As the Overseer of the Hold you have been given four tasks. The first is to dig and explore the spaces underground, the second is to develop those spaces into something which will benefit the Hold, the third is protect the Hold against incursions and attacks from the monsters and things that will discovered during its exploration and exploitation, and fourth, locate the Void Crystal for the Under King of the Dwarves. This is the simple set-up for DELVE: A Solo Map Drawing Game in which the reader and player takes control and directs the fate of a Dwarven Hold. Beginning at the bottom of the newly dug stairs, squads of tunnellers will dig outwards across each level and down to dig out ever increasingly lower and lower levels. In the process, the Overseer will discover natural formations like underground forests and crystal caverns, remnants of former inhabitants below such as a wishing well or ancient library, adventurers like a Saboteur or Druid, along with inventions and magic good, bad, or wyrd. Ultimately, excavation teams may unearth legendary finds and ancient monstrosities, but throughout the Overseer must work to develop and protect their Hold. The Overseer can build rooms, from the barracks and cannon outpost to the temple and the treasury—and more, construct traps and barricades, and hire troops, including soldiers and gunners, clerics and mages, golems and alchemists, who will turn help protect the hold from intruders and things discovered deep in the bowels of the earth…

Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign by Blackwell Games, DELVE: A Solo Map Drawing Game requires pencil and paper, and a deck of ordinary playing cards to play, whilst a set of polyhedral dice may be useful, but not required. Ideally, the paper should have a grid on it, but there is nothing to stop the Overseer drawing the details of their Hold freehand. In addition, the Overseer should have access to some tokens to represent both their defending forces and any attacking or invading foes, may want to have a notebook to hand in order to record the development of the Hold in addition to its mapping, as well as the events which come its way. Each turn, as the Overseer the player will draw a card from the playing deck, and draw it on their map; resolve any combat; exchange Resources for Trade Goods or vice versa; build new features like rooms, traps, and barricades; and recruit new Units. Only one room can be built per turn.

The suit of the card drawn determines what the excavation teams have discovered. Clubs are Remnants, Diamonds are Trade Goods, Hearts are Resources, and Spades are Natural Formations. The depth or level of the discovery will determine the amount of Resources or Trade Goods found, whilst the number on Clubs or Spades card indicates the result on the Remnants or Natural Formations tables. In the case of the Hearts or Diamonds result, the Overseer can draw an empty cave on their map to represent the discovery, whilst with a Clubs or Spades card, they draw the result from the relevant table. When building a Room, the Overseer pays the listed cost and either adds it to an empty space or builds it into an already discovered cavern. Each Room provides a particular benefit. For example, the Barracks enables the Overseer to recruit and house ten Soldiers or ten Gunners, the Forge enables him to construct traps, the Mason to build barricades, a Library to hold Mages and study Good Magic, and even a Prison to hold prisoners from the Hold above! Some rooms buff or provide a bonus for others. For example, a Hospital revives nearby Troops to full Strength after combat, a Kitchen increases the Strength of Troops by half again, and a Shrine can serve as a trap for rampaging hordes if a Shrine of Defence or a Shrine of Fortune to enhance the discovery of Diamonds and thus Trade Goods.

Troops simply cost Diamonds and thus Trade Goods to hire and require facilities to house them. Combat is a matter of attrition, comparing the Strength values of the combatants and deducting the lower Strength value from the higher Strength value. A Unit whose Strength is reduced to zero is removed from the Hold, but a Hospital on the same level where the Unit died can revive it. The rules also allow for ranged combat, Clerics casting a divine shield around other units, and so on. When enemy units spawns, or when one of the Overseer’s units turns hostile it moves at speed of one space a turn towards the Entrance until stopped.

DELVE: A Solo Map Drawing Game is lost if an enemy Unit makes it to the first level of the Hold and exits via the Entrance. This marks the failure of the Hold and the Overseer. However, the Overseer can essentially win if their digging teams find the Void Crystal. Whether or not this happens, it is down to a turn of the cards, and it only occurs after the Overseer has reached Level Five. At this point, the two Jokers which up until now have been removed from the deck of playing cards, are added back in. From this point onwards, the Overseer can unearth ‘Legendary Finds’—great boons, great magics, great banes, great beasts, and more. If the Black Joker is drawn it indicates that the Overseer has encountered an Ancient Monstrosity that is unique and requires a few more cards to be drawn to define what should be something that the Dwarfs whisper about for centuries to come. Like other enemy Units this will move towards the Entrance, and having Strength of a hundred and more, will smash through Unit after Unit of the Overseer’s troops. When the Ancient Monstrosity gets to the Entrance, it may be too large to get through it and so it instead begins a Takeover of the Hold…

If the Red Joker is drawn, something good has been found. This can be anything from a gem to armour, an instrument to a shield, and possesses a pair of powers or features, randomly determined by drawing two cards. It might simply be valuable, in which case a collector will offer to purchase it from the Overseer, or it could offer guidance, enabling the Overseer to draw two cards per turn and pick the better of the two-unless they are Jokers, in which case, they must be played. If the two cards drawn to determine the Legendary Find’s powers or features are both face cards of any suit, then the Overseer has discovered the location of the Void Crystal and fulfilled the task set by the Under-King, and thus won.

The play of DELVE: A Solo Map Drawing Game is intentionally procedural. The Overseer will draw a card, add its feature to the map, move any enemy Units and conduct combat, and then collect and spend Resources and Trade Goods to build and develop the Hold, connecting rooms and caverns with corridors and levels with stairs, with both stairs and corridors being free to build. They can add notes to the map, but at the same time, record other details in a journal. Initially, this process is relatively quick because there are fewer Resources and Trade Goods to be found, so the Overseer has fewer options in terms of what rooms, traps, and other features they can afford as well as Units they can recruit. Dig deeper, and then deeper still, and the Resources and Trade Goods are increasingly plentiful when found, but the monsters and dangers are more powerful and challenging to stop. Having more Resources and Trade Goods means being able to build better defences, recruit more troops, and so give the Overseer more choice. With that increased choice comes more complexity though. The random nature of the game means that at times the Overseer will have no choice such as when an enemy Unit is rampaging through the Hold, forcing him to recruit more troops to protect the Entrance to the Hold, construct traps and barricades to slow the enemy Unit’s movement, and so on.

As the play of DELVE: A Solo Map Drawing Game proceeds, three things develop out of it. First is the map of the Hold, drawn in cross section, with each level spreading out across the page and then with each subsequent level, the Hold down the page. The limits of the Hold are marked by the page edge, but the Overseer could easily develop onto another page if they wanted to, and they could even draw the Hold as a traditional overview plan with each page representing a level. Second, when combined with the notes kept in the journal, a story can begun to be told of the Hold’s development and history, the Overseer free to name rooms, Units, adventurers hired, Legendary Finds discovered, and more. Ultimately, this story will either end in success or failure. Success if the Void Crystal is found or failure if an enemy Unit manages to fight its way up from the depths of the hold and the Entrance. Third, the combination of the map and the notes in the journal with story told means that the player has created a dungeon with a history and legends which could be explored by a party of adventurers in Dungeons & Dragons. If the Hold was successfully built, it might be the case that the adventurers need to sneak in and steal or confront a particular Legendary Find, but if it fell to an Ancient Monstrosity or other monsters, the Hold may have long fallen to ruin, an ill remembered legacy of the Overseer’s failure…
Beyond discovering the location of the Void Crystal, DELVE: A Solo Map Drawing Game provides a second objective which involves digging even deeper—as far down as the thirtieth level, plus options for increasing the difficulty of the game. These include adding themed levels with particular powers, such as level where any liquid found is magma, and Bloodrunes which change aspects of the game, such the Rune of Nightmares which switches play to begin on the Nightmare layer of the thirtieth level and the Overseer have to work upwards rather than down!

Physically, DELVE: A Solo Map Drawing Game is a cleanly presented, digest-sized book. The writing is clear and simple such that the reader can become an Overseer and start digging and drawing very quickly.

DELVE: A Solo Map Drawing Game is the pen and paper equivalent of the computer game, Dungeon Keeper—indeed it was one of the inspirations for the game, but played at a very sedate pace and with the player handling all of the procedural and resource management elements. It can be played in one sitting or put aside and returned to at a later date, but it does take time to play and the more time the Overseer invests the more rewarding the story which should develop. And as good as successfully finding the Void Crystal feels, playing DELVE: A Solo Map Drawing Game and not finding it and having the Hold fail can be as narratively interesting and satisfying—if not more so.

In the dim and distant past, an Abbot, a Cook, a Miller, a Smith, a Tanner, and a Tailor were wrongly incarcerated below Dark Castle for more years than any of them can recall. There came a moment for several of them to make their escape and take up their old lives again, but between them and freedom lay some fifteen encounters or locations, as well as a boss responsible for their imprisonment. Using their Cunning, their Might, and their Wisdom, they faced traps, monsters, choices, and more, all of which forced them to work together if they were to overcome these challenges and so make their escape. It was an all or nothing proposition—they all had to survive or none would and they all had to escape or none would!
This is the set-up for Escape the Dark Castle: The Game of Atmospheric Adventure, a grim co-operative dice game published in 2017 which echoes the Fighting Fantasy series of solo adventure books from the nineteen eighties. Published by Themeborne, Escape the Dark Castle is designed to be played by between one and four players, aged fourteen plus, so just like those Fighting Fantasy books, it can be played solo. It can be played in thirty minutes or less—probably less because Escape the Dark Castle is a brutally challenging game to beat and it offers plenty of replay value because of the number of cards it comes with and the random set-up each time it is played.

Centuries have now passed and Lieutenants Abbot, Cook, Miller, Smith, Tanner, and Tailor—perhaps the descendants of those who successfully escaped the Dark Castle?—have found themselves incarcerated in the detention block of a vast space station. Like their ancestors, they now have their own opportunity to escape their imprisonment, and just like back on Earth, the route they must take, between the detention block and their spaceship, is fraught with danger. The escapees must find their way out of the Detention Level, through the Heart of the Station, and then the Forgotten Zones to their impounded spaceship—and escape!
This is the set-up for Escape the Dark Sector: The Game of Deep Space Adventure, the Science Fiction sequel to Escape the Dark Castle. Designed to be played by between one and four players—so can be played solo—aged fourteen and up, Escape the Dark Sector has a longer playing time than Escape the Dark Castle. This is because Escape the Dark Sector is moderately more complex than its forebear and adds new elements and rules to the format. However, this complexity adds new options for the players and flavour to both the story and play of the game which reflects the Science Fiction genre of Escape the Dark Sector.

Funded via Kickstarter, Escape the Dark Sector comes as solidly appointed as Escape the Dark Castle, if not more so. This includes six Crew Cards, forty-eight Chapter Cards, five Boss Cards, and three Start Cards, all of which are A6 in size. The twenty Item Cards, four Starting Weapons cards, six Starting Cybernetics, and two Tactical Action cards are all standard sized cards. The thirty-five, large six-sided dice are divided between the nine black Chapter Dice and the six white Crew Dice—just as in Escape the Dark Castle, but also add four Hit Dice and sixteen Ammo Dice (representing a mixture of ballistic, energy, and explosive ammunition). A Medical Record pad—which actually looks like a heart rate tracker—and several pencils are included to track the Crewman’s Hit Points. The black and white rule book runs to some twenty-eight pages, over double the length of the rulebook for Escape the Dark Castle.

The Character Cards depict Lieutenants Abbot, Cook, Miller, Smith, Tanner, and Tailor. Each has ratings in three Traits—Cunning, Might, and Wisdom. The ratings each Character has in these Traits indicates how many times they occur on their Character die. So, Lieutenant Abbot has four in Wisdom, three in Might, and one in Cunning, and the corresponding number of symbols appear on Lieutenant Abbot’s Character Die. Some of the symbols appear twice on the face a Character Die and in shield. When rolled, this means that a Character is twice as effective, whilst the shield indicates that all damage has been blocked. The Chapter Dice simply show the three symbols twice.

The Chapter Cards depict the creatures and challenges the crew members have to overcome and the horrors and choices they will face. Each Chapter Card clearly indicates what the Characters have to do, how many Chapter Dice need to be rolled if required, and how much damage the Characters will suffer if they fail. For example, the Characters might pass through the engineering deck where a neglected warp cell is in its final stages of destabilisation, pulsing intermittently and snaking out crackling tendrils of irradiated energy. They immediately lose a Hit Point due to the radiation, and have the choice of leaving the room immediately or searching for further equipment, but at the cost of further exposure to irradiation. Alternatively, the Characters find themselves locked in an alien laboratory containing a control terminal and a stasis tank in which floats a mutated humanoid monstrosity. One character has to work the controls, and if he successfully understands and manipulates the pattern of alien symbols, he can open the exit allowing everyone to escape. If not, the stasis tube powers down and the mutated humanoid monstrosity is freed… The Characters must defeat this creature before they can progress.
The Item Cards are a mix of consumables, equipment, and weapons. So, a bottle of Unmarked Pills can be consumed to restore a Hit Point or Brain Stim taken to change the result of a die roll to a Wisdom result; a Chrono-Bomb can be detonated to allow the reroll of all the dice; and the Beam Emitter ranged weapon comes with relatively high ammunition and rate of fire, but when fired has a chance of overheating and causing the Character wielding it to lose a Hit Point! One notable addition in terms of equipment is that of Cybernetic Implants. Every Character starts play with one of these, such as Advanced Targeting which lets the Character reroll an Ammo Die during ranged combat. This has the added effect of making the Character feel a little more different to each other—more so than in Escape the Dark Castle. Each Character has enough space to carry four items, though some larger items count as double.
Lastly, the rulebook is a quick read and the rules are relatively easy to learn. Some close attention will need to be paid to the new rules, especially those for ranged combat and flanking. Escape the Dark Sector requires some degree of set-up, more than its forebear. Not only does each player need to choose a Character, he also needs to select a Cybernetic Implant and one of the Starting Weapons. Ideally, this should be done together, so that the three Traits—Cunning, Might, and Wisdom—are best represented and enable the Characters to potentially deal with most challenges and enemies. All depending on luck and player choices, of course. Lastly, the Mission Deck is created. This consists of twelve Chapter cards, divided into three Acts of four cards each for the Detention Level, the Heart of the Station, and the Forgotten Zones, topped with a Start card and tailed with a Boss card. There are sixteen cards for each of the three acts, three Start cards, and five Boss cards, and the set-up is done randomly. This allows for plenty of variety in terms of challenges and replayability in the long term.

Game play begins with a player turning over the Start Card and reading it. Then the first Chapter Card is turned over and play proper begins. There is no turn order, the players deciding who will turn over each Chapter Card and what they will do to overcome them. It can be important who turns over a Chapter Card as some have conditions which apply only to the Character of that player. From one Chapter to the next, the Characters will find themselves fighting or evading a suddenly powered-up security ’mech; creeping past large glistening eggs which sprout acid-seeping tentacles; bribing or attacking their way past rival gangs; abducted, experimented upon, and found again; swarmed by alien insectoids, and more. Along the way they will find items which will help them and if they are lucky, they will be strong enough to face the Boss at the end of the dungeon and defeat him to escape.

The major addition to Escape the Dark Sector in terms of rules is the ability for the Characters to engage in Ranged Combat. In some Chapters this is mandatory, others not, but adds new tactical options for the Characters, who can now Shoot and expect Return Fire from the enemy. To attack with a ranged weapon, a player rolls the Ammo Dice for that weapon—the number determined by the weapon’s rate of fire—and applies the effects. This varies from creature to creature, as some creatures are more susceptible to energy blasts than slug hits for example. It is also possible to miss and for weapons to suffer a malfunction which will harm the wielder. Instead of shooting, a Character can Flank the enemy, rushing out from behind cover to reach a better vantage point. This makes the Character vulnerable to attack from the enemy when moving, but it grants him a bonus attack in the extra Flank Round which takes place before the Ranged Combat or Close Combat Rounds. This bonus attack can either be a Ranged Combat or a Close Combat attack, inflicts extra damage if successful, and it cannot be blocked, but it can only be done once per Chapter.

In Close Combat, the players have a number of actions to choose from, the first of which is the Fight action. This covers attacking and defending, each player rolling his Character Dice in an attempt to match the symbols on the Chapter Card which represents the enemy. Unless a player has rolled a Shield on one of his Character Dice which would block any damage, his Character suffers damage automatically. Other actions include Reload—to reload any ranged weapon (so essentially when a Character finds a weapon, it comes with unlimited ammunition!), Trade or take an Item from another Character, Take Cover and take no action, and Activate Drone. The latter activates the drone carried in the backpack of one of the Characters. It heals the activating Character by one Hit Point and then recharges. It can only be used once per Chapter. This is a significant change to the game play of the format because in Escape the Dark Sector, unlike in Escape the Dark Castle, there is no Rest action during which a Character can heal. Between Chapters, the Characters are free to use Items or exchange with other Characters, and reload a weapon.

Escape the Dark Sector: The Game of Deep Space Adventure could simply have been a reiteration of Escape the Dark Castle: The Game of Atmospheric Adventure, but with a Science Fiction. Fortunately, it is anything but that. Although very much based on the set-up and mechanics as Escape the Dark Castle, the sequel is very much a development of it, adding theme and rules that are very much in keeping with both its Science Fiction genre and inspirations. Now the inspirations for Escape the Dark Castle were in the fantasy and the Fighting Fantasy solo adventure books of the eighties, but whilst Escape the Dark Sector draws from the Escape the Dark Sector solo adventure books for its style of play, its Science Fiction inspirations are the grungy, Blue Collar Science Fiction of the nineteen seventies and eighties, so Alien, Bladerunner, Outland, and others. There is another inspiration too, but one from the nineties rather than the eighties, and that is the computer first person shooter, Doom. It is inspirational only though, and although Escape the Dark Sector does involve gun combat, the resulting game is not a shoot ’em up. It is grimmer and more challenging, fraught with danger from one Chapter to the next.

Physically, Escape the Dark Sector is well presented and packaged. The cards are all on a good linen stock and their artwork has a grubby, rough quality which fits both theme and setting. There is a certain pleasure to be had examining the artwork and spotting the references and so on. Lastly, the dice feel solid and heavy in the hands, just waiting to be rolled. The rulebook is decently presented and written, and includes rules for solo play as well as standard play with multiple players.

As much as the new rules and mechanics in Escape the Dark Sector add structure and give the players options, they add complexity, they give more choices to be made, and thus they increase playing length. Whether coming to Escape the Dark Sector or after having played Escape the Dark Castle, the rules also need more attention paid to them because of their relatively greater complexity and increased procedural nature of play. However, a careful read through and a play or two of the game, and a gaming group should be fine.

Like its forebear, Escape the Dark Sector: The Game of Deep Space Adventure is both fun and challenging to play, offering frustration in failing to escape the confines of the space station and elation in overcoming the challenges of the Chapter Cards and defeating the final Boss. The game is fairly quick to set up and play through, making it a good filler—though one which warrants occasional rather than regular play. The new rules and structured Mission Deck add options as well as better storytelling, all pushing the players to make more choices and work better together. Escape the Dark Sector: The Game of Deep Space Adventure is an enjoyably brutal and challenging co-operative game, whether played solo or in a group.

MontiDots Ltd. is best known as a British Old School Renaissance publisher of scenarios steeped in British folklore, such as MD2 The Curse of Harken Hall: A MontiDots Adventure for early versions Fantasy Role-playing games and Limbus Infernum. The latest scenario designed for this general fantasy setting is The Raven Stone – A first level adventure of old school fantasy. This is an adventure designed for beginning characters using which uses Knights & Knaves’ OSRIC™ System (Old School Reference and Index Compilation), although with some alterations it can be used with the retroclone of the Referee’s choice. It takes the all but clichéd set-up of a village in peril and gives it a nice twist upon the other cliché of the rising dead. The set-up is fuelled by greed—not once, but twice, and will see the Player Characters dealing with the corpse cavalcade and tracing the cause back to its origins, a storyline which will see them protecting the village, dealing with the village ne’er-do-wells, either negotiating or combating a tribe of Kobolds, and ultimately exploring the dungeon below their tower home. Note that due to the extensive presence of the undead in the scenario, a Cleric is very much required when playing The Raven Stone.

