On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time is a little different. Penned by Zedeck Siew—author of Lorn Song of the Bachelor—and drawn by Munkao, it is the third title published by the A Thousand Thousand Islands imprint, a Southeast Asian-themed fantasy visual world-building project, one which aims to draw from regional folklore and history to create a fantasy world truly rooted in the region’s myths, rather than a set of rules simply reskinned with a fantasy culture. The result of the project to date is eight fanzines, plus appendices, each slightly different, and each focusing on discrete settings which might be in the same world, but are just easily be separate places in separate worlds. What sets the series apart is the aesthetic sparseness of its combination of art and text. The latter describes the place, its peoples and personalities, its places, and its strangeness with a very simple economy of words. Which is paired with the utterly delightful artwork which captures the strangeness and exoticism of the particular setting and brings it alive. Barring a table of three (or more) for determining random aspects that the Player Characters might encounter each entry in the series is systemless, meaning that each can be using any manner of roleplaying games and systems, whether that is fantasy or Science Fiction, the Old School Renaissance or not.

The first, MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom, described the Death-Rolled Kingdom, built on the remains of great drowned city, now ruled by crocodiles in lazy, benign fashion, they police the river, and their decrees outlaw the exploration of the ruins of MR-KR-GR, and they sometimes hire adventurers. The second, Kraching, explored the life of a quiet, sleepy village alongside a great forest, dominated by cats of all sizes and known for its beautiful carvings of the wood taken from the forest. The third in the series, Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time, takes the reader, if not into this forest, but into a forest.

Stepping into the forest is like stepping into the past. Time seems to pass differently there, and so it is in Upper Heleng, though no native would call it that. Beyond the two great trees which mark its most obvious entry—one dead, the other never not in flower, time passes faster for objects not of the forest. They rot, they rust, teeth fall out. It is almost as if the forest is rejecting such modernisms. Squirrels appear to chatter and gossip—if you listen. A wheezing mouse deer asks for help—it has a woman’s face. Take care lest the Leeches stalk you and steal something from more important than a mere possession—a hand, a child not yet born, a skill, your favourite song… The forest is married to Time and has given birth to many gods who make their home in her arboreal embrace. Each has their own time, some of which are embraced by the natives, some of which are not. The Leech is her eldest, who governs memory, loss, and entropy, and who defends his mother when necessary and whose manifestations stalk and steal from intruders. The Bee is her third daughter, a gibbon-shaped hive of bees whose presence indicates that harvest is here. The Moth is the youngest and the oldest, and governs death for all who die in the forest, able to see out of the spots on the moth he has for a face—and out of all spots of all moths. Anyone who died in the forest may be asked questions through the Moth for he remembers them all, but for a price.

The way into the forest—and Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time—is through a guide. The girl, Wingseed, is keen to take the Player Characters in—though Dangles, her father now living in a dog’s (and thus a god’s) shape worries greatly for her, and will advise them to eat the food grown inside to lessen the effects of time whilst under the canopy. The Player Characters may encounter Sadushan San Di, who quests for the Leech who defeated Sadushan San Di’s liege-lady, Queen Qaidun, and stole her face, but who knows which of the many Leech Spawn now bears that visage? Or Sri Jahisha, itinerant swordfish who wishes to see the un-oceaned world and is borne upon the back of fisherman blessed with magic. The forest nomads with their strange ways, but kindly manner, treating outsiders like children who know no better… Such as Tittertit, the elderly camp chief who does not give a damn and whose armful of monkeys know spells and Scoffysyrup, a woman addicted to the beakroot which is transforming her into a bird. She wants to be free to fly and wants more, but her campmates refuse to gather it. Perhaps the Player Characters have come to aid Sadushan San Di or to purchase trade goods, like the Ghost Antler, infused with the beast’s final instincts at death, the phantom vines which are found hanging in the air and can be woven into nets capable of entrapping the incorporeal, or Quick Honey, the mercury liquid which grants a day’s invulnerability and unerring action in return for the ultimate price, but which all of the gods across the Thousand Thousand Isles want at their table.

For the Game Master there are tables to determine random encounters in the forest and encounters with the forest people. There is also an insert which provides another pair of tables. Both are ‘die-drop’ tables, one a name generator for the people of the forest which with a roll of six dice also generates a personality too. The other is a lay of the land of the forest, a collection of places, the fall of the dice determining the elements of the location where the Player Characters are, or are going, the Game Master building the descriptions from where the dice land. This is not necessarily a map generator, since the land can change, rivers squirm to elsewhere, paths wither and disappear. Essentially, the forest grows and changes, but remains the same.

Physically, Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time is a slim booklet which possesses the lovely simplicity of the Thousand Thousand Isles, both in terms of the words and the art. Together they evoke visions of a very different world, inspired by forest taboos and Bateq egalitarianism, and of a very different fantasy to which a Western audience is used, but the light text makes it all very accessible as the art entrances the reader. However, Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time is not easy to use, the forest crawl being far away and not necessarily easy to reach, but worse, it is difficult to engage the Player Characters with it until they reach its eaves. The Game Master will need to work hard to create motivations and drives for them to travel to Upper Heleng, and that is its biggest weakness. It has the hooks—both ethnographic and cosmological—but it is a matter of getting the Player Characters there.

Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time has not quite the charm of the previous MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom or Kraching, but this does not mean that it is not without appeal. Once again, Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time is beguilingly simple and exquisitely enticing in its presentation of a bucolically strange, but seemingly tranquil land far away from whatever constitutes the main hub of the world and its action.

—oOo—

The great news is that is Upper Heleng: The Forest Beloved by Time, MR-KR-GR The Death-Rolled Kingdom, Kraching, and the others in the Thousand Thousand Isles setting are now available outside of Malaysia. Details can be found here.

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

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another retroclone garnering attention via fanzines is Mörk Borg.
Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory—‘Feretory’ meaning ‘a portable shrine containing the relics of a saint.’ is a fanzine of a different stripe, both in terms of content and style. It is and it is not a fanzine, but it is for Mörk Borg, the pitch-black pre-apocalyptic fantasy roleplaying game which brings a Nordic death metal sensibility to the Old School Renaissance. The format is that of a fanzine, A5-sized, on matte paper rather than the gloss of the Mörk Borg rulebook, but sharing the same riotous assault of electrically vibrant yellow and pink highlights on swathes of black, abrupt font changes, and metallic embellishments. Essentially, production values higher than that typically found in most fanzines, but influential nevertheless, as seen in the recent Knock! #1 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac. This is because although the origins of the content in Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory are amateur in origin, they have been curated from submissions to the Mörk Borg Cult, the community content programme for Mörk Borg by the designers of the roleplaying game and collated into a fanzine format. And unlike most fanzines is available through distribution. It is essentially, a cross between a fanzine with gorgeous production values and a supplement with fanzine sensibilities.
At sixty-four pages and fourteen or so entries, Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory is also longer than most fanzines. Most of its articles are fairly short though and written and presented in a sparse, often bullet-point style which makes their content easy to digest. It can be boiled down to a variegated array of tables, scenarios, and character Classes, and Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory does not waste any time in getting down to its trademark doom and gloom with the first of its tables. Slipped inside the front cover, ‘The Monster Approaches’ is a quick and dirty random monster generator which with a roll of a handful of dice, the Game Master can create something vile and unnerving to throw at her Player Characters—who are of course, just as likely to be almost, if not equally as vile and unnerving. It is quickly followed by Svante Landgraf’s ‘Roads to Damnation: Travel Across a Dying World’ which provides rules and randomness for travelling across the large island which is all that remains of the Dying Lands. It covers distances as well as events on and off the road, but like all tables has only a limited number of entries, so may be exhausted fairly soon. For a roleplaying game like Mörk Borg, which is designed for short campaigns, this is not so much of an issue.
Longer is ‘Eat Prey Kill’ by Karl Druid, which can work as a companion to ‘Roads to Damnation: Travel Across a Dying World’, providing as it does rules for hunting in the Dying Lands. In effect, it is a set of mini-tables, one for each region of the Dying Lands (indicated by the often-indecipherable use of Gothic script), with each entry on the these mini-tables being a complete monster description and its stats. So in the Bergen Chrypt, a hunter might find a Tunnel Sneak (or it might find him), Nephalix Monkeys who leap from peak to peak on boney wings, tossing their victims down the cliffs below, laughing as they do, or a Ragpie, what appears to be bundle of old cloth near a pile of bones, but which embraces and chokes its victims like a dark cloak. So it is a bestiary of new creatures also, but what makes it grim is not just the table for hunting mishaps, but also what a hunter might find in the belly of the beast he is hunting…
‘d100 Items and Trinkets’ by Pelle Svensson provides exactly that, whilst Anders Arpi, Ben H, Dom Cohen, Ripley C, Johan Nohr, karl Druid, Leander E, Paul Wilde, and Flora v/d B all contribute to ‘The Tenebrous Reliquary’ which is a much lengthier and more table which contains ‘d66 Items of Doom’, including the ‘Plasmatic Idol’ which blood is spilled over it, the blood becomes a poison or the owner gains a temporary boon; a ‘Tyrant’s Tongue’, which when placed in the mouth of a skull, screams the tongue’s final words—over and over; and the ‘Claw of the Sloth’, a dagger whose small cuts can eventually freeze a victim on the spot. All of these items have a grim, dark edge to them befitting the tone of the roleplaying game. They could easily be adapted to other roleplaying games or settings with similar atmospheres. ‘The Tablets of Obscurity’ is a list of ten magical relics of a forgotten mind-cult, essentially stone tablets used like scrolls, whilst ‘The Black Salt Wind’ blows through tombs, palaces, and places deep beneath the earth, such as in the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead and the Wästland plains, its effects random each time, such as burning eyes which weep black tears encrusting the eyes or Old Salt Madness singing to you, telling to either mock or befriend everyone you meet!
Carl Niblaeus’ ‘The Death Ziggurat’ is the first of three scenarios in Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory. The Player Characters are hired by Cretun monks to climb down into a cold and dank sinkhole in the forests of Sarkash to find an ancient ziggurat and prevent a demon laying waste to the world. This is a mini-hexcrawl, set in a freezing landscape, with just a handful of locations, including the ziggurat itself, and even fewer NPCs. Combined with a set of tables to populate the sinkhole with ruins and encounters, ‘The Death Ziggurat’ is playable in a session or two and is easily added to a campaign or run as a one-shot. It also nicely tags the core concept behind Mörk Borg and that is that the world is doomed… ‘The Goblin Grinder’ by Ripley Caldwell moves the action to the city of Galgenbeck which has become infested with Goblins, with the number of its citizens affected by the Goblin Cure growing day by day. Fortunately, a local alchemist has a cure—at a cost of forty silver a vial! The scenario comes with several reasons for the Player Characters to get involved, at least initially, but not necessarily how to take the next step and get them to locations where the scenario is likely to be resolved. Once the Player Characters get to the primary location in the scenario, it is nicely detailed, grim and grimy with a certain grinding crunch to its climax. The scenario needs a little effort upon the part of the Game Master to work, but once done, this again, is playable in a session or two.
‘The Grey Galth Inn’ is not a scenario as such, but rather another set of tables for generating elements and storyhooks when at this, or another inn. So, there are tables for both ‘Would you prefer the Select Menu?’ and ‘Ah, I see, you lack funds’ (watery femur soup or thick ooze soup—ooze is pure—sound lovely), along with tables for ‘Why is the Innkeeper Twitching?’ and ‘Patron traits’. Also included is rules for the dice-based gambling mini-game called Three Dead Skulls. Of course, these tables can be used to generate content and hook the Player Characters into whatever is going on in and around the inn. 
Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory includes four new Classes. These begin with Karl Druid’s ‘Cursed Skinwalker’, a shape-shifter able to assume the form of a singular creature, such as a Murder-Plagued Rat or a Doomsaying Monkey, within a bone-cracking painful minute. The ‘Pale One’ by Tim Rudluff is an alien of weird origins and manner, able to cast a random blessing once per day, but beset by incoherent madness and self-destructive rages, whilst Greg Saunders’ ‘Dead God’s Prophet’ listens to the voices in his head telling him what to do, and is blessed by his dead god, perhaps with poison-seeping stigmata or eyes of holy fire. Lastly, the ‘Forlorn Philosopher’ who studies have failed him and rails at the lies left. The ‘Forlorn Philosopher’ can freely use and understand ‘The Tablets of Obscurity’. Some of these Classes are easier to play than others, the Cursed Skinwalker’  and ‘Pale One’ in particular feeling underwritten in comparison to the ‘Dead God’s Prophet’ and ‘Forlorn Philosopher’, both of which add to the feel and atmosphere of the Dying Lands.
Included in Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory is ‘Dark Fort’, the solo game which formed the basis for Mörk Borg. It is a short, and in keeping with Mörk Borg, nasty solo game. Complete with five character sheets, a player rolls on its tables to generate encounter after encounter, the aim being for the victim/character to survive each room, collect silver, gain a Level, and so on. Once a player has ticked each of the six advancements from gaining a new Level, the character retires, lives comfortably, and just like Mörk Borg, the world ends. It is quick and dirty, even slight, but a nice nod to the origins of the roleplaying game.
Mörk Borg Cult: Feretory can add so much to your fantasy game—especially if it is dark and grim. Its content would work in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous, Shadow of the Demon Lord, and others—with a little bit of adaptation. As a supplement for Mörk Borg it expands aspects of adventuring in the Dying Lands whilst keeping them as grim and grimy, as grisly and grotty, and as ghastly and grubby as both Game Master and players would want. Mörk Borg Cult: Feretoryy is a joyously foul and febrile first supplement, offering up a jumble that the Game Master will want to sort through and add to her game.

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

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

Echoes From Fomalhaut is a fanzine of a different stripe. Published and edited by Gabor Lux, it is a Hungarian fanzine which focuses on ‘Advanced’ fantasy roleplaying games, such as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Labyrinth. The inaugural issue, Echoes From Fomalhaut #01: Beware the Beekeeper!, published in March, 2018, presented a solid mix of dungeons, adventures, and various articles designed to present ‘good vanilla’, that is, standard fantasy, but with a heart. Published in August, 2018, the second issue, Echoes From Fomalhaut #02: Gont, Nest of Spies continued this trend with content mostly drawn from the publisher’s own campaign, but as decent as its content was, really needed more of a hook to pull reader and potential Dungeon Master into the issue and the players and their characters into the content. Echoes From Fomalhaut #03: Blood, Death, and Tourism was published in September, 2018 and in reducing the number of articles it gave the fanzine more of a focus and allowed more of the feel of the publisher’s ‘City of Vultures’ campaign to shine through, whilst Echoes From Fomalhaut #04: Revenge of the Frogs drew from multiple to somewhat lesser effect.
Echoes From Fomalhaut #05: The Enchantment of Vashundara contains just four entries, and is all the better for it. Published in April, 2019, the issue opens with the titular, ‘The Enchantment of Vashundara’, by Zsolt Varga. This is an otherworldly scenario designed for Player Characters of Third and Fourth Levels. It begins with a giant peacock landing in front of the Player Characters and lowering her wings as if to suggest that they might climb onto her back. If they do, they are flown up into the clouds and over an ocean to a land far, far away where the bird alights at the entrance to a villa. It is an interesting start because the peacock never speaks, although the Player Characters may find animals in the villa who will, many of them quite eccentric. They will also discover that the villa is clearly built for a giant, and that giant—complete with six arms and six heads—is chained up and deeply asleep in the stables. What exactly is going on in this villa? The scenario is a mix of investigation and combat and plays upon the idea of the adventurers as midgets in a land of giants, much like Castle Gargantua, making what would be small things for a giant of a size that the adventurers can use. They are free to poke about as is their wont in the gardens—hanging or otherwise, fabulously clean bathing facilities, and lake (which is actually upstairs) of the villa. There is no one way to approach this scenario or investigating its situation, so the suggested set-up is exactly that, and whilst there is an ideal outcome given, the scenario is open enough that events could play in plenty of other directions… The second-place winner in a scenario writing competition the editor was judging, it is easy to see why ‘The Enchantment of Vashundara’ came second (and to wonder what happened to the first), because it is simple and flexible, but with plenty of scope for the players and their characters to interpret the how they will. Its set-up also makes it easy to drop into a campaign with relatively little preparation.
The bulk of Echoes From Fomalhaut #05: The Enchantment of Vashundara is dedicated to the town of Tirwas, but in two parts. The first part is ‘The Divided Town of Tirwas’ which describes the harbour town with its unfinished walls, its inhabitants, various locations, and the various tensions which make it fraught place to visit, let alone live. Located towards the eastern end of the Isle of Erillion—detailed in previous issues—this was once a sleepy village at best, known for its communal customs and penchant for smuggling, but little else. Now it has grown into a town in which smuggling is a way of life; strangers have a habit of going missing or become the victims of attacks or other crimes unless they have paid (or been extorted) for membership into one of the town’s many factions; and factions headed by the town’s Landlords. As with the town writeups in previous issues of Echoes From Fomalhaut, ‘The Divided Town of Tirwas’ goes into some detail about the town and its inhabitants. This includes all eight Landlors and their aims and rivalries, customs such as what might happen to the Player Characters if they are not willing to wear one of the Landlords’ emblems, and numerous NPCs and locations accompanied by rumours and potential hooks. 
The second part is ‘Plunder of the Stone Sacks’, a scenario for Player Characters of Third to Fifth Level. This details a series of caves which in the past were worked and expanded into a series of communal shelters below Tirwas, each family in the town having and furnishing their own cave, but which have since been partially abandoned with some areas closed off, some used as storerooms, others as a means to smuggle goods into the town, and lastly, one area as a gaol and holding area for a certain nasty trade… The Stone Sacks is a cross between a classic dungeon and a working area, the Player Characters needing to use stealth to get around sections of it to avoid being noticed in the areas under guard. Beyond mere curiosity, several hooks are suggested to push the Player Characters to investigative activities in the town and in the Stone Stacks, including disappearances in the town, stopping the smuggling activities, or even looking for an ancient, long-forgotten shrine. Together, ‘The Divided Town of Tirwas’ and ‘Plunder of the Stone Sacks’ form a solid pairing, which could easily be added to a Game Master’s campaign, but really it provides her and her players and their characters with motivations not just with reasons to visit and investigate the town of Tirwas, but also the Isle of Erillion. This is excellent support for the setting and hopefully future issues will see support in a similar fashion.
Rounding out Echoes From Fomalhaut #05: The Enchantment of Vashundara is ‘All is Well in Sleepy Haven’ This describes another coastal settlement on the Isle of Erillion. Where ‘The Divided Town of Tirwas’ and ‘Plunder of the Stone Sacks’ take up half of the fanzine, ‘All is Well in Sleepy Haven’ is a mere tenth of the issue’s length. It is described as unexciting, even dull, and the problem is that it is. There are some missing persons and suggestions that treasure hunters are operating in the area, but it is debatable as whether this would be enough for the Player Characters to be motivated enough to visit the village. To be fair, the descriptions are well done, just as they are elsewhere in the issue, but the write-up of Sleepy Haven is exactly that.
Previous issues of the fanzine came with a map which depicts the outline of a city or town, intended as a handouts for the players. Echoes From Fomalhaut #05: The Enchantment of Vashundara goes one step further with two maps on a double-sided sheet, one of Tirwas and one of Sleepy Hollow. These are done on sturdy paper and as before, nicely done. Physically, the issue is decently presented, the choice of public artwork and new illustrations, all feel fitting. It needs an edit in places, but is otherwise, well written.
Echoes From Fomalhaut #04: Revenge of the Frogs had four articles and felt the better for it, and Echoes From Fomalhaut #05: The Enchantment of Vashundara has four articles and feels all the better for it. In fact, it is better for having the two articles describing a town and the dungeon below it together with reasons to explore both, as well as an intriguing and likeable scenario in the form of the titular ‘The Enchantment of Vashundara’. Echoes From Fomalhaut #05: The Enchantment of Vashundara is a solidly entertaining issue.

