are still intact, some have been broken into, others are occupied. 

The third part of ‘The Gorge of the Afterlife’ consists of a dungeon proper, a tomb complex, which oddly, is laid out in the shape of a gargoyle, though statues of gargoyles appear at the entrance to the gorge where their prevents entry of any devils or demons. The tomb complex contains just six tombs, each of them a great leader in their time, in their way representatives of Dungeons & Dragons’ Classes. Some were good, others bad, but are now the target of a band of evil Elves (not Drow) amidst the roving undead which infests the complex. Much like ‘The Ring of Fire’, ‘The Gorge of the Afterlife’ is a not a scenario with any sense of a plot, the gorge and its tombs being there to plunder by the Player Characters and nothing more. Again though, they are open to interpretation and development upon the part of the Dungeon Master, perhaps more so because the adventure is designed to be inserted into a campaign. Again, perhaps the Player Characters are searching for something which can only be found in the tombs or perhaps they have been employed to deal with the brigands, but discover that they have a secret paymaster, that is, the evil Elves in the tomb complex? This is much more of a traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style adventure, but again, nicely detailed and potentially more flexible than ‘The Ring of Fire’.

‘UGGISH and the GRIMBNAK’ is the third scenario in Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2 and originally published in The Beholder Issue #19, and appears to have been part of an ongoing feature in the fanzine. Where the previous two scenarios have been quite confined in their environment, this one opens up a bit by being set in a forest and its surrounding wilderness. Designed for a party of four to six Player Characters of moderate Level, the scenario is set in the forest surrounding the Ravine of the Oozewater where legend has it that two ancient creatures fled in ages past when disturbed by the first settlers in the region. More recently, they have been revealed to be Uggish and the Grimbnak, now said to be in league with the Orcs of the Black Hand, scimitar-wielding humanoids with ebon skin and red eyes, who have been attacking settlers, foresters, and hunters throughout the forest, forcing them to flee. The scenario is thus a strike mission—investigate the activities of the Orcs and put a stop to them.

The scenario details the forest wilderness and the paths to the cliffside stockade which the Orcs have had time to build and make a home in. Thus there is advice and a table to make it a living place with events going on despite the presence of the Player Characters and perhaps that they can take advantage of in their raid. The stockade and its inhabitants, as well as the caves built into the cliffside are as decently detailed as the other scenarios in the anthology, however, the Orcs are described as being black-skinned and resolutely evil. To be fair, this would have been typical of the time and the depiction of Orcs has always been contentious, but the language used here, though unlikely to have been intentionally so at the time, would be socially unacceptable today and even potentially, cause for offence. Whilst there is some element of story here and it would be an easy scenario to add to a campaign because of the simplicity of its set-up, of the four scenarios in the anthology, ‘UGGISH and the GRIMBNAK’ would be the most difficult to run or adapt because of the language used when describing its antagonists and their outlook. 

The last scenario in the anthology is ‘The Dripping Chasm’. Taken from The Beholder Issue #18—voted the best issue by the fanzine’s readers—it is designed for six low Level Player Characters and has a simple set-up which makes it easy to add to a campaign or run as a one-shot. That set-up is one of bandits raiding the area, frequently enough to amass no little wealth, and so there is treasure to be found and a threat to civilisation to be thwarted. The bandits are thought to operating from somewhere up the River Underpine, and when the Player Characters follow it along its course, they discover its source, the Dripping Chasm, and a series of buildings along the chasm wall and a cave network beyond them. The caverns though, are not just home to the bandits, there being older occupants who just unhappy with their presence, they are prepared to do something about it. Which is when the Player Characters turn up. 

‘The Dripping Chasm’ is a small locale and a small adventure, but it packs in a lot, including factions, nuance, and the level of detail found in the anthology’s other scenarios. There are the three factions—the bandits, a grumpy bear, a really unhappy hermit driven to recruit some unpleasant allies, and the complex of caverns is described in some detail. The factions bring in the element of a living dungeon and this is enforced by the nuance. The caverns and the Dripping Chasm are not just bases of operation where the factions work from, but homes too. So the bear and the hermit make their homes in the caverns and tunnels, and resent being invaded by the bandits, but they have made their home in some of the caverns as well as along the river, and down so with their families. The bandits have their wives and children here too, so this is not a scenario necessarily set up so that the Player Characters go in and slaughter anyone and everyone as in ‘UGGISH and the GRIMBNAK’, but do have choices to make here. Potentially, these choices—which faction to side with, what to do about the families, and discovering why they are here and why they have turned to banditry—are all good story hooks and good roleplaying hooks, though the Dungeon Master will have to develop the details herself. 

If there is an oddity to ‘The Dripping Chasm’, it is in the organisation which details the locations furthest from the starting point of the scenario first and nearest, last. Given the advice that the Dungeon Master read through the scenario thoroughly, it only enforces the need to. Otherwise, ‘The Dripping Chasm’ is a decently done scenario easily adapted to the Dungeon Master’s campaign and a really engaging piece of writing. In terms of storytelling potential, ‘The Dripping Chasm’ has the most of the quartet in Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2.

Physically, Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2 is decently done. Like any fanzine title, it has its rough edges and the layout could be cleaner. The cartography though is quite lovely, clear and detailed, giving the anthology its singular look. There are few illustrations in the supplement, but some of them are really nice. It should be noted that except where a new monster is introduced, the actual stats for Dungeons & Dragons monsters and items in the four scenarios are kept to a minimum, meaning that the Dungeon Master will ned to refer to the ruleset of her choice.

Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2 is a piece of history. Its writing is representative of a creative drive four decades ago, and whilst some of that writing reflects that age, there is no denying that each of the scenarios is still playable today. Whether that is using Dungeons & Dragons or Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game or The Black Hack or Old School Essentials, all four scenario could be with relatively little adjustment—at least mechanically. Tonally perhaps and in some of the language warrants adjustment, and would certainly benefit from such attention in the unlikely event that these scenarios were republished today. Overall, Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2 is a lovely snapshot of yesterday’s creativity, showcasing how it was done forty years ago just as it is today.

Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been 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. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.

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For Free RPG Day 2021, EDGE Studio offered Twilight Imperium: Ashes of Power. This is a quick-start for Embers of the Imperium, the roleplaying game based on Twilight Imperium, the classic ‘4x’ (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) board game. It uses the Genesys Narrative Dice System—first seen in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Third Edition—but ultimately derived from the original Doom and Descent board games. Twilight Imperium: Ashes of Power comes with everything necessary to play—an explanation of the rules, four pregenerated characters, and an exciting, action-packed scenario for the Game Master to run. What it does not come with is dice and the fact that both the Genesys Narrative Dice System and Embers of the Imperium—and therefore Twilight Imperium: Ashes of Power—use propriety dice is a small problem. Not an insurmountable one, but a small problem, nonetheless. Fortunately, EDGE Studio has made available a Genesys Dice App free to download which will alleviate that problem unless one or of the players lacks a mobile device.
Twilight Imperium: Ashes of Power opens with a rules summary. The core mechanic requires a player to roll a pool of dice to generate successes and should the roll generate enough successes, his character succeeds in the action being attempted. The complexity comes in the number of dice types and the number of symbols that the players need to keep track of. On the plus side, a player will be rolling Ability dice to represent his character’s innate ability and characteristics, Proficiency dice to represent his skill, and Boost dice to represent situational advantages such as time, assistance, and equipment. On the negative side, a player will be rolling Difficulty dice to represent the complexity of the task being undertaken, Challenge dice if it is a particularly difficult task, and Setback dice to represent hindrances such as poor lighting, difficult terrain, and lack of resources. Ability and Difficulty dice are eight-sided, Proficiency and Challenge dice are twelve-sided, and Boost and Setback dice are six-sided.

When rolling, a player wants to generate certain symbols, whilst generating as few as possible of certain others. Success symbols will go towards completing or carrying out the task involved, Advantage symbols grant a positive side effect, and Triumph symbols not only add Successes to the outcome, but indicate a spectacularly positive outcome or result. Failure symbols indicate that the character has not completed or carried out the task, and also cancel out Success symbols; Despair symbols count as Failure symbols indicate a spectacularly negative outcome or result, and cancel out Triumph symbols; and Threat symbols grant a negative side effect and cancel out Advantage symbols. Only Success and Failure results indicate whether or not a character has succeeded at an action—the effects of the Advantage, Triumph, Despair, and Threat symbols come into play regardless of whether the task was a success or not. Task difficulties range from one Difficulty die for easy tasks up to five for Formidable tasks, and in addition, certain abilities enable dice to be upgraded or downgrade, so an Ability die to a Proficiency die or a Challenge die down to a Difficulty die.

In general, the dice mechanics in the Genesys Narrative Dice System—and thus, Twilight Imperium: Ashes of Power—are straightforward enough despite their complexity. They are perhaps a little fiddly to assemble and may well require a little adjusting to, especially when it comes to narrating the outcome of each dice roll.

Combat is more complex. Initiative is handled by a skill roll—using Cool or Vigilance, and attack difficulties by range and whether or not the combatants are engaged in melee combat. Damage is inflicted as either Strain, Wounds, or Critical Injuries. Strain represents mental and emotional stress, Wounds are physical damage, as are Critical Injuries, but they have a long effect that lasts until a Player Character receives medical treatment. When a Player Character suffers more Wounds than his Wound Threshold, he suffers a Critical Injury, and when he suffers Strain greater than his Strain Threshold, he is incapacitated. The various symbols on the dice can be spent in numerous ways in combat to achieve an array of effects. So a Triumph symbol or enough Advantage symbols could inflict a Critical Injury, allow a Player Character to perform an extra manoeuvre that round, and so on, whilst Threat and Failure symbols inflict Strain on a Player Character, three Threat symbols could be spent to knock a Player Character prone, and so on. Twilight Imperium: Ashes of Power includes a table of options for spending Advantage, Triumph, Threat, and Despair in combat, as well as a table of critical Injury results. It does not, however, include a table for spending Advantage, Triumph, Threat, and Despair out of combat—a disappointing omission for anyone wanting to do a bit more with their character’s skills. That said, the Game Master should be able to adjust some of the options on the table to non-combat situations.

Lastly, the rules in Twilight Imperium: Ashes of Power cover NPCs and Story points. Apart from nemesis-type NPCs, most NPCs treat any Strain they suffer as equal to Wounds, and Minions work together as a group. In Twilight Imperium: Ashes of Power, there are two pools of Story Points—one for the Player Characters, one for the GM. They can be used to upgrade a character’s dice pool or the difficulty of a skill check targeting a character—NPC or Player Character in either case, or to add an element or aspect to the ongoing story. The clever bit is that when a Story Point is spent, it does not leave the game, but is shifted over to the pool of Story Points. So if the Game Master spends a Story Point to increase the difficulty of a Player Character’s Perception check to determine the motives of an NPC, she withdraws it from her own Game Master pool of Story Points and adds it to the players’ pool of Story Points. As a game proceeds and Story Points are spent and move back and forth, it adds an elegant narrative flow to the mechanics and will often force the players to agonise whether they should spend a Story Point or not as they know it is going to benefit the Game Master and her NPCs before it comes back to them.