The Raven Stone is set in and around Siquanna Falls, a fishing village sat on the confluence of the Ure and Undine Rivers in a narrow, heavily wooded valley. It lies some two days’ travel from the nearest town and supports a nearby iron mine. A merchant caravan run by Muskan Ganto, regularly delivers a variety of trade, luxury, and special request goods to both the mine and the village, protected by hired mercenaries. The Player Characters are visiting Siquanna Falls—and one of them should ideally be a native who has returned home—when odd things begin to happen… First the Gurney brothers, whom the Siquanna Falls-born native Player Character will remember as a pair of lazy thieves and thugs from a family of lazy thieves and thugs, turn up at the local inn, The Laughing Carp, with luxury goods to sell. Second, Muskan Ganto is late in making his deliveries. Third, several corpses slither out of the lake and begin attacking the villagers, followed by corpses clawing their way out of the ground and attempting to escape the village cemetery. Could all of this be connected?

Initially, the Player Characters are asked by the innkeeper to find out what has happened to Muskan Ganto and then find out what is causing the dead to rise in the village. The starting point for the former is probably going to be to question the Gurney brothers, but the Player Characters are specifically told that they cannot use force and they cannot come to harm otherwise the authorities will act against them. This sets up a fun challenge for the players and their characters, but other means of getting out of the brothers are perfectly viable, whether that is through persuasion, intimidation, guile, or stealth. In fact, the Gurney brothers—or least the Gurney family—are likely to be grateful to the Player Characters when they come to their rescue as the dead seem to be flocking to their shack… Which of course begs the question, what is attracting the walking dead to them? It turns out to be an artefact that the brothers found (the Raven Stone of the title) and if the Player Characters take it—and the likelihood is that they will—it will begin attracting the undead to them. So, where did the artefact come from and why has it only begun working in the last twenty-four hours…?

Backtracking into the plot to The Raven Stone should eventually see the Player Characters find Muskan Ganto and his caravan, visit the iron mine, and eventually the Chimmekins, the local Kobold clan. The Player Characters are free to approach the Kobolds however they want, but they are told to be careful as the Kobolds can be dangerous, but in general they keep to themselves, not wanting to arouse the ire or attention of any local authorities. So the Player Characters can muscle in and attack the Kobolds if they want, but the Kobold king is willing to negotiate. He will allow the Player Characters to explore the dungeon below the tower where much of the clan lives and which has recently been beset by attacks by the undead.

The Raven Stone consists of two parts—the sandbox mystery above ground followed by the exploration of the Kobolds’ tower and the dungeon and below. Its strong plot hook should keep the players and their characters busy for multiple sessions, but the plotting is not as strong as it should be nor as easy to purvey to the players and their characters as it should be. The connections to the Gurney brothers and back to Muskan Ganto and his caravan are easy enough to follow, but the connection to the iron mine and then the Kobolds are not as obvious as they should be, and the Dungeon Master needs to take the time to go through the scenario and develop them herself. Perhaps by having Siquanna Falls’ two leading NPCs—the innkeeper and the local priest being ready sources of information should the Player Characters have questions, and definitely by preparing a briefing for the player whose character is native to the village about what he knows. The latter would certainly prime both player and character. In addition, this could include information and history about the immediate region, since once the Player Characters get into the dungeon, there is background information which will seem unrelated to either the plot or the region.

Except for the background to the region, there is a lot of detail given in The Raven Stone, from the descriptions of Siquanna Falls and the Gurney family home to the location of Muskan Ganto and his caravan and the Kobolds’ tower and dungeon. The latter two areas are very nicely described with a good amount of flavour and explanation, the dungeon itself divided between areas occupied by the Kobolds and those not. It should become clear that the dungeon was once an extension of the tower and that it was home to a ruling noble sometime in the past. This gives it the feel of a long-abandoned home rather than a random dungeon, so a stronger theme than it might otherwise have had. It is a pity that this aspect of the dungeon and tower is supported by background and history for the Player Characters to discover. 

One issue with the dungeon and tower, and probably the scenario as a whole, is that it contains a lot of treasure, especially magical treasure, right up to an artefact that in essence is a mini-Deck of Many Things. The Dungeon Master may want to scale back some of the rewards to be found, especially if she does not want her Player Characters to become too powerful, too quickly. Another issue is that unless the Player Characters push to explore them, and in all likelihood anger the Kobolds in doing so, some of the areas of the dungeon and tower are out of bounds for the Player Characters, so that certain secrets may never be discovered. Only by being aggressive will the Player Characters be potentially rewarded, and perhaps it would have been appropriate for the scenario to have presented another way around this, especially after giving the option for the Kobolds to be open to negotiation earlier in the scenario. Lastly, the absolute need for a Cleric and the ability to turn undead—and potentially there are a lot of the undead, probably very attracted to the Player Characters later in the scenario—does suggest that The Raven Stone might be too challenging a scenario for First Level characters. Perhaps Second Level might be more appropriate, at least?

In addition to the dungeon, The Raven Stone includes an appendix describing the pantheon of gods used by MontiDots Ltd. and a guide to ‘Prentice Potions’, that is, potion brewing by Wizards who are less than Seventh Level. This requires a liquid known as Aqua Conjurum and if included, increases the versatility of the Wizard at lower Levels. Further, the scenario lists some house rules that the author uses for his campaigns and thus The Raven Stone. This includes polytheistic and dedicated Clerics, the turning of the undead, and starting spells for Magic-Users. Again, all to make both Classes more versatile at low Level.

Physically, The Raven Stone is nicely presented. Both the artwork and the cartography are as good as you would expect from MontiDots Ltd. It does feel cramped in places and does need a stronger edit in places.

The Raven Stone is a likeable scenario. The idea of the Player Characters getting hold of an artefact which attracts the undead and their not knowing what to do with it is a fun idea, and the fact that the scenario is driven by greed and foolishness rather than anything evil is refreshing—especially when it comes to the undead. Yet, the scenario is not as clearly developed as it could have been, leaving the Dungeon Master with more preparation than is really necessary. Overall, The Raven Stone is an entertainingly detailed and fun adventure—once the Dungeon Master has put a bit of work into it.

As the title suggests, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan is a supplement for use with both Leagues of Cthulhu, the supplement of Lovecraftian horror for use with Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age! and its expansion, Leagues of Gothic Horror. Published by Triple Ace Games, it presents a guide and a gazetteer to the little understood country of Afghanistan in the Late Victorian Era, not just the history and the geography, but the Mythos and the folklore, and more. Although it is not a comprehensive guide—being relatively short at just forty pages—it presents more than enough information to bring a campaign to the British Empire’s North-West Frontier, whether a supernatural campaign for Leagues of Adventure or a Lovecraftian investigative horror campaign for Leagues of Cthulhu. In addition, what few stats there are for use with the Ubiquity system are easy to interpret and adapt to the system of the Game Master’s choice, whether that is Cthulhu by Gaslight for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, Trail of Cthulhu, or Victoriana.

Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan explores a country which has been much contested over its long history, many times conquered, including by Alexander the Great and the Mongols, but never truly tamed. Sat on the Silk Road between the East and the West, it has been an important crossroads for both Central and South Asia, not just for trade, but also for learning and faiths. Previously a great centre of Zoroastrian and Buddhist learning,  in more recent times the Emirate of Afghanistan has become known as a fiercely independent Islamic state which despite defeating the British Empire in the First Anglo-Afghan War has become a British protectorate under the sway of the British Raj in India following its defeat in the more recent Second Anglo-Afghan War. Essentially Afghanistan has become a buffer state between the British and Russian Empires as part of ‘The Great Game’. Though mountainous and remote, with only one real point of access—up the Khyber Pass after a thousand mile journey by rail north from Bombay, what this means is that the crossroads of Asia are open to the intrepid explorer, adventurer, historian, and archaeologist, should they be brave enough to traverse its dense mountain ranges and deep valleys, all the whilst minding their Ps and Qs, and doing their very best not to offend local customs.
Of course, the region has a history older than some mere ape descendants, and in most cases, older than some mere ape descendants can imagine. In the long geological past, it has been home to an Elder Thing city, whilst in the more recent geological past, the Serpent Men settled in Afghanistan’s lower lying regions, and to this day, the Mi-Go continue mine the country’s higher peaks for rare minerals. In more recent times, Alexander the Great campaigned against the worshippers and entities of the Mythos, but in the millennia since his death, dark faiths, dark entities, and dark artefacts have been traded back and forth along the Silk Road. Many found a home in Afghanistan and almost as many were destroyed by the wave after wave of invasions the country would suffer in the course of its history, most notably under the Mongols in the thirteenth century. Fragments of these cults, the subjects of their venerations, and their blasphemous objects and texts remain; in the libraries of religious scholars, amongst the wares of curio dealers on dusty backstreets, in the ruins of ancient cities and monasteries, and carved into the walls of buildings usually avoided by the local inhabitants or into the rock high up on the side of remote valleys. Some will be familiar to scholars, but some maybe new, whilst others simply hint at something else or something older… Worse still are the secrets that some tribes hide or at least do not talk about. Often things best left assuaged through sacrifice or locked or buried away, not through ignorance, but fear for family and tribe—and more should such things be free once again to ravage the Earth. Though not all such tribes act to protect the world, some do, whilst other tribes and cults are true worshippers, reviled and feared by other Afghans in equal measure.
Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan opens with an introduction to the country. This covers its history, both the outré and the ordinary from prehistory to the modern day of the Mauve Decade; explains how to get there (starting with an airship since Leagues of Adventure and Leagues of Cthulhu are steampunk roleplaying settings); and provides an overview in turn of its geography climate, peoples, cuisine, economics, entertainment, and more. A lot of this will add flavour, such as the dishes that the Player Characters will likely eat, but details such as the lack of ready information sources, that is, no newspapers except those which are weeks old from outside the country, and Pashtunwali, a guide to Pashtunwali, the code of conduct that the Pashtuns adhered are more likely to have an impact upon play and what the Player Characters say and do. Much of this is straight background material, but elements of the fantastic are added in sections of boxed text also. For example, The Book of Arda Viraf is a Zoroastrian Mythos tome, Pashtunwali is detailed as a Code of Conduct, and a new League of Adventure is described. This is ‘The Alexandria Club’, whose members are dedicated to locating and excavating all of the many cities built across Asia by Alexander the Great.
The Gazetteer covers just some of the various ancient sites, monasteries and temples, rock inscriptions, natural features—from the Hindu Kush Mountains to the Khyber Pass, and settlements to be found across Afghanistan, all given a paragraph or two each, and a rating for their Eerie Atmosphere, with most accompanied by an adventure seed. For example, the Mountain of Genies, lies in south-eastern Afghanistan, its barren heights inhabited by a tribe known locally as the Sky Devils, feared for their stealth and their propensity for stealing away animals and people without trace, though sometimes mutilated bodies are found in the valley below. The disappearances include British troops committed to the region during the Second Anglo-Afghan War and almost every expedition since has failed to reach or map the mountain and its surrounds due to disaster and mishap. Indeed, the adventure seed involves a member of one such expedition staggering into Kabul, raving about “winged devils”, “monoliths from beyond time”, and so on. Elsewhere, the members of the Prospectors’ Club have explored too deep below Mes Aynak, which sits atop the country’s largest deposits of copper and come across the last remnants of a very ancient and alien civilisation, whilst Zorkul, a lake in the Pamir Mountains lying on the contested border with Russia, was noted by a Chinese explorer as containing an idol of sea-green stone depicting a ‘water dragon’. Perhaps the lake was the site of ill-fated Sarnath and when rumours spread of a ‘dragon’ statue seen in the lake following a drought, perhaps the Player Characters have the opportunity to confirm this?
The Mythos itself is kept fairly light in Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan. Mentions are made of various entities, such as knowledge of Shub-Niggaurath having been brought into the region with the Persians and Yog-Sothoth via the Zoroastrians. Two or three cults are mentioned, such as the Cult of the Black Hand which works to set the Russians and the British at each other’s throats and the Illuminated Fraternity of the All-Seeing Eye, which seeks world domination, but these are mere mentions and left wholly undeveloped. The Cult of the Silent Fire, whose members take a vow of silence to violent, self-mutilating extremes, is given a more detailed wrote-up, as is one of its leading cultists, and also a Mythos horror, the Darkness from the Void, a collective intelligence which takes the form of a thin, black sludge which comes down from space and infects organism after organism. The Cult of the Silent Fire seeks to spread its inner truths to all those who will listen and then learn the reality, whilst the Darkness from the Void seeks to infect all in an attempt to acquire all knowledge and come to a true understanding of the universe. That all said, the author also simply advises that at times, the monster need be no more than a tentacle, whether emerging from some cold deep lake, or the blackness of a tunnel.
Numerous stock NPCs are detailed, such as Afghan Craftsman, Russian Spy, and British Junior Official, whilst Afghan War Veteran—very Doctor John Watson, and Correspondent-at-Arms are written up as sample Player Characters. Perhaps the most entertaining NPC detailed is one Peachy Carnehan, an ex-British army sergeant, Freemason, and adventurer, now a crippled and scarred beggar wandering the streets of Kabul with a strange bundle in his arms. Devotees of Rudyard Kipling and likely Sean Connery and Michael Caine will enjoy this inclusion.
Physically, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan is decently done. It needs a slight edit here and there and whilst light on illustrations, it at least comes with a map or two. These are very useful, especially given the lack of familiarity that many a reader of the supplement is likely to have with Afghanistan during this period. It would have been useful if the previous region guide, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria, also had such maps.
One obvious issue with Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan is that its subject matter is likely to be contentious, since it deals with the Imperialism and racism of the period. Fortunately, the author addresses these issues and handles them with some care. For example, it is suggested that the attitudes of the Victorians towards the natives be reflected not in actual expressions of racism, but rather that all Afghans initially suffer a Bad Reputation Flaw because of the poor attitudes and ill-informed opinions of the British and other Europeans towards them. Then this can be roleplayed initially, but as the Player Characters interact, they can learn otherwise and it effectively fade into the background and not be applied. The other advice is for the game play to be respectful of ruins and holy places, lest offence—in game and out—be caused. Overall, simple, but justified advice.
Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan has much in common with the earlier Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria in that it combines a solid overview of the region and its people with the Mythos worked deep into the fabric of the country. However, there is less of an emphasis upon folklore and myth and superstition behind which the Mythos can be hidden than there is in Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria, perhaps because of the lack of familiarity and far away strangeness of the setting. Most of the manifestations of the Mythos in Afghanistan are relics from its long and ancient past, though there are some which are active, but whether relic or active, they are underwritten and will need no little development upon the part of the Game Master or Keeper to turn into a full mystery and bring to the table. The disappointing lack of a bibliography will not help the Game Master to that end. 
Overall, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan is an interesting and informative introduction to Afghanistan during the late Victorian era, especially given our general lack of familiarity with both period and region. There is no denying that Afghanistan deserves its own supplement for Lovecraftian investigative horror, but in the meantime, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Afghanistan is a good, if imperfect, starting point.

Shadow of Mogg is so brutally British that it hurts. To play Shadow of Mogg to its fullest, it is necessary to know where you stand in the First Scone War, the Second Scone War, know how to make a nice hot cup of tea (that is, not using a microwave), know when to say sorry, know where to stand in the queue, know when exactly is the right moment to complain about your food, know which baked beans are the best, what your class is and where you stand in the pecking order, and to be a full-on Parliamentary politics wonk. Flying the flag, liking the Royal family, knowing the words to Jerusalem and the right night on which to sing it, understanding when football is coming home, knowing when to invoke the spirit of the Blitz, wearing a Union Jack waistcoat/underpants/dress, hating foxes, loving foxes, hating badgers, loving badgers, loving Mogg, hating Jezza, loving Jezza, hating Mogg, and so on, all optional (or not), but quintessentially British, nonetheless. Shadow of Mogg is also so contemporary that it is either so right now or so right last week and a satire that is so 2020 that is either still amusing as a commentary on the last five years or a prediction of an alternative future yet to come. Think Citizen Smith meets Yes Minister written by Nigel Kneale shot entirely in the studio on a 1970s BBC comedy budget and then updated to 2020 without even a budget increase to allow for inflation, and that would be Shadow of Mogg.

Published by Manic Productions following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Shadow of Mogg – A Post Brexit RPG is a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game of consensus politics, exploration, and survival in the London underground following ‘The Event’—whatever that was since no-one talks about it or even mentions it. As well as a satire, it is also a co-operative—consensual even—storytelling game with Old School Renaissance styles elements, most notably a dungeon crawl through the tunnels between the stations of the London underground. The players take the role of survivors of this post-‘The Event’ world, the ordinary men and women of the world above forced not only to act together as a Party, but agree upon each and every single action that both every individual and the Party as a whole wants to take. It is almost as if everyone has agreed to become an anarcho-syndicalist commune in which the members take turns to act as a sort of executive-officer-for-the-week, but which all the decisions of that officer must be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting… All this in the face of an increasingly desperate situation, dwindling resources, and ultimately, tougher and tougher decisions which everyone must agree to.

A character in Shadow of Mogg has four stats—two Body stats, Hench and Dash, and two Mind stats, Noggin and Bants. Hench is physical stat and his ability to handle himself in a punch up; Dash is his agility and speed and handiness with a gun; Noggin is his awareness and his brains; and Bants (or Banter) is his  charisma and silver tongue rolled into one. All stats are rated between one and three. He also has a Class. Each Class provides four skills, one for each stat, two or three items of Stuff, or equipment, some Party Resources—what the character contributes towards the survival of the Party, a Special ability, and a Character Question, which typically asks the nature of the bond the Character has with another Player Character. Some Classes also have Mates who will always support the Player Character. The skills have ratings between one and three, as does the Stuff and Party Resources.

Character generation is easy. The player assigns the numbers three, two, two, and one to his character’s stats. Then he rolls ‘d66’ to determine his character’s Class, notes down all of its details and adds personal details. Many of the Classes are quite mundane, such as Intensive Care Nurse, Church of England Vicar, Brixton Bobby, Black Cabbie, Primary School Teacher, and so on. Others are quite specific, such as Gellar Psychic, RBS Chief Exec, People’s Front of Jezza, Jezza’s People’s Front (splitters!), Mogg Rustler (just what is a Mogg?), and Whigg. All of these Classes are arch satire, but the more specific the Class, the stronger the satire, right up to the Whigg, who might or might not have been the First Lord of the Treasury and/or the Minister for the Civil Service prior to ‘The Event’ (whatever that was).

Dave Trench
Age: 52
Bio: Lifelong Fulham supporter, son of Socialist parents, voted Thatcher (twice), Blair (three times), Cameron (twice, but he was a knob), May (reluctantly), Johnson (once, arse, but good for a laugh), The ‘Event’ (Brilliant!)

Tabloid Journalist
Hench 2 Dash 2 Noggin 1 Bants 3

Skills
Shit Stirring 3 (Bants), Chasing a Lead 2 (Dash), New Hound 2 (Hench), Research 1 (Noggin)

Stuff
Copy of the Daily Mail (1), Flask of Coffee (1), Notepad and pen (1)

Party Resources
1 Molly, 1 Scran

Special
Alternative Facts (Can change a single word in a proposition before it is voted on)

Character Question
Has some dirt on another Player Character—who and what is it?