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

Fanzines are fundamentally a means and a platform to support a publisher’s and authors’ favourite roleplaying game. This can be in the good times and the bad, when the roleplaying game a fanzine supports is in print, and when it is not. And when it is not, a fanzine can become the focal point for a roleplaying game’s fans, a way for which they can maintain their interest in the game. This can be whether the fanzine is in print or electronic format. This is the case with Dragon Warriors and Casket of Fays. Dragon Warriors, the fantasy role playing game system published by Corgi Books in the mid-eighties originally as a series of paperbacks, then in the noughties by Magnum Opus via Mongoose Publishing, and more recently by Serpent King Games, as a series of standard-size books. Casket of Fays is a fanzine published by Red Ruin Publishing [https://www.redruin.org/], a fan-community-driven community, and available for free as a PDF.

Published in July, 2020, Casket of Fays #1 – a Dragon Warriors RPG fanzine is a short fanzine, running to just twenty pages. In that limited space it packs in a new monster or two, a preview, new weapons, a new profession or more. Short of an adventure, or two, this is a generally pleasing little medley of content which a Game Master can use in her campaign. The issue opens with Wayne Imlach’s ‘Mere-Trolls’, first of two monster types in the issue. The Mere-Troll is a riverine hunter, humanoid, but reptilian and bestial, which prefers to lair in the muddy waters of the banks of rivers or lakes. They are not however necessarily a danger to most, whereas their wives, or ‘Mere-Hags’, are. Anyone forced to drink the blood of a Mere-Troll or Mere-Hag becomes subservient to them, but being more intelligent and cunning, only the Mere-Hag takes advantage of this. Which means that if adventurers are forced to confront such a creature, she will be guarded by many other beasts!

‘Welcome to the Thousand Islands’ by Damian May is an ‘Extract from the Journal of Damprong Kak of Batuban, Captain of the junk Śakra.’ and a preview for then—and still—forthcoming supplement, Thousand Islands, from Ambula in Fabulam. It is readable, but bereft of context, it simply just is, and without that context, it just feels as if it is taking up space. More useable though are Damian May’s ‘Weapons of the Thousand Islands’, which describes a trio of blades used in the region, such as the Mandau, a heavy chopping sword often with a hilt carved from human bone and used in head-hunting ceremonies and the Karambit, a knife whose blade is shaped like the claw of a tiger and whose hilt has a finger ring which can be used to punch an opponent and prevents the user from being disarmed—though this is jarring when such attempts are made.

Even more useful though, are the entries in Lee Barklam’s ‘A Spell and a Nasty Magical Item’. The spell is Moonthread, a Sorcerer spell which creates a strand of the moon’s light into a thread as light as silk, but strong as heavy rope. It cannot be cut, remains as long as there is moonlight (or the light of the Moonglow spell), and vanishes if exposed to sunlight or touched by a magic weapon. A nice simple spell, which although utilitarian in nature, has some nice flavour and a couple of wrinkles or two. The nasty magical item is nasty, the Scarred Pearl, a short, plain silver rod topped by a heavily scarred pearl, which scarred again with a sharp implement and that scar inflicted permanently on the face of the user’s target, which reduces their looks. It lives up to its description and would be a perfect addition to any villain jealous about the looks of others.

‘Chaubrette: The Barony of Séverac’ by Greg Dzi provides an overview of the Barony of Séverac which lies between the cities of Méore and Quadrille on the Mergeld Sea. It is dominated by Baron Enguerrand backed by the Merchant Guilds of Varnais, known as the Sleepless Port, whose fleets of ships trade far and wide. It also describes the city, along with ‘le Chancre’ or ‘Canker’, the maze of slums and hovels that make up the shanty town outside its walls, in detail enough that a Game Master could draw a simple map, perhaps the only thing that is missing from the article. Wayne Imlach also gives a write-up of ‘Bödvar Bjorn’, a great hero of the Mercanian sagas, a famed sea wolf, berserker and archer of unmatched ability. There are not full stats for him, but again enough for the Game Master to create him should she want to include him as an NPC.

‘The Light Elementalist’ by James Healey and Joshua Roach details a new Profession. The Light Elementalist follows one of the two non-traditional Elemental Paths, the other being Time. They originally drew their power from seven Sun Orbs, but one has been stolen and used by the Priests of the True Faith and two have been bonded to Darkness. The Profession feels underwritten, but is supported with a set of ten increasing powerful spells, such as Flare, which creates a bright light in the sky which blinds everyone within a mile; Sunbeam which inflicts a ray of pure light at a target; and Purge, which removes all diseases and poisons from the subject of the spell. There is a good mix of spells, some intended to heal, others not, which brings spells normally associated with healers and clerics to the sorcerer type of Profession.

Last in the first issue of Casket of Fays is ‘The Tatzelwurm’ by Brock. This is a serpent with the head and forelegs of a cat, which is a minor danger encountered in the northern mountains of the Coradian mainland. It has a poisonous bite and can even exhale the poison. It is a colourful enough creature, but does not come with suggestions as to how to use it since it only appears to prey on lone villagers, shepherd, and the like.

Physically, Casket of Fays #1 is plain and simple. The few illustrations are decent, but like any amateur publication, it could always benefit from a few more. More useful perhaps would have been an extra map in one or two places. The editing is decent, but overall, the issue feels somewhat underdeveloped. This is the first issue though and to an extent, that is to be expected. And of course, Casket of Fays #1 is free to download, so it is very much a labour of love as opposed to be being a commercial venture. For the Game Master running a fantasy campaign—whatever the setting or rules system—Casket of Fays #1 is worth perusing for ideas given that it is free. For the Game Master of a Dragon Warriors campaign, Casket of Fays #1 is definitely worth perusing for ideas, though she may have to develop the content further herself in order to bring some of it to the table..

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another choice is the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

Published by Straycouches Press, Crawl! is one such fanzine dedicated to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Since Crawl! No. 1 was published in March, 2012 has not only provided ongoing support for the roleplaying game, but also been kept in print by Goodman Games. Now because of online printing sources like Lulu.com, it is no longer as difficult to keep fanzines from going out of print, so it is not that much of a surprise that issues of Crawl! remain in print. It is though, pleasing to see a publisher like Goodman Games support fan efforts like this fanzine by keeping them in print and selling them directly.

Where Crawl! No. 1 was something of a mixed bag, Crawl! #2 was a surprisingly focused, exploring the role of loot in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and describing various pieces of treasure and items of equipment that the Player Characters might find and use. Similarly, Crawl! #3 was just as focused, but the subject of its focus was magic rather than treasure. Unfortunately, the fact that a later printing of Crawl! No. 1 reprinted content from Crawl! #3 somewhat undermined the content and usefulness of Crawl! #3. Fortunately, Crawl! Issue Number Four was devoted to Yves Larochelle’s ‘The Tainted Forest Thorum’, a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game for characters of Fifth Level. Crawl! Issue V continued the run of themed issues, focusing on monsters, but ultimately to not always impressive effect, whilst Crawl! No. 6: Classic Class Collection presented some interesting versions of classic Dungeons & Dragons-style Classes for Dungeon Crawl Classics, though not enough of them. Crawl! Issue No. 7: Tips! Tricks! Traps! is a bit of bit of a medley issue, addressing a number of different aspects of dungeoneering and fantasy roleplaying.
Published in November, 2013, as its title suggests, Crawl! No. 8: Firearms! is another focused issue, and that focus is on guns and adding guns to your Dungeon Crawl Classics roleplaying game campaign. Guns are something of a difficult subject when it comes to Dungeon Crawl Classics because it is a fantasy roleplaying game and guns, whether because of their history or their technology, do not belong in a fantasy roleplaying game. Much like firearms historically negate the degree of training necessary to wield a bow effectively on the battlefield, in fantasy, they negate the years of study and training necessary to become a wizard, as well as being easier and faster to reload. They are in the main, the province of roleplaying games and campaigns set in the modern day or the future, although historically, the modern day begins in the seventeenth century when armies and individuals wield arquebuses, flintlocks, wheellocks, and the like. Historical precedent aside, this does not mean that a Dungeon Crawl Classics Judge cannot include or add them to her campaign, and well as providing rules for their use, Crawl! No. 8: Firearms! gives at least one way in which they can be added to a campaign.
Crawl! No. 8: Firearms! opens with Reverend Dak’s ‘Firepower!’. This gives a quick discussion of how and why firearms might be introduced into a campaign before providing rules for their use. Should they be powerful and rare or mundane and not much pop? The advice for power and rare at least is to build limitations into their use, whether that includes limiting them to black powder or non-automatic, or using the optional rules included. The basic rules include their being fast and that they can be aimed, so that the user gains Die Bump up to a bigger die for the initiative, attack, and damage rolls. Damage is always the one die, except when it is doubled for aiming. Taking cover is an action and increases Armour Class, and duels are extremely deadly, inflicting a number of dice’s worth of damage equal to the Level of the Player Character or NPC. Since the duellists will be standing facing each other, this seems fair enough—if nasty! 
Optional rules include making Critical hits deadly, firearms complicated—giving users a negative Die bump to rolls until they are properly trained, and automatic weapons can be used to attack everyone in a ten feet area. Actual stats for guns are given in ‘From Gold to Guns’ by Mike Evans with the Reverend Dak. This covers weapons across four eras—of powder and smoke, gear and bullet, destruction and calamity, and lasers and rockets. The latter group is where the article strays into the realms of Science Fiction, but its contents are very easy to use.
Reverend Dak provides a reason for the inclusion of firearms in a campaign with ‘Invasion!’. This sets up an invasion by an alien species, the reasons why it is invading, and so on, with a series of tables. Thus, who they are, where they are from, what they want, and who and what they brought with them, whilst stats are provided for all of the given invaders in a separate appendix. This is the first of several appendices which round out Crawl! No. 8: Firearms!. ‘Appendix R: References’ lists other roleplaying games where firearms play a role, whilst ‘Appendix S: Submissions’ collects the best submissions to the editor’s blog, and notably adds explosives and bombs to the mix. Lastly, ‘Appendix T: Firearms Critical table’ and ‘Firearms Fumble Table’, both by S.A. Mathis, provide exactly what you expect.
Physically, Crawl! No. 8: Firearms! is decently presented. The writing and editing are good, and artwork, if not of highest quality, is all very likeable. The wraparound cover is a nice touch. The subject matter—and thus the whole issue—is going to be a hit or a miss for most Judges, players, and campaigns. It all boils down to whether or not they want to include the use of firearms alongside their fantasy. If they do, then everything is here in a handy fashion to include it. If not, then the issue will be of little interest, though this does not mean that the issue is by any means a bad one. Even if a Judge has no plans to add firearms to her campaign, there is nothing to stop her reading the issue to find out how it might be done, and Crawl! No. 8: Firearms! certainly provides that. Overall, Crawl! No. 8: Firearms! is a solid, serviceable treatment of its focused subject matter which is easy to bring to the table if that is what a Judge wants for her game.

