Reviews from R'lyeh

Miskatonic Monday #241: Trouble in Pinewood

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Trouble in PinewoodPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Tineke Bolleman

Setting: Jazz Age Massachusetts Product: Scenario
What You Get: Fourteen page, 14.42 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: What hunts the night on Cape Cod? Bigfoot?Plot Hook: When two men are abducted in bloody circumstances, someone has to investigate.
Plot Support: Staging advice, two NPCs, one map, and one Mythos creature.Production Values: Adequate
Pros# Short, introductory scenario# Easy to adapt to other time periods and places# Suitable for a small number of Investigators# Solid discussion of the possible outcomes and their ramifications# Leaves room for development in places# Speluncaphobia# Teraphobia# Carnaphobia
Cons# Needs a stronger hook to get the Investigators there and involved# No map of Pinewood given# No map of the caves given# Leaves room for development in places# More physical than investigative
Conclusion# Involves combat and physical investigation rather than traditional newspapers and wills # Very straightforward, likeable, easy-to-prepare introductory scenario

Miskatonic Monday #240: Beyond the Veil of Dreams: Susupti

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Beyond the Veil of Dreams: SusuptiPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Byron the Bard

Setting: 1980s ArkhamProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Fifty-nine page, 1.79 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Sometimes the missing disappear for a reasonPlot Hook: A missing persons case leads into strange research and encounters with desperate people
Plot Support: Eighteen handouts, eight maps, ten NPCs, one Mythos artefact, and one Mythos creature.Production Values: Plain
Pros# Modern Lovecraft Country scenario# Very detailed investigation# Very detailed backstory# Would work as a ‘Night at the Opera’# Oneirophobia# Somniphobia# Antlophobia
Cons# Never actually defines the nature of the threat# Needs an edit# Very detailed backstory
Conclusion# Highly detailed investigation that threatens to overwhelm the Keeper with information whilst leaving the real threat undefined# Potentially interesting combination of Indian mysticism and the Mythos

Miskatonic Monday #239: Lucie’s Dispensation

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Lucie’s DispensationPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: John Dyer

Setting: Post-World War I FranceProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Fifty page, 13.94 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Which is worse? The trauma or the covering up of the trauma?Plot Hook: Why would the Germans attack a village they already occupied so late in the war?
Plot Support: Staging advice, seven handouts, four maps, five NPCs, one Mythos tome, eight Mythos spells, and two (and more) Mythos creatures.Production Values: Reasonable
Pros# Interesting period for a Lovecraftian investigative horror scenario# Detailed scenario and investigation# Teutophobia# Rhabdophobia# Traumatophobia
Cons# No, the Keeper doesn’t know or why else would she be reading the scenario background?# Who are the Investigators meant to be given the recent Armistice?# Why refuse to give the villain a motivation?# No historical background for the period# Frustratingly overwritten in places# No Sanity rewards
Conclusion# Sometimes oddly written, often overwritten scenario hides a solid plot and investigation into collective trauma and delusion# Interesting period left unexplored

Miskatonic Monday #238: The Stench of an Open Grave

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

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

—oOo—
Name: The Stench of an Open GravePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Marcus D. Bone

Setting: Dark Ages WessexProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Forty-seven page, 2.86 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: An introductory Cthulhu Dark Ages investigationPlot Hook: A hunt for a missing monk reveals dark doings in the hills.
Plot Support: Staging advice, three pre-generated investigators, no handouts, one map, eleven NPCs, and one Mythos creature.Production Values: Decent
Pros# Scenario for Cthulhu Dark Ages# Classic isolated village horror Straightforward investigation suitable as an introduction to the setting# Suitable for two to three Investigators# Plenty of historical and regional background# Dysmorphobia# Hemophobia# Traumatophobia
Cons# Needs a slight edit# Sanity losses light in places# Classic isolated village horror
Conclusion# Solid, straightforward introductory investigative scenario for Cthulhu Dark Ages# Combines a missing monk, an isolated village, and strange beliefs in well done classic isolated village horror scenario

Miskatonic Monday #237: Trutz Blanke Hans

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Trutz Blanke HansPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Florian Krates

Setting: German North Sea CoastProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Sixteen page, 1.87 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Dunwich-am MeerPlot Hook: An invitation to a séance turns decidedly strange
Plot Support: One handout, four maps, one NPC, one Mythos artefact, and two Mythos creatures.Production Values: Adequate
Pros# Unexpected time travel trip against the clock# Nice sense of growing urgency# Plenty of historical and regional background# Chronophobia# Thalassophobia# Antlophobia
Cons# German equivalent of ‘An Amaranthine Desire’ from Nameless Horrors: Six Reasons to Fear the Unknown# Easy to adapt to other time periods# Needs a hook to get the Investigators involved# No map of Rungholt# What if the Investigators act against the instigator of the scenario’s plot?
Conclusion# Decent enough race against the environment with undeveloped set-up and conclusion # Needs work to provide a motivation for the Investigators

Rat Rummage

A rash of strange businesses broken into and odd thefts leads the monstrous investigators in the city of Spireholm to a startling revelation. Under the very streets of the city, indeed under the very cellars and sewer tunnels of the city under those streets, there are tunnels that lead deep into the unknown. Is the rattish nature of the miscreants discovered in the initial investigation a sign that some villain dwells far below like a subterranean Doctor Moreau, sending his rodent servants to the surface for reasons that only he can divulge? Or is there something else in the tunnels and caverns to be found far below the city? This is the set-up for SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone, a companion campaign to SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm, which itself is a campaign and setting a supplement for Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. Published by Parable Games, Shiver is a generic horror roleplaying game, designed to do a variety of subgenres, from modern slasher and cosmic horror to zombie outbreaks and Hammer Horror melodramas, using easy to build Player Characters archetypes and the Doom Clock as a device to ratchet up tension and push the story to a horrifying climax combined with its own dice mechanics. It is great for one-shots, especially ones inspired by horror films. If SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm showcased how it was possible to run and play SHIVER as a proper campaign, then SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone expands and continues that.
SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone does two things. First it introduces the new world below the city of Spireholm and its inhabitants and second it presents a campaign that involves both. It can be used in a number of different ways. One is a straight sequel to the campaign given in SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm. Another is as a secondary plot, essentially a ‘B plot’, that can be run alongside or interwoven with the campaign in SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm. And lastly, it can be used as an alternate plot that can be run whenever a player is unable to play the main campaign. This gives it some flexibility, although the ideal means of use is as the ‘B plot’ so that all of the players and their characters can participate. Another option is for the players to take the roles of members of the rattish race at the heart of SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone, although that does mean that many of the mysteries at the heart of the setting and the campaign will have to be revealed to them.

Inspired by works of fiction such as Neverwhere by Nail Gaiman and Weaveworld by Clive Barker, as well as a whole festival of films, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm takes the players and their characters into the Dregs, home to Scoriath, the kingdom of the Scorians. They are rat folk, twisted into intelligence by the alchemical wastes poured into the sewers and finding a home in the ruins of an ancient sunken settlement. Ruled over by the authoritarian Rat King, Rongeur Halftail, the Scorians are large, but still smaller than Humans, and have tough tails and a strong sense of smell. There is resistance to the Rat King’s rule, and the Delvers, who search for resources far below Scoriath, are divided as to whether they should explore Topside, even though the king has forbidden it. Meanwhile, the Church of the 7 Tails worships the rats’ time as four-leggers, whilst it should be no surprise that Scorians hold alchemy in high regard given their origins. Several Scorian Backgrounds are given for Scorian Player Characters, including Gutters who guard the city; Sneakers are spies and thieves; Alchemists specialises in poisons, concoctions, and bombs; Tail-Tellers are itinerant storytellers; Pale Seers are all but blind, yet have the gift of the foresight; Swarm Wardens can psionically control rat swarms; and Scurriers do all of the physical work in Scoriath. Besides possibly playing Scorians, the options for Player Characters include watch officers, urchins, concerned citizens, private citizens, reporters, monster hunters, and more. The inclusion of the Scorian Backgrounds also facilitates the easy replacement of Player Characters should one somehow die in the course of events of the campaign.
As a campaign, SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone is shorter than SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm, consisting of seven parts rather than ten. Its chapters follow the same format though. Each is bookended by ‘What the Director Knows’ at the beginning and at the finish, ‘Doom Events’ which are triggered on the Doom Chapter for the chapter. In addition, the campaign supplement adds ‘Doom Tolls’ alongside ‘Doom Events’. These interact with the ‘Doom Calendar’, essentially events that affect the wider world around the Player Characters. Then, between the start and the end is the meat of each scenario, which varies from one chapter to the next, but will always include key clues and story text, the the key clues given as floating clues that the Game Master can place in the particular chapter where appropriate. In between the chapters are a series of interludes. These expand upon the overview of the Dregs as a setting, such as the background history of Rongeur Halftail, more information about the Church of the 7 Tails, Scorian terminology, and so on. These are not necessarily gameable content, but add detail to the setting.
SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone begins with the investigation. This leads the Player Characters into the foulness of the city sewers before descending into the tunnels below. Here the Scorians have set up a ‘Mantrap Maze’ to prevent anyone from Topside from trying to get into Rongeur Halftail’s realm. The maze though, is a bit of a problem. It consists of fifteen encounters, not quite linear, but playing through it will definitely feel like it. Although these encounters are inventive and some of them are fun, such as having a giant trashball chase the Player Characters a la Raiders of the Lost Ark and a trap that fills with water as they try to find a way to solve a rat-themed puzzle. Of course, the Game Master need not use all of the encounters here and she could easily save some for a later visit to Scoriath, suggesting perhaps that the Scorians are shifting rooms and traps around their ‘Mantrap Maze’ each time that there is an incursion from Topside?
By the time the Player Characters reach Dregstone, they will have gained the first of many allies they will be able to befriend and recruit in the course of the campaign. She is a human who has long been trapped in the Dregs and long been searching for her sister, and she will be able to put the Player Characters in touch with the Resistance. This sets off the main plot of the campaign, as first the Player Characters have to sneak around the city, poorly disguised as Scorians, undertake a task for the Resistance to gain the trust of its members. This is the first of the campaign’s big set pieces, the disruption of a public execution, the Player Characters having to set up a rescue of several Resistance members being sent to the gallows. This will lead to their arrest, being brought before Rongeur Halftail himself and sentenced to life incarceration in Pipehold Prison. Here the authors get to play with all of the clichés of prison life—as seen on the big and small screen—as the Player Characters are forced to other prisoners for the amusement of the guards, deal with a variety of different prison personalities, and of course, make preparations for, and then carry out a grand escape! All with the strangeness of dealing with anthropomorphic rats rather than human prisoners.
The last part of the campaign sends the Player Characters scurrying below the Dregs, into dark tunnels and into regions where the delvers fear to tread. Here, the Player Characters will discover that the Scorians are not the only anthropomorphic species to have been affected by the alchemical runoff from Topside—and that species has an even worse reputation for being dirty vermin! One minor scene here feels like a cross between Beetlejuice and Dune, set on a great alchemical salt flat, but ultimately the Player Characters will discover the source of the mutations in the subterranean world, a secret that will upend the society of Dregstone, and a very knowing nod to The Fellowship of the Ring. Surprisingly, the interlude ending this discovery does actually have some gameable content, all in readiness with the final showdown with Rongeur Halftail. This is a big battle which brings the campaign to a conclusion, although there are a few options given to help the Game Master play various concluding scenes to the campaign.
Physically, SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone is presented in a rich array of colours and with plenty of cartoonishly rattish artwork. The campaign does need an edit here and there, and one or two more maps, such as of Dregstone would have been useful too.
SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone is a better campaign than sourcebook. In fact, as a sourcebook for the Dregs, it presents enough information for the Game Master to run the campaign, but not really quite enough to develop her own content beyond that and in mostly confining it to the interludes, not in a fashion that makes it easy to use. That said, as a campaign, SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone is fun, especially if you have a penchant for puns—especially rattish puns—and want a grand cinematic delve into an anthropomorphic world of adventure and mystery for your SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm campaign.