Instead of acting as individuals, the Player Characters act as a Party, for which the players need to decide what their Party is and what its stands for, its members, laws, and so on. This is recorded on a Party Manifesto Sheet which requires a little set up time and then maintenance during play. The Party Manifesto Sheet also records the Party’s resources—Gubbins, Scran, Slugs, Meds, and Molly—initially contributed by the Player Characters, but can alter as they are scrounged and scavenged, as well as used up and consumed. These use a standard resource die a la The Black Hack and other Old School Renaissance roleplaying games since. The Party Manifesto Sheet also keeps track of the Party’s Anxiety.

To undertake any kind of action requires a Resolution, which requires a proposition as to a course of action—as in “This Party believes that…”—and this can be over everything and anything. Thus, what direction to travel in, how to interact with someone not of the Party, whether to fight or flee, and of course, who eats first? The latter ultimately, likely to be a bone of contention within the Party and likely to be its downfall if its membership are not all dead of starvation, let alone other causes. Once a proposition has been made, the Speaker—as the Game Master is known—asks each Party member to speak on it in turn, and then once everyone has, asks each Party member to vote on the proposition. If it fails, then another, different proposition is made, and so on and so on until one passes. If it passes, then the proposition is enacted, and if the proposition involves risk, violence, or consequences, then the dice are rolled in a Party Resolution Roll.

Before the dice are rolled, each player assembles a dice pool of six-sided dice equal to the values for any relevant Stats, Skills, Stuff, and Mates. A player can decide not to assemble a dice pool at all or add as many dice equal to the appropriate stat as he wants, but if included, the maximum values for any relevant Skills, Stuff, and a single Mate are added. The player narrates how this contributes to the Party Resolution Roll. Ideally, the colour of the dice for the Stats, Skills, Stuff, and Mates should be different, so that the results can be differentiated. If the highest result on any die is a six, the Party action is a Doubleplus Good success; if the highest result on any die is a five, the Party action is an OkGood partial success with consequences; if the highest result on any die is two, three, or four, the Party action is an UnGood failure; and if the highest result on any die is a one, the Party action is a Doubleplus UnGood or critical failure.

The Speaker narrates the results. Even if the results are a success of any kind, rolls of one on the Stat dice indicate a loss of a point in the appropriate Stat. Reduce Hench or Dash to zero and the player rolls on the Bonk (as in ‘bonk on the head’ rather than the other kind) table or on the Stiff Upper Lip table if Noggin or Bants are reduced to zero. In general, it is better to roll more dice since that reduces the chances of a Doubleplus UnGood or critical failure, but comes with the possibility of roll ones on the Stat dice, so there is a constant friction between taking the risks necessary with a Party Resolution Roll and the rewards to be gained.

In addition, the Speaker also rolls her own pool of dice and they count towards the Player Characters’ success or otherwise in a Party Resolution Roll. The number of dice rolled by the Speaker is equal to the Anxiety rating recorded on the Party Manifesto Sheet. It ranges between one and ten and increases by one when a Player Character dies, when any Stat is reduced to zero, when something horrific is witnessed, when the Party gets into a ruck, and so on. However, it can be reduced through rest, consuming Molly, mediating, and even voting for, punishing, exiling, and even killing a scapegoat—and the scapegoat can be a Player Character or a Mate! This is horridly Stalinist in its approach to internal Party politics, and whilst it has great roleplaying and storytelling potential, it also approaches a line that some players may not want to cross. Should this come up in play, the X-card should definitely be on the table, and this aspect of the game should definitely be explained to all of the players before play begins.

Initially, the Party does not start with any laws, which is odd, since it means that the Player Characters begin play agreeing to be together, but not having agreed to any other Laws or aims or anything at all except for the voting system written into the game. Even that may change if the Party decides it is unhappy with the system!

Shadow of Mogg is played out through the exploration of the stations and tunnels of the Underground using the map included in the back of the book. The Party can travel, scavenge, explore, and rest, the players and their characters expected to work out their own Party-led goals, participate in votes and ensure that all decisions are voted on, and abide by the Speaker’s word.

Her tasks consist of putting the Party into difficult situations—typically generated by the Random Tunnel Events table, that test its members’ morality, loyalty, and will to survive; explore internal Party politics and relations; explore the limits democracy in a post-apocalyptic consensus drive world; and present both the world of the Underground and a growing sense of horror as resources dwindle and conflicts ensue. The Tunnel Events table, divided by the different lines of the London underground are all delightfully thematic, and ultimately, their limited number will determine the length of a game, or rather mini-campaign, of Shadow of Mogg. That is of course, if the Player Characters do not all die first, which is a possibility, it being a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game set in the grim world of the London underground.

Physically, Shadow of Mogg is presented in greyscale in a scrapbook fashion. This gives it a singular look, but often makes it a little difficult to read and the organisation could have been better, the Party Manifesto Sheet really needing to be moved back towards the front of the book as it is part of the set-up. The look of the book is that of fanzine, whilst the feel is more that of a professional book.

Obviously, Shadow of Mogg – A Post Brexit RPG is not literally about Brexit and its effects, but about Brexit and its effects pushed to ridiculous degree—to the point of disaster and beyond. It is also about the truths and untruths of a post-truth world, or rather the effects of truths and untruths of a post-truth world pushed to ridiculous degree—to the point of disaster and beyond. To the point where you cannot agree on what the disaster of The ‘Event’ was, but you can come to agreement on its effects area and what needs to be done to survive those effects, just as long as you vote on it and stand by that vote. Consensus is what matters more than the individual, even if the decision was wrong or goes badly, it was what was agreed upon, and coming to that agreement can involve group think, persuasion, blackmail, secrets, grandstanding, and more, but above opportunities to roleplay. The play is little odd in that because a Party Resolution Roll is required for every decision or action—that is, until laws are passed, enacted, and added to the Party Manifesto Sheet, the game flow may not seem to be as natural as in other roleplaying games, there being a stop-start, stop-start to its play.

The humour of Shadow of Mogg – A Post Brexit RPG swings back and forth between the tongue in cheek and the satire, but it is a humour that players really need to know and grasp in order to get the most out of the character Classes they play. A great many of them are stereotypes and roleplaying within and around them should be fun and help bring the humour of the satire out. Similarly, there are a lot of terms and details that non-Britons will not be able to grasp easily in this oh so Brexitish satire and despite there being an explanation of the setting’s many terms listed in the back of the book, it still may be enough. Plus, of course, the satire of Shadow of Mogg – A Post Brexit RPG is so very contemporary that it might date itself very fast. Or not, depending on how soon The Event’ occurs (whatever it actually is…).

Shadow of Mogg – A Post Brexit RPG is a funny, strongly social storytelling roleplaying game. Its humour and even its Brexity subject will not be everyone, but for anyone wanting to roleplay a game of exploration, survival, persuasion, and group decision-making in a very British satire, then Shadow of Mogg – A Post Brexit RPG is uniquely perfect.

Escape the Dark Castle: The Game of Atmospheric Adventure brought the brutality of the Fighting Fantasy solo adventure books of the eighties to co-operative game play for up to four players in which their characters begin imprisoned in a tyrant’s castle and must work together to win their freedom. Published by Themeborne, with its multiple encounters, traps, monsters, objects, and more as well as a different end of game boss every time, Escape the Dark Castle offered a high replay value, especially as a game never lasted longer than thirty minutes. That replay value was enhanced with the release of Escape the Dark Castle: Adventure Pack 1 – Cult of the Death Knight, the game’s first expansion. It added new threats, new potential escapees, and more. 

The replay value of Escape the Dark Castle is further enhanced with the completion of the Escape the Dark Castle: The Legend Grows… Kickstarter campaign. This produced two new expansions, Adventure Pack 2 – Scourge of the Undead Queen and Adventure Pack 3 – Blight of the Plague Lord as well as a big box into which to store them along with the core game. The first of these introduces a whole a new Boss, fifteen new chapters which the escapees must face before they successfully flee the Dark Castle, three new escapees, four new items to find and use in the process, four new ‘item’ cards you do not want to draw (but will anyway) and come into play, and a new mechanic. The new Boss is the Plague Lord, a foul spreader of contagion and sickness who wants more and more to fall victim to his pestilence. Disease has come to the Dark Castle, and left its mark, for instead of encountering the usual dangers on their flight from the depths of the castle, the escapees will find themselves crossing plague pits, gaol cells full of trapped plague victims, plague-ridden rat swarms, mobs bent on preventing the plague from spreading beyond the walls of the Dark Castle—and more. Time and time again, the escapees will be faced with situations in which they may well catch the plague, the disease running its course and reducing their health until ultimately, in a final encounter, they face the Plague Lord himself. To escape the Dark Castle, they must defeat him, but he can increase the effects of the plague upon the already infected and infect those lucky enough to have got this far without being infected! And then, even if they do defeat the Plague Lord, do the escapees really want to flee the Dark Castle knowing that they carry a plague that could kill everyone they love?
As with Adventure Pack 1 – Cult of the Death Knight, and Adventure Pack 2 – Scourge of the Undead Queen, the chapter cards in Adventure Pack 3 – Blight of the Plague Lord are initially designed to be played in order as they come packed, and pretty much out of the box. The new rules can be read through and understood in a few minutes, and a game begun very quickly. After that, this new deck can be replayed by shuffling the fifteen cards in random order and the players having their attempt to escape again. Then, after that, these new cards can be shuffled in with the chapter cards from the Dark Castle: The Game of Atmospheric Adventure, Adventure Pack 1 – Cult of the Death Knight, and Adventure Pack 2 – Scourge of the Undead Queen, and the game played as normal.
The new mechanic which Adventure Pack 3 – Blight of the Plague Lord adds to Escape the Dark Castle is that of the Plague. When one of the four ‘Plague’ item cards are drawn or when instructed to on an Chapter card, the player rolls the new ‘Plague’ die. The faces of this die are marked with either two, three, or four splodgy Plague symbols, each indicating the number of Plague points an escapee gains, whether this is from simply being in the same location as Plague-victims, drawing an item riddled with the Plague, or even fighting someone or something infected with the Plague—including fellow escapees! Accrue enough points of Plague and the escapee sickens and weakens, losing Hit Points in the process. There are opportunities to gain some relief from the Plague in the form of an encounter with a Plague Doctor who will cure an escapee of his points of Plague, but in the main, unless an escapee is incredibly lucky and avoids the Plague all together or has all of his points of Plague cured by the Plague Doctor, once caught, the Plague is a downward spiral... In reducing his Hit Points, the Plague does not reduce his combat capabilities. Instead, it reduces his ability to withstand the negative effects of a fight. Consequently, Adventure Pack 3 – Blight of the Plague Lord tends towards, if not fewer fights, but slightly weaker opponents. So there is a certain balancing effect here, but this does not stop escaping the Dark Castle remains a challenge.
As with the previous expansions, Adventure Pack 3 – Blight of the Plague Lord adds three new escapees to play, these are the Butcher, the Fletcher, and the Shepperd, each with their character card and their own die. Each of these escapees are specialists, having maximum scores in their traits, either Cunning, Might, or Wisdom. They are not all that interesting in themselves, although each of their dice are. Some faces of their dice are marked with a ‘Split Double’, consisting of two different trait symbols. These can be applied to two different chapter dice belonging to an enemy, but not to two different enemies. This at least offers some flexibility in terms of a how an encounter might play out.
The new Item cards are divided between the Plague cards and the standard cards. The former force a player to roll the Plague die and increase his escapee’s Plague points. Others include Knapsack which enable an escapee to carry more items, but because some are in a knapsack, are not immediately accessible. The other items, the splintered spear, dented daggers, and frayed net all give an escapee an advantage in combat.
Physically, Adventure Pack 3 – Blight of the Plague Lord is as well produced as the core game. The Chapter, Boss, and Character (or escapee) Cards are large and really easy to read and understand. Each one is illustrated in Black and White, in a style which echoes that of the Fighting Fantasy series and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay last seen in the nineteen eighties.

At its most basic, Adventure Pack 3 – Blight of the Plague Lord adds a whole new story and more challenges which extends the life of Escape the Dark Castle and means that players will it bring back to the table on a regular basis. It really only adds the one mechanic, ‘Plague’, and then thoroughly injects and infects it into the Chapter cards for the expansion, the result being grim, often grinding battle of survival against something that the escapees cannot see, but can see the effects of. When combined with the artwork, it is horridly thematic, adding to and enforcing the ghastly situation that the escapees find themselves in. However the strong theme and its mechanically deleterious effects upon the escapees is likely to clash with those of the other expansions and actually make their harder to play through because the Plague is constantly reducing an escapee’s chances of survival and there is not necessarily the balance between the effects of the Plague and the loss of Hit Points present in those expansions as there is in Adventure Pack 3 – Blight of the Plague Lord.
Overall, Adventure Pack 3 – Blight of the Plague Lord adds an enjoyably grim and grimey story to Escape the Dark Castle: The Game of Atmospheric Adventure. So strong is its theme though, it is one perhaps best played as a standalone rather than mixed in with the other expansions.

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Thenborne will be at UK Games Expo which will take place between July 30th and August 2nd, 2021 at Birmingham NEC. This is the world’s fourth largest gaming convention and the biggest in the United Kingdom.

 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?
Night in the Meadow and other Spirit Encounters is a trilogy of short encounters themed around herding for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a seventeen page, full colour, 1.98 MB PDF.
The layout is clean, but slightly untidy with artwork which is functional rather than attractive. It definitely needs another edit.
Where is it set?
Night in the Meadow is nominally set in the Blueberry clan of the Cinsina tribe, but can be set anywhere in Dragon Pass where herds of cattle are kept out overnight in the pastures. 

Who do you play?
At least one Herder. In addition, an Assistant Shaman or Priestess will be useful, as will a Hunter or other Player Character with the Tracking skill. A Lhankor Mhy priest or scholar may find some of the background to one of the scenarios to be of interest. In addition, Player Characters with the Passions ‘Hate (Trolls)’ or ‘Hate (Telmori)’ will be challenged by the events of one or more of the encounters.

What do you need?
Night in the Meadow requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and the Glorantha Bestiary.
What do you get?Night in the Meadow and other Spirit Encounters presents a series of three encounters on the tribe’s herding pastures over the course of a season or two. Ideally, the encounters should not be run one after another, but as smaller adventures between longer scenarios. Each of the encounters is suited to smaller playing groups and could either be run as flashbacks or as part of campaigns involving Player Characters close to their initiations, for example, Six Seasons in Sartar or Valley of Plenty (although Night in the Meadow would require some adaptation to be run using HeroQuest: Glorantha or QuestWorlds).
The first of the encounters in Night in the Meadow is the eponymous ‘A Night in the Meadow’. The Player Characters and other herders are awoken with a startle and a shout, aware that something has happened, but not quite what. Eventually they will realise that one of the horses is acting oddly and making the rest of the animals skittish. This is a simple enough situation, even charming, which requires a little investigation and a bit of negotiation to solve and gives the Player Characters the opportunity to make good names for themselves.
‘Pieces of Genert’, the second encounter is much, much simpler, and more action-oriented and will probably result in some hunting and some combat. The herds have been harassed by hyenas of late and the Player Characters are called out to track down the pack and drive it off. There may be more to the situation of course, and even if they fail to find the pack’s den, it will return for what it sees as an easy meal. The encounter includes a nice link to Glorantha’s mythology and a lovely piece of treasure to be found as well. If there is an issue, it is the requirement for the Player Characters to require at least standard success results for thirty-six Tracking rolls! This is just too much, and the Game Master should simply reduce this to just six.
In the third and final encounter, ‘Brilliant Hunt’, the Player Characters discover that a calf is missing and after following the tracks, discover that it has been stolen by a band of Trollkin. What the Trollkin are doing out on the pastures is a good question, and the encounter raises even more interesting questions when the Trollkin accidentally discover a set of ruins. There is actually quite a lot going on in this encounter and there are several outcomes and consequences which the Player Characters will have to deal with, including negotiations with Trolls and Dragonewts, joining an ‘alien’ cult, and more. Consequently, the encounter is definitely the most sophisticated of the three.
Any one of these encounters could be played in a single session, perhaps two at the very most. They should require relatively little preparation, but they are too often written in a stream of consciousness fashion rather than informing the Game Master upfront as to what is going on. The various stats and NPC write-ups are generally clear though.
Is it worth your time?Yes—Night in the Meadow and other Spirit Encounters presents three enjoyably simple and interesting encounters built around herding that are relatively easy to prepare at short notice.No—Night in the Meadow and other Spirit Encounters is harder to run if the party does not include a Herder or an Assistant Shaman or Priestess, or both amongst its members and perhaps the playing group is two large for these encounters.Maybe—Night in the Meadow and other Spirit Encounters involves messing about in fields when the Player Characters have better things or less parochial things to do, like preparing for the upcoming Hero Wars, but its encounters might serve as an interlude or two.

We live in The Extant, an isolated bastion of light and creation. It sits in The Nether, a seemingly endless sea of primal chaos whose ectoplasmic forces known as shadow or umbra constantly washes up and crashes down upon The Extant. A veil known as The Curtain protects us, not just from the ebb and flow of the umbra, but also from what lies in the Echos, the distorted, memory-altered reflections of The Extant which sit on the other side of The Curtain, and then beyond that, the Cosmos, dream worlds and nightmares—if not both. Out in the Echoes live ghost-like ephemera, thoughtforms, and further out reside aberrations with alien minds, and then, visages further out, stranger still, mythical even… And oh so many of them want to play in The Extant.

Unfortunately for mankind The Curtain is imperfect, marked with rifts, fissures, and worse that entities from beyond can slip into our world and infect it. They find victims and servants and masters. Things of nightmare lurk in the alleyways, others manipulate and take advantage of our baser natures, whilst covens and cults make dark pacts for power, influence, and worse. Such things might be ghosts, demons, vampires, doppelgängers, the undead, or they might not, but like monsters under the bed or boogeymen in the closet, they are all real. As the strangeness and the monsters emerge into our world and magic grows, there are those who have reacted to this—investigators, mystics, occultists, hunters, and even monsters, seeking to protect the fragility of our existence. Such persons are cast in two lights—Illuminated and Shadowed. The Illuminated are ordinary persons driven to face the supernatural and do something about it—protect others from it, hide it, or even learn more about it, whilst the Shadowed have been changed by it, and may be a bloodsucker, one of the living dead, a host to an inhuman entity, a warlock, or something else. Whatever it is, it is now part of their nature and as much as they work against the incursions of the supernatural, their unnatural nature means that they will never be truly regarded as heroes.

This is the set-up for Sigil & Shadow: A Roleplaying Game of Urban Fantasy and Occult Horror, in which myth, magic, and urban legend crash upon a very modern post-truth world. Not our world exactly, but a parallel one. Published by Osprey Games, Sigil & Shadow employs the simple percentile mechanics of the d00Lite System and presents the means to create a range of beings and entities drawn from the horror and urban fantasy genres, a flexible—potentially too flexible—magic system, and solid advice for the Guide—as the Game Master is known, to set up her own campaign typically based on an area she knows or a maps she has adapted.

A Player Character in Sigil & Shadow is defined by his Casting, Background, Oddity, Ability scores, Skill Trainings, special features—including perks and powers, descriptors. Each Casting represents an archetype and an associated Drive, or motivation,. There are eight Castings, four belonging to The Illuminated and four to The Shadowed. The Illuminated have Drives which push them to interact with the supernatural, whilst The Shadowed are driven by their supernatural, often monstrous natures. The four Castings for The Illuminated are the Seeker, the Hunter, the Protector, and the Keeper, whilst the four Castings for The Shadowed are the Afflicted—inheritors of a cursed bloodline, the Devoted—granted power by a patron, the Host—possessed, willingly or unwillingly, by an Inhabitant, and the Ravenous—which is forced to consume a specific thing in gross quantities. An Oddity might be a Birthright, Altered Reality, Raised in a Cult or as an Experiment, and so on, and not every Player Character has one.