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—


Published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1981, Merc: A modern Roleplaying Game of Counter Insurgency was one of the first military themed roleplaying games. It had been preceded by The Morrow Project from Timeline, Ltd., although that was a post-apocalypse roleplaying game, and would be followed by FASA’s Behind Enemy Lines and Role Playing Games, Inc.’s Recon: The Roleplaying Game of the Viet Nam War, both in 1982. The genre would arguably reach its apotheosis in 1984 with the release of Twilight 2000 from GDW. Of course, the earlier Traveller Book 4: Mercenary from 1978 from GDW would cover some of the same subjects and situations as Merc, but being a Science Fiction roleplaying game, it would avoid some of the real-world issues that Merc deals with. What is interesting about the titles in this genre is not that they were published at all, but rather that it took so long for the roleplaying industry to publish straight, non-fantastical treatments of military subjects given that hobby had essentially come out of the wargaming hobby and that many of its designers and players had military experience. 
The designers of Merc set out their stall with, “Think of the possibilities: go back to 1954 and go on patrols with the Legion in Indo-China, or search the countryside of Ireland for I.R.A. terrorists, join 5 Commando in 1964, or even lead a patrol of Soviet 103 Guard Army Airborne into Afghan hill country. With these rules and your imagination you can visit Rhodesia, Chad, Angola, El Salvador, Panama, or even Cuba. Of course, your accommodations won’t be first class and you’ll have people shooting at you, but we guarantee lots of excitement.” Thus, Merc is a role-playing game of modern mercenaries in action, carrying out missions for their employers anywhere in the world, being employed as Soldier of Fortunes operating in small teams. Missions will be covert or overt, and range from assassinations and search and destroy to sweeps and reconnaissance.
Merc comes as a boxed set, which contains a thirty-six-page book, four cardstock reference sheets, plastic transparent overlay, and two six-sided dice. The book covers character creation, including former service and why the Player Character decided to become a mercenary, rules for movement and stealth, small arms combat, vehicles, experience, and a short mission. The reference sheets reprint various tables from the book, whilst the plastic transparent overlay has a target which is placed over the silhouettes of vehicles and men on the other reference sheets and the hit location rolled for. This is likely one of the first uses of a transparent overlay in a roleplaying game, and would most notably be seen again in 1991’s Millennium’s End from Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment and 2007’s Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier from Kenzer & Company.
A Player Character in Merc is defined by his Physical Appearance, Physical and Mental Attributes—Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Knowledge, Intuition, and Prior Military Service, and one or more Military Specialities. The latter two will be defined by a mercanary’s Physical and Mental Attributes. Physical Appearance values are rolled on three six-sided dice. All Physical and Mental Attributes are measured as percentile values, but range from eleven to sixty-six. These are all generated by rolling two six-sided dice and treating one as the tens dice and the other as the ones dice, again one of the earliest uses of the ‘d66’ in a roleplaying game. The process is relatively straightforward and a player is free to assign the rolls to the attributes as he likes, primarily to be able to select the ‘Military Occupational Specialty’ of his choice.
Name: Ernest LuddeAge: 31Height: 5’ 9”Weight: 170 lbs.
Hair Colour: BlackEye Colour: BrownComplexion: AverageVoice: AverageHandedness: Ambidextrous
ATTRIBUTESStrength 62 – Strong (+5 Test Modifier)Agility 63 – Nimble (+5 Test Modifier)Intelligence 24 – AverageKnowledge 54 – Knowledgeable (+10 Test Modifier)Intuition 61 – Primordial (+5 Test Modifier)Prior Military Service 44 – Extended Service (+10 Test Modifier)
MOS #1: Heavy Weapons ExpertMOS #2: Martial Arts Expert
Frame: MediumCarrying Capacity/Build: Above Average (125 lbs.)
MAJOR TESTSStress Test: 46Dexterity Test: 46Command Control: 51
Mechanically, Merc uses two core mechanics. The first is Major Tests, of which there are three—Stress, Dexterity, and Command Tests. The first is rolled when a Player Character is in a tight situation, under sniper fire, in a minefield, and so on, and can result in him freezing, bolting for cover, or blindly opening fire. The second covers acts of agility and athleticism, whilst the third is how well troops follow a Player Character’s command. All are rolled as percentiles on ‘d66’, the aim being to roll under. The second type of test is the Skill test, and there are nine of them—Detection, Evasion, Pathfinder, Stealth, Intercept Messages, Decipher, Concealment, Set/Disarm Explosive Devices or Traps, and Set/Disarm Non-Explosive Devices or Traps. All are rolled on two six-sided dice, the aim being to roll under a target of six or less, though this target can be modified by the situation and the Merc’s Primary and Secondary MOS.
As a military game, Merc recommends that it be played using 20 mm miniatures. It covers just about everything you would expect—types of movement, terrain, vehicles, types of opponents, combat, ambush, traps, and equipment. Movement is by type, cross-referenced with terrain and how far a mercenary can get in thirty seconds. The vehicles tend to be light and relatively small, so trucks and jeeps, no more than armoured personnel carriers, scout cars, and light tanks, plus limousines and private jets. Opponents include government troops, terrorists, guerrillas, and natives. The list of equipment is exactly that, and anyone expecting something more complex or detailed is likely to be disappointed. Combat uses three different mechanics. Unarmed combat is a standard Skill Test, as are use of grenades and mortars, though with higher targets. Small arms fire though, is rolled on three six-sided dice, the aim being to roll under a target of twelve or less, though this target can be modified by the situation. Sniper shots use the transparent overlay placed over a silhouette. Two six-sided dice are rolled, modifiers are applied, and the result compared to the number on the transparent overlay. The aim is to roll as low as possible to get closer to the aim point. Rolls of zero or below are considered to be on target.
There is not a huge amount of depth to Merc, but damage is where it definitely feels underwritten. Located in the section for the Corporation—the name for the Referee in Merc, and also the employer for the teams of the Player Character mercenaries—it is handled on a single table which with a roll or two, determines hit location, severity and damage inflicted, and effect. Typically, this includes the initial damage, the ongoing damage, and whether or not the damage inflicted is a mortal wound. There is no effect from skill or weapon type as such. The rules also state that Body Points are lost, when in fact they are not. Rather they are gained, whether from the initial damage, from wounds, and ongoing damage, such as internal bleeding. As a mercenary gains more, the greater the chance of his falling unconscious or dying from his wounds. Similarly, the rules for medical care are also underwritten and undeveloped.
Also, for the Corporation, there is a guide to mission types and how many Experience Points a mercenary will earn from successfully completing it. A mercenary will earn more if his MOS is pertinent to the mission and he performed it well, so a medic will earn more for keeping a hostage already known to be seriously wounded, alive long enough to bring him back after being rescued. Experience Points are then divided in two, one half being paid as money to the mercenary and the other awarded as actual Experience Points, and these are split between Attributes and MOS. Exactly how that works is not quite fully explained. Ultimately, should a mercenary acquire enough Experience Points, he is hired by the corporation and retires.
The Corporation is provided with an example of play, which is definitely of use when trying to understand the rules and how the game is meant to be played. There is also a scenario set in Rhodesia in 1975. The Player Characters are mercenaries hired by the White minority government to strike at a village harbouring ‘terrorists’ who have crossed the border with Zambia and begun operating in the area. It comes with a couple of maps and six pre-generated mercenaries. There is a distinct anti-Communist tone to some of them and in comparison, to the pre-generated mercenaries, the scenario does not even name any of the terrorists, give them any personalities or motivations, or backgrounds—and the villagers are ignored all together. The orders for mercenaries are to eliminate the terrorists—and if necessary, the village. Much more of a wargaming than a roleplaying scenario, would anyone really want to roleplay such a mission? There is no denying the historicity of the situation, but that does not make it any less abhorrent.
—oOo— 
It would be at least a year before Merc: A modern Roleplaying Game of Counter Insurgency was reviewed at the time of its release. In the January 1983 edition of The Space Gamer (No. 59), Brian R. Train thought that the game suffered from a lot of ambiguous rules, saying, “This is quite a good game for an (assumed) first effort – I feel its flaws are due basically to not enough development time and design limits. If a later, revised edition of Merc were put out, I would heartily recommend it. As it is, though, I would warn the buyer to ‘approach with caution’ unless he is already quite familiar with the subject matter, in order to fill in the numerous holes.”
Paul Cockburn gave Merc only a thumbnail review in Imagine No. 9 (December 1983), alongside reviews of other Fantasy Games Unlimited titles—Daredevils, Daredevil Adventures, Vol 2, No. 1 & 2, Merc Supplement 1, and Swords & Sorcery for Chivalry & Sorcery. He wrote, “Merc is clearly designed for the gun nut, the sort of role-player who likes to know just how much of a mess his assault rifle will make of a ‘soft’ target.” before concluding “The book is dedicated to ‘Mad’ Mike Hoare, (Mercenary Extraordinaire)—and I’m sure he’ll be delighted.” In comparison, William A. Barton, writing in Different Worlds Issue 32 (Jan/Feb 1984), gave Merc and its first supplement a more detailed review, in the process identifying several issues with the rules which felt should have been caught in the editing and playtesting stages. He stated that, “If the thought of going into corporate employ for combat missions in third-word countries on a regular basis is appealing to you—or if you desperately need additional information to bolster campaigns based on systems such as Traveller’s Mercenary, which lacks data on most of the situations covered by Merc—FGU’s little game of modern counter-insurgency situations might not prove a bad buy for you at all.” However, he thought that the price was “…[j]ust a bit steep for those not thoroughly committed to modern merc role-playing.”
—oOo—
When it was published in 1981, Merc: A modern Roleplaying Game of Counter Insurgency was a very contemporary roleplaying. After all, Colonel ‘Mad’ Mike Hoare would attempt a coup d’état in the Seychelles in November of that year, the film The Wild Geese and the book it was based upon appeared in 1978, and The Dogs of War, the film based upon the book by Frederick Forsyth, had been released the year before. The concept of mercenaries conducting small unit operations in faraway countries was common, and as Soldiers of Fortune, such men were revered and reviled in equal measure. It is rare that a roleplaying game can be or would be as contemporary. Forty years on, and both Merc and the world it depicts are very much a piece of history—and a troublesome one at that. Today, mercenary work has been corporatised as security work and is rarely in the news as it was then, but the world of Merc is one of post-colonial intervention, even meddling, in Third World countries, and it feels, and is, distasteful. As is mention of the fact that mercenaries served with the Nazis in World War II, as is having to determine height, weight, build, and so on, according to ethnicity, as is the scenario being set in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and being employed by the White government to prevent ‘terrorists’ sneaking over the Zambian border and attacking the railway. This was the situation in Rhodesia, but having to roleplay that now as well as the other elements, means that it is horribly dated, and feels at least horribly inappropriate, if not actually racist. And that is not even mentioning that all of the Player Characters are meant to be male. Of course, it depicts what was a male world, but again, it feels unintentionally misogynist.
In some ways more a military skirmish wargame than a roleplaying game, Merc: A modern Roleplaying Game of Counter Insurgency has not dated well in the forty years since it was originally published. At best, it showcases why sometimes the contemporary is not always the best realm for a roleplaying game to be exploring. It might be serviceable for what it is, and arguably not even that in some places, but the world it depicts and what it involves the Player Characters doing is most definitely a different country, and beyond its limited historical significance as a roleplaying game, perhaps Merc: A modern Roleplaying Game of Counter Insurgency should stay there.

“Good evening, and once upon a time…” What if these were the opening words of the six o’clock news? What if the news was not only of the latest government initiative, a war in a faraway country, threat of famine in another, a new economic report, a celebrity’s scandalous activities, and all you would expect, but also of Gods walking the Earth, their cults proudly and joyously celebrating festivals dedicated to them, of myths being enacted and reinforced? What if corporations and celebrities and politicians purposefully align their brands with the Gods in the hope gaining their patronage, the love affairs and scandals of the Gods are the subject of the magazines at the supermarket checkout, Valkyries and Amazons work as mercenaries, Satyrs make for the greatest party hosts and revellers, and victorious sports teams give praise to Nike? And not millennia ago, but yesterday, last week, and tomorrow? This is The World, which is just like ours except that the Gods are real, their faiths accepted alongside the more modern monotheistic faiths of ours, and the supernatural is real, but occluded rather than hidden.

The World is one with multiple pantheons—the Aesir, Manitou, Theoi, Netjer, Kami, Tuatha Dé Danann, Óríshá, Devá, Shén, and Teōtl pantheons—often rivals and competitors for the same myths, legends, artefacts, and aspects of The World. As much as they are idolised, it is rare for any one of the Gods to walk the Earth or directly intervene in the affairs of mortals, primarily because they need to maintain a balance between the human belief and worship in them which forms both their personalities and their roles and the danger that the fickle nature of that belief and worship will drastically change their personalities and their roles. Instead, they reside in Overworlds and Underworlds from which they project Terra Incognita, lands of myth once removed from The World, but accessed via Gates such as Bifrost or Fengdu Ghost City, or Axes Mundi, like travelling the aether or sailing the ocean to reach the River Styx. Many of these Terra Incognita parallel real-world locations in The World. For example, Boston’s Catholic churches double as Tuatha sancta, whilst its city parks are strewn with fairy mounds from which lead stray paths where tolls must be paid or riddles answered to again access dreamlike gardens. Sailors carrying a piece of wood or stone from Ireland may find themselves voyaging into Tir na nÓg rather than docking in Boston Harbour. The shining metropolis of Memphis in Egypt with its skyscrapers and maglev mass transit is contrasted with the ancient and macabre necropolis of Saqqara next door, where with the right spells, entry into the Duat, the realm of the dead, may be found.

The feuds and rivalries between the Gods are not the only sources of conflict in The World. The primary conflict is between the Gods and the Titans. The Titans are also deities, but are archetypal embodiments of a particular purview whose pursuit of their primal urges tend to have destructive effects, especially on the mortal realms. Consequently, the Gods, many of them children of the Titans, imprisoned the Titans, who have rattled their chains ever since, more recently weakening them and allowing their more monstrous offspring to enter The World and threaten humanity. Into this conflict step the Scions. Each is the half-divine child of one the Gods and humanity. Many do not know the true nature of their parentage and so explain their amazing abilities and skills as being due natural talents, others have undergone the Visitation, the moment when their true nature and divine lineage is revealed and they are granted their Birthright, gifts from their godly parent.

This is the set-up for Scion: Second Edition, published by Onyx Path Publishing. Inspired by The Wicked + The Divine by Keiron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, the television series Carnivàle, and others, this is a contemporary roleplaying game of modern myth and epic heroism in which not only do the gods walk amongst us, they often have children too. These children, the Scions of the gods, born to the magic of yesterday and the promise of tomorrow, are caught up in a war with the Titans, elder beings who rage against the human world and its wayward gods. As children of the gods, the Player Characters protect the interests of their parents on Earth whilst protecting humanity against the ravages of the Titans. It is explored through not one book, but four, each book representing a different Tier. These are Scion: Origin, Scion: Hero, Scion: Demi-God, and Scion: God, which explore the Scions’ growing ties to their own myths and legends and to the mortal world, the latter weakening as the former strengthens, as they become increasingly involved in divine conflicts.

Scion: Origin is the starting point. The Player Characters are mortals, not yet aware of their true nature, even though divine ichor flows through their veins. They might be a faith healer whose powers are truly divine in nature, a stuntman whose physical prowess enables him to throw himself into any situation, a gambler whose luck truly shines, a mercenary for hire always able to get the job done, but part of that will be their unknown divine mature. Alternatively, a Scion may not be the son or daughter of a God, but a Supernatural being. These include Saints, Kitsune, Satyrs, Therianthropes, Wolf-Warriors, and Cu Sith, who may in turn achieve true divinity like the sons and daughters of the Gods.

A Player Character in Scion: Origin is first defined by a Concept and three Deeds—short-term, long term, and band-term—which combine the Scion’s aims and what his player wants. He has three Paths, one each connected to his Origin, Role, and Society/Pantheon, representing decisions the Scion has made or experiences made, the Origin his background, the Role his occupation or area of expertise, and Society/Pantheon his connection to an organisation, cult, or pantheon. Origin Paths include Adventurer, Life of Privilege, Military Brat, or Child of the Street; Role Paths include Charismatic Leader, Detective, and Technology Expert; and Society/Pantheon the Aesir, Manitou, Theoi, Netjer, Kami, Tuatha Dé Danann, Óríshá, Devá, Shén, and Teōtl pantheons and one of its Gods. In the long term, a Path also provides a route along which a player can develop his character, and will be rewarded in doing so with slightly reduced Experience Point costs. He also has Skills and Attributes, and lastly, a Calling and Knacks. The Calling is an archetype such as Creator, Guardian, Hunter, Lover, and so on, each of which has several associated natural or supernatural benefits, or Knacks. For example, ‘The Bare Minimum’ for the Healer Calling, enables a Scion to tend someone safely even without the right tools and ‘Experienced Traveler’ for the Liminal Calling lets a Scion quickly pick up social cues and language even in the remotest of locations, and is unlikely to be seen as out of place. Some Knacks require the expenditure of Momentum—acquired from failed dice rolls, and whilst a Scion can know multiple Knacks, at the Tier of Scion: Origin, he can only have the one active.

Creating a Scion is a matter of making choices building upon the Concept and selected Pantheon, the player deciding which of his Scion’s Paths is primary, secondary, and tertiary and assigning dots to skills based on each Path’s skills. Attributes are divided into three arenas—mental, physical, social, and are assigned dots based whether they are primary, secondary, or tertiary. The Scion’s Approach, how he prefers to act, whether through Force, Finesse, or Resilience, grants further dots in the three associated attributes. The process is not complex, and whilst it is supported by a solid example, it could have been eased with a clearer summary at the start of the process.

Our sample Scion is the Pre-Visitation Elias Castro who made it big as a successful lawyer defending even bigger-name clients, some of whom were guilty and he managed to get off. He made himself rich and famous—even infamous—and then his conscience got to him. Elias began to drink and gamble, putting himself in debt, leading to a vicious circle of terrible clients, drinking, and gambling. Part of him wants to be off the rollercoaster, part of him continues to enjoy the ride.

Name: Elias Castro
Concept: Off-the-deep-end Gambler
Parent: Hermes
Origin Path: Surburbia – Everybody’s gotta grow up somewhere
Role Path: Charismatic Leader – Honey tongued lawyer
Pantheon Path: Hermes – Caught between two worlds
Calling: Trickster (1)

DEEDS
Short-Term Deed: To take one more risk (Courage)
Long-Term Deed: To get sober (Conviction)
Band-Term Deed:

SKILLS
Culture 3 (Rough & the Smooth), Empathy 5 (I can see through you), Integrity 3 (I stand by everything I say), Leadership 2, Persuasion 5 (Would I lie to you?), Subterfuge 4 (God of Gamblers), Technology 1

ATTRIBUTES
Intellect 3 Might 1 Presence 3
Cunning* 4 Dexterity* 2 Manipulation* 5
Resolve 2 Stamina 1 Composure 3

Movement: 2
Defence: 1

KNACKS
Aura of Greatness, Rumour Miller, Wasn’t Me

Mechanically, Scion: Origin employs the Storypath system, which can be best described as a distillation of the Storyteller system—the mechanics of which date all of the way back to Vampire: The Masquerade—and certainly anyone familiar with the Storyteller system will find that it has a lot in common with the Storypath system, except that the Storypath system is simpler and streamlined, designed for slightly cinematic, effect driven play. The core mechanic uses dice pools of ten-sided dice, typically formed from the combination of a skill and an attribute, for example Pilot and Dexterity to fly a helicopter, Survival and Stamina to cross a wilderness, and Persuasion and Manipulation to unobtrusively get someone to do what a character wants. These skill and attribute combinations are designed to be flexible, the aim being any situation is to score one or more Successes, a Success being a result of eight or more (this can be lowered as Scions become more powerful). Rolls of ten are added to the total and a player can roll them again.

To succeed, a player needs to roll at least one Success, and may need to roll more depending upon the Difficulty of the task. Should a Scion succeed, he can increase the number of Successes with an Enhancement, such as having a fast car in a race or the favour of a particular God, but he needs to succeed in order to use the Enhancement. Any Successes generated beyond the Difficulty become Threshold Success and represent how well the character has succeeded. These can be spent by the player to buy off Complications, for example, not attracting the attention of the Police in a car chase, or to purchase Stunts. These can cost nothing, for example, the Inflict Damage Stunt, whereas the Disarm Stunt costs two and the Critical Hit Stunt costs four. Characters in Scion: Second Edition often have Stunts due to their Birthright, such as Loki, which grants the ability to positively influence someone, but only when the character lies, but Birthrights are outside the scope of Scion: Origin.