Miskatonic Monday #225: A Drop of Nelson’s Blood

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

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

—oOo—
Name: A Drop of Nelson’s BloodPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: SR Sellens

Setting: The Admiralty, 1815Product: Scenario for In Strange Seas: Horror in the Royal Navy for Regency Cthulhu and Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England
What You Get: Fifty-two page, 24.42 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, but with half the attendees and celebrating the life of Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte. Plot Hook: A dinner at the Admiralty turns deadly in celebration of the life of Nelson
Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, eight NPCs, seven handouts, two floorplans, one Mythos tome, one Mythos spell, one unnatural creature, and a sea shanty.Production Values: Excellent
Pros# More a scenario for Regency Cthulhu than In Strange Seas# One-session, locked room dinner party murder mystery# Decent pre-generated Investigators# Very well presented NPCs# Could be run as a LARP# Good handouts# Phasmophobia# Hemophobia# Phonophobia
Cons# Sea shanties# Needs a slight edit# More a scenario for Regency Cthulhu than In Strange Seas

Conclusion# Well appointed scenario that can be run with just Regency Cthulhu rather than In Strange Seas# Classic murder mystery dinner party with manners, Mythos, and nautical theme that is absolutely perfect for Trafalgar Day (and other days)

The Other OSR: A Waning Light

There is a realm that lies between the land and the sea that is neither land nor sea. It is said that this is where the giants died, their blood spilling as a gift that turned the realm into something in between, a land of peat and oil and mud that languorously discharges into the Endless Sea. This is Fattvëlland, the Great Slick, beyond Targ-Dungel and the festering swamps of the Rotlands, and here no flame burns except that which cannot die and burns constant below the peat and the oil and the mud. The Great Wick drinks of the land and gives birth to shunned and raging Wickheads, trimming them before sending unwanted and unloved out into the lands on the other side of Targ-Dungel and the Rotlands. Their purpose unknown to themselves and the Great Wick, no Wickhead has ever returned—or seemed to want to. Until now. This is the set-up for A Waning Light, a scenario for use with Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance retroclone designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing.
A Waning Light is best described as a ‘swamp crawl’ in which the Player Characters are hired by a Wickhead called Lygan, whose wick is growing short and who wishes to return to his point of origin before the God Tree and pluck a new thread and thus wick from it. He promises them riches and a sight which no mortal man has seen before. Adding A Waning Light to an on-going campaign is relatively easy. Its location can be slid onto any coast and in addition, there are suggestions which tie various other scenarios for Mörk Borg to the Great Slick. These are Rotback Sludge, Treasures of the Troll King, and Putrescence Regnant and all three come with helpful notes on how to make the connections. A table of rumours serves as other means to spur the Player Characters to action.

Published by Loot the Room, it presents a sludge-ridden region where geysers of oil blot the sky, goblins scavenge on long stilts, baleful balls of light whisper secrets, and tar oozes blend below the oil slicked water ready to strike at the unwary. There are strange henges to be found, their stones cracked by black ivy, a colony of mournful goblins who have turned their backs on their wild and dangerous days, and an ancient dragon, Nithul, her brittle bones turned silver with age and her wings pinned to the mound of silver she sits on by foot-long iron spikes. Her only company is the calcified statue of the knight who was trying to kill her, his sword still held high, and she is half mad with loneliness. These encounters are fantastically forlorn, fitting the sombre, even woeful nature of the land. The heart of the adventure lies in its two dungeons—‘Inside Julud’ and ‘The Sink’.

The first and smaller of the two is ‘Inside Julud’. Located within the skull of a dead giant, this is a mini-dungeon consisting of fourteen locations across two levels, the lower level, either partially or wholly flooded. There is constant movement within the flooded and submerged rooms below, primarily of water and natural gas, and this is decidedly hazardous environment. Unfortunately, there is really very little reason to explore its rooms beyond greed and curiosity and given its nature it may be one that the Player Characters readily avoid all together. Perhaps a rumour or hook or too might have pushed the Player Characters to the location beyond mere chance—and perhaps the Game Master might want to develop one or two herself. Finally, despite being in the head of a giant, ‘Inside Julud’ does not feel like it is.

The second and much longer of the two dungeons is ‘The Sink’. Here the Player Characters may eventually discover the God Tree and Lygan find a way to replace his wick so that his memories need not be lost. A mixture of worked rooms and caverns, it is double the size of the ‘Inside Julud’, full of soot, oily vapours, ancient industrial machinery still covered in thick grease and dirty lubricant, and a dampness that pours in from the swamp above. Despite being a ruin, the cult operating here lends the place a sense of purpose, even if the main NPC here, the leader of the Moth cultists, is underwritten inn terms of motivations and reactions, especially in light of the attention given to the prophetic, Three Flames, the past, present, and future Voice of the Flame, the burning equivalent of the three witches from Macbeth or the Graeae from Greek Mythology. Again, this is something that the Game Master might like to develop herself.

Physically, A Waning Light is not as terse as perhaps other scenarios and dungeons are for Mörk Borg and there is a lot more description than you would normally expect. All locations are marked easily—though not always accurately in some cases—on the map, which appears on each page of the dungeon for easy navigation by the Game Master. The writing is clear and in general, presented in a bolder fashion than other scenarios for Mörk Borg. In places, the Game Master is left to wonder who or what something is until the book explains it.

A Waning Light is in need of a few hooks to get the Player Characters to explore some of the locations in the swamp and the Game Master may also want to develop the motivations of the NPCs further, as well. Fix those and A Waning Light will provide the means to explore the origins of the Wickheads from Mörk Borg, memorably set across a festering, oily sludge of a swamp, full of of mournful and scarred locations and encounters.

Magazine Madness 25: Senet Issue 6

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.

—oOo—
Senet—named for the Ancient Egyptian board game, Senet—is a print magazine about the craft, creativity, and community of board gaming. Bearing the tagline of “Board games are beautiful”, it is about the play and the experience of board games, it is about the creative thoughts and processes which go into each and every board game, and it is about board games as both artistry and art form. Published by Senet Magazine Limited, each issue promises previews of forthcoming, interesting titles, features which explore how and why we play, interviews with those involved in the process of creating a game, and reviews of the latest and most interesting releases.

Senet Issue 6 was published in the winter of 2021. It has thus left behind the social limitations placed upon both it and us by the lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic that Senet Issue 5 was only just beginning to escape. It marks a return to the normality of the first few issues and allows editor Dan Jolin to talk about the pleasures of issue’s content rather than dwelling on the strange world we had existed in throughout much of 2020 and 2021. Even the cover reflects, a pair of anthropomorphised hands, one jumping for joy, the other thrusting a gaming piece at us, rather than the lock and key on the front of Senet Issue 5, which suggested both imprisonment and possible escape. However, with new found freedom, Join does get to belabour a food-board game metaphor, it being one of the themes of the issue. Sadly, the reader has little choice but to indulge him.

As is usual, the issue opens with ‘Behold’, a preview of some of the then-forthcoming board game titles. As expected, ‘Behold’ showcases its previewed titles to intriguing effect, a combination of simple write-ups with artwork and depictions of the board games. The standouts here are Spire’s End: Hildegard, a solo adventure that is the sequel to Spire’s End which displays its brilliant artwork and Forests of Pangaia, which has a real table presence as the patterns of the forest change and grow over hundreds and hundreds of years, the trees depicted by meeples ranging in shape from single cubes for seeds to fully grown trees.

‘Points’, the regular column of readers’ letters, follows, but very much without the focus of Senet Issue 5, which was very much the immediate post-COVID-19 world. Nevertheless, the raise some interesting issues, such as the possible shift to games made available to the customer via ‘Print & Play’ rather than delivery in the normal fashion given the then difficulties faced in shipping and delivery. As yet, there is not a sense of community through the letters column and whether it be developed is another matter. In ‘For Love of the Game’, Tristian Hall continues his designer’s journey towards Gloom of Kilforth. In previous issues he explored how the game became a vehicle for roleplaying and storytelling, used the mechanics to bring the game and its background to life, and marketing options, but in this issue, he examines how to handle feedback and criticism about a game’s design. There is good advice here and ‘For Love of the Game’ nicely tracks the history of game and its development.

Senet follows a standard format of articles and article types. One explores a theme found in board games, its history, and the games that showcase it to best effect, whilst another looks at a particular mechanic. In between there are two interviews, one with a designer, the other with an artist. The mechanical article is on dexterity games with ‘Feats of Agility’ by Matt Thrower, written in almost nominal deterministic fashion. This looks at games such as Jenga and Crokinole, and seems to focus on these to the detriment of others, making the point that their physical nature makes them less like a (board) game and more like a sport. The result is that the article is not really that interesting and it is certainly not helped by the fact that not one of the games is actually illustrated. Instead, the article is illustrated by abstract pieces like that on the front cover, which whilst very nice, do nothing whatsoever to bring either the article or the board games themselves to life. Given that so many of the other articles are decently illustrated, ‘Feats of Agility’ is a disappointingly frustrating piece that fails to showcase the physicality of the games themselves or explore more than a very few titles.

The undoubted highlight of Senet Issue 6 is ‘Full Steam Ahead’. This is the first of two interviews in the issue and is with Alan R. Moon, the famous designer of Ticket to Ride. This covers his early interest in games, his time at Avalon Hill—focusing mainly on the publisher’s family titles, and the genesis of Ticket to Ride came about. The whole interview could have been just about that, but it ranges through a few other titles as well as ‘The gathering of Friends’, the informal industry event he now runs. Notably, it does mention Ticket to Ride Legacy, which is due to be released next week. It is followed by the second interview in the issue, which is with artist Miguel Coimbra, best known for illustrating the mini-civilisation-style 7 Wonders and the fantasy wargame of variable races and powers, Small World. Coimbra talks about he turned his love of other worlds and Magic: the Gathering into becoming a full-time artist before talking about each of the major titles he has provided art for. Not just the aforementioned, but also Sea of Clouds, Mountains of Madness, and Fuji Koro. As in previous interviews with artists, plenty of room is given to showcase his art, including not one, but two pullout spreads! Along with his commentary, this extends the article beyond its eighteen pages, already the longest article in the issue. All of the art is crisply produced, leaving the reader wanting to go look at the games for the art itself, let alone the play.