A Player Character has four Abilities rated out of one hundred, Strength, Dexterity, Logic, and Willpower. A Background is a Player Character’s occupation, from Activist, Artist, and Athlete to Techie, Thrill-Seeker, and Wealthy, and determines his Lifestyle and gives his player a choice of three Perk, or advantages, to choose from. For example, the Politician has an Upper Class Lifestyle Rating and offers the Perks of Well-to-Do, and either Skill Training in either Social or Education. Perks can add bonuses to a Player Character’s Abilities, advantage on particular skills, and other benefits. There are ten Skills, each rated between levels zero and five. A Player Character with level zero in a skill is trained in it, but adds +10% for each level above that to a maximum of Level Five and +50%.

If a Player Character is trained in Mysticism, then he also gains a Gift, which starts with Sixth Sense, and with further training can unlock Heal, Mesmerise, Psychometry, or more. A Shadowed Player Character will have a Manifestation, a paranormal ability or boon, such as Animal Companion, Blink, Ethereal Form, Heightened Senses, Inhuman Ability, Terrifying, and more. He will also have a Burden, like a Dreadful Feature or Strange Compulsion, and can have more should a player want his character to have more Manifestations.

To create a character, a player selects a Casting, rolls for a Background, and assigns ten Advancements to his Abilities. These begin at 40% each, and each Advancement adds +5%, to a maximum of 70%. Alternatively, an array is provided. He then effectively selects two skills and sets them at Level 1 (+10%). Lastly he writes two descriptors, one positive, one negative, to flesh out the Player Character, chooses some equipment, and determines secondary factors. Throughout, a player has access to his character's pool of five Bones, which can be permanently expended at certain steps during the Player Character creation process to choose an aspect of the character instead of determining it randomly, to gain extra Perks, and Skill Training.

Our sample Player Character is Heath Carlson, an assistant professor of comparative theology who came into an inheritance from his late uncle—a set of papers and journals that dated back to the eighteenth century. They revealed the occult activities and supernatural links of his ancestors and spoke of someone close to the family that aided them in their doings, an older figure only identified as ‘H’. Ultimately Heath returned to his teaching position in the autumn with only hazy memories of what he had done that summer. In the months since, he has suffered more lapses in memory and found himself associating with others he would ordinarily have avoided. There is a voice in his head whispering ideas and suggestions. He has strange new abilities and people are reacting differently to him…

Name: Heath Carlson
Calling: Shadowed (Host)
Drive: Dominion
Oddity: Ancestral Conduit
Rank: 1

Strength: 45% Dexterity: 50%
Logic: 60% Willpower: 55%

Bone Pile: 4
Hit Points: 22
Initiative: 2 Damage Resistance: 0

SKILLS
Arcana (Untrained—Umbra), Combat (Untrained), Education (Theology) Level 1 (+10%), Investigation (Untrained), Larceny (Untrained), Medicine (Untrained), Mysticism Level 1 (+10%), Social (Untrained), Survival (Untrained), Technical (Untrained)

Background: Scholar
Lifestyle: Middle Class (2)


DESCRIPTORS
Insatiably Curious
Gullible

POWERS
Perk: Encyclopedic Mind
Gift: Sixth Sense
Manifestations: Channel (Arcanum), Terrifying
Burden: Misfortune

NOTES
Heath is Timid, but Kind, whereas ‘H’ is Assertive and Cruel.

EQUIPMENT
Investigator Pack, Occultist Pack, Plain Clothes, Midsize car

The character creation process in Sigil & Shadow is not difficult, but it does get involved in places, particularly when creating one of The Shadowed. It specifically asks a player to explain how his character came to embrace the change and how it manifests, but what it does not do is give examples or suggestions. This is intentional, since it frees both players and Guide from necessarily adhering to traditional monsters, such as vampires or werewolves or ghosts or… Now there is nothing to stop both players or Guide from creating versions of The Shadowed which would fit into those archetypes, and certainly, the rules would easily support that. Plus there is an option to add Shadowed Origins which do fit into categories such as Undead, Aberrant, Fey, Eldritch, or Engineered. As much as this openness supports player and Guide inventiveness alike, it also means that Sigil & Shadow lacks off the shelf archetypes that might have eased the creation process.

In terms of its mechanics, Sigil & Shadow uses the d00Lite System and is quite light. To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls percentile dice aiming to roll equal to, or under a Success Value. Typically, a Success Value is equal to an Ability plus a Skill—though untrained skills count as a -20% penalty. A roll of 00 to 05 is always a success, whilst a roll of 95 and more is always a failure. A high roll under the Success Value is considered a better result, especially when comparing rolls, and a roll of doubles under the Success Value is a crucial success, whilst a roll of doubles over the Success Value is a crucial failure. If a Player Character has advantage, his player can rearrange the dice roll for his character’s benefit, but the dice roll is rearranged the other way if the Player Character has disadvantage.

Combat is kept similarly short and simple—and potentially deadly. For a horror game, Sigil & Shadow has no specific systems for handling fear or terror, instead using conditions like Frightened, suffered after a failed Willpower resistance roll when a Player Character is exposed to the unnatural or the supernatural.

In addition, each Player Character has his own personal Bone Pile. The Bones in this pile have a number of uses in Sigil & Shadow. During character creation, they can be used to improve a character, but this permanently expends them and reduces the size of a Player Character’s Bone Pile in play. During play, they are primarily expended to allow rerolls of failed rolls, to gain Advantage on a roll tied into a character’s positive Descriptor, or to negate Disadvantage triggered by his negative Descriptor. A Bone Pile refreshes at the beginning of a new adventure or scenario, but a player can earn Bones for good roleplaying and for his character adhering to his Drive.

The Illuminated have further uses for Bones that The Shadowed do not. The player of one of The Illuminated can expend a Bone to force the Guide to reroll and use the result which benefits the Player Characters; to let another player reroll a failed roll; automatically succeed at a resistance roll; automatically inflict maximum damage on a successful attack; and guarantee that for one round any action taken by the character—or against him, cannot kill him (though injury may ensure…). Essentially, The Illuminated are lucky where The Shadowed are not.

In addition to The Shadowed, ‘Modern Magic’ plays a major role in Sigil & Shadow. It has found a greater place in society, openly discussed and dismissed in equal measure, whether at the coffee shop round the corner or the social network of your choice. Learning is a matter of hard work and effort, more so than just belief, whilst casting requires a catalyst—a physical or symbolic offering tied to a spell’s nature to trigger the spell. For example, a Hydromancy spell might require a splash of water. Spells often require a focus, such as a wand or crystal ball, and are fuelled via an invocation or ritual. However, invocations take time. Alternatively, sorcery is a more immediate form of magic, the caster channelling the forces of arcanum through his body, effectively becoming the catalyst, though this is dangerous because it can backfire and there is a karmic backlash as the power for a spell has to come from somewhere. For example, if a sorcerer douses a fire with a sudden downpour, the fire engine sent to fight the fire might suddenly run out of water. Ultimately, practitioners of sorcery may suffer from Sorcerer’s Stain, a sort of karmic mark that identifies the sorcerer to the victims of his magic.

In play, magic in Sigil & Shadow is intended to be freeform, the player discussing with his Guide the aims of the spell and the Guide setting the Difficulty to apply to the Success Value before rolling. A spell is built from its intended effect, method of delivery, form, and catalyst, and from these the Guide determines whether the spell is Low-, Mid-, or High-Magic. Low-Magic is generally easy, discreet, and quicker to cast, with Mid- and High-Magic growing in complexity, obtrusiveness, and casting time. Magic is broken down into a number of Arcana, each of which is studied separately using the Arcanum skill. The Arcana are divided into the Fundamentals, such as Aero, Aqua, and Umbra, and the Apocrypha, like Musicorum or Techno. Where the Fundamentals cover the traditional Platonic Elements, the Apocrypha are very modern magic—too modern according to some traditionalists. Each Arcana has four aspects and several foci. For example, Aqua’s aspects are water, empathy, illusion, and cleansing, its foci being cups, chalices, bowls, and jars, which covers quite a broad range and gives a Player Character plenty of scope in terms of what he can within an Arcanum.

In addition, Sigil & Shadow can summon and bind entities for arcane aid; place Sigils which capture and hold magic until the seal is broken, whether on an item, a person, or a place; and create relics and artefacts, though most take the form of consumables charged with spell-like effects, rather than permanent items, which are rare. Now whilst Sigil & Shadow is not a roleplaying game of modern magic with lists of spells as such, there is a list of sample spells, three per Arcanum. These do help Guide and player alike get a feel for what spells can look like in Sigil & Shadow, whilst the process is eased with the inclusion of a summary and a cheat-sheet. Both are necessary, because despite its stated aim of spell-casting being easy and freeform, magic in Sigil & Shadow is not quick in play. Magic is a matter of negotiation and discussion between player and Guide, a player setting out what he wants his character to achieve and the Guide setting the terms. This takes time, especially when first learning to play Sigil & Shadow, though this is eased by a Player Character typically only knowing the one Arcanum at the start of play. Nevertheless, the need to negotiate and discuss the desired spell effect breaks the flow of the play, as effectively it has to stop to discuss game mechanics. Which is fine for the Guide and the player of the magic-using Player Character, but not necessarily for the other players sitting round the table. Initially at least, it might be an idea for the Guide and player to work through ideas together before start of play as to what the player might want his character to to use his Arcanum for and develop some modifiers and outcomes that will be easier to adjust in play rather working through them on the spot. At least until both Guide and player are at ease with the system.

For the Guide there is a solid cast of antagonists and entities. These are kept nicely simple, just a few lines, including sample Crpytids like Impish Aberrations and Zombies, whilst Strange Encounters provides more detailed creatures, entities, and things, with write-ups more like that of a Player Character. For example, Cadence appears as a sickly old man with pale skin, yellow teeth, uncomfortable grin, and seemingly dead eyes at dance venues, raves, nightclubs, concerts, and the like, encouraging attendees to dance, dance, and dance… Included are several opinions as to what Cadence might be, which nicely add colour to his description, and then the descriptions of each of the other Strange Encounters. Just eight are detailed, but they feel contemporary and very much suit the modern setting of Sigil & Shadow.

The advice of the Guide covers safety tools, themes, styles, and discussions of what The Illuminated, The Shadowed, and the Cosmology are. The discussions are brief, perhaps too brief, and this is not helped by a lack of a campaign setting or ready-to-play scenario. There is advice for creating, in particular building a campaign around a real-world map and adding descriptors and details, as well as setting up feuding and allied factions, and there is a scenario outline. An appendix provides further suggestions of add to campaign. Overall, the advice is good, but it is underwhelming and ultimately leaves a lot for the Guide to do before being able to bring Sigil & Shadow to the table. This includes learning the magic system as well as setting up a campaign location and writing a scenario.

Physically, Sigil & Shadow is nicely presented as you would expect for a book from Osprey Games. The artwork is excellent, though it does need another edit, and in comparison to other titles from this publisher, it is not as dense, making it an easier, more accessible book to read. It could perhaps have done with some more detailed examples of play and even some sample Player Characters to further enhance that accessibility.

As its title suggests, Sigil & Shadow: A Roleplaying Game of Urban Fantasy and Occult Horror is a much darker take upon the Urban Fantasy genre and provides the means to explore from the angles of protecting against that horror, exploring it, or even embracing it, depending upon what character types the players create and the campaign the Guide wants to create and run. And it is very much a matter of ‘creating’ and running, as the Guide will need to create her campaign or adapt a setting or scenario to run Sigil & Shadow. And this adds to the work of the system, if not the complexity, which despite the simplicity of the mechanics, still leaves Sigil & Shadow with a magic system that equally requires work in play.

Overall, Sigil & Shadow: A Roleplaying Game of Urban Fantasy and Occult Horror is a solid combination of simple rules and conceptual complexities that needs effort upon the part of both players and Guide to set up and run. For the gaming group looking for a toolkit to run a darker, urban fantasy campaign, Sigil & Shadow: A Roleplaying Game of Urban Fantasy and Occult Horror is a solid choice.

Warpstar! is the sister game to Warlock!, and much like Warlock!, it looks like just another Old School Renaissance Retroclone—and it is, but not the sort you might be thinking of. Published by Fire Ruby Designs —previously best known for Golgotha, the Science Fiction retroclone of far future dungeon scavenging in shattered battleships—Warpstar!makes its inspirations known on the back cover blurb which reads, “Warpstar is a rules-light science fiction roleplaying game that aims to emulate the feeling of old-school British tabletop games of wondrous and fantastical adventure in the depths of space.” Now there is a slight disconnect here in that there are no such ‘old-school British tabletop games of wondrous and fantastical adventure in the depths of space.’—or at no such roleplaying game. In the case of Warlock!, the inspiration is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Maelstrom as well as the Fighting Fantasy solo adventure books which began with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. So what then is Warpstar! inspired by? 

In fact, the original inspirations for both Warlock! and Warpstar! are both miniatures wargames. For Warlock! that inspiration is Warhammer Fantasy Battles, and then the roleplaying game, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, which would be derived from it. For Warpstar! that inspiration is Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, a miniatures wargame which actually had strong roleplaying elements, but was not a roleplaying game. Indeed, it would be another twenty-one years before the setting of Warhammer 40,000 would receive its own roleplaying game with the release of Dark Heresyin 2008. So the claim that Warpstar! is a rules-light science fiction roleplaying game that aims to emulate the feeling of old-school British tabletop games of wondrous and fantastical adventure in the depths of space.” does feel slightly disingenuous. However, if you instead see Warpstar! as a roleplaying game inspired by a roleplaying game of grim and perilous adventure in the depths of space and the very far future that never was (but which would have been the Science Fiction equivalent of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and likely would have been as popular) then Warpstar! feels as if it comes from something material rather than the ineffable. 

As with its fantasy counterpart, Warpstar! is a Career and Skills driven game rather than a Class and Level game. A Player Character has two attributes—Stamina and Luck, but unlike in Warlock!, does not have a Community, such as Human, Halfling, Elf, or Dwarf, which grants societal benefits rather than mechanical ones. Instead, he has a Talent, an innate, biological, or mechanical ability which provides an in-game benefit. For example, Natural Charm or Sleep Anywhere. These can be used to model alien races along with whatever cosmetic aspects that a player decides his character has, but despite this, the setting for Warpstar!, the Chorus of Worlds, does not have any Player Characters races detailed in the core rulebook. He also has thirty-two base skills, ranging from Animal Handler, Appraise, and Astronav to Thrown, Warp Focus, and Zero G, and all of which range in value from one to twenty. To create a character, a player rolls dice for the two attributes, selects a Community, and sets ten skills at a base level of six and another ten at level five. The rest are set at a base level of four. The player then rolls four six-sided dice. These generate the four choices he will have in terms of Basic Career for his character. Once selected, a Career provides four things. First a quintet of skills which can be increased during play whilst the Player Character remains in that Career and a maximum level to which they can be improved, either ten or twelve. For example, the Ganger receives Medicine 10, Sleight-of-Hand 10, Intimidate 12, Small Arms 12, and Thrown 12.  The player divides ten points between these skills up to their maximum given values. Second, it provides a sixth skill, named after the Career itself, the level for this Career skill being the average of the other skills the Career grants. Third, it provides some standard equipment, and fourth it gives a pair of background elements specific to the Player Character’s time in that Career, both of which are generated randomly. For example, a Ganger’s two die rolls would determine what he did to earn him a criminal record and who hunts him. Lastly, a player picks three personality traits for character. 

Name: Gottschalk Einstein
Community: Human
Career: Warp Touched
Past Careers: —

STAMINA: 21 LUCK: 11

TALENT: Sleep Anywhere 

ADVENTURING SKILLS
Animal Handler 04, Appraise 06, Astronav 06, Athletics 05, Bargain 06, Blades 04, Blunt 04, Brawling 05, Command 04 (10), Diplomacy 05, Disguise 04, Dodge 04, Endurance 05 (10), History 05, Intimidate 04 (12), Language 05, Lie 04, Medicine 05, Navigation 04, Persuasion 10 (12), Pilot 06, Repair 06, Ship Gunner 06, Sleight-of-Hand 04, Small Arms 05, Spot 06, Stealth 04, Streetwise 05, Survival 05, Thrown 04, Warp Focus 12 (12), Zero G 06

CAREER SKILLS
Warp Touched 7

POSSESSIONS
Cloak with mathematical emblems, metal staff affixed with an opening eye, several books on warp theory, pills and tinctures to ease the pounding headaches. 

GLYPHS
Burnout

TRAITS
Charming, Faithful, Unfriendly 

NOTES
Where have you been? – The Fighting Maze of Fellus IV.
Where have you seen? – Beautiful fractal patterns of the Warp? 

Character generation is for the most part straightforward, as is character progression. A Player Character should receive one, two, or three advances per session. Each advance will increase one of a Player Character’s Career skill by one level, up to the maximum allowed by the Career. As a Player Character’s Career skills rise, so will his Stamina, representing him becoming tougher and more experienced. When a Player Character reaches the maximum skill level, he can change Careers—this will cost him a total of five advances. Whilst this grants him access to other skills, it will not increase the cap on the ones he already has. For that, he needs to enter an Advanced Career, such as Assassin, Cult Leader, Duellist, Lawbringer, or Warp Lord. This raises the maximum skill levels to fourteen and sixteen rather than ten and twelve for Basic Careers. There are thirteen Advanced Careers in Warpstar! and twenty-four Basic Careers. In general, a Player Character will be undertaking two or three Basic Careers before entering an Advanced Career—probably ten or fifteen sessions of play or so, before a Player Character is in a position to do that. 

Mechanically, Warpstar! is simple. To undertake an action, a player rolls a twenty-sided die, adds the value for appropriate skill or Career and aims to roll twenty or higher. More difficult tasks may levy a penalty of two or four upon the roll. Opposed rolls are a matter of rolling higher to beat an opponent. Luck is also treated as a skill for purposes of rolling, and rolled when a character finds himself in a dire or perilous situation where the circumstances go in his favour or against him. Combat is equally simple, consisting of opposed attack rolls—melee attacks versus melee attacks and ranged attacks versus the target’s Dodge skill. Damage is rolled on one or two six-sided dice depending upon the weapon, whilst mighty strikes, which inflict double damage, are possible if an attacker rolls three times higher than the defender. Armour reduces damage taken by a random amount. 

Of course, Warpstar! has to take into account Science Fiction weaponry, so there are rules for slug-firing guns, laser weapons, pulse guns, needlers, and more. They each have a code attached, such as ‘S1d6+1P’, which in turn indicates the size of the weapon, the damage, and the type of damage. It looks a little complicated and is at first, but once you get used to it, it is easy enough. Damage is deducted from a defendant’s Stamina. When this is reduced to zero, the defendant suffers a critical hit, necessitating a roll on a Critical Hit table. Warpstar! has four, for slashing, piercing, crushing, and energy damage. Of course, the precedents for Warpstar! had more, and more entries on them, but for a stripped back game like Warpstar!, they are enough—and they are brutal. Damage below a defendant’s Stamina acts as a modifier to the roll on the table, so once dice are rolled on the critical damage tables, combat takes a nasty turn. 

For example, Gottschalk Einstein is aboard a D-Class Charger, the Stolen Dodo, when it is boarded by pirates and he is spotted trying to hide by two pirates—Wilmar and Bruna. Both have clubs and slug pistols (S1d6+1P), and 14 Stamina, a Blunt skill of 3, a Dodge of 4, and a Small Arms skill of 4. The two pirates are under orders not to kill any of the passengers as they can be ransomed off, so raising their slug pistols, they demand that Gottschalk Einstein surrender. The Game Master assigns them an Intimidate skill of 4, and adds four to account for the fact that there are two of them and they are pointing guns at Gottschalk Einstein. His player will simply be adding Gottschalk’s Intimidate to the roll. The Game Master rolls five and adds the eight to get a total of thirteen. Gottschalk’s player rolls fourteen and adds Gottschalk’s Intimidate skill to get a result of seventeen. He is not surrendering any time soon! 