Under the Storypath system, and thus in Scion: Origin, failure is never complete. Rather, if a player does not roll any Successes, then he receives a Consolation. This can be a ‘Twist of Fate’, which reveals an alternative approach or new information; a ‘Chance Meeting’ introduces a new helpful NPC; or an ‘Unlooked-for Advantage’, an Enhancement which can be used in a future challenge. Alternatively, a character gains Momentum which goes into a collective pot and which can be spent to add extra dice to a dice pool or used to fuel various Knacks possessed by the Scions. Scion: Origin focuses on three areas of action—Action-Adventure, Procedurals, and Intrigue. The first covers combat and is fairly straightforward. The second handles information gathering, which is divided into two categories. Leads start or continue the plot and so do not have to be rolled for by the players, whereas Clues provide extra information, are more challenging to find, and do require a roll. Intrigue covers social interaction and the reading and shifting of the attitudes of both NPCs and player characters.

Scion: Origin is a roleplaying game of supernatural and divine beings, many of varying power and scope. The mechanics cover this with Scale, both Narrative and Dramatic. Narrative Scale covers minor characters and story elements, whilst Dramatic Scale covers situations when it applies to the Player Characters. When Scale comes into play, it adds a number of Enhancements equal to the difference between the two sides involved in the scene. As with the rest of the Storypath system, Enhancements come into play as effects if successes are generated as part of a test.

The advice for Storyguide includes the general and the specific. The general is the fairly standard and includes ignoring or modifying rules she does not like, ensuring that everyone around the table is comfortable with the tone and content of the game being played, and so on. This does feel underwritten and could have included further advice and safety tools such as the X-Card. The specific discusses how to set up a campaign through steps of what it calls the Plot Engine—the seed, the pitch, and deeds and arcs. Naturally, it emphasis how to bring the myth into the game, but keep it subtle because the Scions are not truly divine, so will not be enacting the Saga of Argonauts, the search for the Golden Fleece, or penetrating the maze of the Minotaur—at least not literally. Instead, they might be enacting them with the myth alluded to, but underlying the mundane. So at the Myth Level of Scion: Origin, set at Iron Level—with the divine present in the mundane world as signs and omens which may or may not be real, bordering on Heroic Level—in which the supernatural has begun to become apparent, the search for the Golden Fleece might turn into a road trip to get a fleece jacket back , whilst penetrating the maze might mean a bureaucracy rather a labyrinth. This can be as subtle or not as the story warrants, the Storyguide advised to play with and enforce mythic tropes such as the Rule of Three, Hometown Advantage, Beauty is Only Skin Deep, and so on. To do this, the Storyguide will need to research and adapt myth upon myth, and depending upon the choices made by her players, the mythos of pantheons she is not familiar with. She is also advised to keep it dramatic, including repeating a call to adventure over and over if a Scion ignores it, slightly changing the nature of the call each time. This is delightfully unsubtle and whilst you might not do it in another roleplaying game, it is perfectly in keeping with the Urban Fantasy genre and thus Scion: Origin.

The setting to Scion: Origin is explored in several ways. This includes several pieces of fiction, all by Kieron Gillen—author of The Wicked + Divine—telling the story of Scion discovering the true nature of the world around and her place in it. Along with the sample pre-generated Scions, these a holdover from the roleplaying game’s first edition, they bring a personal perspective to the setting. One of these examples includes a God not given in the list pantheons to show other deities can be included. As well as exploring the nature of The World and its differences with ours, several cities are described, including their links to the Terra Incognito and the Axis Mundi. They include Boston and New York, Kyoto and Memphis, Mexico City and Varanasi, and more. Not all in the same detail, but they do suggest how other cities might be explored in a similar fashion. There is also a good chapter of antagonists, including archetypes, using qualities, flairs (one-shot abilities which require a cool-down period to use again), and utilities to build important NPCs, advice on creating them, and numerous ready-to-play examples. The latter are accompanied by design notes which explore the principles of each mythic creature, suggesting how they can be used and adapted from one pantheon to another.

Rounding out Scion: Origin is a set of appendices. The first explores six Supernatural Paths. These include Saints, Kitsune, Satyrs, Therianthropes, Wolf-Warriors, and Cu Sith. Of these, Therianthropes are lycanthropes, Wolf-Warriors are berserkers, and Cu Sith are fey canines. Guidelines are given on how to adjust them to model other mythical figures, such as adapting the Wolf-Warrior to be a classical Amazon, a Dahomey Amazon, and a Shieldmaiden. These shift Scion: Origin away from being a roleplaying game about the divine, and more to encompass the Urban Fantasy genre, as well as pleasingly demonstrating the flexibility of these archetypes. That said, more of them included in the book would have been nice. The second lists all of the major Gods and their Callings and Purviews for all ten pantheons presented in Scion: Origin. They include the Aesir or Norse Gods, the Manitou or Algonquian pantheon, the Theoi or Greco-Roman pantheon, Netjer or Egyptian pantheon, the Kami or Japanese Gods, the Tuatha Dé Danann or Irish Gods, the Óríshá or Yórúba pantheon, the Devá or Gods of South Asia, the Shén or Chinese pantheon, and Teōtl or Aztec pantheon. These are lists only, and whilst useful, further research upon the part of the Storyguide and her players will be needed beyond this. The third and last appendix provides a conversion guide from the first edition to the second edition of Scion: Origin.

Physically, Scion: Origin is well-written, the full colour artwork throughout is excellent, and the whole affair is attractive. Perhaps in places it feels a little too concise, especially in the examples of the rules. What Scion: Origin is lacking though, is a beginning scenario, which would suggest some idea as to how the designers intend the roleplaying game to be played. However, there is the quick-start for it, A Light Extinguished: A Jumpstart For Scion Second Edition, which could be played with the full rules using Scions of the players’ own design, rather than the pre-generated ones provided in the quick-start. More of a problem is the lack of story hooks or campaign suggestions which might have helped spur the Storyguide’s imagination. Similarly, it would have been interesting to see myths taken from the different pantheons and worked through to see how they could work in Scion: Origin. Doing so would also have been a chance for the designers to showcase some of the less familiar pantheons. Elsewhere an example of play and a full example of combat would both have been helpful.

Scion: Origin is a roleplaying game about playing Gods to be, so it is almost as if Scion: Origin is wanting to pull the Scions onto the step in their Paths to divinity, which technically would be Scion: Hero, but it never goes as far as pulling the setting of The World and the Scions over that threshold. There is a sense of the liminal to Scion: Origin which is not helped by the lack of examples and the Storyguide being left to research, adapt, and develop myths of the pantheons to really get started. This is not to say that the tools are not there for the Storyguide to get started—the Storypath system is suitably cinematic, the advice is solid, and the background is good, but Scion: Origin does not help the Storyguide make that first step into The World easy. However, Scion: Origin is a roleplaying game full of great potential and a roleplaying game in which the Player Characters are also full of great potential. For the Storyguide willing to work myths, Scion: Origin will turn into some potentially mythic stories and adventures.

Doom on the Warden is a scenario for Metamorphosis Alpha: Fantastic Role-Playing Game of Science Fiction Adventures on a Lost Starship. The first Science Fiction roleplaying game and the first post-apocalypse roleplaying game, Metamorphosis Alpha is set aboard the Starship Warden, a generation spaceship which has suffered an unknown catastrophic event which killed the crew and most of the million or so colonists, and left the ship irradiated and many of the survivors and the flora and fauna aboard mutated. Some three centuries later, as Humans, Mutated Humans, Mutated Animals, and Mutated Plants, the Player Characters, knowing nothing of their captive universe, would leave their village to explore strange realm around them, wielding fantastic mutant powers and discovering how to make use of the fantastic devices of the gods and the ancients that is technology, and ultimately learn of their enclosed world. Originally published in 1976, it would go on to influence a whole genre of roleplaying games, starting with Gamma World, right down to Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic from Goodman Games. And it would be Goodman Games which brought the roleplaying game back with the stunning Metamorphosis Alpha Collector’s Edition in 2016, and support the forty-year old roleplaying game with a number of supplements, many which would be collected in the ‘Metamorphosis Alpha Treasure Chest’.
Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Doom on the Warden is a special scenario. Written by James M. Ward, the designer of Metamorphosis Alpha, it is intended to be played using between six and eight characters with plenty of play experience behind them and plenty of scavenged equipment and artefacts. It can be played as a convention scenario and there are guidelines towards that end, but Doom on the Warden is definitely a scenario which experienced and long-time players of Metamorphosis Alpha will get the most out of. This is primarily for three reasons and why the scenario is so special. First, the scenario takes place on the fabled Level Zero, the equivalent of a lost Xanadu or Atlantis where some, all, or even none of the answers might be found as to exactly what is going on aboard the Starship Warden. Second, in exploring this Level Zero and discovering its secrets, one potential outcome is that Doom on the Warden could set the Game Master’s campaign on an entirely different course—literally and figuratively. Third, Doom on the Warden is inspired by another scenario all together—S1 Tomb of Horrors.
Published in 1978, and more recently in the 2013 Dungeons of Dread and Tales from the Yawning Portal from 2017, S1, Tomb of Horrors was designed by E. Gary Gygax and has always had the reputation of being the ultimate ‘Deathtrap Dungeon’, being filled with puzzles and traps which when combined with a seeming random factor makes it a challenge that is almost impossible to beat. It would be reprinted multiple times, receive a boxed sequel in the form of Return to the Tomb of Horrors, and its legendary status would ensure that it appeared at number three in Dungeon #116’s “30 Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time” (November, 2004). S1 Tomb of Horrors was always intended to present a challenge to the most experienced of players and James M. Ward has taken the same approach to Doom on the Warden. It is designed to challenge the players of Science Fiction roleplaying games, presenting difficult situations and fearsome opponents, but is different to S1, Tomb of Horrors in a number of ways. Obviously, it is a Science Fiction rather than a fantasy adventure—although buildings and bunkers to be found in the scenario could lend it the description of being a Science Fiction ‘dungeon bash’, but the puzzles and traps to found on Level Zero of the Starship Warden are less random and less arbitrary, and there is not the feeling that there is with S1, Tomb of Horrors that the Game Master—and thus E. Gary Gygax—is trying to kill his players’ characters. Lastly, where the title of S1, Tomb of Horrors suggested that as a scenario it was a combination of horror and fantasy, and was not, the title of Doom on the Warden does not suggest that it is a combination of Science Fiction and horror, but actually is. Doom on the Warden takes its Player Characters from megalophobia to nyctophobia to triskaidekaphobia to phobophobia to simply a sense of quiet dread…
Whether through discovery of their own or learning of it through a myth or legend, perhaps imparted by a tribal shaman, Doom on the Warden begins with the Player Characters at the entrance to ‘heaven’, an engineering hatch through which rises a great chimney, ascending to the home of the Ancients. Inside they discover several bodies of the Ancients—perhaps cast out of Heaven?—and as the chimney turns into a walkway, the Player Characters find themselves seemingly in a land of the giants, a forest of Brobdingnagian proportions, filled with giant trees, hornets the size of fists, and beasts such as rabbits and squirrels large enough to become beasts of burden. As with other levels on the Warden, Level Zero is a large oval shape, approximately eighteen miles across from the bow to the stern and fourteen miles from port to starboard. The level is divided into three concentric ovals or zones, working inward, a forest of giant willows, a berry plantations laid out with patches of mutant berries, and extensive flower gardens full of glens of mutated flowers, each one of different character and invoking a different sense of fear. There are plenty of encounters to be had in each of these zones, depending upon the direction in the Player Characters want to explore. They are free to wander and there is a table of random encounters included for each zone. Most of these encounters will either be dangerous or hostile, but there are plenty which are not and many of these are quite lightly done, adding an element of humour and roleplaying which nicely contrasts with the dangers and hostilities to be found elsewhere. One thing that the Player Characters will discover is that there is something or someone at work on the level—forestry robots work the forests, others work to restore the damage done by the catastrophe centuries ago, and there are transport devices readily and willing to ferry the Player Characters onward.
Ultimately, the Player Characters should make their way to the centre of the level and the island in the centre of Blume Lake—the latter a nod to the brothers who were early investors and co-owners of TSR, Inc. The island is home to a bunker, a place of the Ancients, and clearly an important one. Numerous robots protect it, but whatever intelligence is at work on the Level, it seems to want help… The final scenes of Doom on the Warden will see the Player Characters either save the Starship Warden or…?
Doom on the Warden is a difficult and challenging adventure. There are numerous encounters which will kill the Player Characters, a few simply by design, many through a player’s foolishness, but most through luck and the roll of the dice. As they proceed across this secret level, the players and their characters will be rewarded if their play is both careful and intelligent—and not just in terms of their characters’ survival, for there are plenty of artefacts and equipment to be scavenged too.
There are two ways in which Doom on the Warden can be run. One is as part of an ongoing campaign, the author suggesting that it be run as the midpoint of such a campaign. By that time, the players and their characters should have accumulated plenty of playing experience of Metamorphosis Alpha and the Starship Warden, as well as their characters having collected numerous artefacts, devices, and weapons of the Ancients. Even then, Doom on the Warden may be too challenging a scenario and its degree of lethality too high, such that it may even be a campaign-ending scenario. If so, it might be better off run towards the end of a campaign, or even as the culmination of campaign, more so because if the Player Characters are successful, the scenario sets the campaign and the Starship Warden in a wholly new (old) direction.
The other way of running the Doom on the Warden is as a tournament scenario much as S1 Tomb of Horrors was originally intended. This is run as a more linear scenario, rather than allowing the Player Characters the freedom to roam, the aim being to get them to Blume Lake and the bunker on the island at its centre. As well as advice on running the scenario, the author includes three sets of different pre-generated Player Characters and their motivations for exploring Level Zero aboard the Starship Warden. For the purposes of tournament play, each of the three groups of pre-generated Player Characters begin play with more knowledge about Level Zero than they would if the scenario is being as part of an ongoing campaign. The first group consists of Pure Strain Humans, members of the Vigilist tribe which dates back to the original Metamorphosis Alpha campaign run by James Ward. The Vigilists and their village were created by E. Gary Gygax and their inclusion is a nice tribute to him alongside the author being inspired by S1 Tomb of Horrors. The aim of the Vigilists is to ascend to Heaven and restore the Starship Warden to its original course. The second group consists of Wolfoids from Epsilon City—as detailed in the supplement of the same name—and like the Pure Strain Humans, their aim on Level Zero is to take control of the ship. Lastly, the third group consists of Mutants, drawn from across multiple levels of the Starship Warden, who also want to take control of the ship, primarily to deny control to the Pure Strain Humans. Almost a fifth of Doom on the Warden is dedicated to character sheets for the three different groups. They consist of eight Mutant, one Pure Strain Human, and six Wolfoid pre-generated character sheets, there being just the one Pure Strain Human character sheet because they are easy to roll up in comparison to Mutants and Wolfoids. Lastly, Doom on the Warden includes three pre-generated Player Characters inspired by backers of the Kickstarter.
Physically, at just forty-eight pages, Doom on the Warden is a nicely presented hardback. Both writing and editing are decent and as you would expect from a title from Goodman Games, the range of artwork is excellent. In particular, Peter Mullen’s double-page spreads inside the front and back covers really capture the scope and scale of the Starship Warden. They, like much of the artwork can be used as handouts when running Doom on the Warden.
If there is an issue with Doom on the Warden, it is perhaps that it is difficult to use, that it has the potential to end a campaign. That though is by design and by inspiration, S1 Tomb of Horrors itself suffering from both issues. Fortunately, Doom on the Warden is very much less arbitrary in its play and its design than S1 Tomb of Horrors. If there is anything missing from Doom on the Warden, it is a gallery of its artwork which the Game Master can use as handouts for her players. 
Doom on the Warden is a fantastic scenario. It is big, it is nasty, it is dangerous, and it has the scope to either end a campaign, whether as a Total Party Kill or as the culmination of an ongoing campaign, or set both campaign and the Starship Warden on a wholly new (old) course. It lives up to its inspiration, S1 Tomb of Horrors, but goes beyond it to have the Player Characters’ actions have an effect upon Level Zero of the Starship Warden, on the Starship Warden itself, and on the campaign, and is better for it. Doom on the Warden is deadly and if the Player Characters are not careful or smart, they will get killed, but not necessarily in as arbitrary a fashion as S1 Tomb of Horrors. Which means that if the Player Characters can succeed and overcome the challenges presented in Doom on the Warden, then both they and their players truly have the right to feel a sense of great accomplishment.

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 undead have arisen and are dead set on chewing down on any still alive. A handful of Survivors are stuck in the centre of a city, but know if they can get to the helipad, there is a helicopter which they can escape aboard. Between them though, is a cadaver cavalcade with Bullets in short supply—though nearby buildings can be scavenged for further supplies and weapons, and the Survivors are as equally as desperate to escape as each other. This is the set-up for Zombies!!!, which takes a classic zombies movie plot and turns it into a board game designed for between two and six players, aged fifteen plus. Originally published by Journeyman Press in 2001—and by Twilight Creations, Inc., since 2002, Zombies!!! combines dice rolling, hand management, and take-that mechanics with the themes of exploration, combat, and bloody zombie horror!