The issue’s theme article is food with Own Duffy’s ‘Playing with your Food’, which at the very least does not make the error of not actually depicting the games being played. It starts off with quick discussion of an American introductory board game, Candy Land (which actually came out in 1949!), before rushing up to date with an examination of more recent titles, beginning with Sushi Go! It points out the universality of the theme and also how the theme can be used in other ways. For example, Steam Up: A Feast of Dim Sum from Hot Banana Games shows how games can explore the cultural side of food, whilst Consumption: Food & Choices looks at the balance between what we eat and what we do. With the inclusion of both Sushi Go!—inspired by 7 Wonders’ card drafting mechanic and conveyor-belt sushi restaurants—and Steam Up: A Feast of Dim Sum, inspired by dim sum being served on a lazy Susan, the article covers a spectrum of both lighter and more involved titles, both mechanically and culturally, and it also suggests a number of other titles themed along different foods. This includes pizza, chili peppers, salads, cupcakes, and mushrooms. Overall, Duffy serves up an interesting article on a theme which is not as readily recognised as such in the hobby as opposed to typically more mechanical or obvious themes.

If the earlier ‘Feats of Agility’ failed to showcase agility games, then ‘Unboxed’, Senet’s reviews section leads the way with its first review, which is of Crash Octopus, a flicking game of salvage at sea versus a giant octopus which actually looks fun in the exact same way that Jenga isn’t. This is not the only other game reviewed in the issue—that is the co-operative adventure game, What Next?—with a dexterity element, but the other reviews are a more traditional mix of Euro style games, along with the addition of a review of the solo roleplaying game, Apothecaria. There is a fascinating range of titles being reviewed here, including of Mind MGMT, based on Matt Kindt comic book series about psychic espionage; Streets, a tile-laying game of building and populating modern urban streets which is Senet’s Top Choice for the issue; and Roll Camera!, a thematically packaged co-operative game of movie-making. All of the reviews are well-written, informative, and as expected, give space show off each game and its components.

Rounding out Senet Issue 6 are regular end columns, ‘How to Play’ and ‘Shelf of Shame’. For the former, Dan Thurot pens ‘Flipping the table (and how best to avoid it)’, a look at the phenomenon of getting so frustrated whilst playing a board game that you stand up and flip the board and all of its components over the table and floor. Thankfully I have never done this, but I have walked away from a game in sheer frustration. Working from the concept of the ‘Magic Circle’ where we as players agree to interact using different rules, the author explores how the issue might arise and how to avoid it, primarily checking to if everyone is in the mood to play a particular game or type of game, know your foibles, and if you can, avoid your nemesis. The result is engaging and thoughtful, bringing to the reader’s attention a negative aspect of play, how we can take that play too far, and how to not do so, all without any judgement upon the part of the author, except on himself. For the ‘Shelf of Shame’, Rodney Smith of Watch It Played, selects Andean Abyss, a COIN or ‘counter-insurgency’ wargame set in 1990s Columbia. This nicely tells of how he could not grasp the game’s play upon first exposure, but through a friend and play of another COIN game, Cuba Libre, he was able to understand the concepts and then go back and play Andean Abyss, having to reacquire it, having sold it after the first attempt to understand it.

Physically, Senet Issue 6 is very professionally presented. It looks and feels as good as previous issues of the magazine.

As with previous issues, Senet Issue 6 offers a good mix of articles, interviews, and reviews—almost. To be fair, this reviewer is not a fan of dexterity-based games and thus for the most part, the ‘Feats of Agility’ is not aimed at me. Yet as with the magazine’s similarly mechanically themed articles, I was hoping for other options and ideas which might entice me to look at these games again, and definitely more than just Jenga. Unfortunately, the article failed to do so. Consequently, Senet Issue 6 is the most disappointing issue to date, if only because the standard has been so high otherwise. Now of course, tastes will vary and some may enjoy dexterity games and an article about them, but not this reviewer. ‘Feats of Agility’ could have been better and consequently, Senet Issue 6 could have been as good as the magazine usually is.

Miskatonic Monday #224: Archives of Terror

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 InvictusThe PastoresPrimal StateRipples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in EgyptReturn of the RipperRise of the DeadRise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

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

—oOo—
Name: Archives of Terror – Call of Cthulhu paranoia horror in 1990 RomaniaPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Christopher Dimitrios

Setting: 1990s RomaniaProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-one page, 24.76 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Archives hide secrets... Secrets mean power and fear...Plot Hook: In the wake of the Christmas Revolution, there is a chance to get into the national archives of the Securitate. What secrets do they hide?Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, three NPCs, three handouts, one floorplan, five Mythos tomes (technically), and two Mythos monsters.Production Values: Decent
Pros# One-shot of heightened feeling of paranoia and post-surveillance# Set at an interesting point in history# Mythos and magic driven by secrets# Could be adjusted to other post-Communist states# Nicely detailed pre-generated Investigators# Scopophobia# Paranoia# Papyrophobia
Cons# Needs a close read to understand how the secrets and magic works# Shares Investigators with Baba Dochia. Could be a sequel? 
Conclusion# Investigators need to know will drive revelations and magic in this paranoia-fuelled delve in state/personal secrets # Supported by well done Investigators

Miskatonic Monday #223: The Show Must Go On

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 InvictusThe PastoresPrimal StateRipples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in EgyptReturn of the RipperRise of the DeadRise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

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

—oOo—
Name: The Show Must Go OnPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Sandra Catharin

Setting: 1930s AmsterdamProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Fifteen page, 14.00 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Sometimes being traditional really is the safest option. Plot Hook: When the theatre is notoriously superstitious, it’s the last place you want accidents.
Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, three NPCs, and two handouts.Production Values: Plain
Pros# Short, one-session focused investigation in a nicely detailed environment# Easy to adapt to different cities and time periods# Could be associated with the King in Yellow?# Superstition-driven scenario that inflicts the dangerous avant-garde# Nice Keeper background on theatrical superstitions# Theatrophobia# Keriophobia# Eisoptrophobia
Cons# Needs a strong edit# More reactive in the second half
Conclusion# Short, superstition-driven investigation in a theatre# Ultimately... burn the place down.

Allies & Arrakis

In an alternate timeline of the Known Universe, House Nagara was awarded the fiefdom of Arrakis and not House Atreides. It thus gained both the right to mine the Spice melange that can only be found on that one world and which powers the Known Universe and the greater enmity of the previous holder of the fiefdom, House Harkonnen. This is a giant ‘What if?’ scenario explored in the massive boxed set, Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune, published by Modiphius Entertainment for use with for Dune – Adventures in the Imperium, the roleplaying game based on the novels by Frank Herbert. Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune also asked several other questions. What if the transfer of power was peaceful rather than necessarily fractious and partially contested as seen between House Atreides and House Harkonnen? What if the reason for this is the fact that House Harkonnen and House Nagara are allies? What if, despite losing control of Arrakis, it was in the best interests of House Harkonnen to help House Nagara gain and keep control of the fiefdom? Of course, despite Agents of Dune actually depicting House Harkonnen in a more sympathetic light, House Harkonnen being House Harkonnen, ultimately the transfer or at least its aftermath will not go as planned for the Player Characters and House Nagara, but ideally, at the end of Agents of Dune, they will be control of the Spice mining on Arrakis and masters, at least for the moment, of their destiny. This is where Masters of Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune begins.

Masters of Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune is a complete campaign for Dune – Adventures in the Imperium. It is a sequel to Agents of Dune which put the Player Characters and House Nagara in charge of the most important substance in the Known Universe and sees them plot, intrigue, entreat, and investigate potential allies and enemies in an ongoing effort to maintain their control of the Spice flow. Fail, and House Nagara will lose wealth, reputation, and honour—at best. At worst, the House might be disposed and broken, its peoples and former holdings the possessions of House Harkonnen. At best, the House will rise in estimation of one or all of the Emperor, the Landsraad, the Bene Gesserit, the Spacing Guild, and the Fremen. There is even the possibility that House Nagara could build enough status, power, and most important of all, allies to challenge the Emperor himself! That though is a possibility only explored in a sidebar in Agents of Dune and would send the campaign off in a very different direction. Although Masters of Dune is written as a sequel to Agents of Dune and thus for use with House Nagara and its pre-generated Player Characters, it need not be. Masters of Dune can be run without a playing group having roleplayed its way through and with a playing group creating a Great House and Player Characters of its own and substituting both for House Nagara and its members. However, to get the most out of Masters of Dune, the group should ideally have played through Agents of Dune, either using House Nagara or one of their own creation. This is not just because of the emotional investment that the players will have in their characters and their characters’ House after playing Agents of Dune, but also because Agents of Dune will prepare them for the plots within plots of the story of v. One lesson learned from Agents of Dune is ‘trust no-one’ and that is going to be true of Masters of Dune also. The other important lessons for a playing group preparing to play Masters of Dune is that the players and their characters need to be proactive, they need to look for motives beyond what is obvious, and they need to look for allies.

Masters of Dune does not need anything more to play than Dune – Adventures in the Imperium. It is even suggested that it could be run using just Dune: Adventures in the Imperium: Wormsign Quick-start Guide, but this is not really recommended given the amount of detail and extra rules needed to help the campaign flow. That said, Sand and Dust: The Arrakis Sourcebook will be useful for extra detail, especially the scenes involving the Fremen.

At the heart of Masters of Dune is a set of Influence Indices. These are Honour, Imperial Support, Landsraad Support, Military Power, Ruthlessness, Spice Production, Wealth, and Sietch Korba Trust. The latter is important in one particular scenario of the campaign, whilst the rest are important throughout. Each Index runs from -5 through 0 to +5. These mix reputation and other factors, and will rise and fall depending upon the actions and decisions of the Player Characters. For example, Wealth might fall because the Player Characters need to purchase a particular item to present to a potential ally and so gain a favour and improve their House’s standing with them. In addition, a sperate chart tracks Spice production over the course of the campaign and there are checkboxes to indicate that the Player Characters have gained the favour of the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. The latter two indicate possession of one-off favours owed by either faction. Either the Player Characters have it, and if they do, once used, they will need to do something else to regain that favour. These Influence Indices need to be tracked throughout the course of the campaign, the current state of Spice Harvesting especially at the end of each chapter of the campaign, so that there is an ongoing need for some bookkeeping throughout Masters of Dune. Not complex bookkeeping by any means, but it is necessary.

The structure of Masters of Dune is not linear. It consists of nine chapters and begin with the first chapter and end with the ninth. In between, the other seven chapters can be played in any order or in some cases, not at all. As newly appointed fief holders of Arrakis, House Nagara and thus the Player Characters have been placed in a position of great trust by the Emperor and to some extent the Landsraad and the Spacing Guild. Yet it is also a precarious position, most notably because House Harkonnen covets the wealth and the position itself and wants the fiefdom back, but also because no other faction truly knows if the Player Characters can ensure that the Spice can flow. So, as well as working to prove that House Nagara can do so, the Player Characters will often find themselves looking for allies. This means visiting other worlds—Geidi Prime in an attempt to parley with House Harkonnen, Kaitain to win the favour of the Emperor or those of the other Great Houses, and even to Wallach IX to court favour with the Bene Gesserit or simply into space itself to deal with the Spacing Guild. These two encounters are interesting in themselves because both the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild are notoriously neutral when it comes to the power politics of the Known Universe. Except, of course, when Spice production is threatened.
Other chapters are more reactive in nature, for example, if the Player Characters have weakened themselves and their House too much, their enemies will attack the House’s facilities on Arrakis, and if successful, could lead to the destruction of House Nagara, or more likely, drive it off Arrakis and out of control of Spice production. It is possible to continue the campaign if this happens, but it becomes all the more challenging for both the players and their characters. If it comes to pass, it will probably signal—or at least hasten—the end of the campaign. Another takes the Player Characters offstage and puts them in direct contact with the Fremen, shrinking the scale of the story down to just one location rather than encompassing the whole of the Known Universe. If it seems to the players that this story—at least on the campaign’s grand scale—is not as relevant, its events and those of the Player Characters do have the potential to influence the course of the campaign and its outcome, although in small ways.