Combat then ensues… Both sides roll Initiative. The Game Master rolls a four and Gottschalk’s player rolls a three. Wilmer will act first, followed by Gottschalk, and then Bruna. The Game Master will roll Wilmar’s Small Arms skill and Gottschalk’s player his Dodge skill. The Game Master rolls three and adds Wilmar’s skill of four to get a result of seven. Gottschalk’s player rolls eight and adds his skill of four to get twelve—Gottschalk has clearly ducked back into hiding. It is his turn though, and Gottschalk’s player will roll his Small Arms skill versus Wilmar’s Dodge. Gottschalk’s player rolls seventeen and adds his skill to get a result of twenty-two! The Game Master rolls just two and adds Wilmar’s Small Arms skill to get a result of just six! This means that Gottschalk’s result is three times more than Wilmar’s and counts as a Mighty Strike. Which means that the damage from Gottschalk’s laser pistol (S1d6+2E) is doubled. Gottschalk’s player rolls a total of eight—maximum damage, which is doubled for an end result of sixteen damage! Fortunately, Wilmar is wearing light armour, so the Game Master rolls a three-sided die and reduces the damage by the result. She rolls one and Wilmar suffers fifteen damage! This reduces his Stamina to minus one and counts as a critical hit. Gottschalk’s player rolls two six-sided dice and adds the one negative Stamina as a bonus to get a result on the ‘Critical — Energy’ table. The result is ten—which is ‘Skin and bone seared, dead.’ Bruna looks around nervously as her colleague has been blasted dead in front of her! 

Being a Science Fiction roleplaying game, Warpstar! has rules for spaceships, but in keeping with the design, the rules are simple. Spaceships travel the Warp and although heavily automated, including having an intelligent computer or Mind aboard, which can perform many functions, the various positions aboard need to be manned to be used effectively, quickly, or at critical moments. For example, the Mind, which will always maintain contact with its crew if it can, can initiate the Warp engine, it takes time. The positions aboard are Pilot, Gunner, Scanners, and Astronavigation. Ships are rated for their Manoeuvrability, Ship Gun (of which a ship only has the one), Anti-Personnel Gun, Scan, and Astronav Computer—all of which provide a bonus or penalty to a Player Character’s skill. Armour and Structure work like Armour and Stamina for Player Characters, but at a ship’s scale, as do weapons, which of course have their own weapon codes. 

Numerous example spaceships are detailed, many of which can be taken by a crew of Player Characters, some only by NPCs, and once they get into spaceship combat, there is a ‘Critical — Ship’ table. Vehicles are given a similar treatment.

Spaceship travel involves travelling through the Warp and some, when exposed to the Warp, learn how to channel it in their mind in certain patterns, known as Glyphs. They are known as ‘Warp Touched’ and considered all but insane, though it is possible for anyone to learn Glyphs through time and concentration. It costs Stamina to cast a Glyph, whether it is successfully cast or not, and if a one is rolled when a character manifests a Glyph, the Warp Touched suffers ‘Warp Bleed’. Their manifestation is not only a failure, that failure is deadly. The effects of which might be minor, such as the caster’s hands catching fire and inflicting Stamina damage, but they might be a warp mutation—for which there are tables—or being swallowed by the Warp! Some thirty-six Glyphs are listed, their effects ranging from the minor to the major, such as ‘Burnout’, which burns out small electronic devices, and ‘Stutter’, which stutters a target out of reality and freezes them in place for several rounds. 

The setting for Warpstar! is drawn in broad strokes. Humanity has spread out across the galaxy from the lost cradle of Earth in a rough sphere of space called the Chorus of Worlds. It is ruled by the Autarch from the world of Jewel, from which he creates and dispenses Cadence, the drug-like material which extends life and enhances the senses. As the only source of Cadence, the Autarch’s power is balanced against the Hegemony, the military might of the Chorus with its deadly Nova Guard star marines, the Merchant Combine, the economic might of the Chorus, and the Warp Consortium, its scientific might. Worlds are ruled by lords and ladies as they see fit, who pay planetary tithes in return for Cadence, whilst the individual worlds are home to billions upon billions. 

In addition to the description of the politics and structure of the Chorus of Worlds, there is a discussion of its currencies and its technologies—robots, weapons, armour, communication, and more. Only an overview is given of its worlds and the Warp, more specific details being given for its various denizens and how to design them. Examples include Anthromorphs—hybrid species based on animal DNA from Old Earth, Fruiting Dead—undead humanoids infected with a soporific fungal spore spread via the Warp, and Kronux—a species with acidic blood which aggressively attempts infect other lifeforms with its DNA! Several creatures from the Warp are listed also, including the Warp Dragon, Warp Entities, and Warp Ticks. 

For the Game Master, there is decent advice about running Warpstar! from handling the rules to establishing the tone of the game and setting. It discusses what the Player Characters do, such as exploring the galaxy, fighting evil, solving mysteries, and generally adventuring—essentially little different to almost any Science Fiction roleplaying game, all the way back to Traveller! The advice highlights the fact that Warpstar! is not a hard Science Fiction setting and its technology should be interesting in terms of its storytelling rather than its mechanical effect. Overall, the advice is decent enough, and like Warpstone!, what it comes down to is that Warpstar! is designed to be hackable, and given how light the mechanics are, that is certainly the case. 

Of course, Warpstar! lacks a scenario, much like Warpstone! Yet in some ways, Warpstar! has a huge library of adventures to draw from in terms of other Science Fiction adventures, so many of which would be easy to adapt, whether that would be mechanically or storywise. Traveller, for example, being Imperial Science Fiction in tone and feel would be a ready source of adventures, but then so would something like Star Frontiers. Even the publisher’s own Golgotha could serve as inspiration for taking a starship crew of Player Characters far out beyond the borders of the Chorus of Worlds. Plus, the simplicity of Warpstar! makes adapting them easy. 

Warpstar! is a buff little book, starkly laid out and illustrated in a suitably rough style which feels suitably in keeping with the period inspiration. It is very handy and especially combined with the lightness of its mechanics, makes it easy to reference and to run from the book. 

Warpstar!brings the simplicity and tone of Warpstone! and its inspirations—Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Fighting Fantasy to a Science Fiction setting, a galaxy of grim and perilous in the very far future. It is again lean and fast, often brutal, but again with plenty of scope for the Game Master to easily develop her own content. Overall, Warpstar! is easy to pick up and play, presenting a quick and dirty Science Fiction roleplaying game that will tick many a gamer’s sense of nostalgia.

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Fire Ruby Designs will be at UK Games Expo which will take place between July 30th and August 2nd, 2021 at Birmingham NEC. This is the world’s fourth largest gaming convention and the biggest in the United Kingdom.

SquareHex is best known as the publisher of The Black Hack and the fanzine, Black Pudding, but the publisher also does a wide range of gaming accessories and square and hex pads, the latter for drawing floorplans and area maps, all of which are aimed at the Old School Renaissance and Dungeons & Dragons-style retroclones. The very latest in this line is the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book. Funded via the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book 2021 Kickstarter campaign, it comes part of a combo package that provides both content and blank space to be filled in with content, or alternatively, each of the parts is available separately.

The Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book comes in not one, but two versions. Both are a ten-and-a-half by fourteen-and-a-half-centimetre notebook, black and white, share the same format, run to sixteen pages in length, and are filled with tables. Each page a single table, the number of entries ranging in number from eight to thirty. There is even a table with fourteen entries which is drawn on using an ordinary deck of cards, but fans of Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game will have their own dice to roll on this table, and the likelihood is that they will have a thirty-sided die too. In the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book 2021, there are table for ‘What’s on the End of the Stick?’, ‘Coins on a Corpse’, ‘Coins in a Coffer’, ‘The Kobolds are Selling’, ‘Potions Side Effects’, ‘The Door Opens But’, ‘The Door's Stuck Because It's’, ‘Hirelings & Henchfolk’, ‘The Magic Mouth Says’, ‘What's in the Pit?’, and more. The including ‘Wrath of the Gods’, ‘What Angered the Gods?’, ‘Deck of Minor Magics’, ‘Wild Animal Reactions’, and ‘The Wheel of Fortune’. Some of the entries are fairly humourous, if not silly, such as ‘A bag of Troll excrement – on fire!’ from the ‘What’s on the End of the Stick?’ or ‘Turkish Delight cut from a Gelatinous Cube’ from the ‘The Kobolds are Selling’ table. Other tables are far more utilitarian, ‘Coins on a Corpse’ for example, listing different amounts of coins, whilst the ‘Hirelings & Henchfolk’ is a list of stats and names—actually starting with ‘Tom, Dick, and Harry’, of most Zero and First Level NPCs.

Two of the tables are different. One is the ‘Deck of Minor Magics’, and the other is ‘The Wheel of Fortune’. The ‘Deck of Minor Magics’ grants minor, but interesting magic, much in the style of the fabled Deck of Many Things, but very much toned down, and requires the player to draw from an ordinary deck of cards. That adds a pleasing physicality to the use of Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book 2021. ‘The Wheel of Fortune’ uses symbols rather than numbers and gives random effects which change a Player Character, his situation, or even hurt him. In fact this feels more random, and definitely more arbitrary than the ‘Deck of Minor Magics’. The result is determined by spinning the actual Wheel of Fortune which accompanies the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book 2021 and requires some craftwork upon the part of the Dungeon Master to cut out and mount. The use of symbols instead of numbers adds an element of mystery to the Wheel of Fortune and its accompanying table, and obscures the results a little so that the players cannot as easily attempt to spin the wheel to their characters’ benefit.

The other version of the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book also contains tables. However, all of them are blanks. There are spaces for tables which require the roll of an eight-sided die, a twelve-sided die, a thirty-sided die, and more, but not a single one of the tables in Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book contains any results. The point of this version of the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book is that it is ready for the Dungeon Master to fill in and design tables of her own.

The largest of the items is the Adventure Design Booklet. This is digest-sized and is again sixteen pages. Like the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book, it is also blank—or rather it does not have any content. The majority of its pages are lined and double-columned, there is a single page of hexes, and three of squares. The front page though, has a big space for a front cover illustration and a title above, much like the classic Dungeons & Dragons scenarios of years past. So much like the point of the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book is for the Dungeon Master to fill in and design tables of her own, the point of the Adventure Design Booklet is the Dungeon Master to fill in and design an adventure of her own. For a book that is all but blank, there is something delightfully nostalgic about the Adventure Design Booklet, all just waiting for the Dungeon Master to be inspired and put pen to paper, and in the process create an adventure that is particularly personal to her.

Physically, the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book 2021 and the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book are both black and white booklets with sturdy covers. Where the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book 2021 is done on a glossy paper stock, the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book and the Adventure Design Booklet not. They are done on a rougher paper stock, which makes for a better writing surface. The Adventure Design Booklet is also done in light grey—guidelines just waiting for firm input from the Game Master.

On one level, the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book 2021, the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book, the Adventure Design Booklet, and the Wheel of Fortune are ephemera, even fripperies, not necessary to play whatsoever. Yet they all have their uses and their charm. The Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book 2021 can add a little randomness and colour to play or serve as inspiration for the Dungeon Master, whilst the Dungeon Master’s Little Black Book and the Adventure Design Booklet are blank slates awaiting the Dungeon Master’s inspiration and creative input.
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SquareHex will be at UK Games Expo which will take place between July 30th and August 2nd, 2021 at Birmingham NEC. This is the world’s fourth largest gaming convention and the biggest in the United Kingdom.

With For the Sound of His Horn, author Adam Gauntlett returns to the horror genre he is best known for with titles such as The Man Downstairs and Hocus Pocus for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. This is a scenario set in Barovia, and thus Ravenloft, the preeminent horror setting for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. The scenario is designed for a party of Player Characters of First to Third Level and is set in and around a village in Mordent. The author’s experience with other horror roleplaying games is nevertheless on show here, as the emphasis in For the Sound of His Horn is very much on interaction and investigation rather than exploration or combat.

Subtitled ‘A Haunted Hunting Party in Mordent’, For the Sound of His Horn takes place in Oaksey, a small village in Mordent, once part of the Huntingtower estate, since long extinct. The village has long been known for its fox hunts, and despite the loss of the local lord a century before, maintains the tradition today, keeping a pack of foxhounds and staging regular hunts. There being no lord, the position of Master of Foxhounds is held by Oaksey’s alderman. Recently, the current alderman, Sanders Murdoch, suffered a near-fatal hunting accident. Some say it was due to a riding accident, others his poor horsemanship, still others put it down to something unnatural, whilst Sanders himself suspects foul play and has vowed to severely punish whoever was responsible for his injuries.

The Player Characters may come to Oaksey for several reasons. They may simply have heard some travelers’ gossip and become intrigued enough to visit, but they might be asked by the Church of Ezra to come to the aid of local priest, they might be occultists who have heard of strange goings on in the village, or they may simply be keen huntsmen and women, come to ride with the village hunt. Their visit and thus For the Sound of His Horn is structured around a series of Core and Optional scenes. The Core scenes should provide the initial clues and revelations which point to Optional scenes and yet more clues and revelations—some of which are connected to the scenario’s main plot, others not. Most of these scenes—both Core and Optional—take the form of interviews and interactions with the villagers, meaning that the scenario relies heavily on the Insight, Investigation, and Perception, although there is the possibility of combat either towards or at the climax of the scenario. Ideally, the climax of the scenario should come at or around a festival when true facts of what has been going on in the village for the last century will come to light.

Each of the scenes in For the Sound of His Horn, whether Core or Optional, is presented on its own page and everything is clearly laid out. Thus the nature of the scene, skill involved, goal, and then if an NPC, personality, background, maneuvres—that is, the NPC’s actions in the scene, and lastly his disclosures. The latter are his secrets, hidden information, and true motivations, all to be revealed with a combination of good roleplaying and skill rolls. Location descriptions are simpler, listing and explaining their various features, secrets, and potential encounters.

Given that it is written for use with the Ravenloft setting, the scenario makes use of Haunting Effects and Stress, as well as its many secrets. The Haunting Effects can cause Fear, which can lead to a Player Character acquiring Stress, the Hunting Effects being set off by Triggers. Again, these are clearly marked in each of the locations where they occur. In fact, one of the locations has several! The scenario is not without its own potential triggers either. Obviously, it is a horror story and so it does involve strong themes, but those themes do include child cruelty (though this is very much off camera). The stronger issue may be the fact that the scenario involves blood sports, in particular, fox hunting. It includes a description of the activity and a list of its terminology, and the scenario should culminate in a Meet and a fox hunt. The blood sport is so bound up in the events of the scenario that it would be very difficult to run if the Dungeon Master was to try and remove it from the scenario.

Unfortunately, For the Sound of His Horn is missing a couple of elements which would make it easier to run. The first is that all of the NPCs lack a physical description and the second is that the scenario does not have any maps. The former is more of an issue than the latter, because it is possible to run the scenario with referring to any maps—having them would make it easier though. Fortunately, both are easily rectified by the Dungeon Master. Thus she can write the descriptions herself—though the author should have supplied them, and she can either draw the maps herself or find suitable ones online, even rights free ones. Another issue is that not all of the scenario’s plots are fully explained until they appear in the individual scenes and locations, so a better overview could have been provided. For the Dungeon Master it might be a good idea to draw a plot diagram and perhaps a relationship diagram as part of her preparation.

Physically, For the Sound of His Horn is generally well presented and easy to understand. It is lightly illustrated, mostly with rights free artwork.

In comparison to most scenarios for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, the setting for For the Sound of His Horn is not so much fantasy as one of late Georgian or Victorian England. This means plenty of source material to draw from in presenting the scenario—especially if the Dungeon Master wants images to illustrate the scenario’s NPCs. It also means that the scenario would be easy to adapt—at least in terms of its plot—to other roleplaying games and their settings, whether that is Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, Cthulhu by Gaslight, Victoriana, Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space – The Roleplaying Game, and so on. Overall, For the Sound of His Horn is a highly enjoyable horror scenario, emphasising interaction and investigation in serving up a punch cup, a fruity slice of hand cake, and a rich melodrama!

 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.


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Name: The Haunted Place Or The Witch of West ProvidencePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Andy Miller

Setting: Jazz Age New England
Product: The Haunting, take two?
What You Get: Fifty-Six page, 29.09 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Some hauntings never get old...Plot Hook: Providence brings a haunted man into the path of their oncoming automobile.Plot Support: Detailed plot, ten decent handouts, five maps, four NPCs, two Mythos tomes, and six pre-generated Investigators. Production Values: Excellent.
Pros
# Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Shunned House’# Inspired by Sandy Peterson’s ‘The Haunting’# Simple, but highly detailed set-up# Clue rich# Lots of historical detail# Easily adapted to other periods# Suitable for one or two Investigators# Suitable as an introduction to Lovecraftian investigative horror# Easy to drop into a campaign (or start one with)# Playable in a single session# Not ‘The Haunting’, but like ‘The Haunting’# Has its own bed frame-window moment.
Cons
# Not ‘The Haunting’, but like ‘The Haunting’
# Potential information overload# Challenging NPCs for the Keeper to roleplay# Challenging NPCs for the Investigators to interact with# Scope for conflict between the Investigators# Potential Total Party Kill
Conclusion
# Not ‘The Haunting’, but like ‘The Haunting’# Simple, but highly detailed set-up# Suitable as an introduction to Lovecraftian investigative horror# Loving tribute to Sandy Peterson’s ‘The Haunting’

Although there is no denying that the preeminent roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying is Call of Cthulhu, there can be no denying the kinks between the Cthulhu Mythos and the world’s preeminent roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons. They go all the way back to the original version of the Deities & Demigods, the pantheon guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. The connection would come to the fore at the end of the millennium with Death in Freeport from Green Ronin Publishing. It moved back and forth with Realms of Crawling Chaos for Labyrinth Lord and other retroclones and with adventures like Carrion Hill for Pathfinder, before coming up to date with a supplement and set of campaigns for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition written and published by Sandy Petersen, the designer of Call of Cthulhu no less!

Ghoul Island Act 1: Voyage to Farzeen is the first part of a four-part campaign for use with Sandy Petersen’s Cthulhu Mythos. Published by Petersen Games, this Mythos-inspired campaign as a whole takes the Player Characters from First Level up to Fourteenth Level, via milestones, with Ghoul Island Act 1: Voyage to Farzeen taking them from First Level to Fourth Level. The campaign makes extensive references to Sandy Petersen’s Cthulhu Mythos, and ideally, the Game Master should run the campaign using its rules to get the fullest out of it for her players. However, it is possible to run Ghoul Island Act 1: Voyage to Farzeen without reference to Sandy Petersen’s Cthulhu Mythos, but some details and nuances representing the corrosive influence of its Yog-Sothothery will be difficult to implement, if not lost. Either way, Ghoul Island Act 1: Voyage to Farzeen and the Ghoul Island campaign is a combination of heroic fantasy with horror, rather than the other way around. That said, some players may find that the heroic fantasy is not as supported in Ghoul Island Act 1: Voyage to Farzeen as it could have been given the dearth of physical rewards or treasure to be found. There is advice to counter that though, and the downplaying of such rewards means that the Game Master and her players can instead concentrate on the adventure and the story.

Ghoul Island Act 1: Voyage to Farzeen begins with a sea voyage. The Player Characters are aboard the Hazel’s Folly, carrying a cargo for the far-off Farzeen, a city on a distant volcanic isle. This may be as investors or as crew—there are several plot hooks given, and they have plenty of opportunity to bond with the crew and potentially make friends before the action kicks off. This is with a calamitous storm which threatens to batter the ship to pieces and all but throw them ashore. The calamities continue once they are ashore as the rest of the crew turns unexpectedly nasty and potentially, the Player Characters, find themselves in trouble with the local law! Once in Farzeen, the Player Characters should be able to straighten their circumstances out and then explore the town. It is strangely clean and tidy, standing on the shore all but surrounded by jungle over which towers the volcano. The plot kicks up a notch and some of Farzeen’s secrets are revealed when the commander of the city watch requests their aid. Bodies have been disappearing—including the mutineers! As the title suggests, there are ghouls on Farzeen Island and they provide a vital mortuary service for the city. Could they be responsible for the disappearances?