Open up Zombies!!! and you find a lot of components—thirty map tiles, a fifty-card Event deck, Life and Bullet tokens, six human Survivor miniatures, and a hundred zombie miniatures! Yes, really. A hundred zombie miniatures! The miniatures are simple. The humans all wield shotguns, whilst the zombies are all reaching out for their next victim whilst moaning , “Brainssss…” The map tiles are each four inches square and marked with a three-by-three grid of squares. They depict the streets and buildings of the town where Zombies!!! takes place. Some have named buildings like the Toy Store, Police Station, and Hospital. Each named building indicates the number of zombies found in the building and the number of Life and Bullet tokens which can be scavenged from the building. One map tile is marked with a helicopter. This is the Helipad, the destination which is one of the ways of winning a game of Zombies!!!. The map tiles are done in grey and muted tones, reflecting that this is a town at night.

What stands out though about the production values of Zombies!!! are its Event cards. Painted by Dave Aikins these are superb slices of horror, each depicting a Survivor dealing with the zombies swarming the town. Perhaps sneaking past as in ‘Alternate Food Source’, which stop all zombies from attacking that Survivor until his next turn; confronting them like throwing a ‘Grenade’ in the Army Surplus Store, killing all zombies inside, but inflicting damage on the Survivor too; or healing from their attacks, such as applying a ‘First Aid Kit’, which prevents the Survivor from taking damage when in the Hospital or Drug Store. Many of the cards are designed to complicate the lives of other Survivors. For example, ‘Butter Fingers’ forces a target Survivor to discard a weapon or two Bullets; ‘Your Shoe’s Untied’ halves the target Survivor’s movement roll; and ‘Slight Miscalculation’ fills a target building up with zombies, up to double the amount given on the named map tile. Many of the Event cards work only specific buildings, for example, the aforementioned ‘First Aid Kit’ and ‘Grenade’. Lastly, the rules are done in simple black and white and easy enough to read and understand. The rules run to three pages, the other page devoted to a piece of fiction and a nice little foreword by George Vasilakos, publisher of the zombie roleplaying game, All Flesh Must Be Eaten.

Set-up for Zombies!!! is easy. Each player receives a Survivor miniature, three Life tokens, three Bullet tokens, and three Event cards. The Town Square map tile is placed in the centre of the table, the other map tiles are shuffled and the Helipad tile placed at the bottom. Then on each turn, a player draws a new map tile and places it anywhere on the map as long as any of its roads connect to the adjacent tiles. Zombie miniatures are added to the new tile and building on a name tile as indicated. The player refreshes his hand of Event cards back up to three, rolls a die to determine how far his Survivor can move, fighting any zombies encountered square by square. To defeat a zombie, a player rolls a die and hopes to get a four, five, or six. If he does, the zombie is defeated and added to the player’s collection. If he rolls a one, two, or three, he loses a Life token. If he loses all of his Life tokens, his Survivor miniature is moved back to the Town Square map tile to start again, and he loses any weapons he has from Event cards and half of his accumulated Zombie miniatures. Alternatively, if the player has any Bullet tokens, he can spend them on a one-for-one basis and hopefully increase the value of the roll to survive the combat and continue moving. Lastly, the player rolls a die and moves that number of zombies in any direction he likes. Typically, this will be either away from his Survivor miniature to ease his path on his next turn or towards the Survivor miniature of another player to make his next turn just that bit more difficult, or a mixture of both. During the turn, a player can also play a single Event card and also discard one.

Play continues like this until the Helipad map tile is drawn. This is always placed by the player with the least number of zombies currently in front of him. This will typically be nearer that player’s Survivor miniature than those of his rivals, but at that point, Zombies!!! becomes a race game to get to the Helipad first. The player whose Survivor gets there first wins the game. The other way to win is by defeating and accumulating a total of twenty-five zombies in front of you.

Physically, Zombies!!! is a decently produced game—at least for 2001. The rule book is a bit plain, but the zombie miniatures are fun and the tiles decent, if a little thin. The Event cards are to reiterate, fantastic. They really capture the grim, bloody nature of the situation that the Survivors find themselves in, and they are the exact reason why Zombies!!! would go on to win the 2001 Origins Awards Best Graphic Presentation of a Board Game. They are also the same reason why later editions of Zombies!!! would raise the suggested minimum playing age from twelve to fifteen.

Zombies!!! manages to be both a great game and a terrible game at the same time. It is a great game because it is pure Ameritrash. It is high on luck, it involves lots of deadly combat, has a high take that aspect as everyone plays Event cards against each other, and it does not so much ooze theme, as bash it against the nearest wall and splatter it across the room. It is also easy to learn, easy to teach, and it can be fun to play. It can also be tense because each player is desperately trying to husband both Life and Bullet tokens against the need to search for more, entering the dark confines of buildings to do so. It is a terrible game because it is pure Ameritrash. It involves too much luck and the take that value is high; many of the weapon Event cards only work in specific buildings, which whilst thematic, limits their use; there is too much combat without any real significance, which slows game play—Zombies!!! does feel as if it should be a shorter game; and ultimately, the Survivors are just waiting for the Helipad map tile to be drawn and the race for the endgame to begin, because trying to get the twenty-five zombies necessary to win is really challenging.

In 2021 Zombies!!! is twenty years old. Not only did it win an Origins award, but would receive sixteen expansions, which in turn added a military base, a mall, a school, and more, including new themed map tiles, Event cards, and zombie miniatures. As much as these added theme and further showcased Dave Aikins’ art, they did have the side effect of increasing the space and time needed to play Zombies!!!. Plus, the game received spin-off titles enabled players to play as the zombies hunting humans, deal with an alien invasion, and even have the players face skeletons rather than zombies back in medieval times. Which all serve to highlight how successful Zombies!!! was. Indeed, it would ride the wave of popularity that hit board games in the noughties all the way up to the release of The Walking Dead television series, and beyond… Notably, it would make the jump from specialist shops that supported the hobby into mainstream shops, especially ones that sold CDs, DVDs, and the like. With its eye-catching, action-packed cover, this ensured that Zombies!!! reached a wider audience that it would not have done otherwise.

It is easy to dismiss Zombies!!!, but it has been highly popular and despite its flaws, it is still playable, it is very easy to bring to the table, and it can be fun to play, even after twenty years. Zombies!!! is a still a classic ‘beer ‘n’ pretzels’ treatment of a classic horror situation.
—oOo—
Twilight Games is currently running a campaign for the Zombies!!! 20th Anniversary Edition on Kickstarter. (With thanks to Niamh for her loan of her copy of Zombies!!!, which she can definitely have back.)

The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories: Seven Ready-to-Play Adventures for RuneQuest is an anthology of scenarios designed for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Published by Chaosium, Inc., the septet is designed for use by a Game Master new to Glorantha and is set across the various lands of the Sartarite tribes in Dragon Pass. The scenarios will see the Player Characters attend a festival and compete in a great competition, rescue clan regalia, come to the aid of a distant village beset by a ghostly monster, help lift a curse from a village in danger of famine, search for missing children in woods infested with ghouls and a skulk, investigate a previously unknown ruin, and venture out onto the Plains of Prax to attend a wedding ceremony. In order to run any of the scenarios, the Game Master will need no more than the core rules for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and the Glorantha Bestiary, although The Glorantha Sourcebook may prove useful for its further information. The scenarios in The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories do not constitute a campaign, but they can be worked into a campaign, especially one set in and around the hamlet of Apple Lane and the lands of the Colymar tribe, such as RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack and The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories.

The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories opens with the titular ‘The Pegasus Plateau’. It takes place before the Three Emeralds Temple, which is dedicated to the Ernalda and stands below the Pegasus Plateau, a few miles south of Clearwine. Pegasus Plateau is notable as having been the home to a flight of Hippogriffs, which serve as the spiritual liaison between Earth and Sky and guide the Three Winds into Dragon Pass. Recently, a flight has returned to the plateau and the priestesses of the Three Emeralds Temple have decided to reinstate the Three Winds Celebration, a three-day festival which ends in a race up the almost unclimbable plateau to locate and a chance to bond with a hippogriff and so make it a competitor’s mount. The Player Characters not only have the opportunity to participate in the Three Winds games—and very much should participate—they also have the chance to interact with a number of different NPCs. These include the priestesses at the temple, the various traders attending the festival, and their fellow competitors. This can lead the Player Characters becoming involved with local politics—the nearby Locaem tribe is currently in turmoil following the death of its leadership during the Dragonrise, as well as creating both rivalries and friendships with their fellow competitors.

Ultimately, the winners of the Three Winds games will have to ascend to the top of the plateau, locate the flight of Hippogriffs, and attempt a bonding. The ascent is difficult and involves several unexpected challenges, not least of which can come from the other competitors. Good roleplaying throughout the festival may grant the Player Characters both clues and advantages. ‘The Pegasus Plateau’ is a good scenario, one that gives the Player Characters the opportunity to shine and the chance to really begin building their reputations and legends. After all, how much greater a starting point is there than bonding with a Hippogriff? However, it is a busy scenario with lots going on and several things for the Game Master to keep track off. The Game Master will also need to work with her players to get their characters involved, as unlike the other scenarios in the anthology there is no standard reason for them to attend the festival. Consequently, it feels a little underwritten in places and too busy in others for a scenario designed for a beginning Game Master and whilst it is the anthology’s titular scenario, it does not feel quite right as the opening scenario for the anthology. However the Game Master decides to use ‘The Pegasus Plateau’, its outcome is likely to be memorable for the Player Characters and their players, there are both NPCs which can become recurring members of the campaign, and hooks the Game Master can develop into further adventures.

The second scenario, ‘The Grey Crane’, is perhaps the easiest of the entries in The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories to work into a campaign built around the content and scenarios contained in the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack. It takes place in the lands of the Hiording Clan, part of the Colymar tribe which shares Apple Lane with the Varmandi Clan, although it could be moved to another clan altogether. Either way, the Player Characters are summoned to the clan hall of their affiliated clan along with the great and the good of the clan as the chieftain is about to receive a small delegation from Lunar Tarsh under a banner of peace. Not all of the tribe are happy to see the Lunars—and some of the Lunar delegation are unhappy to be there—but the leader of the delegation causes an uproar when he politely asks to see a set of relics, known as the ‘Grey Crane’, sacred to the clan and associated with a clan legend involving the death of an overly ambitious and misguided alchemist known as Miskander. This is a chance for the Player Characters to test out their feelings about the Lunar Empire versus the demands of Sartarite hospitality, persuading the current holder of the relics either way. Whatever the outcome, a week later, the relics are stolen, and the obvious culprits are the Lunar delegation which just visited. The chieftain charges the Player Characters with recovering it, which means travelling to the Lunar Tarshite’s camp and again testing out their feelings about the Lunar Empire, but with the situation reversed.

‘The Grey Crane’ is a much more straightforward scenario. It does the social nuances of both receiving and ‘probably’ acting as a delegation nicely, and whilst the final twist as to where the ‘Grey Crane’ actually is feels a bit like a deus ex machina, it actually works and is explained why. The scenario also does a good job of humanising the Lunar Tarshites and if used with the adventures in the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack would serve to help pull the Player Characters into their local community.

Previously released to mark the anniversary of the passing of Greg Stafford, ‘The Rattling Wind’ takes the Player Characters east to the remote Antorling Clan hamlet of Farfield in the foothills of the Quivin Mountains near the Dog-Rat Valley. Of late, the village has been attacked by the ‘Rattling Wind’, a ‘monster in the night’ which has killed locals once a week for the last three weeks, its arrival heralded by a thunderous cadence and the shaking of shutters and windows as it passes, disappearing into the night after leaving its victims crushed. The desperate villagers cannot account for what caused this, only pointing to the arrival of a family of Ducks into the area as the only recent event of note.

‘The Rattling Wind’ is a classic action-horror-mystery which uses a well-worn plot, but uses it to good effect. It comes with secrets and consequences and a handful of not always likeable NPCs, including a grumpy Duck! It is more of an investigative scenario than the previous ones in the anthology, leading to a good mix of interaction and fantastic action scenes, as the Player Characters first poke around and then are confronted by the threat as it comes rattling out of the night to take its victims. The solutions to the situation are straightforward, enabling the adventurers to tackle with either brains or brawn. The former will be required early on in the scenario and perhaps later on if the clues are not necessarily found. There is no right way to address the situation in The Rattling Wind and the adventurers are pleasingly not penalised for choosing one means of resolution over another.

There is a degree of the Gothic to ‘Crimson Petals’, the fourth scenario, which takes place in the village of Greyrock, which has been forced to the edge of famine, forcing the inhabitants to wider hunting and even greater acts of raiding on nearby villages. The villagers are suspicious of outsiders and although in desperate need of help, not always welcoming of it, but astute investigation will reveal carefully hidden goat bones, a preponderance of red flowers, a blocked temple to Ernalda, and a sickness of red blotches found on men, women, and children alike. If they get nowhere, it is the children who will be able to supply the Player Characters with certain information, enabling them to investigate further. This is a lovely touch in an investigative scenario which will probably benefit from the inclusion of an Ernaldan priestess and a shaman—if not both.

‘Gloomwillow’s Hollow’ is set in the Woods of the Dead, the lands of Brangbane, the Ghoul King, between Herongreen and Alone, and includes a description of the Highwall Inn, previously detailed in Highwall Inn for HeroQuest and Questworlds to mark the first anniversary of Greg Stafford’s passing and The Coming Storm, a campaign sourcebook for HeroQuest Glorantha. The adventure, actually called ‘The Hollow’, begins with Player Characters in Alone, hired by the city’s desperate mayor to find the more than a dozen children who have disappeared into the nearby Woods of the Dead in the past few weeks—or to avenge their deaths. Harried by strange batrachian creatures, the Player Characters are drawn into the Woods of the Dead where they must explore a twisted, arboreal dungeon which almost seems to be alive as it thrashes about them. ‘The Hollow’ is a dark and twisted adventure which may well put off the Player Characters from entering another forest any time soon.

In some ways, ‘The Ruin on the Stream’ is the strangest adventure in the anthology. Whether due to rumours of strange lights, sounds, or sights or perhaps of indication of a ruin marked on ancient rather than modern maps, the Player Characters are drawn to a rich and verdant area where dinosaurs may be found as well as a set of ancient ruins. There they encounter a Dragonewt ready and willing to communicate and even teach them about the purpose of the ruins. He encourages their participation and if they do, the Player Characters are put through a series of tests, participating in his heroquest and in the process learning secrets of the past. This is a good scenario for any Lhankor Mhy Player Character, who might be nudged to investigate the site following the purchase of some maps available in the earlier ‘The Pegasus Plateau’. The Game Master will probably wants to conduct a little further information in The Glorantha Sourcebook, especially if she want to develop sequels to this scenario.

The last scenario in The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories is ‘The Pairing Stones’, which takes the Player Characters east out of Sartar and onto the Plains of Prax. They are employed as caravan guards by a Trader Prince of Issaries who is taking a pack train carrying various trade goods to sell at a wedding. This wedding will be held at the Pairing Stones, two natural pillars of differing colours leaning towards each other, where it has become common for those of different tribes and nations to marry. The marriage in question is to be between a prince and princess of the Impala and Bison tribes, the hope being that the union will help end the ongoing feuds between the tribes. Unfortunately, when the pack train arrives at the Pairing Stones, the place is in uproar—the bride-to-be, Delenda Bretta’s Daughter, has been  kidnapped by Rhino Riders! The Player Characters’ employer quickly negotiates their involvement in the search for the missing bride. The situation is, of course, no simple abduction, and the story behind ‘The Pairing Stones’ has a familiar feel, but the scenario is nicely set up, the NPCs’ motivations well described, and the potential outcomes of the scenario explored in some detail. Overall, it is well told and the scenario will introduce Sartarite Player Characters to Prax and Praxian customs.

The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories does not only include scenarios. In the case of ‘Gloomwillow’s Hollow’, there is extra information about the region in and around the Woods of the Dead and the dangers it contains, principally, of course, the Ghoul King and his ghoul horde. A quartet of adventure seeds provide further reasons for the Player Characters to revisit the area and perhaps put an end to the threats it is home to—though beginning Player Characters are likely to find these threats very challenging. Elsewhere, the anthology describes the Locaem, the tribe upon whose lands upon which the Three Emeralds Temple stands. The description includes its history right up to its difficult relation with the Lunar Empire, walking a fine line between deference and rebellion, until the last king and his family were killed in the Dragonrise. The tribe’s clans are also detailed as are the various places of interest on its territory. The last entry in the anthology is a write-up of ‘Renekot’s Hope’, a small village lying on the route between Tarsh and Dragon Pass. It is a community of refugees, ex-veterans, and exiles wanting to avoid the conflict between Sartar and the Lunar Empire, so is home—and a would-be home—for the disparate types which typically make up the Player Characters. Various NPCs are detailed, accompanied by some excellent illustrations, and along with the village major locations, a trio of potential threats are described, ready for the Game Master to develop. ‘Renekot’s Hope’ is designed as a starting location for the Player Characters and a campaign, though it is in a region which is not as well covered as Sartar and the area around the Colymar tribal lands currently is.

Physically, The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories is as solidly presented as you would expect for a title for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. The illustrations are excellent throughout, the index good, and sections of boxed text provide supplementary information, such as a guide to the Great Winter or where to look for information about the full Draconic Creation Myth, or advice for the Game Master, such as setting the ‘Goals for this Scene’. Both provide help for the Game Master, especially for the Game Master new to RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. Physically, there is an issue with the anthology, it is with the maps. A variety of styles is used, which gives the book a slightly inconsistent feel and the regional map, which shows the placement of the book’s content, is not necessarily an easy read. Certainly, some maps are easier to read than others.