A character in Twilight Imperium: Ashes of Power has six characteristics—Agility, Brawn, Cunning, Intellect, Presence, and Willpower, plus a range of skills from Charm, Computers, and Cool to Ranged (attacks), Skulduggery, and Vigilance, as well as range of special abilities. The four pre-generated Player Characters include a reptilian Xxcha, an overly optimistic liaison who carries an antique Lazax grav-mace; a Human Orbital Drop Soldier with a dislike of the L1Z1X; a curious Hylar Field Scholar who travels in an exosuit which enables him to survive out of water; and a Hacan Wayfarer merchant captain looking to restore her family fortune and is an expert negotiator with word and gun. All four Player Characters are nicely presented in a busy, but easy to access character sheet which gives a clear explanation of the character background, roleplaying notes, skills, equipment, abilities, and so on—plus each comes with a decent illustration of the character. Of note, each Player Character has an agenda, for example, the Hylar Field Scholar’s requirement to record and gather all data and samples they can of new or archaic technologies. There are boxes throughout the scenario which inform the Game Master when each of the Player Characters has an opportunity to fulfil their agenda, and notably, it is not up to the player to remember to bring it into play, but rather that the Game Master should remind the player. As such, there is no benefit in game to fulfilling an agenda, but it does provide roleplaying opportunities and motivation, and provides a chance for each player to showcase his character.
The setting for Twilight Imperium and thus for Embers of the Imperium and Twilight Imperium: Ashes of Power, is a space opera in a vast, sprawling galaxy. For twenty thousand years, the galaxy prospered under the Lazax Empire, governed by a Galactic Council which gave everyone a voice. Both the Lazax and the empire would be destroyed in a series of wars that would culminate in the bombardment of Mecatol Rex, glittering throne world of the Lazax and the seat of Council, by the reviled Mahact Kings. The subsequent Twilight Wars lasted for millennia, but more recently, the great galactic powers have come together—warily, and established a Galactic Council amidst the ruins of Mecatol City. There is peace, measured diplomacy, and careful co-operation, but in a new age when the members of the councils do not yet fully trust each other, there remain threats which would return the galaxy to chaos once more—the L1Z1X Mindnet, Vuil’Raith Cabal, Mahact Gene-Sorcerers, and Nekro Virus. In response, the Galactic Council established the Keleres, an agency dedicated to dealing with threats larger than any one faction can effectively deal with. Though dedicated to the safety of the galaxy, the Keleres is dependent on the factions for support and resources, as well as for its members—also known as Keleres—and most of them have to answer to their sponsors as well as the agency. The Player Characters are of course, members of the Keleres.
The scenario in the quick-start, ‘Ashes of Power’, sends the Keleres to Herool’s Truce, a tidally locked world which has only regained contact with the rest of galaxy in recent years and from where a Keleres informant has reported the possible discovery of unknown, Imperial-era technology and the presence of unsanctioned L1Z1X agents. There they are to investigate the possible disappearance of the informant, confirm the discovery of the ancient technology, and if they do, prevent it from falling into the hands of the L1Z1X agents. It sounds a simple enough mission, but the Player Characters will need to find the ship they have been assigned, get to the planet, deal with it bureaucracy, follow up on a rumour or two, all before facing off against the cybernetically enhanced L1Z1X agents. Divided into three acts, in the first act, the Player Characters will be briefed about their mission and find their ship; in the second, they will conduct their investigation on Herool’s Truce; whilst in the third, they will confront the L1Z1X team and discover whether or not the rumours of ancient technology are true. The scenario takes its time to help the Game Master, clearly indicating skills necessary and their possible outcomes, as well as presenting numerous ways in which the Keleres can approach the mission. They can be open about it with the local authorities, they can try and avoid getting the authorities involved, and although there are numerous opportunities for combat and conflict, with many of them, the scenario also suggests other ways of dealing with the situations. Along the way, there are opportunities for each of the Player Characters to fulfil their personal agendas and explore an interesting world which has been cut off from the rest of the galaxy for centuries and consequently has an interesting society and geography. There are lots of chances to roleplay too, which is helped by the succinctly done backgrounds for each of the Player Characters. 
The scenario concludes with notes as to what happens next. This takes into account the fact that the Player Characters might not succeed or might even side with the L1Z1X agents! There are consequences to both outcomes as well as their being successful, and these could play out should the Game Master continue with an Embers of the Imperium campaign. In addition, the PDF version of Twilight Imperium: Ashes of Power comes with support that includes two extra Player Characters, their agendas, and extra encounters for the scenario’s third act. Also included is a map—which was not in the Free RPG Day release. The extras increase the number of players possible or character choices available.
Physically, Twilight Imperium: Ashes of Power is as nicely done as you would expect from the publisher. It is well written, the full artwork is good, and the sample Player Characters are excellent. If there is a downside perhaps it is that few of the NPCs are illustrated, and there are no maps or illustrations of the world of Herool’s Truce, both of which would have helped the Game Master portray the world for her players.
Ultimately, if there is an issue with Twilight Imperium: Ashes of Power, it is that it uses the Genesys Narrative Dice System and that does take some adjusting to. Get past that though, and Twilight Imperium: Ashes of Power offers up not just a solid introduction to the system, but a thoroughly entertaining and exciting introduction to Embers of the Imperium with a really good scenario and some nicely done pre-generated Player Characters. 

Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been 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. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.