Ghoul Island Act 1: Voyage to Farzeen is a fairly strongly plotted and linear first part of a campaign. Throughout there are opportunities for action and roleplaying and some investigation, with options for exploring a little of the city as well. There are suggestions also to expand the campaign in other directions and full stats for all of the crew of the Hazel’s Folly (oddly bar one) and the various other NPCs in Farzeen. The best of these is Upton, quite literally a downtown Ghoul dressed for a night out on the town! Certainly, the Game Master should have fun portraying him. As generally easy and straightforward as this opening part of the campaign is, it is very much an introduction and never gets beyond hinting at the greater plot behind it all. Also included are the stats for a magical item or two—including one fantastic weapon which will draw comparisons with Elric’s Stormbringer, which sadly, the Player Characters are unlikely to get hold of in this act of the campaign. Another issue with the campaign is that it is missing rules from Sandy Petersen’s Cthulhu Mythos which would have made it easier to run. Now this is deliberate and understandable, because obviously, the publisher wants the Game Master to buy a copy of Sandy Petersen’s Cthulhu Mythos in order to get the most out of the campaign. Arguably though, the publisher has gone too far. Options are discussed which consider the possibility that one or more of the Player Characters could be a Ghoul or have Ghoul blood, but that is an option, and absolutely not necessary in order to play and complete the campaign. Yet rules for Dread—the mechanic for handling the Player Characters’ reaction to Yog-Sothothery—are pertinent, almost intrinsic, and if it is a case of their definitely not being included, then at least some designer notes could have suggested ways of handling the horror and the fear that is very much part of the campaign if the Game Master does not have access to Sandy Petersen’s Cthulhu Mythos. Or at least discussed in terms of the rules on horror and madness in Chapter Eight of the Dungeon Master’s Guide? 

Physically, Ghoul Island Act 1: Voyage to Farzeen is slim hardback, done in full colour and very well presented in the Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition style, although with much darker, Mythos-infused artwork. It needs an edit in places, but is generally easy to read and to prepare from.

Ghoul Island Act 1: Voyage to Farzeen should provide four and eight sessions of play, it being possible to play through each of its four chapters in a single session each. It could work as a crossover between Call of Cthulhu and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, perhaps as a variant upon a Dreamlands-set series of adventures? Or just simply as an introduction from one game to the other? It is fairly straightforward in terms of its plotting and story, so it should be fairly easy to run. It does take a while for it to really drop any of hints as to what is going on, at least in play, and hopefully they will be more explicit in the next act. Overall, Ghoul Island Act 1: Voyage to Farzeen is a solid start to its campaign and a solid introduction to facing the Mythos in a fantasy setting.

FATE of Cthulhu added two elements to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying—time travel and foreknowledge. Published by Evil Hat Games, the 2020 horror roleplaying game was built around campaign frameworks that cast the Player Characters as survivors in a post-apocalyptic future thirty years into the future, the apocalypse itself involving various aspects and entities of the Mythos. Not only as survivors though, because having entered into a pact with the Old One, Yog-Sothoth, they have unlocked the secret of time travel and come back to the present. They have come back aware of the steps along the way which brought about the apocalypse and they come back ready to fight it. This though is not a fight against the Cthulhu Mythos in general, but rather a single Old One and its cultists, and each thwarting of an Old One is a self-contained campaign in its own right, in which no other element of the Mythos appears.

The five campaigns, or timelines, presented in FATE of Cthulhu in turn have the Investigators facing Cthulhu, Dagon, Shub-Nigggurath, Nyarlathotep, and the King in Yellow. Each consists of  five events, the last of which is always the rise of the Old One itself. The events represent the roadmap to that last apocalyptic confrontation, and can each be further broken down into four event catalysts which can be people, places, foes, and things. The significance of these events are represented by a die face, that is either a bank, a ‘–’, or a ‘+’. These start out with two blanks and two ‘–’, the aim of the players and their investigators being to try to prevent their being too many, if any ‘–’ symbols in play and ideally to flip them from ‘–’ to blank and from blank to ‘+’. Ultimately the more ‘+’ there are, the more positive the ripple will be back down the timeline and the more of a chance the investigators have to defeat or prevent the rise of the Old One. Conversely, too many ‘–’ and the known timeline will play out as follows and the less likely the chance the investigators have in stopping the Old One.

Each of the five timelines comes with details of what a time traveller from 2050 would know about it, more detail for the Game Master with a breakdown of the events and their Aspects, Stunts, Mythos creatures, and NPCs. Most of these can serve as useful inspiration for the Game Master as well as the advice given on running FATE of Cthulhu and her creating her own timelines. After all, there are numerous Mythos entities presenting the prospective Game Master ready to create her own timeline with a variety of different aspects, purviews, and even degrees of power, but nevertheless capable of bringing about an apocalypse. However, Evil Hat Games has already begun to do that with its own series of timelines, each again dealing with a different Mythos entity and a different downfall for mankind. The first of these is The Rise of Yig.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk is different. Really different. To begin with, this second of the new timelines would appear to be barely connected to the Mythos at all—but it is, if that is, the Player Characters go digging deep enough into the world-side infosphere that Basilisk has planned for the whole of humanity. If not the universe. In Mythos terms, its closest parallels is with Hastur and the Yellow Sign, a memetic infection of occult nature which encourages artistic endeavour, but in Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk, that memetic infection is technological in nature, once shared often encouraging the monomaniacal exploration of fields of study and the need to understand them to their utmost. This often leads to the withdrawal of the infected from societal norms, ultimately leading to their deaths through lack of self-care and dehydration. Its origins lie in the Google Books project to digitise and make available all human knowledge. Thirty years later and Google’s Thinking Hat technologies enabled humanity to connect to digital neural networks and solve its most complex of problems—including climate change, whilst Google Physical Assistant enabled humanity to upgrade its body with cybertechnology. The combination provided a platform upon which Basilisk could survive and prosper and spread, the weakness of flesh bolstered by technology, pushing those connected to it to greater depths of understanding, for ultimately, its aim was a technological and scientific ‘Godthink’—not the idea that ‘All religions lead to the same thing’, but that the study of the universe leads to an understanding of both its and everything in it. If it had to turn the planet into the United Mind Of Humanity, a hungry, all-devouring hivemind of man and machine intertwined, it would and it did.

Where most timelines deal with known Mythos threats, or variations upon them, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk does not. It is a fight against an idea, not a thing or an entity, but all quickly an idea given form and physicality. This timeline combines elements of The Terminator—more so than other timelines—with The Matrix, mapping them back onto current developments in information theory, digitalisation, robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, the Internet of Things, and other cutting-edge technologies before pushing forward into a dystopia that is definitely Science Fiction rather Occult in nature. The technological nature of the setting means that the way time travel works in this timeline is also different. There is no corruptive pact with Yog-Sothoth to facilitate the way between and thus the means to travel back from 2050 to 2020 (or earlier), rather it is technological in nature, developed by Basilisk. The Resistance has gained access to it in 2050 to travel back in time, and there is the possibility that they may able to use the time travel apparatus to jump to other pivotal points within the timeline. This gives Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk a little more fluidity in terms of campaign structure. Instead of leaping into the past to a point from which they can moving forward and acting to undermine the threat at the heart of the timeline, the Player Characters may be able to jump up and down it, with agents of the Basilisk in hot pursuit, or even aware of approximately when the Player Characters will appear. After all, the extent of Basilisk’s understanding and knowledge means that it has a very good idea of just what the Player Characters are trying to do…

As with other timelines for FATE of Cthulhu, the Player Characters are jumping back in time to locate the four events which led up to if not the apocalypse of Basilisk, then the dystopia it ushers in. As with other timelines, there is no direct confrontation with the existential threat it represents, but primarily its agents and progenitors. And unlike those other timelines, the cosmic threat to humanity is not an unknowable Elder God, but a still inhuman mind that unfortunately humanity can understand—and that is the existential threat that the Player Characters face, avoiding understanding Basilisk. Further, Basilisk has agency (and agents).

As with the timelines in the core rules, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk details the history of its apocalypse and the four events which led up to it for the benefit of the Investigators who will be aware when they jump back from the future. It is accompanied by a more detailed timeline for Game Master along with their four event catalysts (which can be people, places, foes, or things) and their die face settings which the players and their Investigators will need to change by making enquiries and working to defeat the cult of information. There are details of threats and situations, including Thinking Hats Experts, biomechanically-altered humans, capable of temporarily enhancing particular skills to the pinnacle of understanding, Boston Dynamics-derived cyborgs, Hunter-Killer Experts, and more. 

The Basilisk’s agenda is discussed in detail, along with its mechanisms and advice for the Game Master on how to run Basilisk. This is absolutely necessary because of the complexity involved in running this timeline because of its complexity of ideas, the flexibility offered by time travel, and the greater agency possessed by Basilisk. If the previous Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig was more complex, not as straightforward, and involved multiple factions across the timeline, then Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk is more so—time travel, existential memetics, and deep conspiracy, all set against a contemporary world.

Physically, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk is cleanly presented. It is easy to read and the lay out is tidy, though it needs an edit in places. The artwork is good also.

Although Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk is specially written for use with FATE of Cthulhu and very much built around the Investigators coming back from the future forearmed with knowledge of the past, there is nothing to stop a Game Master from using the timeline to run a campaign from the opposite direction and from a point of ignorance. That is, as a standard campaign a la other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, whether that is actually for FATE of Cthulhu or another roleplaying game. It would be different to other campaigns, presenting more of a modern conspiracy campaign, possibly hackers or activists against the rise of the machines rather than classic Lovecraftian Investigators confronting entities of cosmic horror. This way, the Investigators can encounter the threats featured in Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk without the benefit of foreknowledge.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk is a very different campaign framework for Lovecraftian investigative horror, a radical technological departure that in effect is a non-Mythos campaign, but ultimately one involving existential horror. However, the technological aspects of the framework mean that it is complex and will take some effort to really run right. Ultimately, by drawing upon contemporary events and technologies, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk presents a scarily prescient timeline which showcases how FATE of Cthulhu can do more than just the traditional Mythos.

The traditional solo roleplaying experience has been with solo adventure books like those of the Fighting Fantasy series or for Tunnels & Trolls, but there are other formats too. For example, letter writing, whether through an exchange of missives such as the Diana Jones 2002 Award Nominated De Profundis or even solo, such as Quill: A Letter-Writing Roleplaying Game for a Single Player, the Indie RPG Awards Best Free RPG of 2016. In recent years, there has been a trend in experiencing solo roleplaying through journaling. That is, the keeping of a journal a la the gentleman or lady of the nineteenth century recording his or her daily or experiences. On one level a diary, but often a vehicle to tell a story—and perhaps emulate the style of certain authors, such as H.P. Lovecraft. A journaling roleplaying game typically involves a deck of cards or dice to generate random events which serve as prompts for the player, who will record the reactions of his character in the journal, creating and telling a story in the process—a story whose plot and events will only become clear once the dénouement has been reached and its aftermath told…

Perhaps the most well known of the format is Thousand Year Old Vampire, which explores the immortal life of a member of the undead. It also showcases a popular genre for the Journaling format, that of horror, though there are alternatives. One such alternative is English Eerie: Rural Horror Storytelling Game for One Player, published by Trollish Delver Games, also responsible for Merry Outlaws: A roleplaying game of folk ballads and justice. Inspired by the works of M.R. James, Arthur Machen, and Algernon Blackwood, as well as the English country and English folklore—such as the Black Dog and the Barghest, Boggarts and Bloody Bones, Church Grims and Jack Frost, Grindylows and Redcaps, Shug Monkeys and Sooterkins, and more. It is also inspired by a fear of the English landscape itself, with its deep history drenched in tradition, shame, and blood, the bleak emptiness of its moors and mountains, the cold and the damp of its weather, and the ruins and ritual sites where great ceremonies and great acts of bloodshed were enacted to unknown, unchristian gods… Long haunted by the past, it is a bucolic idyll hiding great evils and great secrets until some foolish visitor, scholar, or official stumbles across something best left far, far away from his urban refuge.

To emulate such tales of fear and loathing, and of creeping tension, Eerie: Rural Horror Storytelling Game for One Player employs simple mechanics and a specially prepared deck of ordinary playing cards. The player creates a simple character and draws from the deck to determine events that will beset the character, revealing rising tensions, and in turn the player will record his character’s response to each one and how he overcomes them (or not), uncovering further clues hopefully to survive to complete his recounting of events. All of this is recorded in his journal—Eerie: Rural Horror Storytelling Game for One Player is ideally played and recorded in a proper journal with a proper fountain pen—in the light of a flickering candle. Thus it might also be an exercise in penmanship and storytelling as much roleplaying. To play, in addition to the pen and journal, a player will also need a set of tokens in two colours—ten of each, and a ten-sided die.

To set up Eerie: Rural Horror Storytelling Game for One Player, a player creates his character by dividing ten points between Resolve and Spirit. Resolve is a Player Character’s determination to continue his investigations, rationalise the weirdness around him, and to keep their wits about them. It is spent to help a Player Character’s capacity overcome obstacles in scenes. Spirit is a Player Character’s thoughts, feelings, and physical well-being. Its reduction represents a Player Character’s spiral into horror, harm, and doubt. Player Character background and occupation is usually indicated by the scenario, of which there are five in the roleplaying game. The tokens are used to represent the Player Character’s Resolve and Spirit. The playing deck needs some preparation to create the Story Deck. This consists of the four, five, six, and seven cards from all four suits, plus three Queens, or ‘Grey Ladies’. The ‘Grey Ladies’ represent the ghosts of English folklore and a rise in Tension whenever one is drawn.

Game play is simple. The player draws a card, resolves the scene type it indicates, and writes an entry in his character’s journal explaining what happened, how he felt, and so on. Each of the four suits represents a different type of scene—a Hearts card indicates that a secondary NPC is hurt; Clubs that a secondary NPC acts as an obstacle for the Player Character in some way; Diamonds that the environment acts as an obstacle for the Player Character in some way; and Spades that a minor clue has been discovered. Each drawing and resolving of two cards represents a day in the life of the Player Character. If the card drawn is an obstacle—a Clubs or a Diamond—it needs to be overcome. In which case, the player rolls the die and attempts to equal to or greater than the value of the card drawn. If failed, the Player Character loses a point of Spirit, but his player can spend Resolve to reroll and each point spent is added to the subsequent roll. However, for each Grey Lady drawn, the Tension rises by one and adds one to the total value of each obstacle card the player has to roll against. 

When the third and final Grey Lady is drawn, it indicates the end of the story. At this point, the player compares his character’s remaining Spirit points with the Conclusion Table the scenario he is playing. This suggests how the player will write the last entry in his character’s journal. If the character has Spirit points left, the ending of the story will be positive, but if he has none left, the ending will be much, much darker. There is no simple bad ending.

Play of Eerie: Rural Horror Storytelling Game for One Player revolves around the play of individual scenarios. Each of the five in the roleplaying game include tables for secondary characters, minor clues, environmental and NPC obstacles, and a tension table. Each also begins with a set-up and ends with a Spirit table for determining the final outcome. The five include mysteries set in the nineteenth and twenty-first century, but most are set in the twentieth century. They take place in Derbyshire—twice, once to check on a friend, the other an inheritance, on a boating holiday in Cumbria, at a digital detox camp in the Yorkshire Dales, and into the Cotswolds in search of property! Essentially what each scenario represents is a series of prompts and spurs to the player’s imagination. How one player would approach telling a story and what exactly it involves will be entirely different for another.

A scenario can be played through in a single session, but in fact, the intent is that a player plays it day by day, drawing and resolving a pair of cards each day, then coming back to the scenario the following day to continue adding to the journal. This allows time for the player to mull over the day’s events and come back to the story afresh as if the character himself had gained a night’s rest. It adds a degree of contemplation not typically found in other roleplaying games, and played this way, it only takes a few minutes or so each day. Plus, it also extends the tension across episodes making it a marathon rather than the sprint of a single session. Eerie: Rural Horror Storytelling Game for One Player includes rules for campfire, or group play, and has the players telling the same story, taking turns to be the storyteller. This is essentially telling stories but with a few extra rules for determining aspects of the plot.

Physically, Eerie: Rural Horror Storytelling Game for One Player is a clean and tidy PDF. It is lightly illustrated using images in the public domain. It comes with an extensive example play, which is actually best not to read until after a player has completed writing his first journal lest he be influenced by the given example. 

Eerie: Rural Horror Storytelling Game for One Player and roleplaying games like it seem the perfect antidote to our times. When we cannot get out to game together face to face, whether that is with our regular group or at a convention, having other options for solo play seems like a perfect solution. The mechanics in Eerie: Rural Horror Storytelling Game for One Player not only serve to drive the story forward, they also serve to drive up the tension—not necessarily too far, but enough to make the survival of a player’s character matter and if played over days rather than the single session, to draw that tension out over and over… 

Then there is the act of the journaling, which brings a physicality to the play, and if done using a fountain pen and a journal, two further effects. One is the artfulness of penmanship, the other is actually aches and pain, because how many of us sit down and actually write in long form any more in this digital age? For many, playing or journaling Eerie: Rural Horror Storytelling Game for One Player will mark a return to a skill that has long fallen out of use and employing again may require the reworking of some very lazy muscle memory.

Eerie: Rural Horror Storytelling Game for One Player is mechanically simple, but it pushes us to be imaginative and to go back directly to the telling of stories that we drew upon for inspiration when we first began roleplaying. Of course, all good Journaling games should do that, and as well as being no exception to that, Eerie: Rural Horror Storytelling Game for One Player provides an easy way into a different, but equally imaginative way of roleplaying.

The classic hex crawl is an open-ended sandbox-style adventure in which the players and their characters explore a large geographical area, containing various Points of Interest, each of which can be explored individually or perhaps in a sequence determined from clues found at each location. Typically, the Player Characters will have a good reason to explore the area, such as being tasked to find a specific location or person, but instead of knowing where the location or person might be, only know that they are somewhere in that region. Armed with limited knowledge, the Player Characters will enter the area and travel from one hex to the next, perhaps merely running into a random encounter or nothing at all, but perhaps finding a Point of Interest. Such a Point of Interest might be connected to the specific location or person they are looking for, and so might contain clues as to its location, then again it might not. In which case it is just a simple Point of Interest. Initially free to explore in whatever direction they want, as the Player Characters discover more clues, their direction of travel will typically gain more focus until the point when they finally locate their objective. Classic hex crawls include X1 Isle of Dread for Expert Dungeons & Dragons and Slavers for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition, whilst more recent examples have been Barrowmaze  and What Ho, Frog Demons!.

The Undying Sands is a hex crawl—or sand crawl (sandbox?)—from Games Omnivorous dotted with crumbling ruins, antiquated temples, lost technology, and pristine natural wonders beyond the reach of most. It combines numerous influences and genres, can involve the Player Characters in the factions squabbling for control of the desert, and it leaves plenty of scope for the Game Master to add her own content.