The scope and scale of Masters of Dune telescopes in and out over the course of the campaign. The Player Characters will find themselves attending a lot of formal events, most frequently dinner parties, but there are audiences with the Emperor and operas to attend, but also targeting criminal gangs on Arrakis and hunting for saboteurs. The Player Characters will find themselves questioned as to their actions and having to justify themselves as well. Just as there are many factions that they cannot trust, there are factions who do not trust them and whose trust they have to earn. For example, the encounter with the Spacing Guild includes a scene which echoes that between the Emperor and the Third Stage Guild Navigator in the David Lynch version of the film from 1984, which then leads to a completely unexpected set-up and means of gaining the Spacing Guild’s favour. For the most, all of the individual chapters are well done, with clear explanations of the situation at the start and possible outcomes at the end. Only the final chapter feels slightly rushed it climaxes in a confrontation between House Nagara, House Harkonnen, and the Emperor. Ultimately, even it does feel as if the authors are taking the Game Master and her players on a grand tour of the Known Universe, Masters of Dune presents a set of plot threads that the Game Master can weave in response to the directions and actions of the players and their characters.
Physically, Masters of Dune is very well presented. The writing is good and it is easy to read and for the Game Master to run. The artwork is also very good. However, the cartography is more relational than representative, showing connections to areas rather than mapping them out, so making them very bland. Worse still is the editing. Too many ‘page XX’ references and in one case, a whole page being printed twice.

As a sequel to Agents of Dune, Masters of Dune is exactly what the Game Master wants. It picks up where Agents of Dune left off, opening up the linear plot of the massive starter set to give greater agency to the players and their characters in interacting with the great and the good of the factions of the Known Universe, whilst still providing the Game Master with numerous means by which those factions can react to the actions of the Player Characters and act accordingly. Agents of Dune takes the Player Characters to places both expected and unexpected, has them face challenges major and minor, and ultimately confirm their place and the place of their House in the Known Universe. Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Masters of Dune is a great sequel to Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune and a campaign worthy of the setting.

A Cyberpunk Character Collection

Danger Gal Dossier – A Faction and NPC Guide for Cyberpunk Red is not just a ‘A Faction and NPC Guide for Cyberpunk Red’. It is much more than that. Within the ‘Time of the Red’, the future period between the classic Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. and computer game, Cyberpunk 2077, is a collection of data dossiers stolen by Edgerunners from Danger Girl, the foremost, most mediatised cat-girl themed premiere investigation and security NeoCorp working in Night City, actually run by an Arasaka scion! Out of game, it is a collection and short examination of fifteen different factions within the city, details of over one hundred NPCs—complete with stats and biographies, NPC creation guidelines which expand upon those found in Cyberpunk RED, and lastly, the presentation of a scenario involving a new and secret faction. This is a supplement for Cyberpunk RED, published by by R. Talsorian Games, Inc. that can be used in multiple ways. The most obvious is as a simple collection of threats, and perhaps, in the case of some of the gangers included, such as the infamous clown-themed Bozos and the previously Arasaka-backed Tyger Claws, that may be so. But these NPCs have lives and motivations beyond being mere fodder for the guns of the Player Character Edgerunners. They can all be sources of information, they can be sources of employment, and some like Trauma Team, can even be sources of help. Then again, they need not be met when they or the Player Characters are on the clock—they have lives too, and those lives can also start for the Player Characters during character generation. Thus, Danger Gal Dossier is a source of NPCs that can be plugged into a Player Character’s Lifepath during character generation to create ready made relationships, if not potentiation scenario hooks. There is one final use of the various factions in the collection and that is as set of factions with Cyberpunk Red: Combat Zone from Monster Fight Club. This is further strengthened by the members of the Monster Fight Club being included in the book as a faction!
Danger Gal Dossier – A Faction and NPC Guide for Cyberpunk Red is neatly organised. Each faction is given a general description, a description of its base of operations, recent history, resources, and goals. This is done as a single sheet and then is followed up by detailed writeups of several members of the faction, again given a single page each. The NPCs are divided into four broad categories—mook, lieutenant, mini-boss, and boss. Where appropriate, there are links—including page numbers—to other members of faction, strengthening their connections and relationships. Each NPC also includes a good illustration and full set of stats that are easy to read and bring into play. Of course, the stats can be used more than once if the Game Master wants another NPC. All she has to provide another name and some other background. If there is anything missing from the basic guides to each faction it is any discussion of their tactics and how each might react under particular circumstances. The Game Master than will have to develop this herself.
For example, the Bozos, updated here after their activities detailed in Cyberpunk RED Data Pack, are a Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. classic updated to Cyberpunk RED. They are presented as having broken up into multiple circuses, all trying to out-prank each other and all with an almost anarchic approach to motivation. The Hardened Boss detailed is Big Top, who wants to outdo and thinks he has outdone the original gang leader, The Great Bozo, and as well as planning new pranks likes to perform radical surgery with the help of his extra cyberarms fitted with medtech. Blammo is a veteran Boss who likes to use explosives and give often snarky advice—sometimes to Big Top; Jester, a Mini-Boss who was a former acrobat before becoming a kick-murder Bozzo after a big accident; Tomfool is a Hardened Lieutenant who was already bioscuplted as a clown on the underground bloodsport scene before being recruited into the Bozos by Big Top; Cenwit is a Lieutenant with an actual clown heritage and a hatred of the Voodoo Boys; the Dead Ringers are both Lieutenants and also sisters, one all flashy and bling with grenades, the other silent and stealthy; Finale is also a Lieutenant, a former street who got his jaw wired shut, which the Bozzos found funny enough to recruit him and then even funnier when they annoy him to the point his anger kicks in; Burt the Squirt is a Hardened Mook who lost his hair in an industrial accident and is obsessed with acid and uses an acid-squirting gun to inflict baldness on his victims; Dunce is a Mook recruited for the vent which led to the Bozzo civil war and has managed to graduate to full Bozzo; and finally, The Fool is a Mook undergoing initiation and is given the worst equipment, brightest gear, and a bag to wear over his head!  Throughout there are details here and there to suggest that this bunch of Bozos are not one big, happy family, with tensions that perhaps the Player Characters might take advantage of. This though is just one Bozo gang and the Game Master can easily models others on it or use it in conjunction with the Screamsheets in Cyberpunk RED Data Pack if she has not already.
If the Bozos are one of the larger factions, or at least of the factions with the most members detailed in the supplement, Network 54 is the shortest with just three. They include Fiona Hayes, the seemingly ageless investigative reporter; Angle, her bodyguard—or is that bodyguard for himself or network 54; and Stringer, cameraman who happens to know too much. The relationship between the three is even tighter than those for the Bozos, but not always a good one and the revelations given here highlight the data that the Danger Gal neocorp was collecting.
Other factions in the supplement include the Danger Gal Puma Squad, all cat themed; The Digital Divas, a band whose hit Burn It Down got taken up by arsonists everywhere; Maelstrom, a traditional pre-Fourth Corporate War boostergang which survived and had to rebuild; the officers of Precinct #1 of the NCPD, including Gustav, a Custom Security Canine; the Sightseers, a Nomad squad which recently caught the attention of the worst officers of Precinct #1 of the NCPD; whereas Edgerunners is not so much a faction as a collection of individuals. Perhaps the oddest entry here is Generation Red, a YoGang consisting of a mixture of children with mostly absentee parents and orphans seeking to avoid the attention of adults, but able to protect themselves if bothered, including one girl having borrowed her parents’ rocket launcher! Danger Gal is thinking of recruiting them. There are notes here too how to use kids and YoGangs in a Cyberpunk RED campaign, including advice on handling the subject matter with the Game Master’s players.
The initial design aim of Danger Gal Dossier was use only gear, equipment, and cyberware from the core rulebook for Cyberpunk RED. However, this has been achieved! So what the designers have done is include the full details of the equipment in the supplement no matter where it was taken from. This includes Interface RED Volume One and Interface RED Volume Two as well as Micro Chrome. This is a very nice touch, although some might grumble about the reprints. It just the two pages though. The ‘NPC Creation Guidelines’ following this is as useful as you would want it to be.

Lastly, ‘The Incident’ is a Mission Brief which can easily be slotted into a campaign. The Edgerunners are hired to conduct an investigation into a recent break-in and in the process get caught up in the activities of one of the factions detailed in Danger Gal Dossier as well as discovering a whole new one! The Mission Brief makes good use of the contents of the supplement without wasting them and actually ties into the incident that initiates the whole book.

Physically, Danger Gal Dossier is very nicely presented. The book is well written, the artwork good—especially the NPC illustrations, and there is a useful list of the NPCs at the back of the book. There notes too in the sidebar giving links to information in other books. It should also be pointed out that although the NPC write-ups are relatively short, there is a fair bit of detail to them and they contain snippets of background that add to the setting of Night City.

Danger Gal Dossier is such a versatile book. The contents of Danger Gal Dossier are well written and easy to use, whether the Game Master wants to throw a threat at her players and their characters, possible employment, or simply someone to interreact with, it really gives a lot for her to play with. For a Night City campaign, Danger Gal Dossier is not just a versatile book, but a highly useful one. 

Quick, Dirty, Desperate Cosmic Horror

NIGHTSTALKERS – A Rules Light Roleplaying Game of Investigation, Horror and Pulp Action is a light roleplaying of Lovecraftian investigative horror as if H.P. Lovecraft had written for the pulp detective magazines rather than the pulp Science Fiction ones. Think Marlowe versus the Mythos, Sam Spade gets scared, and Mike Hammer faces down the horror of the unknown. The Player Characters will not just be detectives, but also police officers, journalists, scholars, or even plain ordinary folk caught up in a situation beyond their understanding. Whatever their background, they not only want to know more, but they also want to make sure that whatever the threat is, put a stop to it so that nobody else can suffer or fall victim to its vile, often inhuman predations and designs. NIGHTSTALKERS – A Rules Light Roleplaying Game of Investigation, Horror and Pulp Action is published by Farsight Games and is designed by the creator of Those Dark Places, the Blue Collar Science Fiction horror roleplaying game from Osprey Games.
A Player Character in NIGHTSTALKERS is simply defined. He has ten Skills. These are Agility, Charisma, Close Combat, Drive, Knowledge, Medicine, Perception, Ranged Combat, Strength, and Subterfuge, and they range in value between two and eleven. In addition, he has Hit Points starting at twelve and then modified by his Strength. In addition, he can have an extra specialist or hobby Skill which lies outside the scope of the standard ten. To create a character, a player simply assigns each of one of the numbers between one and eleven to one of the Skills and decides on a specialist or hobby Skill, if any, a name, and an occupation. Character generation can be done in thirty seconds.