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The Blue Rose Quick-Start: An Introduction to the AGE Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy is Green Ronin Publishing contribution to Free RPG Day in 2021. This is an introduction to Blue Rose: The AGE RPG of Romantic Fantasy which provides Game Master and players alike with everything necessary to play. This includes an explanation of its genre, the rules, a complete scenario, and a nonet of pre-generated Player Characters, all of which comes packaged in a handsome, not to say sturdy—especially in comparison to other releases for Free RPG Day, booklet done in full colour. It very quickly gets down to explaining what it is, what roleplaying is, and what everyone needs to play before providing an explanation of what ‘Romantic Fantasy’ is. Traditional fantasy is not necessarily romantic, although it can have great romances, its focus is more on great sagas and battles and magic and great evils and the like, but inspired by authors such as Mercedes Lackey, Diane Duane, Tamora Pierce, and others, Romantic Fantasy and thus Blue Rose: The AGE RPG of Romantic Fantasy, emphasises love and relationships between a diversity of healthy sexualities, genders, and identities, often through deep, meaningful romantic relationships and consent. In the Kingdom of Aldis, the key setting for Blue Rose, preference for more than the single gender is widespread, and although in the minority, preference for a single gender is equally as accepted. The tone is also positive, rather than grim and gritty, so the characters—and thus the Player Characters—are motivated by sincerity and heroism. Magic is also different to that of standard fantasy, tending to be psychic in nature rather than necessarily arcane, although that too, as arcana, also exists. Lastly, there is a sense of sense of environmental consciousness to be found in the genre, and reverence for the natural world often drives stories in which the antagonists have none.

A quick overview of Kingdom of Aldis—the ‘Kingdom of the Blue Rose’—is also provided as is a description of the Aldinfolk. The kingdom is a beacon of Light having arisen from the darkness that was the Empire of Thorns, whose cabal of wicked Sorcerer Kings had previously overthrown the Old Kingdom. It is also home a diverse range of peoples. Not just Humans of all colours, but also aquatic Sea-folk, the mystical Vata (divided between the chalk-skinned Vata’an and the ebonskinned Vata’sha), and also the Night People, the creations of the Sorcerer Kings and their terrible sorcery, who eventually freed themselves from their servitude. Lastly, there are the Rhydan, various species of animal who Awaken to sapience and psychic ability, and are equal citizens in Aldis. This mix is reflected in the range of Player Characters presented in the appendix at the end of the Blue Rose Quick-Start: An Introduction to the AGE Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy. Nine pre-generated First Level Blue Rose Player Characters make up the Family Nightsong, a collection of misfits and outcasts who have come together to form a family. The appendix includes an explanation of who they and what the relationships are between the nine, as well as their history. Each of the nine comes with a complete background and descriptions of their personality, goal, calling, destiny, and fate, plus their important relationships. This is in addition to their actual character sheets, so every one of the nine pre-generated Player Characters is given a two-page spread. The mix includes Sea-folk, a Night Person, Humans, Vata’sha, Vata’an, and a Rhy-Badger, and they can either be used intended with the scenario included in the quick-start, or as a ready supply of replacement Player Characters, or even NPCs if the Game Master is running a Blue Rose campaign.

The Blue Rose Quick-Start: An Introduction to the AGE Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy and thus Blue Rose: The AGE RPG of Romantic Fantasy uses the AGE System, or Adventure Game Engine System. Originally seen in Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5. It is fast, simple, but cinematic in its play style. At the core of each character in Blue Rose are eight abilities—Accuracy, Communication, Constitution, Dexterity, Fighting, Intelligence, Perception, Strength, and Willpower. Each attribute is rated between -2 and 4, with 1 being the average. They will have ability focuses, areas of expertise such as Perception (Searching) or Intelligence (Natural Lore), each of which adds +2 bonus to appropriate rolls. Characters can also know Weapon Groups, Talents, and Specialisations and these are worked into and explained in the nine pre-generated characters. The AGE System and Blue Rose has three Classes—Adept, who use arcana, Experts, who can be anything from stealthy scouts to suave diplomats, and Warriors, who can use a variety of weapon styles.

Mechanically, the AGE System requires the use of just six-sided dice, both to handle actions as well as effect—such as damage, time taken, or to generate Stunt Points. To undertake an action, a player rolls three six-sided dice to beat a target, the average being eleven. To the roll a player also adds the appropriate Ability and if one applies, a +2 bonus for any Focus. For example, Chaya the Rhy-Badger wants to understand what a wolf that she and her family has just encountered is doing. Her player would roll the dice, add two for her Intelligence Attribute and two for her Natural Lore Focus. The roll is two, two, and six, which together with the bonuses for the Intelligence Attribute Natural Lore Focus, means that Chaya’s player has rolled a fourteen. This is more than the Target Number of the twelve required to understand the wolf.

Now of the three six-sided dice, one is a different colour to the other two. This is called the Stunt Die. Typically, it acts as an effect die, measuring how well a character does or how quickly an action takes, but in the basic rules, particularly in combat, the Stunt Die does much, much more. Whenever a player rolls doubles on two of the three six-sided dice and succeeds, he gets a number of points equal to the result of the Stunt Die to spend on Stunts, which come in four types—Combat, Exploration, Social, and Power. Thus, Knock Prone or Mighty Blow are Combat Stunts for use in melee or missile combat, Arcane Shield or Effortless Arcana are Arcane Stunts when casting magic, Speedy Search or With a Flourish are Exploration Stunts for general actions, and Passionate Inspiration or Flirt! are Roleplaying Stunts. In the case of Chaya above, her player rolled doubles, generating two Stunt Points to spend from the Exploration Stunts. The list of stunts is not exhaustive in the quick-start, but enough at last for the scenario, and there are more in Blue Rose: The AGE RPG of Romantic Fantasy.