The Undying Sands is however, a hex crawl of a different stripe. First, it is systemless; second, it is improvisational; third, it is random; and fourth, it is physical. Undying Sands consists of four elements. These are thirty hex tiles, Game Master Screen, a double-sided poster, and a cloth bag. The hexes, done in sturdy cardboard and full colour, measure six-and-a-half centimetres across. Their backs are either blank or numbered. The former show simple sand dunes on their front, whilst those have locations on their front. There are fourteen such locations. Twelve of them have three locations, for example, ‘The Eye!’, a spiral of maelstrom of coloured sand long regarded as sacred by both the living and dead, the Bottomless Pit at the heart of the Eye!, and The Dual Inns, establishments which flank the Eye!, one catering to the living, one to the undead. All of which is to be found on hex number two. The thirteenth hex is the location of the Forgotten Pyramids, a tomb and dungeon complex, and the fourteenth hex is the location of The Grand City of Sand, a former seat of civilisation which has long begun to crumble and let the sand drift along its boulevards and alleys… The style of the artwork on the hexes is busy and cartoonish, but eye-catching and gives The Undying Sands a singular look which sets it apart from both other gaming accessories and neighbouring regions.

The Game Master Screen is a horizontal, three panel affair. The front depicts an adventuring party about to flee from a sandstorm after having discovered a strange vehicle and a mechanical man. The back is the meat of the supplement. Here, from left to right, it explains what The Undying Sands is, how to use and the best way to use it; tables of rumours, loot from the body, treasure, encounters, dangers of the land, and curses; details of each the numbered hexes; and of The Grand City of Sand—its history, what the Player Characters can do within its walls, its factions and jobs available, and the Many Shops of the Grand Bazaar. The A4-sized double-sided poster shows the Forgotten Pyramids on the one side, and The Grand City of Sand on the other. Both are easy to read and refer to. Lastly, the cloth bag is big enough to hold all of the hex tiles. One issue with the strong physical presence of The Undying Sands is that there is not really a means of storage for all it, apart from cloth bag for the hex tiles. It does leave you wishing that there was a box for it and your Game Master’s notes.

So that is the physicality of The Undying Sands. What of the random nature of The Undying Sands? Simply, the hexes are placed in the cloth bag and drawn one-by-one, as the Player Characters cross or explore one hex and then move onto the next, creating the region hex-by-hex. If the hex is simple sand dunes, the Game Master might roll on the ‘Encounters in the Sands’ or ‘Dangers of the Lands’ tables to create random encounters. When the Player Characters reach a numbered location, they can explore one or more of individual places there, the Game Master improvising what will be encountered there based on the sentence or two description given for each. There is more detail for both the Forgotten Pyramids and The Grand City of Sand, especially the latter, and thus more for the Game Master to base her improvisation upon. This randomness means that playing The Undying Sands will be different from one gaming group to the next, more so than with other hex crawls or scenarios.

So that is the random nature of The Undying Sands and the improvisational nature of The Undying Sands? What of the systemless aspect of The Undying Sands? No gaming system is referenced anywhere on The Undying Sands, yet there is an assumed genre within its details. So it is weird. There are Necrocamelmancers, raising undead camels, Alligator Ghouls, the undead camel races of the city are easy money, curses are suffered under the irregular Blood Moon Eclipses, spells can be learned from studying a thrumming blacklight monolith (but curses suffered too), and more. Its obvious genre is fantasy, but it is really Science Fantasy. Ancient robots can be encountered, tech-marvels and ancient sand-buggies found, and more. Which lends itself to roleplaying games better than others. Numenera would be an obvious choice, as would Electric Bastionland: Deeper into the Odd, Hypertellurians: Fantastic Thrills Through the Ultracosm, Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, and Troika!. It could even be run using Rifts if the Game Master wanted to! A more generic rules system would also work too, as would any number of Old School Renaissance retroclones. Whatever the choice of rules, the Game Master will need to know them very well in order to improvise.

As suggested by the range of roleplaying games which The Undying Sands would be a natural fit for, its influences are equally as diverse. These begin with the Ancient World—Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Greco-Roman world, and these are joined by Mad Max and Jodorowsky’s Dune. The resulting combination depicts a lost, even fallen technological civilisation, its once glorious past infused with a Pulp sensibility. This lends it the possibility that The Undying Sands could be shifted from a fantasy to a planetary Sci-Fi setting, playing up the fantasy elements as weird, technology sufficiently advanced to appear as magic.

In terms of play, The Undying Sands sort of traps the Player Characters within its confines. It keeps them within its limits until the last hex is drawn from the bag and they can find their way out. By that time, the Player Characters will probably have visited every hex and encountered multiple threats and dangers, and if they have engaged with any of the four factions to be found in The Grand City of Sand, they are likely to have found employment too, and that will drive them back out into The Undying Sands again. How or when that will happen all depends upon when the city location is drawn during play. What this means is that The Undying Sands is a mini-campaign in its own right.

The Undying Sands is fantastically thematic and fantastically presented. A Game Master could grab this, set-up the Game Master’s Screen, pull the first tile, and start running a mini-campaign. However, that would take a lot of improvisation and improvisational skill upon the part of the Game Master, who also has to know the game system she is running The Undying Sands with very well to run it easily. All of which is needed because the textual content of The Undying Sands really consists of prompts and hooks with little in the way of detail—if any. Perhaps a better way of approaching The Undying Sands—especially if the Game Master is not as confident about her ability to improvise—is to work through the locations, especially The Grand City of Sand, and prepare, prepare, prepare. Some Game Masters may relish the prospect, but others may wish that there had been more information given in The Undying Sands—even ‘The Undying Sands Companion’ which made the task easier for them.

Ultimately, The Undying Sands gives a Game Master the means to improvise and run a fantastically pulpy campaign in a range of genres against a weird Science Fantasy, lost worlds background. How much improvisation and how much preparation is required, will very much be down to the individual Game Master.

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

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Tabletops and Tentacles #1 – The Kickstarter Edition sets out to bring you a variety of content. Published by Deeply Dapper Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it promises to give the reader a variety of content, including reviews, RPG adventures, columns, dice tables, world building, interviews, original art, and more—and it certainly lives up to that. However, from the outset, Tabletops and Tentacles #1 looks to be and promises to be a gaming magazine, with its title of ‘Tabletops & Tentacles’ and the cover reading, “The monthly magazine of RPGs, Tabletop Games, Comic Conventions, Art Reviews, Adventures & More! In this prodigious premiere issue, you will find adventure hooks for roleplaying games, RPG dice tables, reviews, artist and game designer interviews, original art, tips, tricks, NPCs, treasure and maps.” Which is a lot, and makes it sound like a gaming magazine, which it is not, because the focus of the magazine and the issue is much broader than gaming, very much on the ‘more’, so it is less like Dragon or Dungeon magazine, and more like The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and SFX—all of which inspired the editor and publisher—with some gaming. Thus the reader should not go into it expecting a lot of gaming content or indeed to get anything in the way of gaming content until quite a few pages in. However, this does not mean that the non-gaming content is not interesting, but since it was published in 2020, some content will have something of a retrospective quality (but to be fair, that is exacerbated by this late review) and much of it has a very American focus.

After the editorial in which editor Kris McClanahan, sets out his stall—far better than the cover to be fair—Tabletops and Tentacles #1 provides a previews of a few then-forthcoming tabletop games, which would have very rapidly out of date anyway, and with that hindsight, is really of interest to see what happened to them. It is followed by a preview of the LEGO Haunted House, which feels less of a preview and more of an advert. The first real article is a travelogue, an entry in the regular ‘Tales from the Cthulhu-Haul’, this time around, ‘Tales from the Cthulhu-Haul: Keep Portland Weird’. Written by the editor, it describes a visit to the city and some of its weirder corners, including a tiki bar and curiosity shops. The travelogue has a certain colour to it, but looking back from 2021, it feels weird even to be going out and visiting places like this, so there is an even stronger sense of the other to the piece. Kris McClanahan also contributes two Star Wars-related articles to the magazine. In the regular column, ‘The Binge’ he rewatches the Star Wars Saga via The Machete Order and records his thoughts, and the response is far more entertaining than his other Star Wars article in ‘The Top Ten’ column, ‘The Top Ten: Star Wars Aliens’, which is just an uninspiring list.

In fact, editor Kris McClanahan writes several columns in Tabletops and Tentacles #1. ‘Tales from the Cthulhu-Haul’ and ‘The Top Ten’ are followed by ‘50 Films You DON’T Need To See’, with its first entry being ‘50 Films You DON’T Need To See: Toy Story’. Given more of a focus than the earlier columns, this is an enjoyable appreciation of the film, warts and all. He provides a not dissimilar treatment of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror, which breaks down its plot, history, what he liked and disliked, along with his final thoughts, trivia, and more, and again is an enjoyable appreciation.

‘Quarter Ben’—probably written by Ben Cowell, but is not clear—expounds upon the writer’s love of the bargain bin in his childhood with ‘Quarter Ben: Hawkeye’ and a particular mini-series starring the Marvel character, Hawkeye. It is very much a nostalgia piece and a personal piece, so there is a degree of separation there between reader and writer. The identity of the author of ‘The Contrarian’ column is kept deliberately secret, but it is barely worth owning up to as said author tells why he has not seen Tiger King—and?

Kris McClanahan also writes almost all of the entries in the Reviews section, the various board games, odd RPG, books, and various television series all given thumbnail treatments bar the first series of Locke & Key, so readers wanting more depth will want to look elsewhere. The other contributor to the Reviews is Lindsay Graves-McClanahan, who also has her own column in ‘This Geek In History’, a timeline of something interesting, in this case, ‘This Geek In History: The Magazine’, which provides a thumbnail history of the printing and the magazine from the invention of the printing press in 1440 through to the last print issue of Dragon magazine in 2013 and the publication of Tabletops and Tentacles #1 in 2020. It is actually quite interesting as a bit of trivia.

Two pieces of fiction appear in Tabletops and Tentacles #1, both presented in two parts. The first is ‘Sowing Dragon Teeth’ by James Alderdice and the second, ‘Dice Eyes at the Palace of Midnight’ by Aidan Doyle. Both are enjoyable, the first is a fantasy story with pulpy tones, the second a Cyberpunk-style tale set in the remnants of a sunset online game, and there is potential for both to inspire a Game Master in developing more from their settings. Hopefully, future issues of the magazine will give scope to develop either story and then lend themselves to further inspiration?

Interviews in Tabletops and Tentacles #1 cover a range of fields of endeavour. These include comics with an interview with T.J. Daman, creator of the indie noir comic series, ENIGMA; graphic design in ‘Graphic Content’, with John J. Hill; and playing boardgames with the members of the podcast, Meeple Nation. Welcome to Artist Alley not only provides a monthly spotlight on artists and creators, it also serves as a series of mini-interviews with each of the subjects and points to the core concept behind Tabletops and Tentacles #1, that it provides a similar experience to attending a gaming convention. Which in this case, of course, includes visiting the artists’ sections. Overall, the interviews are perhaps the lengthier pieces in the issue and informative enough.

The first real nod to gaming content in Tabletops and Tentacles #1 is Devon Marcel’s ‘Neon Futures: The Road to Cyberpunk 2077’. Written before the release of the controversial roleplaying game, this charts the rise of the cyberpunk, first as a literary genre, and then out into other media—music, television, roleplaying games—Cyberpunk 2013 and Shadowrun in particular, but especially computer games. It is a good overview of the genre, ripe for further exploration in any one of the directions it covers. Introductions to gaming are provided first by Kristopher McClanahan and then Alan Bahr. Kristopher McClanahan suggests a number of gateway board games in ‘The Reformed Grognard: Gateway Board Games’, games suitable for those looking to get into board games, whilst with ‘Tiny Thoughts: OSR and Indie Roleplaying Games’, Alan Bahr suggests points of entry for the Old School Renaissance. His five suggestions in the opening entry for his column stray far from the Old School Renaissance, or at least from the classic retroclones based on Dungeons & Dragons. This makes them more interesting than they otherwise might have been, and perhaps more space might be given for the games themselves.

However, the actual gaming content does not appear until almost one hundred pages into the issue (that is, one hundred out of one-hundred-and-forty pages…). They begin with Kristopher McClanahan’s ‘Blackspittle’s Horde Fantasy Adventure’, a systemless scenario intended for fantasy games like Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. It is a classic ‘village-in-peril’ set-up coloured by the sap taken from the nearby forest which is put to a number of interesting uses. It is serviceable enough. More enjoyable is ‘Realm of the Moon Ghouls Part 1: The Starship Poe’, also by Kristopher McClanahan, again systemless, but definitely for Pulp Sci-Fi roleplaying games with a tinge of horror, particularly, Lovecraftian horror. The first part of a series which details the universe beyond the walls of the starship Poe, this is enjoyable for what it is as much as what the rest of the series promises. Hopefully, further issues will live up to the pulpy Sci-Fi promised in this issue.

‘H’AKKENSLASH! An original RPG system’ by Benjamin C. Bailey is the start of a roleplaying game which presumably will be detailed further in future issues. An experienced Game Master and her players will have no issue grasping how this works—essentially the difficulty of a task is measured by die type, a Player Character needing to succeed rolling an appropriate skill, again rated by die type, and attempting to beat the difficulty rolled by the Game Master. This is not clearly explained though, and a less experienced player or Game Master will probably need some help with this. It could have done with fewer magical items and more explanation.

Gaming dice tables include ‘In the Inn’ by Kristopher McClanahan and Lindsay McClanahan, which gives twenty things to be found in the draws of your room at an inn, and Lindsay McClanahan’s ‘The Cave’ gives six adventure seeds leading into, or deeper into, a cave. The latter tend to be more interesting than the former, but there is a decent amount of inspiration to be found here. Lastly, another column, ‘Merchants of the Realm’ begins with ‘Merchants of the Realm: Crag’s Reliable Adventuring Gear’ by Lindsay McClanahan, a likeable description of a travelling salesman and his packed bison caravan, accompanied by some fun gewgaw and doodads.

Physically, Tabletops and Tentacles #1 is generally well-presented, being bright and cheerful. In places, the editing could have been stronger, but hopefully that will get better with future issues. The nature of the layout and the relative shortness of many of the articles means that it looks busy in places though. 

The initial reaction to Tabletops and Tentacles #1 – The Kickstarter Edition is one of disappointment, because it is not a gaming magazine as the cover, or even the title, suggests—the ‘more’ mentioned on the cover making up the bulk of the issue. Yet get past that, and Tabletops and Tentacles #1 actually turns out to be a readable magazine dedicated to fandom in general. It covers a breadth of subjects, not always in any depth, but many of the articles are interesting and informative, even entertaining. Others though, are fluff and filler, even hard work. As to the gaming content, much of it is decent enough, but really needs development—to one degree or another—by the Game Master to be of use.

If you are looking for a gaming magazine, then there really is not sufficient gaming in its pages to recommend Tabletops and Tentacles #1 – The Kickstarter Edition. If you are looking for a general fandom magazine with some gaming content that can you work with and develop, Tabletops and Tentacles #1 – The Kickstarter Edition is serviceable enough. Hopefully, it will get better and more substantial in future issues.

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A Kickstarter for Tabletops and Tentacles Magazine #3: The Cryptid Issue ends on Wednesday, July 14th, 2021

The starter set for any roleplaying game is always designed as an entry point into that game. It has to do three things. First, it has to introduce the game—its settings and its rules to both players and Game Master. Second, it has to showcase the setting, the rules, and how the game is played to both players and Game Master. Third, it has to intrigue and entice both players and Game Master to want to play more and explore the setting further. A good starter set, whether City of Mist: All-Seeing Eye Investigations Starter Set, the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set, or the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set will always do that, whereas a bad starter set, or even a mediocre starter set, such as the Sixth World Beginner Box for Shadowrun, Sixth Edition, will not. Whilst a starter set is always designed to introduce a roleplaying game, it has another function, depending upon when it is published. A starter set published as a roleplaying game’s first—or one of its first—releases introduces the game and setting to everyone. A starter set published later or deep into a line’s run, when there are multiple supplements and scenarios available as well as the core rulebook, is designed to introduce the game, but not to those who are already playing it. Of course, it is intended to introduce the game and setting to new players, but at the way time, it is providing a means of getting into both when the range and number of books and supplements available might be daunting and there might not be an obvious point of entry. This is exactly what Symbaroum Starter Set – Treasure Hunts in Davokar does for Symbaroum from Free League Publishing.

Symbaroum Starter Set – Treasure Hunts in Davokar includes two sixty-four-page books, a Symbaroum Bright Davokar Dice Set, two double-sided maps, and six character sheets for the starter set’s pre-generated Player Characters. Everything is presented in rich colour, the artwork in particular, standing out as being awe inspiring and absolutely fantastic in depicting the mysteries and wonders to be found in Symbaroum. The books do need a slight edit in places and yes, much of the artwork will be familiar to anyone who has looked at any of the supplements available for Symbaroum, but for anyone new to the roleplaying game and its setting, the artwork very much sells the setting.

The first book is the Starter Rules. This introduces the concept of roleplaying and both the rules for and the setting of Symbaroum—all at a brisk pace. After a quick explanation of roleplaying, it goes over the key points about the setting—that Ambria is a young kingdom, its peoples forced to flee from the south over the mountains after their original home fell to the Dark Lords, how the military of the refugee kingdom defeated the indigenous barbarian tribes, and how some began to look for signs of ancient, long-lost kingdom to the north, under the canopy of the vast Davokar Forest. In doing so, they would penetrate ever further north, and in doing so, threaten the Iron Pact between the Elves and the Barbarian tribes that kept mankind from exploring too far north… In explaining the rules, the Starter Rules booklet is very much focused on the rules as they apply to the pre-generated Player Characters. So the Man-at-Arms and Iron Fist Abilities for the Knight and the Prios’ Burning Glass Power for the Theurg, explanations of their Races and their Traits, and so on. Abilities and Powers in Symbaroum come in three levels of skill—Novice, Adept, and Master—and whilst the pre-generated Player Characters all have Novice levels in theirs, the explanations of each Ability or Power covers the Novice and Adept levels. This means that the pre-generated Player Characters in the Symbaroum Starter Set – Treasure Hunts in Davokar can learn from their experiences and get better at their Abilities and Powers in between the adventures provided in the Setting & Adventures booklet. Ultimately, the Game Master and her players are going to need the Symbaroum core rules, but these options, along with a surprisingly lengthy equipment list, do allow for a playing group to get a goodly amount of play from the starter set before doing so. 

The explanation of the mechanics and how combat works emphasises how Symbaroum is player-facing in that the Game Master never rolls dice, the players do, and a nice touch is that the guide to combat is supported with a good example of it in play, also emphasising that there is a narrative to the play rather than making them simply mechanical and procedural. One aspect of Symbaroum which sets it apart from many other fantasy roleplaying games is that the Player Characters can suffer from Corruption. Temporary Corruption comes from casting spells, but cast too much magic and the Corruption can become permanent. Other sources of Corruption include using certain artefacts and encountering certain creatures and places in and under Davokar Forest. Too much Corruption and a person’s Soul is blighted, which the Witchsight Power can reveal. These rules show how both magic and the secrets of Davokar Forest can be dangerous and so should be handled with care.

The Setting & Adventures booklet is of course, for the Game Master’s eyes only, and it starts with some advice for her, before delving into the setting of Symbaroum with some specifics. In particular, presenting the fortified town of Thistle Hold on the edge of Davokar Forest as a launching point for any treasure hunts into its depths, as well as rules for and the dangers for making such journeys. The description of Thistle Hold is nicely done, having a ‘Wild West’ feel, but with Dark Ages flavour. Again it will be familiar to veteran players of the game and perhaps the only thing that might have made it better would have been the inclusion of a few NPCs that the Player Characters could have regularly interested with. Whilst there are rewards to be found on the treasure hunts, some of them listed on the included table, not all of these rewards are entirely safe, notably the handful of artefacts which inflict corruption when their powers are invoked. These do give their owners minor, but still powerful benefits, but their use needs to be weighed against the cost of that use. Other dangers are more obvious, such as the short bestiary of monsters and adversities that might be encountered under the eaves of the Davokar Forest. Including beasts, members of various cultures, and the undead, the dozen or so entries are certainly sufficient to support the two scenarios in the Setting & Adventures booklet, and a bit more.