Urszula Sikorska
Journalist
Agility 8 Charisma 10 Close Combat 6 Drive 6 Knowledge 7 Medicine 3
Perception 11, Ranged Combat 3 Strength 2 Subterfuge 9
Speciality: Writing 6
Hit Points 14
Sanity 0

Mechanically, NIGHTSTALKERS is a simple. To have his character undertake a task, a player selects the most appropriate Skill and adds its vale to the roll of a twelve-sided die. If the result is thirteen or more, then he has succeeded. It is as simple as that. If the Player Character has failed, his player can temporarily spend points from the appropriate Skill on a one-for-one basis to increase the result to equal the target number. Alternatively, the Skill points can come from any number of different Skills, but the player can only do this once per Act. There are no other rules than that for the core mechanic, although the simplicity does leave plenty of scope for the Game Master to add more without overly complicating the core mechanic. Combat is handled as opposed rolls, with the highest roll indicating the winner. Thus, Close Combat versus Close Combat in a fist fight, but Ranged Combat versus Agility if the defendant wants to dodge. A punch does 1d2 plus Strength in damage, a blade 1d4 plus Strength, a pistol 1d6 plus six, and a rifle 1d12 plus six. Most Player Characters will last a punch up, even a knife fight, but once firearms start being used, the best thing a Player Character is to get behind cover as a rifle can kill in a single shot. Rules are also added for vehicles. The only thing missing from the base rules are damage rating for shotguns and submachine guns because they are exactly what a player is going to ask about.

When it comes to conducting investigations, the players will be using their characters’ Perception and Knowledge Skills to uncover clues. Clues are seeded throughout each act, which can number between two and six, with there always being a clue present that will lead the Player Characters onto the next act. If a roll to find the pertinent clue to get the Player Characters is failed, the players have another option. This for all of them to each temporarily spend one point from their highest Skill to gain the lead, otherwise the investigation ends there and then. Skill points expended in this way and to increase the likelihood of succeeding at a task are recovered at the end of an investigation.

Being a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror, NIGHTSTALKERS needs a means of handling the mental stress of encountering the unknown. Sanity is rated on a scale of zero to eighteen. A point is gained for reading a forbidden text, discovering a dead body, or suffering a scare, and two for taking eight more points of damage or seeing something grisly. The Sanity gained from encountering or seeing cosmic monsters is measured by die type. For example, seeing a Deep Thing is two-sided die whilst seeing a Spawn (of the Great Spawn who sleeps awaiting the day when the stars come right), a four-sided die. Gaining Sanity temporarily reduces the effectiveness of all of a Player Character’s Skills; if it rises above twelve, the reduction is longer lasting; and if it reaches eighteen, the Player Character descends in madness. Unless it is permanent, Sanity can be lowered through complete rest.

NIGHTSTALKERS includes some sample cosmic horror monsters—bit no sample forbidden tomes—as well notes on cultists and rules for magic. In essence, reading forbidden tomes inflicts Sanity gain on the reader, but casting magic from such tomes inflicts a permanent Sanity gain on the caster. It also requires a Knowledge Skill test, which still inflicts a permanent, but lesser Sanity gain on the caster if failed.

In terms of setting, NIGHTSTALKERS suggests the Big City, thronging with people and shadows. This can be London or New York or Paris or Cairo. It is lightly drawn in its detail, whilst a table provides twelve hooks for mysteries and a single adventure is included. This is ‘The Thing in the Old Bank’. It is a three-act affair which begins with the discovery of the dead body of a banker under suspicious circumstances. His chest has been cut open and his heart is missing. How did he come to die in such a macabre fashion and who was responsible. Much like the rest of NIGHTSTALKERS, this a quick and dirty adventure that the Game Master can run in a single session that lends itself slightly towards a pulp style rather than a purist one.

Physically, NIGHTSTALKERS – A Rules Light Roleplaying Game of Investigation, Horror and Pulp Action is a tidily laid out with dome decent artwork. It needs a slight in places as well as a reorganisation to make clear how some of the rules connect to each other, such as Skill Point Spends, which comes a page or two after the explanation of Skill rolls.

Much of the setting and world building for a game of NIGHTSTALKERS is going to be down to the Game Master, who will ideally need some experience with Lovecraftian investigative horror roleplaying games to get the very best out of its fairly light rules. Similarly, both Game Master and her players will need some knowledge of the period and the noir genre to bring a sense of setting alive, though that need not be anything more than watching a few period films. That aside, as intended, NIGHTSTALKERS is quick and easy to grasp and get playing as soon as the Game Master has a mystery for the Player Characters to solve. More than the single one included in NIGHTSTALKERS would fully support that. For the Game Master and Player Characters wanting simple, straightforward Lovecraftian investigative horror roleplaying that requires low preparation time, NIGHTSTALKERS – A Rules Light Roleplaying Game of Investigation, Horror and Pulp Action is a quick and dirty option.

Friday Fantasy: Shadow Under Devil’s Reef

Dungeon Crawl Classics 2017 Halloween Module: Shadow Under Devil’s Reef is upfront about its inspiration—H.P. Lovecraft’s short story, ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’. Roleplaying game fantasy is no stranger to the Cthulhu Mythos, the Great Old One and others having appeared in the pages of the first edition of the Deities & Demigods supplement for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition back in 1980. 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 more recently 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! This began with Ghoul Island Act 1: Voyage to Farzeen, the first part of a four-part campaign for use with Sandy Petersen’s Cthulhu Mythos. Given that its inspiration has always been ‘Appendix N’ of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, it should be no surprise that Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game has flirted with Cosmic Horror over the years, and equally, it should be no surprise that the author of Dungeon Crawl Classics 2017 Halloween Module: Shadow Under Devil’s Reef is by Jon Hook, who has authored several titles in the publisher’s Age of Cthulhu line.

Dungeon Crawl Classics 2017 Halloween Module: Shadow Under Devil’s Reef is designed to be played by four to six Player Characters of First level, but could easily be run as Character Funnel in which each player takes a quartet of Zero Level Player Characters and hopes to have at least one of them survive the scenario to gain sufficient Experience Points to rise to First Level and gain all the benefits of a Class. The scenario opens in Black Sand Port, a coastal backwater best known for the deadly ring of jagged coral known as Devil’s Reef surrounding the island of Devil’s Horn and which has been the cause of many a shipwreck and many a sailor’s death. In the past few days, the coast, Devil’s Reef, and Devil’s Horn have been wracked with severe thunderstorms and it is these which are believed to have delayed the arrival of The Royal Dawn, a vessel carrying Princess Kaeko of the Golden Sun, daughter of Lord Tkkeh-Luum, the Eternal Emperor of Fu-Lamia. The princess is betrothed to a local prince and the marriage will seal an alliance. Unfortunately, when the crew of The Royal Dawn begin being washed ashore it quickly becomes clear that the vessel, let alone the princess, having been driven onto the hull slashing Devil’s Reef, is never going to arrive. Worse, it quickly becomes clear that the survivors are suffering from something worse than being shipwrecked—something seems to be affecting their minds! Nevertheless, this does not stop the local burgomaster from assembling a party to go and rescue the princess. After all, there will surely be rich rewards for the men who do. The Player Characters also see this as an opportunity to make their fortune and after ‘borrowing’ a longboat and armed with a rumour or two about Devil’s Reef and Devil’s Horn, row out to rescue the princess.
From the start, there are one or two issues with the scenario, primarily to do with the placement of the wreck of The Royal Dawn. This is on the other side of the Devil’s Reef, away from Black Sand Port, which makes the idea of the surviving crew being washed ashore at Black Sand Port incongruous. Ideally, the Player Characters are meant to explore The Royal Dawn, but placing it on the other side of Devil’s Reef away from Black Sand Port means that the Player Characters have to row around the reef to get to it and there is no obvious incentive for them to do so. The Royal Dawn is also the obvious source of treasure for the Player Characters, but their very presence aboard, let alone attempts to plunder the wreck with its broken back will result in the statue of a six-armed, female demon in the bow of the ship animating and casting Animate Dead. The problem is that the Player Characters really do need to get aboard the ship, although they do not know it. What they need to retrieve from the ship it not the treasure, but Princess Kaeko’s pet psi-spider which is bonded with her. However, even once the Player Characters have got past the dead crewman and soldiers animated by the six-armed, female demon statue, they have to deal with a confused psi-spider whose actual attempts at telepathic contact will inflict damage. Which could end badly if the Player Characters think the psi-spider is attacking them… What the Player Characters really need is someone trained as an Animal Trainer.
The reason why the Player Characters need the pet psi-spider is because it can identify Princess Kaeko, for there is another danger inherent to the island and its eldritch occupants and that is that it transforms anyone on its coral shale shores into Deep One Hybrids. In fact, there are no Deep Ones on the island—they are all Hybrids!
Even getting to the island is problem in terms of the narrative. Of course, the Player Characters are going to have to row through Devil’s Reef with its razor-sharp coral, relying on the Thief’s ability to Disable Traps to determine a route. If this—or three Luck rolls—fails, the hull of the longboat takes damage. However, there are no actual stats for the boat! Then, once on the island, what the Player Characters also need is a Wizard who can cast Comprehend Languages or Knock. Several other occupations may also prove useful, whether the Wizard has either of those spells or not. Comprehend Languages or Knock will be useful because there are couple of doors which can only be opened by having their puzzles solved, rather than having a Thief do it. In both cases, the doors have a pair of dials which need to be turned to particular positions for the doors to open. Yet there are no real clues as to what the solutions are to either puzzle and unless the Wizard can cast Comprehend Languages or Knock, the only other option is going through all of the possible combinations and taking damage each time. A solution can be found elsewhere, but even that means suffering the loss of Hit Points.
Behind the first door—located in a coral pillar at the centre of Devil’s Island—is a small dungeon. Here the Player Characters will encounter more Deep One Hybrids, a potentially injured Shoggoth, several Elder Things, and more. All in quick succession. The dungeon, which is actually a laboratory operated by the Elder Things who are conducting an eons’ long experiment, is linear. The Player Characters are forced into it because beyond the entrance is a slide-like passageway. How do they get out if they have no rope? Ultimately, the scenario will end with a confrontation with the Elder Things in their laboratory and the Player Characters will either accidentally kill the Deep Hybrid that was Princess Kaeko, or if they are lucky, rescue her. If they manage the latter, the reward gained turns out to be particularly paltry...
Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics 2017 Halloween Module: Shadow Under Devil’s Reef is impressive. The cover is creepy, the artwork inside excellent, and the maps decently done. However, illustrations of the two doors with their dial locks and traps are completely absent.
As written, Dungeon Crawl Classics 2017 Halloween Module: Shadow Under Devil’s Reef appears to want to nothing more than punish the Player Characters for information they simply lack. The two sets of doors are an exercise in frustration and the inclusion of the psi-spider without any sign that it might be important only seems to reward the most avaricious Player Character willing to fight past the undead crew. Ideally, The Royal Dawn could be shifted to face the post of Black Sand Port, to make it an obvious destination, one of its surviving crew inform the Player Characters about the importance of the princess’ pet psi-spider, or the pet psi-spider’s telepathic cries be heard across the wreck of the ship. Perhaps a scroll of either Comprehend Languages or Knock be found aboard or an illustration of both doors be given. Or at least have the second door rely upon another means of being opened, one that requires a Thief rather than a Wizard? Much of which could be fixed with the inclusion or preparation of suitable pre-generated Player Characters.
Dungeon Crawl Classics 2017 Halloween Module: Shadow Under Devil’s Reef looks like a great adventure with its decent maps and artwork, but it does not live up to either. It needs the input of the Judge to fix its issues and make it something that she might want to play and her players roleplay. Even then, Dungeon Crawl Classics 2017 Halloween Module: Shadow Under Devil’s Reef is a pulpy, eldritch-themed scenario rather than a horror scenario since there is no element of fear written in.

Magazine Madness 24: Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2

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.