None of the scenarios in The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories are very long, each one needing two or three sessions to play through. This makes them easy to work into a campaign, especially one set in and around Sartar, though in some cases, they do require a degree of preparation, in some cases more than might be necessary for the beginning Game Master. Some of the stories verge on the cliché, but where this is so, the stories are well-handled, and in all cases, the potential outcomes of each scenario is usefully explored. Overall, the seven scenarios in The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories: Seven Ready-to-Play Adventures for RuneQuest showcase the diversity of adventures and stories which can be told in Glorantha and a session or three.

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

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


—oOo—

Name: Full Fathom Five
Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Paul Fricker

Setting: 1840s South Seas
Product: One-Shot Scenario
What You Get: Sixty page, 5.63 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Moby Dick meets the Mythos (with Sea Shanties).Plot Hook:  The lure of the sea runs deep.Plot Support: Twenty-three pre-generated Investigator sheets, portraits for all NPCs and Investigators, staging advice for the Keeper, deck plans, glossary and location guide, five handouts, three Mythos NPCs/monsters.Production Values: Clean and tidy, decent deck plans, good handouts, and clearly done pre-generated Investigators.
Pros
# Nautical one-night, Blood Brothers-style one-shot scenario
# Potential convention scenario
# Different historical setting# Twenty-three pre-generated Investigators and/or NPCs
# Nasty series of deaths# Challenging switch between Investigators, victims, and/or NPCs
# Challenging roleplaying of Investigators, victims, and/or NPCs# Strongly plotted# Natty nautical X-card# Sea Shanties

Cons
# Twenty-three pre-generated Investigators and/or NPCs
# Involves whaling (animal cruelty)# Challenging switch between Investigators, victims, and/or NPCs# Heavily plotted# All male cast# Sea Shanties
Conclusion
# Different historical setting
# Challenging roleplaying of Investigators, victims, and/or NPCs# Nasty nautical one-shot# Sea Shanties

Published in 2015, Shadow of the Demon Lord is roleplaying game which feels like a combination of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and the Dungeons & Dragons Ravenloft setting that is slipping towards Fantasy Flight Games’ Midnight setting by way of The Dying Earth and some steampunk elements and an unhealthy dose of Heavy Metal. Published by Schwalb Entertainment, it combines fast character generation—taking no less than five minutes—and offers a player  plenty of choices in what his character becomes; models short campaigns which take a Player Character from Zero Level to Tenth Level, a group of characters going up in Level at end of each adventure so that a campaign can be played in just eleven sessions or scenarios; and as the titular Demon Lord rattles at the last bars that keep him imprisoned in the Void, his influence continues to despoil land and mind alike, the ‘Shadow’ of the Demon Lord and its effect upon the world can be adjusted and set by the Game Master. This can be something hinted at in prophecies, a rumour threatening in the background, an imminent disaster, or a catastrophe such as a pandemic, famine, earthquakes, the dead living and walking, the Wild hunt abroad in the land, a sudden winter out of season, wild magic warping all and sundry… and more.

Tales of the Demon Lord is a campaign for Shadows of the Demon Lord. It consists of eleven adventures set in the lands of the Northern Reach, the far-flung province of a dying empire, whose capital is Crossings, a city perched on shores of the island-strewn and fae-inhabited lake known as Dark Waters. The city is best known as a fishing port and for its Academy of Engineers established by the Empire long ago and the six faerie spires which have stood since long before the city was built. Originally founded by exiles, refugees, and bandits from the Empire, but since subsumed into its borders before being ignored as a distant province, the council rather than governor-led Crossings acknowledges Sixton as the capital of the province, but otherwise ignores it and decides what is best for the citizens of Crossings. However, as the Shadow of the Demon Lord looms over the Empire, Crossings is not immune to the impending doom, an ancient cult with a branch in the city, the Brotherhood of Shadows, scrambles to find a way to bore a hole into the Void that is home to the Demon Lord, and so release both him and hordes of demons intent on destroying the world. As the Player Characters undertake one task or mission after another, they will cross paths with not only these cultists, but also rival cultists who want to take control of the Brotherhood of Shadows and so claim the glory of successfully summoning their master and doom the world…

Tales of the Demon Lord provides several reasons why the Player Characters might be in Crossings according to their Profession—Academic, Common, Criminal, Martial, Religious, or Wilderness—and quickly lays out the basics of the plot and details Crossings and various NPCs. Some of the city is described in detail, including its government, various districts, and important NPCs. The description is accompanied by a decent map and is enough for the Game Master to run the Tales of the Demon Lord campaign or any other scenarios set within its walls, whilst still leaving plenty of room for the Game Master to add her own content. Very quickly though, Tales of the Demon Lord gets into the first part of its campaign.

The first of the eleven adventures in Tales of the Demon Lord is ‘Harvester of Sorrows’. A priest from Crossings’ poorest district, Grievings, has gone missing following a series of disappearances he was investigating himself, and the Player Characters are asked to find him. A little investigation will reveal that the priest was enquiring about a nearby dilapidated house, once home to an infamous demonologist, and after a run-in with a local gang, there the Player Characters will discover that someone else also has an interest in the house and accidentally released a dread creature that is preying on the inhabitants of the surrounding the district. This is a common aspect of the scenarios which will follow in Tales of the Demon Lord. ‘Harvester of Sorrows’ gets the campaign off to a grim start just as you would expect for Shadow of the Demon Lord, but is not too challenging.

‘Born to Die’ is the first of two scenarios for Novice-level characters. The gang encountered in ‘Harvester of Sorrows’ has kidnapped the daughter of a local merchant and is holding her for ransom, and her father engages the Player Characters to see to her safe return. However, the Player Characters are not the only ones looking for the daughter and will need to deal with at least one other faction to get to her. Mostly set on an island in Dark Waters lake, the first of several scenarios which will take the Player Characters out of Crossings, this is a hostage rescue scenario, which of course, will go wrong. The second scenario for Novice-level characters, ‘The Curious Case of the Errant Swine’, takes the Player Characters truly out of the city to the farm of Farmer Ham, who recently had one of his fine hogs stolen. He wants the thieves caught and his hogs returned, if possible. Signs point towards the nearby Sentinel Wood and investigation there will locate both the culprits and the reasons behind the abductions, but has horrid secrets of his own he wants kept hidden. This scenario has a nice mix of interaction, investigation, and exploration, in particular into a partially-flooded Elvish underground shrine.

‘Temple of Shadows’ sees the Player Characters back in the city as a vile plague sweeps through Purse, Crossings’ wealthiest district, its victims descending into gibbering madness before dying and rising as demon-possessed animated corpses! In this first scenario for Expert-level characters, the fact that house of Pentachus Katandramus, a wealthy aristocrat, has been destroyed in a recent explosion surely cannot be a coincidence and Inquisitor Randolfus and his henchmen, but have not returned. When the Player Characters get past the cordon and descend into the house, they discover another factional feud, this time for control of the vile temple under the remains of the house and what might be hidden there. ‘Temple of Shadows’ is followed by ‘The Moon Spire’, which will take the Player Characters away from Crossings again, this time to the hamlet of Carbuncle, infamous for the physical oddities and infirmities of its inhabitants, and the strange Moon Spire, an elvish tower which appears at the full moon. This is a strange exploration of an even stranger building, the Player Characters needing to find portal after portal to work their way up the tower without being kicked out. Again, this is another search for a relic which needs to be denied to the enemy, but one which will require the Game Master to track carefully where the Player Characters are as there is a high chance of their being separated.

Another theme in Tales of the Demon Lord, that of others uncovering things best left covered, continues with ‘Mines of Madness’. The third scenario for Expert-level characters, this has the Player Characters sent into the Black Hills west of Crossings, where the Dwarf, Gundren the Ironmonger, operates a mine. Ore shipments have stopped coming and he wants to know why. Arriving at the mine, the Player Characters discover that the miners are missing and must descend into the mine to find out what has happened. This scenario is incidental to the campaign, as is the next, but ‘Mines of Madness’ is a decent enough dungeon-bash. The fourth, and last scenario in the campaign for Expert-level characters is ‘In the Name of Love’, which takes place in the rapidly declining town of Verge. This is a more sophisticated piece, one-part sandbox, one-part character study, in which rumours of missing villagers and strangers seen about the place should drive the Player Characters to investigate. A combination of good roleplaying and investigation will reveal that not all is well in Verge as anger has awoken a demon-tree, strangers predate on victims’ tears, and brigands pick at the bones of the settlement in this bloody tragedy.

If the Player Characters have been working to prevent the coming of the Demon Lord and thus the end of the world, if only inadvertently at this point in the campaign, then they find themselves with a rival in ‘Shadows in the Mist’ in this first scenario for Master-level characters. When they return to Crossings, they hear reports of new-borns having gone missing, a new island appearing in the lake, and then a monster haunted fog rolls in and shrouds the city. The island and its inhabitants prove unwelcoming to visitors and when the Player Characters get to close to the culprit, they become the hunted. The steampunk elements of Shadow of the Demon Lord are played up in ‘Off the Rails’, as the provincial governor recruits the Player Characters to investigate a recent train crash and recover several iron titans, prototype mechanical soldiers which might replace the Empire’s Orc soldiery and which were aboard the train. As the Player Characters are investigating the crash site, they are drawn to a nearby village by the sound of an explosion. If they race to investigate, they discover the village under attack by Orc rebels in command of the iron titans—but the villagers have their own means of defence! The likelihood is that a big battle will ensure, either against the Orcs or villagers, not both, and then there is the matter of the remaining rebels to deal with…

The penultimate scenario in Tales of the Demon Lord is ‘Prince of Darkness which brings the summoning of the Demon Lord one step closer, but for the Player Characters, help comes from an unexpected quarter—a reformed demonologist who has escaped Hell! A demon has taken possession of the demonologist’s former stronghold and is tearing open a rift to the Void. With the demonologist’s aid, the Player Characters must enter his stronghold and find a way to defeat the demon or prevent it from opening the Void. The last scenario and campaign finale is ‘The End is Near’ in which the Brotherhood of Shadows moves openly to summon its master as rivals try to take control of the cult’s efforts. The scenario begins with an investigation into the death of Crossings’ mayor, the first of several possible murders in the city, and culminates in the Player Characters confronting several factions in an attempt to bring about the end of the world!

Tales of the Demon Lord is rounded out with ‘Appendix: New Creatures’, which presents several types of an insectoid species encountered in the mines in ‘Mines of Madness’. Physically, Tales of the Demon Lord is well presented, with decent artwork and some nice cartography. In terms of a campaign, Tales of the Demon Lord lives up the grim and bruising tone of Shadow of the Demon Lord, the Player Characters being constantly assailed by demons, cultists, and other vile threats. It feels compact, there being roughly two or four pages per scenario, each of which should provide two or three secessions’ worth of gaming.

However, Tales of the Demon Lord does not quite work as a campaign as written. Some effort is required by the Game Master to provide monster statistics and magical relics when found, but further, the Game Master will need to set up and provide continuing links between the scenarios, as none are provided. A patron is required for the Player Characters at the very least, but once the campaign gets under way, this should be less of an issue. It does add to the set-up requirements for the Game Master though. Similarly, the Game Master will be on her own when comes to the outcome—successful or failed—of any scenario, plus the outcome, if successful, of the campaign. The effects of failure though, is easier to determine. The lack of connective tissue between the scenarios means that not every scenario is specifically connected to the campaign’s story line as well, and whilst in places this means that the campaign is showcasing the ongoing, dying nature of the world around the Player Characters, it also means that sometimes it feels as if they are being shunted off scene whilst other things occur. However, the lack of connective tissue between the scenarios has an advantage too, providing some flexibility in terms of the order in which they can be played—though this would have to be within the confines of the Path the Player Characters are on (Novice, Expert, or Master)—as well as making them easy to extract from the book and either replaced, added to another campaign, or run as a one-shot. With some effort, a Game Master could also adapt the campaign to the roleplaying game of her choice, whether grim and perilous, or not.

Tales of the Demon Lord is as dark and twisted and as grim and perilous a campaign as you would want for Shadow of the Demon Lord. It is a solid, intentionally short campaign, which serves up a good mix of horror and insanity, but which will require more development and set-up than another campaign might not.

The Ana-Sin-Emid Report is a scenario for Those Dark Places: Industrial Science Fiction Roleplaying, the roleplaying game of Blue-Collar Science Fiction horror published by Osprey Games. It is written by the roleplaying game’s designer and presents a short investigative scenario which can be played through in a session or two. It takes a traditional type of Science Fiction setting and gives it a horror twist which echoes that of the film, Event Horizon. It can be played as a training simulation to determine their suitability for working between Earth and the frontier of space as part of the application process as described in Those Dark Places, or it can be run straight as an assignment during their years of employment. This also means that it can be run with new Player Characters or more experienced ones, but its horror elements will probably be more effective if the scenario is played with Player Characters who have encountered some scary situations and suffered Episodes of Pressure before. Either way, it will take relatively little time for the Game Monitor to prepare The Ana-Sin-Emid Report for play.

The setting for The Ana-Sin-Emid Report is the Iota Pegasi B System, the site of Grant Stellar Station, a Cambridge-Wallace, Inc. facility. The Player Characters are either stationed there or making a pickup or delivery, perhaps Cambridge-Wallace, Inc. employees, perhaps not. Whatever the reasons for their being on the Grant Stellar Station, a situation has arisen and the station manager grabs the first available crew and assigns them to resolve it. If they are Cambridge-Wallace, Inc. employees, then fine. If not, there is a set of emergency employment mandates written into their contracts—in very small print—which means that they have little choice in the matter. The situation is that in the last hour, the Deep Space Transport Vessel The Ana-Sin-Emid dropped out of FTL and began coasting towards the inner system. If it continues on its current path, it will disrupt operations and present a potential hazard. There has been no communication from the vessel and its current pattern of deceleration suggests that it is under automated piloting. The Ana-Sin-Emid is the property of the Wayne/Tanaka Corporation, but as it is Cambridge-Wallace, Inc. space, Cambridge-Wallace, Inc. has the right to offer assistance, board her and, if the opportunity presents itself, claim salvage. Which is where the Player Characters come in.

The Player Characters are tasked with getting aboard The Ana-Sin-Emid, get to the bridge, and report back to the station manager. If they have their own vessel, they can use that, but if not, the Player Character are assigned the Deep Space Reconnaissance Vessel Grahams, a small starship designed to jump into distant star systems and conduct preliminary survey sweeps and collect information upon which the decision to conduct deeper survey or resource exploitation missions can be made. If the Player Characters lack a pilot amongst their number, then one will be provided. The Player Characters have about twelve hours before another ship can be readied and sent out to The Ana-Sin-Emid, so they are the first response to the emerging situation.

Once at their destination, the Player Characters find The Ana-Sin-Emid under power, but unresponsive. Energy and heat blooms can be detected, there is no sign of damage, and the airlocks are closed. Essentially, the Player Characters are free to explore the two decks of the vessel, and its eighteen locations as is their wont. They will quickly find that it has been abandoned and that there are signs of violence scattered throughout the ship. However, as they explore The Ana-Sin-Emid, the Player Characters—singly or in groups—begin see strange things. Are they hallucinations? Are they something else? And whatever they are, what is causing them? Is there a chemical agent in the ship’s air supply or is it something else? Ultimately, the cause of the problems aboard The Ana-Sin-Emid is relatively easy to determine, but this does not mean that the Player Characters will necessarily solve it. Strange incidents may place them under too much Pressure, and there is scope for both accidents and incidents of violence during their exploration of the apparently abandoned vessel.

In addition to the plot, The Ana-Sin-Emid Report includes for increasing the Pressure upon the Player Characters—either because they knew somebody The Ana-Sin-Emid or due to past experiences of Episodes of Pressure. An option is given for having an NPC Helm Officer, who would of course abandon the Player Characters aboard The Ana-Sin-Emid at the first sign of trouble, and there are clear deckplans given for The Ana-Sin-Emid. There is decent staging advice for the Game Monitor too.

The Ana-Sin-Emid Report is cleanly laid out, though the text needs a slight edit and the labelling on the deckplans is a bit tight in places. The various incidences of Pressure could also have been slightly more clearly marked for ease of running the scenario, especially if the Game Monitor is running with minimal preparation. The scenario does not require a great deal of preparation, but this would have helped.

The lightness of the mechanics in The Ana-Sin-Emid Report means that it is more plot than necessarily stats. This has the advantage of making it not only easy to run for Those Dark Places, but also easy to adapt to almost any Science Fiction roleplaying game. Of course, it is ideally suited to those which already combine Science Fiction with horror, especially Blue Collar Science Fiction, such as MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game or even the Alien: The Roleplaying Game, whether that is to run it straight and as is, or as a training exercise. (In fact, Those Dark Places would work as a training exercise or employment application in the setting of those roleplaying games!)

The Ana-Sin-Emid Report is nasty, weirdly creepy, and short. It is easy to run as a one-shot or add to an existing campaign, and should provide one or two sessions of play. It would also work as a convention scenario and so easily fit within a four-hour slot.