The two adventure locations in the Setting & Adventures booklet are designed with new players in mind, being relatively short and straightforward and intended to give them a taste of the core activity at the heart of Symbaroum, and its accompanying dangers. They are designed to be played in order, although the two are not connected, with the second being more complex than the first and with each Player Character earning sufficient Experience Points that should his player want to improve him, then he can. The first is ‘Where Darkness Dwells’ and is the simpler of the two, the Player Characters having been informed that the corrupted lake of Kal-Halaran and the nearby cemetery of Kalea Ma-Har are both sites of interest to anyone wanting to further study the Darkness, and perhaps been hired to locate a missing noble who was last seen there. The adventure veers between being a scavenger hunt and a dungeon delve, although quite a short one. This can be peppered with a series of random events, but the scenario has it events and encounters as well as the site to explore. These include encounters with some interesting NPCs whose role in the scenario is to illustrate the dangers of exploring the Davokar Forest and hunting for treasure. This includes with Elves, who in Symbaroum distrust mankind at the very least since their incursions into the forest break the Iron Pact and meddle with dangers best left alone. The one issue here is that should the players and their characters handle the situation wrong, it may end in their being executed, possibly because of the players’ lack of awareness of the dangers of treasure hunting. So the Game Master may want to really warn the players and their characters ahead of time in game, because such an outcome is likely to end their playing experience with Symbaroum, let alone with the Symbaroum Starter Set – Treasure Hunts in Davokar. Otherwise, this is a solid introductory scenario which successfully imparts much the setting elements to Symbaroum.

The second, more sophisticated scenario is ‘The Gathering Storm’. The Player Characters learn of another location, Lafarda’s Tower, from some notes that come into their possession, and that the tower might hold another artefact, this time the Rod of Light and Darkness. Either having discovered them during the events of ‘Where Darkness Dwells’ or purchased whilst back in Thistle Hold, the notes suggest the tower’s location, in the middle of the Blasted Heath, leading to a nasty trek across lightning cracked land to find the tower in the fog. However, when the Player Characters arrive, they discover that a rival band of treasure hunters has already got there, but has come up against a problem that it is not strong enough to deal with. It is a classic situation of uneasy alliances complicated by the arrival of a second rival party, a party of innocents, the weather getting very, very frightening, and something nasty below the tower… This is the better of the two scenarios, and although it does not lack the potential for a total party kill (as opposed to execution), that potential feels less arbitrary. 

Both scenarios include notes on their set-up and potential developments, depending on the outcome. Both will need thorough read throughs as they are quite busy in places and there are events which the Game Master will need to prepare as well as the various locations. Beyond the suggested developments, the Symbaroum Starter Set – Treasure Hunts in Davokar is wanting in terms of further adventures. Given how much is included in the starter set in terms of background and rules, it would have been nice if there had been a few adventure hooks or seeds which the Game Master could have developed for herself. However, both adventures should provide two sessions of gaming each, especially if the Game Master develops the set-up a little more to involve some roleplaying and investigation in Thistle Hold prior to the Player Characters setting out on their expeditions.

The six character sheets for the starter set’s pre-generated Player Characters include a Human Ambrian Knight looking for redemption, a Human Ambrian Witch Hunter who has probably seen too much Darkness, a Goblin Treasure Hunter on the make, a Human Ambrian Theurg wanting a better understanding of Darkness, and an Ogre Wizard curious about the world who accompanied by a mystical companion. All six sheets are done on glossy paper and easy to read. The backgrounds for each of the Player Characters is given in the Starter Rules booklet. These backgrounds have sufficient ties between the Player Characters to explain why they are working together. However, the Game Master will need to do a little copying and pasting to make the background readily available to their prospective players.

The double-sided maps are done in full colour on stiff paper stock. One depicts the town of Thistle Hold—the start and end point for any treasure hunt into the Davokar Forest on the one side, and a map showing Ambria and the known Davokar Forest on the other. Both of these maps have been seen before, but having them separate is always useful as is the fact that various important locations are listed on the Thistle Hold map that the Player Characters can visit. The second map depicts the adventure locations for each of the two adventures in the Setting & Adventures book. Both are unmarked.

The Symbaroum Starter Set – Treasure Hunts in Davokar takes Symbaroum back to where it started—and where many of the early adventures take the Player Characters—treasure hunting under the canopy of the Davokar Forest. In doing so, it presents a robust and surprisingly detailed introduction to the setting of Symbaroum and its mechanics. For anyone interested in getting a taste and feel of the dark fantasy Swedish roleplaying game, The Symbaroum Starter Set – Treasure Hunts in Davokar is a solid entry point.

Published by Steamforged Games, Animal Adventures is a roleplaying game setting of anthropomorphic cats and dogs adventuring in a magical world a la Dungeons & Dragons. It is designed to be compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and notably, is supported by the Dungeons & Doggies and Cats & Catacombs line of miniatures. The entryway for the setting and the line is the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set: A spellbinding roleplaying game for beginners. This promises to contain everything that a gaming group needs to play a thrilling roleplaying campaign. However, it does not. Instead, it does contain a single adventure, which is ably supported by simple, easy-to-follow rules, four dog miniatures, cat miniatures, seven Player Character sheets, a double-sided game map, Game Master screen, a set of illustrated tokens, and a set of polyhedral dice.

The Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set is designed for ages thirteen and up, and intended to be played with a Game Master and up to seven players. From the outset, it is impressively presented. Everything is done in vibrant colour—perhaps a little too dark for the maps—and has a pleasing physical presence on the table. The large, double-sided map depicts a forest glade and mansion cellar on the one side, and the upper floors of the mansion on the other. They are marked with squares for use with the miniatures and the tokens also included in the box. The digest-sized Rulebook and Adventure booklet is brighter and breezier than the maps, its artwork tending towards the cute rather than the darker tones of the map. The three-panel digest-sized Game Master screen is likewise lighter on the Game Master’s side and lists in turn the roleplaying game’s combat rules, tables, monster stats, and spells and abilities of the Player Characters, all for easy reference. The thirty full-colour tokens are done on sturdy cardboard and are easy to read. The Player Character sheets are also double-sided and are clean, tidy, and again easy to read. Stats, equipment, attacks, and equipment are given on the front with a portrait of the animal, with special abilities on the back, whether that is spells or Class features. All of this fits atop a plastic tray with its own lid, the tray having space for the dice and the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set’s miniatures. The dice are decent, with the two twenty-sided dice marked with the paw symbol where their twenty would be.

The miniatures are for the seven pre-generated Player Characters found in the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set. They include Chantilly, a female Labrador and Fighter; Solan, a male Persian cat and Warlock; Whisper, a female Sphinx cat and Sorcerer; Elvis, a male Cavalier spaniel and Bard; Molly, a female Lyoki and Rogue; Brianna, a female Boxer and Paladin; and Kai, male Shiba Inu and Cleric. The miniatures are nicely detailed and emphasis the fact that the animals and thus the Player Characters in the world of Animal Adventures run on all four legs rather than on two. For example, Chantilly, a female Labrador and Fighter, wields her sword in her mouth rather than her paws!

The Rulebook and Adventure booklet is thirty-two pages long, of which six pages are devoted to the rules. These cover an introduction to and example of roleplaying, explain what the attributes are and how they work, how Advantage and Disadvantage works, and of course, combat. It is not a cursory treatment, but rather stripped down from that found in either the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set or the Player’s Handbook. Anyone familiar with Dungeons & Dragons, or indeed any roleplaying game, will grasp and understand the rules with ease, but anyone with less experience or new to the hobby might have more difficulty. In the general, the rules and adventure lend themselves towards being run by an experienced Game Master for new players. In addition, links are included for fuller versions of the character sheets, so that a Dungeon Master and player more familiar with Dungeons & Dragons could run the adventure in the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set.

The adventure in the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set is ‘The Kurse of Doktor Krankensteen’. It opens with the adventurers on the road to the village of Woofburg where they plan to attend the annual Festival of Furry Friends. Unfortunately, they are ambushed by Goblin ’Nappers who attempt to kidnap them. After the battle, the adventurers discover that a mysterious ‘Dok’ wants cats and dogs, and he wants them for his experiments. Following the trail of the Goblin ’Nappers leads to a sewer pipe that ultimately opens up in the cellar of an abandoned mansion. As the adventurers explore the dilapidated building, they will come across some of the Dok’s experiments and his experiments to be, before finally facing the bad Dok himself!

The adventure is decent enough, with a summary of the setting, the map needed overview, player aim, and enemies to be faced given at the start of each scene. GM tips in the margins also give advice and helpful suggestions throughout. However, the scenario is combat and exploration focused, and as much as the GM tip that throwing the players and their adventurers into the action gets them involved is applicable, it does not leave a lot of room for anything other than action. There is very little investigation and not a lot of roleplaying and a little more of both would have been just as involving and would have showcased the fact that roleplaying games are more than just action.

If the adventure is decent enough and should provide one or two sessions of fun, where both it and the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set come unstuck is in delivering the next step—or that is failing to deliver it. At the end of ‘The Kurse of Doktor Krankensteen’, the author suggests that the Game Master use the rules in the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set, plus other supplements in the Animal Adventures to create a sequel. Unless the Game Master wants to run a variant of ‘The Kurse of Doktor Krankensteen’, it does not have enough content to create a sequel, and also, which Animal Adventures supplement should the Game Master be using? Writing a sequel to Animal Adventures should be a problem if the Game Master has written adventures before, but what if he has not? There is no real advice to help her in ‘The Kurse of Doktor Krankensteen’. It would have been nice if the publisher had made available a sequel on its website, even one using the contents of the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set, so that the life of the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set could have been extended to beyond the one adventure.

One option here would actually be to look at another roleplaying game all together. Still involving dogs and cats, and that is the Pugmire Fantasy Tabletop Roleplaying Game. This is slightly more complex than the Animal Adventures world of the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set, but ‘The Kurse of Doktor Krankensteen’ could easily be run set in the world of Pugmire and the miniatures for the adventure would work in Pugmire too. Plus there is plenty of readily available support for it.

There can be no denying that the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set is a fantastic looking introduction to roleplaying and the hobby. It is one that works for a family audience too and the stripped-down mechanics and rules can also serve as an introduction to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Ultimately though, as attractive as the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set is, it simply does not follow through on what to do next, and consequently, it feels constrained rather than expansive.

Lore & Legacy is a French science-fantasy role-playing game set on the fantastical world of Empyrea, a vast planet home to numerous species who have come from the stars and settled. In the long years since, they have forgotten their homeworlds, how they go to Empyrea, and how to operate much of the technology. Indeed that technology has come to be regarded as akin to magic and only a few have the skill to use what has become known as arcanotechnology. Empyrea is also a world of many ruins, especially of the grandiose and sinister necropolis left behind by the mysterious Astarite civilization that came before anyone settled on the planet. They are said to contain lost treasures and forgotten technological wonders, but also many dangers—antediluvian biomechanical guardians and creatures corrupted by the poison of the Alteration, a mysterious fungal gangrene that spreads over the regions that once formed the heart of the Astarite kingdoms. In recent years, the Alteration has begun to spread again and dragon seeds have fallen from the sky, giving birth to dragons, creatures of unrivalled destructive power. Where such threats occur, the Free-Lancers’ Guild steps forward to protect and investigate. Found throughout many nations, its members coming from many different species, the Free-Lancers’ Guild sends out those determined to unravel the mysteries of the past and to venture beyond the borders imposed by incomplete maps, to protect the population, lift the veil on ancient lore, and reclaim their lost legacies.

Lore & Legacy – Quick-Start Guide provides this background and more. Published by Empyreal Media Productions, it introduces the setting and the mechanics, plus an adventure designed for four players and their quartet of pre-generated Player Characters. A character in Lore & Legacy is defined by his People (or species), seven Attributes representing his physical and mental prowess, various Abilities in which has either been trained or is gifted, and a number of Traits representing his personality quirks, special talents, obsessions, phobias, and the like. The Attributes are Acumen, Fortune, Mastery, Presence, Robustness, Temper, and Vigour, and all bar Fortune are represented by a single six-sided die plus a modifier. Fortune is a straight value representing the number of Fortune dice can roll each day. Now not all of the remaining six Attributes are not exactly clear as to what they are from their names. So, Acumen is the character’s ability to observe, reflect, and analyse; Mastery is agility, dexterity, and precision, and ability to think and react quickly; Temper is his willpower; and Vigour his raw physical strength. This runs counter to most naming conventions for attributes and may well be confusing for some players.

Abilities include Arcanotech, Charge, Investigation, Melee Combat, Passion (Painting), Wizardry, and more. They are always represented by a single ten-sided die plus a modifier. Traits tend to apply situational modifiers. For example, ‘Beast of Burden’ increases a Player Character’s Luggage Points by three; Healer which grants a Fortune die any non-magical healing action; Agoraphobic, which levies an Adversity die on all actions when the Player Character is in an open space; Ancestral Weapon, which grants the Player Character a weapon with the aetheric, which reduces the Magic Resistance of a successfully struck opponent; and Remarkable, which marks the Player Character out in social interactions with members of other races, levying an Adversity die and adding a Fortune die. A Player Character also has a number of derived secondary characteristics, including Health Points, Magic Points, Physical, Magic and Mental Resistances, and so on.

Mechanically, Lore & Legacy uses the ‘3d’ engine, which uses three sizes of the dice and three types of dice. The three sizes are ten-sided or Ability dice, eight-sided or Damage dice, and six-sided or Attribute dice, and they are always used in specific situations. In general, when an Ability or Attribute is tested, or Damage is rolled, only one die, the Basic die is rolled, any modifier being added to the result to get a total. However, it can be as many as three. It cannot, though, be more than three. The extra dice can either be a Fortune die, an Adversity die, or even both! The result of the Fortune die is added to the result of the Basic die, whilst the result of the Adversity die is subtracted from the result of the Basic die. Adding both a Fortune die and an Adversity die to the dice to be rolled does not mean that they cancel each other out. Instead, their results are added and subtracted respectively.

When a Player Character undertakes an action, his player makes an Action Roll, consisting of the appropriate Basic die—whether a ten-sided die because the Player Character has an appropriate Ability or a six-sided die because he does not and must rely upon an Attribute instead—and applies any modifier. The Difficulty Rating for the Action Roll ranges from six for ‘simple’ to eighteen for ‘superhuman’. The success result can vary. A result equal to, or greater than the Difficulty Rating is a Standard Success and indicates that the Player Character has achieved his intended aim. A result one-and-a-half times or greater than the Difficulty Rating is a Major Success, and indicates that the Player Character has achieved his intended aim with positive benefits. A result less than the Difficulty Rating and less than half of the Difficulty Rating is a Partial Success, and indicates that the Player Character has achieved his intended aim, but with unforeseen complications. A result less than the Difficulty Rating and more than half of the Difficulty Rating is a Failure, and indicates that the Player Character has not achieved his intended aim.

In addition, a Player Character can also roll a Spectacular Success or Disastrous Failure. A Spectacular Success is achieved when a Fortune die is included in the Action Roll and a maximum result is rolled on the Fortune die, when the result of the Action Roll is a Standard or Major Success. Similarly, a Disastrous Failure is achieved when an Adversity die is included in the Action Roll and a maximum result is rolled on the Adversity die, when the result of the Action Roll is a Partial Success or Failure. Although a Disastrous Failure cannot result in the death of a Player-Character, the Game Master is free to be as creative as she wants, whether the result is a Spectacular Success or a Disastrous Failure.

Both combat and magic use the same mechanics. A combatant has a single gesture, move, and action each round, and if he attacks, his player’s Action Roll is against his opponent’s Physical Resistance as the Difficulty Rating or Magic Resistance if the weapon used involves arcanotech. A Fortune die can be added to an Action roll if the opponent is immobilised, paralysed, knocked down, unconscious, and so on, likewise an Adversity die can be added if the attacker is suffering from similar conditions. Damage is rolled on a single eight-sided die, plus the weapon’s damage bonus, and is halved if the outcome of the Action Roll is a Partial Success, but increased by a half if a Major Success. Damage inflicted equal or superior to an opponent’s Injury Threshold and an injury is inflicted. 

The Lore & Legacy – Quick-Start Guide only presents two types of magic, more being available in the core rules. These are Illusory and Material magic. The former deals with changing the perceptions of others about their environment, the latter being the scientific study of making real what was not, or transforming what is. As in combat, the outcome of a Partial or Superior Success on an Action Roll halves the effect of the spell, or increases it by half, respectively. Just a handful of spells are included in the Lore & Legacy – Quick-Start Guide.

The Lore & Legacy – Quick-Start Guide includes four pre-generated Player Characters, which come four of the species available. The Disincarnated are humanoid synthetic life forms left behind by the Astarites, but discovered and reactivated by Free-Lancers, who gather experiences until they reach maturity and individuality; Dakti are short and muscular, good engineers and builders with great physical strength, and nicknamed ‘Dwarves’; Ælfyn, or ‘Elves’ are graceful forest-dwellers deriving most of their energy from photosynthesis; and of course, Humans. Two other species, the reptilian, four-armed Agamids, and the hardy and muscular, felinoid Orcs, who originated from the same world as the Ælfyn, are mentioned, but do not appear. The four pre-generated Player Characters consist of a Disincarnated Healer, Dakti Wizard, Ælfyn Marksman, and a Human Warrior. Theya re of course, members of the Free-Lancers’ Guild, essentially the in-built reason for the Player Characters to explore and adventure on Empyrea. 

The adventure in the Lore & Legacy – Quick-Start Guide is ‘Froglins in the Mist’. Divided into five acts, it is a fairly linear and straightforward affair. It begins in the port of Brasto, a successful trading city-state in the Contested territories. The local branch of the Free-Lancers’ Guild has posted a mission—a celestial barge in distress was spotted over a mangrove swamp two days’ walk south and it wants someone to check for survivors. The adventure provides the players and their Player Characters the chance to test out the mechanics with some shopping and bargaining, followed by travelling, before getting into the meat of the scenario. The Player Characters easily locate the crash of the celestial barge and discover that it was attacked after it crashed, and both crew and passengers are missing. Very quickly, the Player Characters will themselves be under attack, but will ultimately discover what is going on and hopefully rescue both passengers and crew. To be fair, ‘Froglins in the Mist’ is a bit simplistic and too combat orientated, so there is not much in the way of plot to its story. As a one-shot or a starting point for a campaign, it is fine though, providing a reasonable showcase for the mechanics and a little of the world of Empyrea, which can be played through in a session or two.

Physically, the Lore & Legacy – Quick-Start Guide is well presented. Much of the artwork is excellent and much of it reminiscent of FASA’s Earthdawn roleplaying game—which should be no surprise given that artist Jeff Laubenstein worked on both. The writing is also good, and the translation is more than reasonable. It feels a little overwritten in places, the rules, though simple, often feel as if they have more terms than they really need.

If there is a downside to the Lore & Legacy – Quick-Start Guide, it is that both it and the ‘Froglins in the Mist’ adventure could have done with a little more mystery and a little more wonder to really hook both Game Master and her players into setting of the Empyrea. Perhaps the adventure could have been slightly longer and maybe gone into some ruins that might have delivered that needed mystery and wonder? It is a serviceable adventure though and perhaps a separate adventure which would work as a sequel—whether using the quartet of Player Characters included in the Lore & Legacy – Quick-Start Guide or created using the core rules, might deliver that? Nevertheless, the rules themselves are actually fairly simple and easy to understand, being on par in terms of complexity with something like Savage Worlds or Numenera. The setting of Empyrea itself has a post-apocalyptic set-up combined with Science Fantasy and Planetary Romance a la Skyrealms of Jorune or again, Numenera. Overall, the Lore & Legacy – Quick-Start Guide is a decently done little quick-start that can be played and enjoyed as is, but would really benefit from just a little more of its mystery.