—oOo—
The first thing you notice about Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 is the dice. Of course, you are meant to. A set of yellow polyhedral dice with white lettering against the dark background of the cover to Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2? It stands out. After all, what gamer does not like a set of dice? And they are nice dice. They sit on the front of the second issue of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer, a partwork from Hachette Partworks Ltd. A partwork is an ongoing series of magazine-like issues that together form a completed set of a collection or a reference work. In the case of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer, it is designed to introduce the reader to the world and the play of Dungeons & Dragons, specifically, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. With the tag line, ‘Learn – Play – Explore’, over the course of multiple issues the reader will learn about Dungeons & Dragons, how it is played and what options it offers, the worlds it opens up to explore, and support this with content that can be brought to the table and played. Over the course of eighty issues, it will create a complete reference work for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, provide scenarios and adventures that can be played, and support it with dice, miniatures, and more.
Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 does not just come with the dice. There is the second issue of the magazine, there is a very sturdy map of part of Faerün, and of course, there is advertising for the forthcoming issues of the partwork and their bonus content, as well as the advantages of subscribing. If that does not sound quite as much as came with Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1, then you would be correct. The most obvious difference is that the dice with this issue are not official Dungeons & Dragons dice and they do not come in a tin—meaning that players will have to find something else to store them in until either an issue of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer comes with a free dice bag or that fabled ‘dice jail’. At the same time, the price of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 has risen in comparison to the Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1. This though is perfectly normal for the partwork format, the first two issues being cheaper than the third and subsequent issues which will be priced at the full rate. Essentially, the first issue is always priced so as to be very pocket friendly, engage the purchaser, and hopefully encourage him to purchase future issues, exactly as you would expect for a loss leader.

So what of the content in Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2? Although not as attractively—or even at all—packaged as the dice in the premiere issue, the dice are decent and having more dice around the table is always a good thing, whether playing the encounters given in Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer or not. The map depicts the area of the Sword Coast east of the city of Neverwinter. It is excerpted from the map included in the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Measuring twenty-two by thirty inches and marked in five-mile wide hexes, it covers an area from The Crags in the north to the Mere of Dead Men and Kryptgarden Forest in the south, and from Neverwinter on the coast to the Starmetal Hills and the Sword Mountains in the east. It is done in full colour, on very sturdy paper, and is really rather fetching. As with the included encounter in Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2, the map ties in with the original Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set and also the more recent release from Wizards of the Coast, Phandelver and Below – The Shattered Obelisk.
The magazine part of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 is just twenty-four pages in length. Issues contain sections dedicated to the seven gameplay elements—‘Sage Advice’, ‘Character Creation’, ‘The Dungeon Master’, ‘Spellcasting’, ‘Combat’, ‘Encounters’, and ‘Lore’—of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 focuses on just three of these—‘Sage Advice’, ‘Character Creation’, and ‘Lore’, although it does also include an ‘Encounter’ which is exclusive to the partwork. The ‘Sage Advice’ looks at three things and explains how they work. The first is ‘Advantage, Disadvantage, & Inspiration’ which examines the key mechanic introduced to Dungeons & Dragons and the wider hobby back in 2014. A decade on, these are well worn mechanics, tried and tested, whilst Inspiration was the very first roleplaying mechanic introduced to Dungeons & Dragons after being in print for forty years! Advantage and Disadvantage are simple mechanics and easy to grasp and use in play. Here Disadvantage is not quite as well explained as Advantage though. Bardic Inspiration is mentioned too, but its explanation is left for another issue of the partwork to explain. The ‘Rule of Cool’ is discussed and the prospective Dungeon Master is encouraged to employ it.
The second is ‘Resting and Hit Dice’. This covers the concepts of the Long Rest and the Short Rest, before the third, ‘Spellcasting Explained’ covers how spells are cast for both Wizards and Clerics. Spells are broken down into their components and their duration, the differences between Spell Level and Player Character Level are also explained, how Concentration works, and how spells are prepared. Everything is well explained and easy to read.
‘Character Creation’ looks at just two things. The first is Humans as a species in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, including mention of notable Humans such as Elminster and Minsc (plus Boo, his miniature Space Hamster companion), whilst the second is the Rogue Class. This highlights the flexibility of the role, whether as thief or diplomat or investigator, and its reliance on stealth, dextrous action, precision, and in some situations, charm. As well as discussing Rogues in the Forgotten Realms, its companion piece is ‘Rogue Features’. Or rather, ‘Rogue Feature’, for although the Rogue as a Class can do rather a lot, the only feature discussed is the Sneak Attack. It is all solid information, but it highlights one of the downsides of the partwork. This is that only one aspect of a subject is going to be covered in a partwork. In this case, it is the Sneak Attack of the Rogue. The other abilities of the Rogue, even those available at First Level, will have to wait for a future issue.
Penultimately, the ‘Lore’ section proves to the shortest section in Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2. It simply provides a two-page overview of the Forgotten Realms, serving as a straightforward introduction. The last section in the issue of this partwork is an ‘Encounter’ which at six pages long, is the longest section in the issue. ‘Adventure 1 – 2 The Forgotten Vault’ effectively introduces the players and their characters to their first dungeon. Where ‘Adventure 1 – 1 King of the Hill’ from Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 is set in the village of Phandalin, ‘Adventure 1 – 2 The Forgotten Vault’ takes the Player Characters away from it and under the eaves of Neverwinter Wood. They are hired by Daran Eldermath, a Half-Elf adventurer who has retired to Phandalin, to help him relocate a villa he explored and mapped years ago, but which he strangely forgot about. Once there, he wants them to recover a beautiful statue of an elf queen. The villa has long fallen into ruin and been grown over, but the vault is intact, although partially split by an underground river. The adventure comes with a map that the Dungeon Master can use as a handout and consists of just six locations. It is seeded with a trap, there is a physical obstacle in the form of the river, and there a couple of fun monsters. The scenario is short, designed to be played in an hour or two, ideally with the pre-generated Player Characters included with Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1. There is advice—or DM Tips—throughout as well. ‘Adventure 1 – 2 The Forgotten Vault’ is a decent encounter, nicely introduces the concepts of dungeoneering play in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.
Physically, Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 is very well presented, in full colour using the Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition trade dress and lots and lots of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition artwork. So, the production values are high, colourful, and the writing is supported with lots of ‘Top Tip’ sections. The result is that Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 is as physically engaging as the first issue, a nice touch being that even the backing board holding the bagged issue even has Dungeons & Dragons artwork on it where you cannot see it until you pull the bag from the board. However, the glued together spine and disparate nature of the contents highlight how the partwork is designed to be pulled apart and its pages slotted into the binders that will be available for Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer as a whole.

Where Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 was undoubtedly great value for money, Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 does not represent as good value as that first issue did. Which is to be expected. This is how a partwork works. For the prospective Dungeon Master, the encounter, ‘Adventure 1 – 2 The Forgotten Vault’ is a decent enough continuation of ‘Adventure 1 – 1 King of the Hill’ from Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1, especially if added to the Phandelver and Below – The Shattered Obelisk campaign. However it is used, the encounter at least offers a couple of hours’ worth of play. In fact, an experienced Dungeon Master could run both encounters in the space of an evening or afternoon. Overall, Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 is a good continuation of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1, but not as good as Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1.

Miskatonic Monday #222: The Pursuit

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 InvictusThe PastoresPrimal StateRipples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in EgyptReturn of the RipperRise of the DeadRise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

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

—oOo—
Name: The PursuitPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Cameron Hays

Setting: Regency-era mid-AtlanticProduct: Scenario for In Strange Seas: Horror in the Royal Navy for Regency Cthulhu and Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England
What You Get: Eighteen page, 5.42 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Sometimes the pressganged are worse than the dregs society has to offer... Plot Hook: Rounding the Horn to avoid danger is definitely going to make things worse.
Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Investigators, two NPCs (plus more), and two handouts.Production Values: Decent
Pros# Close knit, closed-world investigation as the Investigators sail into danger# Potential for inter-party conflict# Solid advice on investigative paths# Agoraphobia# Pagophobia# Hemophobia
Cons# Cult leader’s Sanity is impossible
Conclusion# Solid sea-going one-shot for In Strange Seas# Enjoyable emphasis on human monsters rather than the Mythos as Investigators must navigate a society a world away from Regency England.

2003: Pax Gladivs

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

—oOo—

The idea of using the Internet to deliver a roleplaying game was still new in 2003. Deep7 was one of the pioneers, publishing a series of mini-roleplaying games via what would become DriveThruRPG.com. This series was the 1PG line, now published via Precis Intermedia, a line of simple roleplaying games each focused upon a particular genre and specifically, the cinematic version of that genre and a cinematic style of play. Each entry in the series was—and still is—low preparation, easy to learn, and easy to grasp because each leaned into a cinematic genre. These factors were enhanced by the format which limited a particular aspect of each roleplaying game and its genre to a single page each. Hence the ‘1PG’ name. Thus, the rules of play fit on a single page, the rules for character generation fit on a single page, the advice for the Referee fits on a single page, each scenario fits on a single page, and so on. The 1PG series did espionage with Agent S.E.V.E.N., pulp action with Dime Heroes, and Irwin Allen-style disaster movies with Disaster!, and more.
Published in 2003, Pax Gladivs: Epic Sword & Sandals Adventure was Deep7’s entry into the Swords & Sandal genre of epic stories set in Ancient Rome, inspired by such films as Gladiator and Ben Hur—and that is really all that the players need to know. For the Referee, play is intended to be epic and exciting, but never slow, with quick and dirty intrigues in the villas of the rich, blood spilled on the sands of the arena to cheers of thousands, chases back and forth across the empire by the emboldened barbarians, and so on. Every story should have a good villain and the action should first, the rules second. This amounts to the advice given in Pax Gladivs, which boils down to stick on the soundtrack to Gladiator, describe the scene, and let the action and the drama begin.
A Player Character in Pax Gladivs is simply defined. He has four stats—Vigour, Splendour, Scheming, and Acumen. Both these and the roleplaying game’s various skills are rated between one and three. In addition, a Player Character has Spirit, his charisma and your mental and physical bearing; Guts, which is his courage and bravery; Blood is his Hit Points; and Esteem, which is a measure of his fame and respect. To create a Player Character, a player rolls a three-sided die for each stat, assigns between four and six points between skills, rolls to determine how much Spirit, Guts, and Blood he has, and then rolls against each stat to gain a point of Esteem if successful. Lastly, he rolls for money and for Background and Provenance. Background is his status and occupation, such as Senator or Gladiator, whilst Provenance determines where he is from. Both Background and Provenance provide a mixture of bonuses to stats, skills, and secondary factors.
Name: AlbusBackground: Slave Provenance: Rome
Vigour 3 (Drinking 1, Running 1)Splendour 2 (Etiquette 1)Scheming 3 (Con 2, Dodge 2, Sneaking 1)Acumen 3
SPIRIT 2 GUTS 4 BLOOD 19 ESTEEM 3
Mechanically, as with other 1PG titles, Pax Gladivs is simple. To have a character undertake an action his player chooses the appropriate combination of a stat and a skill and attempts to roll equal to or under the target number the combination creates on a single six-sided die. Rolls of one always succeed, whilst rolls of six always fail. Fear is handled via a Guts check, and if failed, the Player Character loses a point of Spirit. Losing all Spirit means losing heart and the will to adventure. The only way to recover Spirit is to survive until the end of a scenario and assign Character Points earned then. Contests of will are rolled against Spirit, but a player can add his character’s Esteem. Combat is only slightly more complex. In combat, the Fighting skill is used for melee, Archery for ranged attacks, and Dodge for evading them. Rolls are made by those involved in the fight simultaneously, with the combatant who makes the roll by the widest margin succeeding. Ties go to the defender, but if both opponents are attacking, ties mean that both attacks succeed. Damage for each weapon type is a set value, for example, five for a short sword and fifteen for a ballista bolt! The attacker’s Vigour value is added to the damaged for melee attacks and all damage is deducted from the Player Character’s Blood value, and armour reduces the damage suffered—one point for thick robes, two for leather, and three for mail or scale.
Beyond this, Pax Gladivs adds rules for genre in the form of the Circus Maximus. It suggests making use of vehicle combat rules in The 1P Companion for chariot races and combat, but the Referee can get by with what is given here. In the arena, Esteem can be used to add a Player Character’s Spirit to the Fighting skill or Armour Value, gain more Blood, invoke the crowd to temporarily increase Guts, turn the crowd against the atonement, or increase the Dodge skill. This only lasts a round and the point of Esteem is lost for the day. If a Player Character uses a point of Esteem to inflict a killing blow, it is not lost. It is permanently lost if a Player Character is defeated, but not dead, and he pleads with the Emperor to spare his life, which requires a Performance check. Wins in the arena will earn a Player Character further Esteem, and if he can earn enough Esteem in this way, he can gain his freedom and become a Freedman, but not a citizen. That requires service as a soldier. A Player Character who begins play as a Gladiator does so with Esteem, but anyone sold into service as a Gladiator loses all of his previous Esteem and has to begin again.
The rules for Pax Gladivs amount to just four pages and the character sheet actually contains two sheets. The rest of the roleplaying game consists of six scenarios, each a page long. Together, they form a mini-campaign, which begins with dramatic fashion in ‘The Iron Lion’, when a lion with iron-shod claws is unleashed on the streets of Rome to attack a particular senator! Who would engineer such an attack? The senator rewards those that helped save him—that is, the Player Characters—by taking them into his employ and quickly they discover that his life is still in danger. The plot continues over the Alps and into Southern Germania where the senator is due to enter into treaty talks with the barbarian tribes across the border. The overall plot is fairly simple, but complicated with double-crossing action back and forth and lots of attempts to stop the senator. The players and their characters need not think too much about the plot, but go with it for the action and the drama.
Physically, Pax Gladivs is cleanly and simply laid out. Bar the cover, it is not really illustrated and the roleplaying game as a whole, very much needs a good edit. Some of the phrasing and terminology is inconsistent, but it is easy to work out how every thing should play.
These smaller games often get forgotten given how old they are, but many of the 1PG titles are worth revisiting or visiting for the first time because they deliver what they promise—cinematically styled, genre focused mini-games that are easy to prepare and run, all with scenarios, some of which form mini-campaigns. Pax Gladivs: Epic Sword & Sandals Adventure was there in 2003 for a quick, dirty, and simple pick-up game set in Rome and it pretty much still is in 2023.