The Blue Rose Quick-Start: An Introduction to the AGE Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy explains the rules clearly and simply in just a few pages. Tables are included covering the Actions that the Player Characters and NPCs can take, as well as Talents and Arcana. Four tables list Combat Stunts, Exploration Stunts, Roleplaying Stunts, and Arcane Stunts. Lastly, and particularly to the Blue Rose: The AGE RPG of Romantic Fantasy, the Player Characters can be driven to greater feats and achievements when the people and things they care about are in danger, and mechanically, this is reflected in the Relationship value which each Player Character has with particular members of their family. Once per scene, if an action would support the emotion and context of the Relationship which the Player Character has with another, then the player can add the Relationship value to any Stunt Points generated, or even be used to generate Stunt Points when the roll actually does not. Lastly, there is advice throughout the quick-start, especially on handling the potential interplay of Stunts and Emotions and how to portray them, in a way which is responsible and mature.

The scenario in the Blue Rose Quick-Start: An Introduction to the AGE Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy is ‘The Rhy-Wolf’s Woe’. Consisting of eight scenes, the adventure can be easily scaled to any number of players, though four or five should be a reasonable number. The Player Characters are traveling through the Pavin Weald, a vast forest, when they encounter a Rhy-wolf who wants their help. One of his friends, another Rhy-wolf, has gone missing and he believes that she may have gone off with a boy with whom she has formed a rhy-bond. He wants the Player Characters to find her and make sure that she is safe. Of course, being heroes, the Player Characters agree and go in search of the missing Rhy-wolf. He directs them to the village where the boy can be found, but once they discover that he too is missing. Now in search of both, they must trek deep into the wilderness, facing increasingly difficult encounters along the way.

‘The Rhy-Wolf’s Woe’ is nicely built around a burgeoning relationship between the boy and the Rhy-wolf, and comes with plenty of detail. However, the scenario is short—really intended to be played in a single four-hour session—and it is linear. So in terms of storytelling it is not particularly sophisticated and beyond perhaps using it as an introduction or a side quest in a campaign, it is perhaps a little too basic an adventure for experienced players. This does not mean that they will not enjoy it necessarily, but its structure is likely to be obvious. Less experienced players or those new to roleplaying will have less of an issue, and if this is one of the first things that the Game Master has run, then the structure makes it easier for her to run and concentrate on roleplaying and portraying the setting.

Physically, the Blue Rose Quick-Start: An Introduction to the AGE Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy is cleanly and tidily laid out. The full colour artwork is excellent and as a physical product, it feels nicely solid in the hands.

Overall, as an introduction to the Blue Rose: The AGE RPG of Romantic Fantasy, the Blue Rose Quick-Start: An Introduction to the AGE Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy is better aimed at players and Game Masters new to the hobby rather than experienced roleplayers. However, as an introduction, the Blue Rose Quick-Start: An Introduction to the AGE Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy is well done and a more than serviceable entry point.

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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As much as the noughties was a decade dominated by the d20 System and the rise and fall of the third-party Dungeons & Dragons publisher, it was also the decade of two genres. One was pirates, the other was World War 2. The former was certainly given a big push by the release in 2003 of Pirates of the Caribbean, and would see titles such as Swashbuckling Pirates, Pirates of the Spanish Main, and Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies being published. The latter was spurred on by the anniversary of the USA’s entry into World War 2 with the attack on Pearl Harbour, and indeed, in that sixtieth anniversary three World War 2 roleplaying games would be published—Gear Krieg The Roleplaying Game from Dream Pod 9, GURPS WWII from Steve Jackson Games, and Godlike: Superhero Roleplaying in a World on Fire, 1936-1946. Over the course of the next decade, numerous World War 2 themed roleplaying games, from the small such as Battleforce Bravo from Deep7 Press to Weird War Two D20: Blood on the Rhine from Pinnacle Entertainment. These five represent the differing approaches taken to what is a defining period in twentieth century history. Both Battleforce Bravo and GURPS WWII played it straight and kept it to the history (that is, until GURPS WWII Classic: Weird War II), but the others would go in a different direction, adding another genre. Weird War Two D20: Blood on the Rhine added horror, Gear Krieg The Roleplaying Game added combat walkers, and Godlike added superheroes.
Godlike: Superhero Roleplaying in a World on Fire, 1936-1946 did superhero roleplaying and superheroes in World War 2 like no other. In supplements like Glory Days for Brave New World and scenarios like All This and World War II for Marvel Super Heroes, the focus is traditionally on the superhero first, not the soldier. Although Godlike was a superhero roleplaying and an alternate history game in which superheroes existed and influenced the course of the war—and beyond, they would not change the outcome of the war. The World War 2 of Godlike would still be won by men and machinery, by grit and determination, and when the Talents—those blessed with the superpowers or miracles which set them apart from ordinary men—of the Allies met the Übermensch of the Axis powers, they were soldiers first, superheroes second. Godlike is not a superhero setting in which the superheroes, the Talents, wear spandex. Instead, they wear a uniform and they serve their country. It is also not a Four Colour setting, but gritty. Despite their amazing abilities, Talents do die, whether that is due to combat with an Übermensch or an artillery barrage.