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

—oOo—

What is it?
Vajra of the Skies presents an NPC, his entourage, and associated spirits for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a twenty-two page, full colour, 3.35 MB PDF.
The layout is clean and tidy, and its illustrations, although sparse, decent.

Where is it set?
Vajra of the Skies is nominally set in the Grazelands to the west of Sartar, home to the Pure Horse People, but the NPC and his entourage could be encountered almost anywhere, though he may also be found in the lands of Prax.

Who do you play?
No specific character types are required to encounter Vajra of the Skies. Shaman characters may benefit from their interactions with Vajra of the Skies.

What do you need?
Vajra of the Skies requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and Glorantha Bestiary as well as The Red Book of Magic. In addition, The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories may be useful as Vajra is related to some of the NPCs the Player Characters may encounter in the scenario of the same name. The Game Master may need to seek further information about the Pure Horse People.
What do you get?
The second volume of ‘Monster of the Month’ presents not monsters in the sense of creatures and spirits and gods that was the feature of the first volume. Instead, it focuses upon Rune Masters, those who have achieved affinity with their Runes and gained great magics, mastered skills, and accrued allies—corporeal and spiritual. They are powerful, influential, and potentially important in the Hero Wars to come that herald the end of the age and beginning of another. They can be allies, they can be enemies, and whether ally or enemy, some of them can still be monsters.
The third entry is Vajra of the Skies, which details a Vajra, a shaman of the Golden Bow who once led the Four Gifts Clan with his younger brother, Rajhan. Since the tragic death of his brother, he has dedicated himself to his duties as his clan’s shaman and to wandering the skies of Dragon Pass on the back of the great vrok hawk Sunfriend, keeping an eye out for potential threats to the Four Gifts Clan. However, in that time, he has become all but lost in his repeated explorations of the Spirit World and addicted to the intoxicants necessary to enhance and extend those explorations. Consequently, his mind has been damaged and his grasp on the mortal realm has weakened.
Vajra may be encountered in the air astride his constant companion, the vrok hawk Sunfriend—from which he prefers to pepper any foes with magic and missiles, should combat ensue from any encounter—or even in the Spirit World, perhaps lost and in need of the Player Characters’ help. He might even seek to trade with them for any of the intoxicants he requires or ask them to obtain them for him. The two adventure seeds in Vajra of the Skies suggest encountering him in the Spirit World or having Vajra’s nephew and current leader of the Four Gifts Clan request the Player Characters track his uncle down and bring him home safe and sound. There is potential too, for a shaman Player Character to become Vajra’s apprentice, which is likely to be more of a challenge than is the norm for training to become a full shaman, given Vajra’s mentally wounded state. However, he is encountered, it will quickly become clear that Vajra is a broken man in need of sympathy and healing.

Lastly, Vajra of the Air describes the ‘Sun Horse’s Mane’, a magic item woven by worshipers of Yu-Kargzant the Sun Horse. This is a seasonal decoration and good-luck charm favoured by adolescents and new adults among the Pure Horse People, which can be woven with different flowers for different effects. It takes much of somebody’s downtime to locate the right flowers and weave them, who must invest Rune Points into the creation, and if successful, grants gifts such as resistance to disease, enhancing the Fertility Rune, and the ability to locate the wearer’s beloved. This is an interesting ‘colour’ item for any member of the Pure Horse People, but perhaps one or two suggestions as to its use could have been included for the Game Master.
Is it worth your time?Yes—Vajra of the Air presents a difficult, but challenging NPC, who can be used to introduce the Player Characters to the Pure Horse People and serve as potential, very difficult mentor for the Player Character shaman.No—Vajra of the Air presents a difficult, but challenging NPC, who might be too awkward to work into a campaign, especially if the Player Characters who do not number a shaman, as well as exploring a subject matter which not every playing group wants to include in its campaign.Maybe—Vajra of the Air presents a difficult, but challenging NPC, who might be too awkward to work into a campaign, especially if the Player Characters who do not number a shaman, as well as exploring a subject matter which not every playing group may want to include in its campaign.

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—
From the off, Knock! #1 grabs the reader’s attention and starts giving him stuff. Flip open the book and, on the front folded flap of the dust jacket, there is the beginning of a dungeon adventure, ‘Zaratazarat’s Manse’. Flip open this front folded flap and it quickly becomes apparent that the dungeon is continued on the inside of the dust jacket, all the way to the dust jacket’s back folded flap on which the dungeon’s maps have been reproduced for easy reference. Flip the actual book over and on the rear, under the dust jacket is a drop table of options to determine the stats and abilities of the baboon-like demon illustrating both the front and back covers of Knock #1. Even on the title page there is a table, ‘d12 Pamphlets Found In A Dungeon’, and this continues throughout the issue with nary a page wasted and every page filled with something interesting or useful. Leaf through the pages of the magazine and what you have is a panoply of articles and entries—polemics and treatises, ideas and suggestions, rules and rules, treasures, maps and monsters, adventures and Classes, and random tables and tables, followed by random tables in random tables! All of which is jam-packed into a vibrant-looking book.

Knock! #1 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac was published in January 2021, following a successful Kickstarter campaign by The Merry Mushmen. It is a two hundred-and-twelve page 5.9” by 8.25” full colour book containing some eighty-two entries contributed by some of the most influential writers, publishers, and commentators from the Old School Renaissance, including Paolo Greco, Arnold K, Gabor Lux, Bryce Lynch, Fiona Maeve Geist, Chris McDowall, Ben Milton, Gavin Norman, and Daniel Sell, along with artists such as Dyson Logos and Luka Rejec. The content itself is formatted for use with Necrotic Gnome’s Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy, but readily and easily adapted to the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice. Particular attention should be paid to the look of Knock! #1, which employs vibrant swathes and blocks of colour to break up and highlight the text, along with strong use of differing fonts and quotations. It is clear though that the graphic style Knock! #1 has been heavily influenced by the look (though not the tone) of Mörk Borg, but that is no bad thing as the result is eye-catching and distinctive.

Knock! #1 quickly sets out its stall and identifies what the Old School Renaissance is and what it is not. Brooks Dailey presents ‘What I Want In An OSR Game’, whilst in ‘Old – A comparison of old and new D&D’, Gavin Norman examines why he prefers Old School Dungeons & Dragons to the new through his play experiences, so elements such as objective, challenged-based gaming, encounter-based high adventure, the lack of specific rules and reliance on the Dungeon Master to make improvised rulings, rather than relying on pre-defined rules, rules where necessary, and the like. What this highlights is the fact that in places, Knock! #1 does feel as if it is treading old ground, not just that of the Old School Renaissance, but of Dungeons & Dragons itself. For example, Bryce Lynch’s ‘Wandering Monsters Should Have a Purpose in Wandering Around’ and Sean McCoy’s ‘What Do The Monsters Want?’ both address the issue of monsters being more than mere victims of the Player Characters’ weapons and wizardry, whilst Bryce Lynch’s ‘Better Treasure’ discusses why treasure to be found in many an adventure sucks and suggests ways to make it more interesting. The latter is later supported by ‘300 Useless Magical Loot’, Chris Tamm’s cramped table of magical gewgaws and whatnots. ‘The Danger of Skills’ by Brooks Dailey is very much an Old School Renaissance response to modern Dungeons & Dragons and its use of skills in that they restrict play by telling a player what his character cannot do as much as what they can, rather going by a series assumptions, such as that the character can cook and can ride.

Also traditional are the articles in Knock! #1 on dungeon and adventure design, but what is not traditional, is their approach to them, which are theoretical rather than mechanical in nature. Arnold K presents a ‘Dungeon Checklist’ of things which should be in a dungeon, to be read before and after the Dungeon Master has designed her dungeon, whilst Gabor Lux provides two pieces on the subject. The first is ‘The Overly Thematic Dungeon’ which looks at the balance between populating the dungeon in a spirit of almost random, but fantastical whimsy, and does so whilst keeping a sense of fantastic realism in mind. The conclusion is of course, to find a balance which works for you. The second is ‘The Tapestry and the Mosaic Box: On the Scope of Module Design’, which surprisingly, is inspired by my review of Echoes From Fomalhaut #02: Gont, Nest of Spies in which I criticised his scenarios for a lack of hook to involve the Player Characters. The article does not necessarily change my mind, but it does explain the author’s philosophy and that makes it an interesting response.

Knock! #1 offers plenty of new rules and means of handling various rules and rulings in Old School Renaissance play too. In ‘Does Energy Drain Suck?’ Gabor Lux suggests ways to make the attacks of Wights, Wraiths and other lesser undead more of an immediate and less of a long term effect, whilst Eric Nieudan offers alternative ways in Hit Dice might work in ‘Hit Dice Are Meant to be Rolled’, Vagabundork offers ways to avoid Player Character death in ‘Save vs actual Death?’, and Brooks Dailey gives a new rule system for handling the Class’ skills in ‘1D6 Thieving’ (which oddly follows immediately after his ‘The Danger of Skills’ article). Add to all of this are the numerous tables to be found in the pages of Knock! #1. Daniel Sell’s ‘Wizard Weaknesses’ adds multiple secrets to winkle out and undermine a wizard’s magical prowess, whilst his ‘ The village’s local retired adventurer...’ quickly generates a background for that hoary old veteran nursing a pint in the corner of the local tavern. Good-deal Nobboc’s ‘Get your gear!’ provides d66’s worth of starting equipment, Eric Nieudan suggests ‘20 Gunpowders’, Jack Shear asks, ‘What’s the Deal with Igor’s Hump?’ (complete with a picture of Marty Feldman), and Fiona Maeve Geist explains that ‘My Goblins Are…’ in a  set of tables which create goblins as more fey creatures, mundane and unnatural, but always with something interesting in their pockets. Chris Tamm also provides a complete set of sewer geomorphs and tables in ‘Sewers of Mistery’ to provide an adventuring environment close to home, under the town or city the adventurers are currently in. It also nicely ties in with James Holloway’s ‘My Aesthetic is PATHETIC And Yours Can Be Too.’ which explores the humble, grubby, and dangerous style of play British fantasy roleplaying and also the Character Funnel of Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game fame.

Elsewhere Knock! #1 explores some interesting issues and issues from interesting angles. With ‘What Kids’ RPGs are Missing’, Ben Milton analyses a playthrough of roleplaying games designed for play by kids, before suggesting that perhaps the high-risk, high-reward structure would be more to their liking, whilst in ‘The Labors of Hercules as OSR Obstacles’ suggests ways in which each of the twelve tasks might work in Old School Dungeons & Dragons-style games. It is not so much mechanical as much looking whether Hercules’ solutions might be the sort of thing players would come up with. Interesting, nevertheless. One of the criticisms of B2 Keep on the Borderlands is that it lacks names for its NPCs, but Nicolas Dessaux uses that as a starting point to apply anthropology, archaeology, geography, and other fields of study to actually find a place for the eponymous keep and explain its various features. It does get close to being dangerously realistic, but it is a fascinating examination of the module from outside of the hobby.
Knock! #1 showcases a range of maps before presenting the more mechanical content—the type of content you would perhaps expect in an Old School Renaissance fanzine—in the last quarter of the issue. The section includes new Classes such as the Living Harness, a living suit of armour once worn by a hero who died on a dark and moonless night and the Ne’er-do-well, lazy vagabonds and the like, rogue-ish, but not thieves, and very, very Vancian, both by Nobboc. None of the six classes are very serious, or even serious at all, and to a certain extent, the same can be said the monsters in the issue, such as Eric Nieudan’s ‘Thurible Cat’, a cast iron in the shape of a portly feline deity which must be fuelled with coal and incense and guards temples and which is actually based on a tea infuser! Lastly, Knock! #1 concludes with three adventures. ‘Citadel of Evil’ is for Player Characters of First to Third Level and is by Stuart Robertson, and sees them enter a mountain and ascend inside it in order to rescue kidnapped villagers. It is more serviceable and linear than interesting. Graphite Prime’s ‘Praise the Fallen’ is more interesting, a race against time for Player Characters of Second to Fourth Level to cultists from resurrecting a Fallen Angel—an angel of chaos—and whilst relatively small presents more of a challenge and a theme. Chris Tamm presents a wizard’s lair in the ‘The Wizard Cave’, which is more of a location for the Game Master to add to her campaign rather than actual adventure. The other adventure, ‘Zaratazarat’s Manse’ is for Player Characters of First and Second Level and has something strange going on in the swamps around a mouldering village. Could it have something to do with a wizard who lives in a hill in the swamp? Of course, it does, but the adventure nicely makes use of random monsters and gives a solid explanation for their appearance.

Physically, Knock! #1 is impressively bright and breezy. The layout is a little cluttered in places and the text a little too busy, but on the whole, it looks good. It needs an edit in places, but the artwork is good and the cartography excellent, but then with Knock! #1 coming out of the Old School Renaissance, it would be remiss if the cartography was anything else.

Subtitled ‘Being A Compendium of Miscellanea for Old School RPGs’, the truth of the matter is that much of the contents of Knock! #1 is far from new. A great number of the longer essays originated as blog posts, so there is a sense of some of the entries being yesterday’s comments and ideas. Much of what they say is still applicable to the Old School Renaissance segment of the hobby today, just as when they were originally posted, and in some cases, when they were explored and examined back in the ‘Golden Age’ of roleplaying that the Old School Renaissance actually draws from. So, this is not to say that the contents are poor or uninteresting or not useful, but rather that having had them published, to ask, “What next?”. As much as Knock! #1 is full of interesting, thoughtful, and useful stuff, should subsequent issues be relying quite so much on blogposts a few years old?

Knock! #1 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac lives up to both its subtitle and its own description as ‘Being A Compendium of Miscellanea for Old School RPGs.’ It is both a mishmash and an anthology of articles, essays, monsters, tables, adventures, and more—and it works for any retroclone. There is some excellent content in this inaugural issue too, like the ‘Dungeon Checklist’, ‘What Do Monsters Want?’, ‘300 Useless Magic Loot’, and ‘Borderlands’. However, some of the content does feel staid and some of it feels as if it has already been said, but the great thing about not finding one article or entry interesting, is that with over eighty entries in the anthology, all the reader has to do, is flip the page and the chances are that the next entry will be more to his liking. Ultimately, not only an excellent addition to the shelf of any Old School Renaissance Game Master, but in bringing to print a bundle of blogposts, Knock! #1 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac captures what the Old School Renaissance is like in terms of its aims and its ideas in 2020.

What has become known as the ‘AGE’ or ‘Adventure Game Engine’ was first seen 2010 in Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5, the adaptation of Dragon Age: Origins, the computer game from Bioware. It has since been developed into the Dragon Age Roleplaying Game as well as the more generic Fantasy AGE Basic Rulebook and a more contemporary and futuristic setting with Modern AGE. Published by Green Ronin Publishing, it covers every era from the Industrial Revolution to the modern day and beyond, and able to do gritty action or high adventure, urban fantasy or a dystopian future. In addition to providing a ‘Classless’ iteration of the AGE System, the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook provides sufficient focuses, talents, and specialisations to take the Player Characters from First to Twentieth Level, fast-paced action built around action, combat, exploration, and social stunts, both arcane magic and psychic powers to elements of the outré and so do Urban Fantasy, solid advice for the Game Master—whether new to the game or a veteran of it, and a sample introductory adventure, all ready for play. All of which comes packed into a relatively slim—by contemporary standards—hardback.

The Modern AGE Basic Rulebook is divided into two sections. The first and slightly longer section is for the players, its chapters covering character creation, basic rules, character actions, equipment stunts, extraordinary powers, and so on. The second is for the Game Master and covers her role, mastering the rules, provides an array of adversaries, rewards for the Player Characters, settings, and the scenario. It does not come with its own setting, but explores a number of ideas and genres including historical, steampunk, gothic and cosmic horror, Film Noir, and more. It lists a number of inspirations in each case and together these should provide enough inspiration for the Game Master to conduct further research and come up with a setting of her own.

A character in Modern AGE is defined by Abilities, Focuses, and Talents. There are nine abilities—Accuracy, Communication, Constitution, Dexterity, Fighting, Intelligence, Perception, Strength, and Willpower. Each attribute is rated between -2 and 4, with 1 being the average, and each can have a focus, an area of expertise such as Accuracy (Assault Rifles), Communication (Gambling), Intelligence (Astronomy), or Willpower (Courage). A focus provides a bonus to associated skill rolls and, in some cases, access to a particular area of knowledge. A Talent represents an area of natural aptitude or special training, and is rated either Novice, Expert, or Master. For example, at Novice level, the Burglary Talent provides a Player Character with extra information about a security system or set-up when studied and an Intelligence (Security) test is made; at Expert level, a Dexterity (Sabotage) test to get past a security system can be rerolled; and at Master level, a Perception (Searching) test can also be rerolled. As a Player Character goes up in Level, he can acquire Specialisations, such as Agent or Performer, which grant further bonuses and benefits. A character also has a Background, Social Class, and Profession, plus a Drive, Resources and Equipment, Health, Defence, Toughness, and Speed, and Goals, Ties, and Relationships.
To create a character, a player rolls three six-sided dice for each Ability—assigning them in order, but can swap two, and then rolls for Social Class and an associated Background and Profession. A Background provides an Ability bonus, a choice of a Focus, and a choice of a Talent, plus randomly determined Focus or Talent, whilst a Profession provides a pair of Focuses and a pair Talents to choose from, plus a resources score and starting Health. The player selects a Drive, such as Achiever or Networker, which grants another pair of Talents to choose from as well as an improvement to a Relationship, a Reputation, or Resources. The process itself is fairly quick and results in a reasonably detailed character.