A More Than Human Starter

The Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set takes roleplayers into a world of despair and uncertainty, when what it is to be Human is lost, when empathy is all that separates mankind from that which is not only faster and stronger than it us, but also threatens to replace us. Under the darkness of a world soiled by war, pollution, and ecological degradation, in the shadows spun by neon, simulacra skulk, hiding amongst those they want to be like, and they will do anything to survive and become more like the masters they once served. The year is 2037. The Wallace Corporation is the wealthiest company in the system and using advances made on Tyrell Corporation technology and patents, has introduced the Nexus-9, a replicant design incapable of lying or harming humans of its own accord. The United Nations classifies the Nexus-9 as ‘safe’ Replicants and grants them the status of second-class citizens with limited rights. Rep-Detect Units of the world’s various police forces are still responsible for investigating crimes related to replicants and some even begin to employ Nexus-9 units as investigators. The Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set presents a complete investigation—or Case File—as it is known for four players and the Game Runner. This includes a summarised version of the full rules from the Blade Runner – The RoleplayingGame, four pre-generated Investigators, two sets of dice, and the complete Case File supported by innumerable handouts.
The Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set is published by Free League Publishing and comes very well appointed. It includes the thirty-two-page Rules book, the fifty-six-page Case File 01: Electric Dreams, four pre-generated Investigator sheets, a Time Tracker Sheet, a large foldout full-colour map of 2037 Los Angeles, twenty-six full colour-handouts—both clues and maps, seventy cards, and a set of eight dice. The dice consist of two six-sided, two eight-sided, two ten-sided, and two twelve-sided dice. The dice are marked with numbers and symbols. Successes are also marked with eye symbols, two for the maximum number on each die, whilst ones are marked with an Origami Unicorn. The cards include Initiative cards as well Mugshot cards for the Case File, plus Aerial Chase Obstacle cards, Ground Chase Obstacle cards, Foot Chase Obstacle cards, and Chase Manoeuvre cards for use in the different types of chases the Investigators have to engage in. The four pre-generated Investigators consist of two Humans and two Replicants. The Humans consist of a veteran Inspector and an Enforcer with a military background, whilst the Replicants consist of a Forensics Specialist and an Interrogation and Negotiation Specialist.
The Rules book wastes very little is getting on with the explaining the mechanics of the roleplaying game. There is a little colour fiction and a timeline of events from the eighties through the events of Blade Runner and its fallout, the Blackout which destroyed the digital world, its partial restoration via the Wallace Datalink Network, and the introduction of the Nexus-9 by the Wallace Corporation. It then explains some of the concepts of game play. This includes playing in shifts—four six-hour shifts per day—with one of them devoted to Downtime, when an Investigator can rest, relax, clear his head and reset his system. The players are advised to split the party and conduct multiple, separate investigative paths. An Investigator can suffer Stress—by Pushing skill rolls and rolling Origami Unicorn symbols on the die, working too many Shifts without Downtime, and from stressful situations. An Investigator who suffers too much Stress can be Broken, and in the case of a Replicant, result in his needing to return to the Rep-Detect Unit Headquarters for a Baseline Test, which will reset his stress levels, but will lose him Humanity Points if he has gained any. The Rules book also notes the roleplaying game’s capacity for Player Character versus Player Character conflict, typically triggered by different interpretations of a case or the moral choices stemming from such interpretations.
An Investigator in Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game is simply detailed. He has four Attributes— Strength, Agility, Intelligence, and Empathy, and thirteen Skills, three per Attribute. The thirteenth Skill is Driving, which is derived from the manoeuvrability of the vehicle being driven. Both Attributes and Skills are assigned a letter, A, B, C, or D. Each letter corresponds to a die type. Thus, A to a twelve-sided die, B to a ten-sided die, C to an eight-sided die, and D to a six-sided die. To undertake an action, a player rolls one die for the Attribute and one die for the Skill. Rolls of six or more count as a success. Rolls of ten or more grant two successes. In general, unless rolls are opposed, only one success is required to succeed at an action. An extra success enables an Investigator to get more information, perform a task faster, or help an Investigator with a task. Only in combat do more than the one extra success count, indicating that more damage has been inflicted or a critical injury.
An easy task gives an Investigator an Advantage. In which case, his player rolls another die, equal to the lowest die in the pool. Conversely, a difficult task removes the lower die in the pool altogether. If any roll is unsuccessful, a player can choose to Push the dice roll and roll again. However, if a one—or the Origami Unicorn—is rolled on the first roll or the Pushed roll, the Investigator will suffer Stress. A Human can Push a Skill rolls once, but a Replicant can Push a Skill roll twice.
In addition, an Investigator can have Specialities associated with Skills—Humans tend to have them more Replicants. Both Human and Replicant will however, have a Key Memory and a Key Relationship. The Key Memory can be used once per game session to improve an Investigator’s chance to succeed  and will earn him a Humanity Point at the end of the session, as will interacting with his Key Relationship. Throughout an investigation, an Investigator can earn and lose Promotion Points, depending upon his actions and progress in the case. Replicants who lose all of their Promotion Points must take a Baseline Test. Promotion Points can be spent to learn Specialities, to request specialised equipment, and to even apply for a pay increase. Humanity Points are earned for committing acts of compassion or humanity and can be used to increase Skills.
Mechanically, the Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set—and thus the Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game—at this stage does not quite resemble the Year Zero used in Free League Publishing, such as Alien: The Roleplaying Game or Tales from the Loop – Roleplaying in the ’80s That Never Was. It is more like the rules to be found in Twilight 2000: Roleplaying in theWorld War III That Never Was, but ultimately, the major difference lies in the fact that in most Year Zero roleplaying games, a player will be rolling a handful of six-sided dice, whereas here, polyhedral dice and used, and typically just the two per roll. Combat is designed to be straightforward, an Investigator typically having one move and one action per round, initiative being handled by cards, with options including grappling, taking aim, manipulating or influencing someone, and so on. A roll of two or more Successes on an attack roll counts as a critical success, necessitating a roll on a Critical Injuries table with the ‘Crit Die’ for the weapon used. Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game is not a forgiving game in terms of combat and all firearms have a high ‘Crit Die’, so the Investigators should not engage in combat lightly. The rules also cover vehicles in combat—some vehicles can be armed, but for the most part, one vehicle will be ramming another. The rules for chases cover chases on foot, and then by ground or in the air.
Further background details Los Angeles Police Department Precinct 995 or ‘the Tower’, which is where the Investigators are based as part of the Rep-Detect Unit. It lists some of the resources available to an Investigator via ‘the Tower’ and looks at leveraging assets, conducting investigations, and protecting your sources. It also discusses working the system in order to progress with a Case File, noting that making the wrong choices or not updating an Investigator’s Reporting Officer will result in a loss of Promotion Points, but may reward Humanity Points. The equipment covered in ‘Tools of the Trade’ includes the Voight-Kampff Machine, the Post-Traumatic Baseline Test used on Nexus-9 Investigators, various weapons including the PK-D 5223 Blaster and the PK-D FKM890 Blaster, and the LAPD Spinner – Detective Special Model 294-02.
The investigation included in the Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set is Case File 01: Electric Dreams. It is actually the first part of a campaign arc called ‘The Immortal Game’, which Free League Publishing intends to support with further releases. Case File 01: Electric Dreams opens with a classic scene almost exactly like that of Deckard’s introduction in Blade Runner. It is a nice touch, but it also introduces one of the many handouts in the scenario—a newspaper. The investigation involves a missing Replicant, working for the Rep-Detect Unit. The Investigators are assigned to find it. The investigation is supported with an array of high-quality handouts for the players and their Investigators, a countdown of events for the Game Runner to trigger, Downtime events to make the Investigator lives more interesting, and descriptions of the clues, locations, and NPCs for the Game Runner. There is advice on running the Case File with one, two, or three Investigators and on substituting Investigators of the players’ own creation using the rules in Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game. It is a fairly complex scenario, which will probably take a group several sessions to roleplay through as the Investigators are divided physically in following multiple trails of clues—they can keep in touch via the KIA or ‘Knowledge Integration Assistant that each of them is assigned—and potentially morally as more and more of the mystery is revealed and the Investigators have to choose between what is the correct course of action in terms of procedure and what the best course of action in terms of empathy. Of course, they will be under pressure from both their boss—Deputy Chief Dave Holden—and the Wallace Corporation for a quick resolution, the Game Runner recording the Investigators’ actions and time spent on the Time Tracker. Fans of Blade Runner will definitely enjoy it as it visits several familiar locations and NPCs.
Physically, the Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set is very well produced. The two booklets could be a little sturdier and as with Alien: The Roleplaying Game, not everyone is going to appreciate its open layout and text boxes on dark backgrounds. The handouts and the maps and the cards though, are all of really high quality. The artwork is excellent, really capturing Bladerunner’s look, feel, and tone.
If there is a downside to the Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set, it is this. At the time of its publication and right now, it contains the only Case File available for the roleplaying game. However, once there are more Case Files, the Rules book becomes an easy reference for the basic rules that the players can consult, many of the cards can be used in play, and there are locations in Case File 01: Electric Dreams which the Investigators may revisit in future cases. Of course, the extra dice are useful too.
The Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game Starter Set will appeal most obviously to the Blade Runner fan, as well as the Science Fiction fan, the neo-noir fan, and the fan of mysteries of any kind. This is a great introduction to Blade Runner – The Roleplaying Game, one which the Game Runner will definitely want as it provides the roleplaying game with its first full Case File, a superbly supported, well written mystery that captures the world of Blade Runner seen on onscreen.