The alternate history of Godlike begins in 1936 when Der Flieger—‘The Airman’—appeared in the skies over the Berlin Olympics. He was the first Talent, and as Europe moved towards war, more would appear. Pevnost, a Czechoslovakian resistance fighter who could step through one door and out of any door he had previously stepped through, enabling him to traverse hundreds of miles in an instance. He would support the underground resistance throughout the war. As Der Flieger destroyed the Polish airforce, a Polish Talent, Cien appeared, who was capable of manipulating objects touched by his shadow, the Finnish Viljo, became one with the arctic snow and fought the Soviet invaders, and the Danish schoolboy, Vogel, found himself invulnerable to any attack he was aware of. As the Nazis occupied more and more of Europe, more Talents appeared amongst the local populations, many of whom would become heroes of their nations. The first British Talent was Jumping Johnny, capable of leaping twenty-seven miles in a single bound and land with a destructive bang, whilst The Indestructible Man, the USA’s first Talent, immune to any damage he was aware of, up to and including as was tested after the war, a ten-megaton nuclear bomb. More and more Talents would manifest throughout the war and around the world, as men and women were subject to the stresses and strains of the war. Despite the Soviet attempts to ‘biologically re-educate’ subjects into manifesting as Talents, the resulting Baba Yaga escaped, mad and willing to attack Soviet and Nazi forces alike. The Nazis conscripted its Übermensch into special SS brigades, whilst the Allies transferred its Talents into Talent Operations Command and trained them as commandos before organising them into Talent Operation Groups, or squads, which would typically be attached to standard forces or used on special missions.

In Godlike, player take the roles of Talents, soldiers with superpowers or miracles who serve in Talent Operation Groups. A character has six stats, Body, Brains, Command, Cool, Coordination, and Sense, rated between one and five, with two being average. Similarly, skills are rated between one and five. Beyond this, stats and skills can have Hyperstats and Hyperskills, so a Talent can have Hyper-Body and be super strong, or Hyper-Intimidation, and be incredibly imposing! Then there are Miracles. Certain traditional superpowers are unknown in the world of Godlike: Superhero Roleplaying in a World on Fire, 1936-1946—mind control or reading, absorption or imitation of other Talents, the ability to create Talents, time travel, unlimited healing powers, and actual super-science—though Goldberg Science and the creation of gadgets is possible. A wide array of cafeteria-style Miracles is given. This ranges from Aces, which makes the Talent incredibly lucky, Break, which enables a Talent to puncture or smash objects beyond Human capability, and Dampen, which allows him to reduce or negate a physical effect of a Talent to Side Step, with which a Talent can avoid a disaster or attack, Time Fugue, which enables a Talent to stop time for a single object or creature, and Zed, which can be used to negate the ability of another Talent. All of the Miracles come with Power Stunts, Extras, and Flaws, which all adjust the cost of the Talents, and there are also prebuilt, ready-to-play, Cafeteria Power-Sets—though only a handful of them. They include The Blaster, The Brain, The Bruiser, The Flyer, and so on.

There is also the option for a player to build his Talent’s Miracles as per other point-buy systems in other superhero roleplaying games. Fundamentally though, the tone and power level of Godlike means that certain superhero archetypes are challenging, even impossible to build. To build a Talent with the powers of flight and blast rays is possible, but expensive, but add in invulnerability, and it becomes prohibitively expensive. This is because Miracles—and also Hyperstats and Hyperskills—are bought as die types. Standard dice are the least expensive, Wiggle dice the most expensive, and Hard dice in between. Figure in Qualities—Attacks, Defends, Useful out of Combat, and Robust—and the cost also goes up, although a player could remove them to reduce the cost, but with the loss of utility. Miracles can also be modified by Extra, Flaws, and Power Stunts, which in turn adjusted the cost. Another limiting factor is the number of Will Points a Talent is built on. Godlike gives the stats for the first ten Talents to appear, their costs ranging from twenty-five to one-hundred-and-fifty Will Points, but the majority have Miracles way out of the league of beginning Talents. In the default campaign setting of the Talent Operations Group, a player is given twenty-five Will Points with which to purchase Hyperstats, Hyperskills, and Miracles. It is not a lot and it makes it challenging to create Talents without resorting to Hyperstats or Hyperskills. Nevertheless, it is possible to create interesting Talents, not all of them necessarily designed for combat.

To create a Talent, a player assigns six points to his Talent’s stats—which already begin at one, assigns twenty points to skills, and if playing in the Talent Operations Group campaign, receives training in another eighteen points’ worth of skills. Lastly, he has twenty-five Will Points to spend on Hyperstats, Hyperskills, and Miracles. As well this, a player should determine his Talent’s background, nationality, age, family, education, motivations, and so on, to flesh out the character.

Our sample Talent is Technician Third Grade Theodore Huffman, who was studying piano at the Juilliard School of Music in New York when his draft number came up 1943. After basic training he was assigned to Special Services and performed piano concerts in the USA, and then England and North Africa. In early 1944, the convoy he was in, was ambushed by the Germans and the truck he was driving blown up. He was thrown from the vehicle and knocked unconscious. It was then that his Talent manifested—Billy Bones. Whilst Theodore was unconscious, his skeleton got up, grabbed a machine gun and proceeded to fight the ambushers, killing most of them, and driving the rest off. When relief arrived, they discovered Huffman asleep and Billy Bones brashly playing jazz on the piano and smoking a cigar. As a Talent, Billy Bones fights when Huffman cannot, and is stronger and faster than Huffman. He also smokes when Huffman does not, and whilst Huffman is a classical pianist, Billy Bones plays music more popular with his fellow soldiers.

Technician Third Grade Theodore Huffman, ‘Billy Bones’, TOG-242
Body 2 Coordination 2 Sense 2
Brains 2 Command 3 Cool 1
Base Will 4
Current Will 4
Motivations: Survive the war; Become a better musician
Skills: Brawling 1 (3d), Climb 1 (3d), Cryptography 2 (4d), Dodge 1 (3d), Drive (Automobile) 1 (3d), Education 2 (4d), Endurance 1 (3d), Explosives 1 (3d), Grenade 1 (3d), Hearing 2 (4d), Knife Fighting 1 (3d), Language (French) 2 (4d), Machine Gun 1 (3d), Map Reading 1 (3d), Navigation (Land) 1 (3d), Perform (Piano) 3 (6d), Perform (Sing) 1 (4d), Pistol 1 (3d), Radio Operation 1 (3d), Rifle 1 (3d), Sailing (Sailboat) 1 (3d), Stealth 1 (3d), Submachine Gun 1 (3d), Survival 1 (3d), Swim 1 (3d), Tactics 1 (3d)

Talents (25 Will Points)
Alternate Form 2hd (Qualities: Attacks, Defends, Robust, Useful Outside of Combat. Base Cost: 5/10/20. Extra: Endless +1/+2/+4, Extra: Unconscious +1/+2/+4; Flaw: Peace of Mind (Asleep) -2/-4/-8; Flaw: Mental Strain -2/-4/-8; Final Cost 3/6/12; 12 points).
Hyperstat: Body +3d (Base Cost: 2/5/10. Flaw: Attached to Alternate Form -1/-2/-4; Final Cost 1/3/6; 3 points).
Hyperstat: Coordination +3d (Base Cost: 2/5/10. Flaw: Attached to Alternate Form -1/-2/-4; Final Cost 1/3/6; 3 points).
Hyperstat: Cool +3d (Base Cost: 2/5/10. Flaw: Attached to Alternate Form -1/-2/-4; Final Cost 1/3/6; 3 points).
Hyperskill: Submachine Gun +2hd (Base Cost: 1/3/7. Flaw: Attached to Alternate Form -1/-2/-4; Final Cost 1/1/3; 2 points).
Hyperskill: Perform (Piano) +2hd (Base Cost: 1/3/7. Flaw: Attached to Alternate Form -1/-2/-4; Final Cost 1/1/3; 2 points).

Although there is a wide range of Miracles listed in Godlike, the list is not extensive, and it would not be until the supplement, Will to Power when the roleplaying game received Miracles such as Size Shift and Unconventional Move. (The supplement also added a range of aircraft which were not included in the core rules—an issue potentially if one of the player Talents could fly.) Nevertheless, between the Godlike and Will to Power, both Game Master and player had access to a decent range of Miracles, enabling both to create interesting Talents. (The following example Talent was created using the extra content from Will to Power.)

Dorothy Murray was fourteen when she was evacuated from London. Unhappy with life away from her parents she ran away and returned to life in the capital. When the family house was bombed, and she found herself buried under rubble, her Talent manifested—she was able to tunnel her way out. At first she thought it was luck, but during later raids, she could hear the cries of those trapped and knew where they were. She began to experiment her powers and by the height of the Blitz, was going out nightly to tunnel into the rubble of bombed houses to rescue the survivors. Anyone pulled free always remembered the glow of the girl who came to rescue them and carry them to safety. The newspapers nicknamed her the ‘Angel of the Blitz’.

Dorothy Murray ‘Angel of the Blitz’
Body 2 Coordination 2 Sense 2
Brains 2 Command 2 Cool 2
Base Will 4
Current Will 4
Motivations: Help people with her Talent; Finish school
Skills: Athletics 1 (3d), Education 1 (3d), First Aid 1 (3d), Health 1 (3d), Hearing 1 (3d), Inspire 1 (3d), Language (Latin) 1 (1d), Mental Stability 1 (3d), Perform (Violin) 1 (3d), Run 1 (3d)
Talents (25 Will Points)
Unconventional Move: Tunnelling 4d+2wd (Qualities: Attacks, Defends, Robust, Useful Outside of Combat. Base Cost: 5/10/20. Extra: Endless +1/+2/+4, Extra: Passenger +1/+2/+4. Flaw: Beacon -4/-8/-16, Flaw: Glows -1/-2/-4, Flaw: Specific Material (Rubble) -1/-2/-4; Final Cost 1/2/4; 12 points).
Hyperstat: Body +8d (Base Cost: 2/5/10. Flaw: Attached to Unconventional Move -1/-2/-4; Final Cost 1/3/6; 8 points).
Detection: Humans 4d (Qualities: Defends, Robust, Useful Outside of Combat. Base Cost: 4/8/16. Flaw: Human Trapped in Rubble/Underground -1/-2/-4; Flaw: Attached to Alternate Form -1/-2/-4; Final Cost 2/4/8; 4 points).

Mechanically, Godlike uses what would become known as ‘Ore’ or the ‘One-Roll Engine’. This is a dice pool system, usually formed of the appropriate Stat plus Skill, for example, Coordination plus Rifle or Command plus Perform (Piano), the aim being not to roll success, but get matches—pairs, triples, and so on. Neither player nor Game Master roll more than ten dice—although actually rolling that many dice is not common. If any of the dice match, then the character has succeeded. However, the more successes rolled, the wider the result is and the faster it is, and the higher the set of matches, the more effective it is. Carried over into combat, the width of the roll will determine the speed of the attack and how much damage is inflicted, whilst its height will determine exactly where the hit was made. Taking damage is not only physically injurious, but will negate dice in an attacker’s pool, so going first is almost a must, but dodging can ‘gobble’ up dice if successful, potentially breaking up matching sets. Although damage inflicted can be stunning, killing, or stunning and killing, combat can be brutal in Godlike, so players had better be warned ahead of play. Leaping into a game and expecting bullets to bounce off your hero’s chest just because is a sure-fire way to get him killed. Overall, the system is elegant, easily handles multiple actions, and plays fast, although it does take some adjustment from the traditional rote of rolling for initiative, rolling to hit, rolling for damage, and so on.

However, there are a couple interesting wrinkles which comes into play once Hyperstats, Hyperskills, and Miracles are figured. There are two other die types beyond the standard type. The medium cost die type is the Hard die. When this is in a pool and rolled, it is always set at a ten. This means that with a pair of Hard dice, a Talent will not always succeed, he will always do so with the maximum effect possible. The most expensive die type is also the most flexible. The Wiggle die can be set to any number, either to create a set or widen a set. Effectively, both give a player more control over his Talent’s ability to bring his Hyerstats, Hyerskills, and Miracles into play, especially as the dice pools for these increase in size—and it is generally easier to improve an already existing Talent rather than select a completely new one.

Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of Godlike is the extensive timeline which covers the ten years from the Berlin Olympics of 1936 to the beginning the Cold War in 1946. It is richly detailed, mixing in both the actual history with the alternate history of Godlike, but keeping the two sperate. The entries which involve Talents are clearly marked with a bullet hole. This is supported by an equally interesting exploration of the wider background to Godlike and the appearance of Talents, especially how society at large reacted to them. The racism and sexism rampant throughout societies in the period is also acknowledged, but notes that despite that the targets of both played major roles in the global conflict. In the main, the role of Talents in Godlike—at least in Godlike: Superhero Roleplaying in a World on Fire, 1936-1946—is focused upon military and special operations style campaigns. This is understandable given that it is the major role of Talents throughout the war, and perhaps other types of campaigns, perhaps with a more diverse range of characters might have come had the publisher had the opportunity. Nevertheless, there is nothing to stop the Game Master using the content in Godlike: Superhero Roleplaying in a World on Fire, 1936-1946 and backed up with research of her own from running other types of campaigns set within the Godlike universe.

Godlike: Superhero Roleplaying in a World on Fire, 1936-1946 is further supported with a wide arsenal of equipment used by both the Allied and Axis powers, from small arms to armoured vehicles. The Game Master is given good advice on running a Godlike campaign, and the following details of the Talent Operations Group campaign is accompanied by a complete write-up of a sample TOG squad. This nicely showcases some of the possibilities using the Miracle creation rules earlier in the book. Alternatives and options suggest ways in which a campaign can be adjusted to allow Talents to be even more ‘godlike’, right up to a Four Colour-style campaign, but these do push the setting away from its gritty and very much soldier-first feel. Rounding out the book are the aforementioned write-ups of the first ten Talents to appear and since the book was published in 2001, rules for running a Godlike campaign under the d20 System. These are decently done, but feel superfluous now.

Physically, Godlike: Superhero Roleplaying in a World on Fire, 1936-1946 is sturdy black and white hardback. It perhaps feels a little odd in its ordering of its content, with explanations of the rules, mechanics, and character creation coming before the roleplaying game’s detailed background. Without the latter, the rules do lack context, but with perseverance the reader will get to the richly detailed background and begin to put everything together. The book is well written and illustrated throughout with black and photographs manipulated to add in the presence of the Talents in each and everyone. There is something quite odd about many of them, their slightly off kilter perspective giving them a sense of the unearthly.

Godlike is lacking a number of elements. Mostly obviously a scenario, but World War 2 is such a familiar setting that a Game Master should be able to develop something of her own with relative ease. It is lacking details of the aircraft—of either side, but that would be addressed in Will to Power. Perhaps its major omissions are the lack of perspectives from either a female point of view or a non-American point of view—and to be fair, there is some truth to both omissions. Yet the focus of Godlike: Superhero Roleplaying in a World on Fire, 1936-1946 is on the soldier on the front lines and beyond them, and not necessarily on the home front, and the role might very well have been more fully explored in subsequent supplements—for example, if a supplement devoted to the Russian Front had been published. The authors did publish scenarios in which women played a significant role, and to be fair, there is only just so much that can be covered in a book, even a core book like Godlike. Plus again, there is nothing to stop the Game Master, backed up with some research from running a campaign where women can play a major role. The other emphasis, that of the US soldier and the role of the USA in World War 2 is present in Godlike, but again to be fair, the roleplaying game was published in a year which was the anniversary of the entry of the USA into World War 2 and that emphasis could be found across all media. However, throughout the alternate history of Godlike, the roles of non-US Talents and their stories and contributions are highlighted again and again, each time working as potential inspiration for stories and scenarios which do not necessarily involve the USA. So ultimately, that emphasis is not strong as it could have been.

Godlike: Superhero Roleplaying in a World on Fire, 1936-1946 would go on to spawn a number of supplements and scenarios, including Will to Power and the campaign, Black Devils Brigade: The First Special Service Force and the Italian Campaign, 1943–1944. Its mechanics would have a wider influence, the One-Roll Engine appearing eventually on its own in Wild Talents, a sequel of sorts to Godlike, but which also stood alone and enabled a Game Master to run a more traditional style of superhero campaign. It in turn would give rise to some wildly imaginative campaign settings, including Wild Talents: Progenitor, Wild Talents: The Kerberos Club, and Wild Talents: This Favored Land.

Then published by Hawthorn Hobgoblynn Press, but later Arc Dream Publishing, Godlike: Superhero Roleplaying in a World on Fire, 1936-1946 would be one of the first roleplaying games I reviewed and certainly the first I reviewed after being contacted directly by the publisher and asked to review. I can remember the surprise when it happened, even when it happens today, I am still surprised and even humbled by the trust that publishers place in me in asking me to review their books. Godlike was worth that trust, because it was a great game in 2001 and it still is in 2021. The combination of Greg Stolze’s elegant mechanics with Dennis Detwiller’s richly developed background is a grim and gritty take upon the superhero genre, something that still stands out today as being different and stood out even more in 2001 against the backdrop of the d20 System boom and the tone taken by the other World War 2 roleplaying games then being released. Godlike: Superhero Roleplaying in a World on Fire, 1936-1946 is an amazing piece of writing and design which shows how even as miraculous powers change the world, the soldier—even the soldier Talent, not only has to survive that world, but stand up and still be a hero in that world.