Imperial Records I

There is a woman incarcerated in the Great Hospice who claims not only to be Princess Isabella von Holswig-Schleistein, sister to Emperor Karl-Franz I, but also to be in love with Duke Leopold von Bildhofen of Carroburg and a scholar herself, worthy of the title, ‘The Seer Princess’. Of course, his Imperial Majesty would likely refute such claims, but look upon kindly the efforts of the sisters of Shallya of the Great Hospice in tending to her well-being, just as Duke Leopold would deny any such relationship. What is in no doubt is that the women, simply known as ‘Isabella’ is of good stock and educated, given the papers that have been slipping out of the Great Hospice, which are of scholarly note and interest. The first of these has been collated as Archives of the Empire Volume I. This is a supplement for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition, published by Cubicle Seven Entertainment Ltd., which has since been followed up with further entries in the series—Archives of the Empire Volume II and Archives of the Empire Volume III. This slim first volume collates information about the Empire and the three major races living within and alongside its borders.

Archives of the Empire Volume I opens with a journal entry for Isabella before getting down its first subject matter. This is a presentation of the state of the Empire in the Year 2512 IC, notably before the events of The Enemy Within campaign play out and come to fruition with Empire in Ruins, the redone fifth, and final part of the campaign. It provides a one- or two-page description of each of the ten Grand Provinces—that is, those provinces which provide an Elector Count who has the right to elect the emperor—of the Empire, from Averland and Middenheim to Talabecland and Talabheim. These in turn list the official name, ruler, government, capital, internal provinces and notable freistadts (self-governing towns and cities), and primary exports for each Grand Province, as well as details of their lands, peoples, and significant places. The descriptions are broad in nature given the limited amount of space given to each, for example, Averland consists of floodplains, is known for its longhorn cattle and vineyards, feuds with neighbouring Stirland over three independent fiefdoms, and its peoples are seen as flighty and fickle, but still adhering to tradition, whilst Stirland has a reputation as a rural backwater and its peoples as being highly superstitious, being obsessed with both beer and their ancestry, a strong dislike for Halflings for the loss of the province’s good farmland to form Mootland, and a particular fear of vampires and the undead given that the County of Sylvania, the historic home of the Vampire Counts lies to the immediate east.

In places—and this is a feature of Archives of the Empire Volume I—the supplement clearly points to other supplements which have expanded treatments of their subject matters. For example, the description of Reikland points to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition and the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Starter Set for more information, and in the case of the latter, more information on the town and goings on in Ubersreik. Whilst this is undeniably all useful, but the problem is that the relative brevity of the information feels out of place in this supplement, where at just a page or two in length, they would have provided a good overview in the core rulebook. Or alternatively, these pages could have been expanded to take up the whole of Archives of the Empire Volume I rather than covering the number of subjects that it does. In meantime, these descriptions are still good introductions, but no more, and the likelihood is that they will be superseded by supplements dedicated to them of their own, such as Middenheim: City of the White Wolf. Individual maps of the Grand Provinces would also have been useful.

‘Halfling Clans of the Reikland’ explores the presence of Halflings—sometimes seen as the joke Player Character race in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay—in one of Grand Provinces of the Empire. Which begs the question, what are Halflings like in the other nine Grand Provinces? Followed by, could this have been saved for a big supplement on Halflings which covered the whole of the Empire? It feels as if there nine other articles to come dealing with Halflings in those other Grand Provinces, as if Archives of the Empire Volume I is some kind of partwork. Nevertheless, this is entertaining content, describing twelve of the most common clans to be found in Reikland. They include the Ashfield Clan, known for its Fieldwardens who patrol the borders of Mootland and its archers, many of whom join the imperial army; the Rumster clan, which specialises making pies and pastries; and the Lowhaven, thieves and racketeers who band together to stand up against the ‘big ones’ as Humans are known. These without a clan are known as Lostpockets. The clans and their predilections make for easy characterisation, whether that is of Player Characters or NPCs, and it is going to be up the Game Master and her players whether they want to embrace, at best, the archetypes, at worst, the clichés, that these clan descriptions present. One way to embrace these is to use the various skills and talents suggested for each clan that can be added to or replace those listed in the core rulebook.

Better still is ‘A Guide to the Grand County of the Mootland’, which describes its founding, history, politics—mostly a lack of them because Halflings are busy doing other things, tourism, and major locations. With its bucolic rolling hills, the inspiration for The Mootland is obvious, but the chapter gives a plenty of fun twists and tweaks to make it feel like the Old World. Thus, in the timeline, there have been several pie wars—mostly over the placement of pastry, the flan is illegal, and the sausage roll remains a symbol of lean times and looked upon with disgust! There are notes for the Game Master on how to speak Mootish or ‘Haffenaff’, which comes across as a rural version of Cockney; the Fieldwarden Jasperjohn Maskerline is using diversions and psychological warfare in the south to trick Goblin scouts that the Halfling forces are ten times the number that they actually are, which is a lovely historical reference; and the pranksterish nature of Halflings means that they bolster the region’s tourist industry with a ‘Grand Tour’ that is just one big joke on the ‘big ones’ visiting for a bit of Halfling exoticism. Where ‘Halfling Clans of the Reikland’ provided NPC examples for each of its twelve clans, ‘A Guide to the Grand County of the Mootland’ goes even further with lots of extra details and almost a scenario hook—literally given fish hook through each one on the page—on every page.

Then having done Halflings, Archives of the Empire Volume I does Dwarves, and does so in a similar manner to Halflings. Thus, you have Dwarves in the Empire and then Dwarves on home territory. ‘Imperial Dwarves’ examines the Dwarves who live across the Empire, highlighting the close links between the Empire and the Dwarves, and examining the not always cordial relationship between the Imperial Dwarves and their cousins in the Dwarf holds in the mountains, the nature of Dwarf society and settlements—the latter highlighting how they effectively build mini-fortresses with tunnels to hold supplies below, and so on. These are accompanied by three decent NPCs and story hooks for each. Contrasting this is ‘A Guide to Karak Azgaraz’, a Dwarf hold which is just south of, and has close ties with, Ubersreik, and is governed by relatively young Dwarven king—sone would say too young, whose council is riven by old grudges. The description focuses very much less on the clans to be found in the hold, and more on the locations in and around the hold, such as the skybridges which form the only point of access from the south, the fortified Argraz Trading Post built in Merchant Pass to control trade, the Under the Mountain Inn within the hold where outsiders can trade, the Erdinken Brewery which serves non-Dwarves weaker so as not to waste the good stuff, and the various Deeps where the dwarves actually live. Beyond this, it notes some of the threats faced by the hold, including bandits, Goblins, and Orcs. The accompanying adventure hooks involves the Player Characters dealing with these external threats as well as getting involved—carefully—in Dwarven politics within the hold itself. Given how close to Ubersreik the hold is, ‘A Guide to Karak Azgaraz’ is actually fairly useful, but what lets it down is a lack of maps. It would have been really useful to have maps of the hold to help the Game Master describe it to her players, and similarly, maps of the typical settlements of the Imperial Dwarves would have been useful too. Lastly, there is no proper illustration of Karak Azgaraz, so the Game Master is left wondering what it, and especially, its skybridges, look like.

Penultimately, for the Elves, Archives of the Empire Volume I simply presents ‘A Guide to the Laurelorn’. There is no discussion of Elves in the Empire, but instead this description of the Laurelorn Forest, an independent Eleven kingdom on the southwest border of the Empire, between Nordland and the Wasteland. The Wood Elves—or ‘Eonir’—are distinct from the Athel Loren—or Asrai—in that they are less isolationist and their spiritual ties to the trees are substantially weaker. The chapter includes a history of the Laurelorn Forest, a description of the three social classes, and a visitor’s guide. There is a definite sense of age to the region, evidenced in the three classes which make up the Elves’ society based on where they and their ancestors were during the War of the Beard. The upper classes reside in the restored ruins of the original Elven colony, the middle classes took refuge in the forest during the War of the Beard, and the lower classes entered the forest after the war. It should be noted that War of the Beard took place five millennia ago. Besides numerous scenario hooks, it is suggested that for Player Character Elves from Laurelorn Forest, High Elves and their associated Careers represent upper class characters and Wood Elves and their associated Careers the middle classes. It is suggested that none of the working-class Elves become adventurers. Overall, the description and details of Laurelorn are decent.

Rounding out Archives of the Empire Volume I is an appendix containing four new careers. Three of these are from the Ranger Class. The Ghost Strider is a forest warden for Elves; the Fieldwarden which patrols the borders of the Mootland and is for Halflings; and the Karak Ranger is for the Dwarves and patrols around a Dwarven hold above and below ground. The fourth career is an oddity, a bit of silliness that the Game Master can choose to include or not in her campaign. This is the Badger Rider for the Halfling. A member of the Warrior Class, the Badger Rider is typically a loner, akin to a questing knight, doing good deeds across the Mootland and protecting its borders. It does need stats and details of the badger, which are not given here or indeed suggested where they might be found. Overall, a good selection of new race-specific Careers along similar lines that will make Player Characters of those races standout for more than just being members of their races. This is followed by an appendix of new weapons particular to the three races discussed in the supplement. Halflings will, no doubt, want to ride into battle wielding either Nan’s Cleaver or an Iron Skillet, whilst every Dwarf Slayer will hope to be armed with a Slayer’s Axe, which is even more deadly than a standard two-handed axe.

Physically, Archives of the Empire Volume I is well presented. The artwork is excellent, the layout clean and tidy, and the maps decent, although there are not enough of them. The book does need an edit in places.

Archives of the Empire Volume I is companion to, and a medley of information for, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition and is very much hit and miss in terms of its content. Fortunately, more hit than miss. The primary miss is that the Grand Province descriptions feel like they belong elsewhere and will leave the reader wanting more, as will the description of the Halfling Clans, oddly confined to the one Grand Province. The hits though, include the descriptions and details of the three races, backed up the innumerable adventure hooks, which are all definitely more useful and can be brought into play much, much easier. In particular, the description of the Mootland is really very good, not just informative, but entertaining too. There is definite sense that the authors were having fun when they wrote this chapter.

Ultimately, if it leaves the Game Master wanting in places, the Archives of the Empire Volume I is a still a good supplement for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition, providing in particular, support and background for Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings that will enhance the Game Master’s campaign.

Pages