Our sample Player Character is Dominic Grey, a journalist specialising in military affairs. He grew up a military brat and attended military college, but did not serve in the armed forces following a training exercise. Instead he currently combines a part-time junior post at a local university with freelance journalism, both roles specialising in military affairs. Although in good health, his injuries prevent from taking too active a life and he occasionally walks with a cane.

Dominic Grey
Race: Human
Social Class: Lower (Military)
Occupation: Professional
Level: 1

Accuracy 2
Communication 2 (Expression)
Constitution 3
Dexterity -1
Fighting 3 (Brawling)
Intelligence 3 (Tactics)
Perception 1
Strength -1
Willpower 2

Defence 09 Toughness 3 Speed 10 Health 18
Talents: Expertise (Tactics) (Novice), Knowledge (Novice), Self Defence (Novice)
Drive: Judge
Resources: 6, Membership (Rank 1)

Mechanically, the AGE System is simple enough. If a Player Character wants to undertake an action, his player rolls three six-sided dice and totals the result to beat the difficulty of the test, ranging from eleven or Average to twenty-one or Nigh Impossible. To this total, the player can add an appropriate Ability, and if it applies, an appropriate Focus, which adds two to the roll. For example, if a Player Character comes to the aid of a car crash victim and after pulling him from the vehicle, wants to render first aid, his player would roll three six-sided dice, apply the Player Character’s Intelligence Ability, and if the Player Character has it, the Medicine Focus.

However, where the AGE System gets fun and where the Player Characters have a chance to shine, is in the rolling of the Stunt die and the generation of Stunt Points. When a player rolls the three six-sided dice for an action, one of the dice is of a different colour. This is the Stunt die. Whenever doubles are rolled on any of the dice—including the Stunt die—and the result of the test is successful, the roll generates Stunt Points. The number of Stunt Points is determined by the result of the Stunt die. For example, if a player rolls five, six, and five on the Stunt die, then five Stunt Points are generated on the Stunt die. What a player gets to spend these Stunt Points on depends on the action being undertaken. In 2010, with the release of 2010 in Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5, the only options were for combat actions and the casting of spells, but subsequent releases for Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying expanded the range of options on which Stunt Points can be spent to include movement, exploration, and social situations. This has been carried over into Modern AGE and expanded. Combat covers firearms, grappling, melee, and vehicles, as well as basic combat stunts, whilst Exploration stunts cover exploration, infiltration, and investigation, and Social stunts cover social situations, attitude (of an NPC towards another NPC or Player Character), and membership and reputation stunts.

So, what can stunts do? For example, for one Stunt Point, a player might select ‘Whatever’s Handy’ and grab the nearest improvised weapon, which though clumsy and possibly fragile, it will do; for five Stunt Points, select ‘Break Weapon’, which forces an opposed melee attack roll and if successful, disables the opponent’s weapon; or with a firearm, choose ‘Called Shot’ at cost of four Stunt Points, which turns the damage from an attack into penetrating damage. In an Investigation, ‘Flashback’ costs a single Stunt Point and reminds the Player Character of something he forgot, whilst in a social situation, ‘From the Heart’ costs four Stunt Points and enables the Player Character to express wholeheartedly a belief that it temporarily grants a Willpower Focus.
For example, walking home at night, Dominic Grey is spotted walking with his cane by two muggers, armed with baseball bats, who decide to take advantage of him. Dominic’s player makes an initiative roll for him, whilst the Game Master rolls for the muggers, a straight roll modified by their Dexterity Ability. Dominic’s player rolls eleven, modified to ten, whilst the muggers get a total of sixteen, so the order is the Muggers and then Dominic. The Muggers have Fighting 1, Fighting (Brawling), Dexterity, and Defence 10. Both the Muggers get a Major and a Minor action each round. Mugger #1 makes a Move as his Minor action, followed by a Charge as his Major action, which grants him a +1 bonus to his attack roll. The Game Master rolls three six-sided dice, adds +1 for Mugger #1’s Fighting Ability and +1 for the Charge action bonus, plus the standard +2 bonus for the Short-Hafted Weapon Focus. The Game Master rolls two, three, and five for a result of ten, plus the bonuses for a total of fourteen—enough to beat Dominic’s Defence of nine. The Game Master rolls for damage and Dominic suffers seven damage. The Game Master then rolls for Mugger #2, but rolls one, one, and two, which although it includes doubles, means that he misses.

The miss by Mugger #2 triggers Dominic’s Self Defence Talent, which allows him to use the Grapple Stunt, which normally costs a Stunt Point, for free. This requires an opposed Fighting (Grappling) test. The Game Master rolls two, four, and six for Mugger #2, plus his Fighting Ability for a total of fourteen. Dominic’s player rolls three, four, and six, plus his Fighting Ability for a total of sixteen. This is more than the Mugger and means that Dominic has a hold of him and he cannot move. It is now Dominic’s turn and his player rolls four, four, and six on the Stunt die. This beats Mugger #2’s Defence and generates six Stunt Points. Dominic’s player first spends two of these with the Hinder Stunt. Up to three Stunt Points can be spent on this, reducing damage taken from your opponent by two for each Stunt Point spent until Dominic’s next action. His player spends two Stunt Points on this. The remaining four are spent on Hostage. This requires another opposed Fighting (Grappling) test and enables Dominic manoeuvre Mugger #2 into a vulnerable position. If the Mugger #2 does anything other than a free action on his next turn, or if Mugger #2 attacks Dominic, he can make an immediate attack with a bonus. The Game Master rolls one, four, and five for Mugger #2, plus his Fighting Ability for a total of eleven. Dominic’s player rolls four, four, and five, plus his Fighting Ability for a total of sixteen. Dominic now has Mugger #2 in his grip and as Mugger #1 moves to attack, he manoeuvres Mugger #2 into the path of Mugger #1’s swing of his bat…Another use for the Stunt die is to determine how well a Player Character does, so the higher the roll on the Stunt die in a test, the less time a task takes or the better the quality of the task achieved. The main use though, is as a means of generating Stunt Points, and whilst Stunt Points and Stunts are the heart of the action in Modern AGE, there are a lot of them to choose from. Now they are broken down into categories, and that does limit what a player can choose from. Nevertheless, there is potential here to slow play down as players make their choices and work what is best for their characters or the situation. This should lessen as players get used to the system and what Stunts work best with their characters.

In addition to covering action, combat, exploration, and social scenes, Modern AGE covers rules for handling resources (money), reputation, equipment, and more. In particular, the more is comprised of ‘Extraordinary Powers’, divided into Arcane and Psychic powers, for example, Gremlins and Arcane Hack are effects which are part of the Digital Arcana and Kinetic Strike and Levitation are effects part of the Telekinesis Psychic Power. Each Arcana or Psychic Power is a Talent, which can be swapped out with a starting Talent during character creation or selected when a Player Character rises in Level and is eligible to choose a Talent. Depending, of course, if they are part of the Game Master’s campaign. Each Arcana and Psychic Power has its own Focus and both are fuelled by Power Points, the cost ranging between two and ten Power Points, depending on the effect. Tests are required to use an effect and so can generate Stunts Points just as with any other test. The list of Power Stunts available will be familiar to anyone who has played a mage in Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying. The use of Arcane and Psychic powers is entirely optional, but opens Modern AGE most obviously to the Urban Fantasy genre, but they could be mixed into a variety of different campaign settings.

The second half of Modern AGE is devoted to the Game Master and provides advice on how to run a game, game and scene types, play styles, frame particular tests, and so on. For example, it explores how to frame a breach attempt with various examples, like infiltrating a gang or hacking a computer. It does this for chases and combat as well, along with sample hazards. Other threats are presented in the form of adversaries, ranging from Assassin, Brainwashed Killer, and Cat Burglar to Psychic, Rich Socialite, and Smooth Operator—with lots in between, all of them human. Although most of the discussion of campaign types is in the Game Master section, the actual mechanics for campaigns are back at the beginning of the players’ section and run right through it. This is because they directly affect the roleplaying game’s mechanics. Modern AGE can be set in one of three modes—Gritty, Pulpy, and Cinematic. In Gritty Mode, a Player Character can be almost as easily injured as people in real life and one bullet is enough to put him out of action, and whilst he might get more skilled, a Player Character does not get tougher as he gains more experience. Stories in the Gritty Mode tend towards realism. In Pulpy Mode, the Player Characters are more obviously heroic and grow both tougher and skilled, and stories involve more action. In Cinematic Mode, the Player Characters are tough and heroic and only tougher and more heroic. Throughout the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook there are colour-coded sections which denote which rule applies to which mode, for example, Toughness works slightly differently in each mode, not all of the roleplaying game’s Stunts are available in each mode, and the adversaries have different Health, Defence, and Toughness depending upon the mode being employed. Each of the three modes makes for a different game and type of story, but no less action or success orientated with the generation and expenditure of Stunt Points.

The Modern AGE Basic Rulebook discusses a wide array of genres, from adventure and alternate history to procedurals and urban fantasy, along with various ears, running from the Age of Reason and the Victorian Age to the Cold War and the Present Day (and beyond). It devotes roughly a third to half a page to each, along with suggested further viewing. None of the discussions are overly deep, instead they do serve as a solid starting point for the Game Master, from which she can conduct further research. Rounding out Modern AGE Basic Rulebook is ‘A Speculative Venture’, designed for First Level Player Characters. The latter attend an exclusive party held by the wealthy CEO of a technology giant to remember the legacy of a cutting-edge inventor who died the year before. When a new technological break-through is revealed—the exact nature of which is left up to the Game Master to decide—it all takes a nasty turn as masked gunmen crash the party, take hostages, and it is all up to the Player Characters to come to the rescue. Involving a good mix of social and action scenes, ‘A Speculative Venture’ is a relatively short adventure, but should serve to introduce the players to the rules and what their characters are capable of.

Physically, the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook is cleanly presented, illustrated throughout in full colour, using the same cast of characters, which gives it a pleasingly consistent look. The book is also very easy to read and the rules easy to grasp. In terms of content, it is difficult to find actual flaws in the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook. Although it discusses a lot of settings, these are done in the broadest of terms, so perhaps its might have been useful to have included one or two more detailed and worked out settings, with one of them including the use of the roleplaying game’s Arcane and Psychic powers. Thus, giving the Game Master and her players something a bit more detailed to play in. The Modern AGE Basic Rulebook is designed to cover any period from the Industrial Age to the modern day, and beyond, but what that beyond is, is never really explored. Is it Urban Fantasy, is it something else? It is not Science Fiction, as that is too beyond what the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook covers. To be fair though, these are minor issues, if they are issues at all.

When Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5 was published in 2009, it not only presented a setting based on a popular computer game, it also presented a simple, playable set of rules that enabled a group to play straightforward fantasy with cinematic action. For the then Dragon Die and Stunt Points mechanics proved to be both elegant and easy—and above all, fun. In the form of the Stunt Die and Stunt Points, the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook retains these same elements, but expands them to encompass another genre—two including Urban Fantasy, and provide options and actions which allow them to shine in a variety of different situations. It is ably supported by solid advice for the Game Master for both running the game and setting up a campaign. Overall, the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook packs a lot of punch in supporting action aplenty in its mechanics and the chance for the Player Characters to shine.

With Down There both author and publisher expand their range into a whole other genre, a whole other game system, and a whole other setting. Both Adam Gauntlett and Stygian Fox Publishing are best known for their ventures in Cosmic Horror and titles for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and Trail of Cthulhu. Adam Gauntlett for titles such as The Man Downstairs and Stygian Fox Publishing for titles such as Things We leave Behind. With Down There, both author and publisher have released their first fantasy adventure, their first scenario for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and their first scenario set in the Forgotten Realms.

Down There—subtitled ‘A Fight Against the Shadows of a Sunken Temple from the Award-Winning Maker of Horror RPG Adventures’—is set in Curgir in the northern vales of the Evermoors in north-west Faerûn, a village famous for its apples and its cider, but also for its strange past. The village was once the site of a great temple which was built following the defeat of a cult devoted to the Horned Devil Caarcrinolaas and subsequently swallowed up by the ground, never to be seen again. Inhabited by a mix of Humans, Halflings, and Half-Orcs, the land on which the village sits is owned Greystone Abbey, which has established a Chapter House in the village. The monks of the Chapter House collect rent, settle disputes, and maintain common land. More recently, the monks at the Chapter House have decided to re-establish the temple with the aim of this one not sinking into the ground like the last one. To that end, the head of the Chapter House hired Marin Chain-Breaker, a Dragonborn Exorcist to determine a means of preventing that—and now he has. He plans to hold a holy wedding on the land where the new temple will be, the ceremony aiding in the reconsecration of the ground. Designed for Player Characters of First to Fourth Level, Down There will see them encounter strange creatures of shadow, dark secrets of the past, and Halfling Monks who are not what they seem!

The Player Characters are hired by Marin Chain-Breaker to escort him to Curgir and help him in his plans to re-establish the temple and prevent its disappearance. The story kicks into action when they come across signs of an abduction on the path and a note that should have been taken to Greystone Abbey. It appears that of late, the villagers are upset about the Chapter House’s leadership of Curgir, but do not give specifics as to why. Once the Player Characters reach Curgir, they find its inhabitants slightly subdued, but they can learn more with a bit of gossip. All clues point to the Chapter House, and there the Player Characters will have the first of the scenario’s two confrontations with darkness and evil. The second will likely follow after—though the scenario’s two big encounters can be played in any order—and take place in the remains of the temple that was lost… There the Player Characters will battle for the souls of the bride and groom to be, and more!

Down There involves a good mix of investigation and interaction, as well as the two combative confrontations. It comes very well appointed, as you would expect for a scenario from Stygian fox Publishing. The artwork is excellent and the maps very clear, whether for the players or the Dungeon Master. It does need an edit in places, though. Unfortunately, that is a minor problem when compared to the difficulty that the Dungeon master might have in running Down There. The issue that the contents of the scenario are not very organised. Once past the short introduction, the reader is quickly into a list of rumours and clues relating to the mystery of what is going on in Curgir, followed by an explanation of what Marin Chain-Breaker wants, and then into the scenario itself. Down There simply does not take the time to explain to the reader and potential Dungeon Master what exactly is going on in the village before diving into the plot itself. The result is that Dungeon Master has to learn it fully as she reads and thus everything is at first a surprise followed by a greater effort to pull its various elements into something that she can run.

Despite the issue with the organisation, Down There is a more than serviceable scenario. It is well presented with good maps and nicely done NPCs. It neatly subverts both the jolly image of both the Halfling Race and the reserved characters of the Monk Class, together a default combination in Dungeons & Dragons since Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, and turns them into something greedy and venal. There is a strong streak of horror too, with some creepy moments, primarily involving the shadows which permeate the village. Whilst it needs more preparation than it really should, Down There is a good combination of the horror genre with the fantasy and would add a darker, slightly twisted feel to any Dungeons & Dragons setting, not just the Forgotten Realms.

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

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. However, fantasy is not the only genre to be explored in the pages of the fanzine renaissance.
Just as a number of fanzines have appeared to support Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, such as Crawl!, a number have also appeared to support Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic and the Post-Apocalypse genre. For example, Bunker, Gamma Zine, and Meandering. The latest is Scientific Barbarian, its content written for use with the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and published by Mudpuppy Games. Edited by Jim Wampler, designer of the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, its contents can of course, be adapted to other Post-Apocalypse roleplaying games.
Scientific Barbarian #1 was published in the autumn of 2020 following a successful Kickstarter campaign. As you would expect, it comes full of robots, mutations and maladies, and monsters aplenty, as well as a sizable techno-dungeon. With its excellent cover aping the look of Scientific American, Scientific Barbarian #1 is cleanly laid out, illustrated with a range of decent artwork, and is an easy read. It opens with ‘Bunker Briefings’, an editorial in which Wampler sets out his stall, stating that the fanzine is designed to support the ‘Mutant Murder Hobo’ style of play and welcomes those who have come across the fantasy genre to this one. The latter theme is continued with ‘Apocalyptic Visions – It’s Okay to have 87 Eyes’, in which Tim Kask extolls the virtues of mutations in Post-Apocalypse roleplaying games, particularly the joy of playing and roleplaying defects.
The contents get a proper start with Levi Combs’ ‘Ecology of the Crater Mutant’. This describes the barbarous, hardy mutants who worship and are mutated by a great source of radiation located at the heart of the crater where they live. Their faith in The Gospel of the Glow drives them to kidnap others and expose them to the radiation and so transform them into members of the ‘family’. The Crater Mutants are cross between Orcs and hillbillies and definitely support the ‘Mutant Murder Hobo’ style of play. It does feel overwritten, as if it could have been shorter, but that tends to be the way of such ecology articles. It is followed by ‘S.A.B.L.E. Rangers – Security Automations for Basic Law Enforcement’ by Michael Stewart and Elizabeth Stewart which details a law enforcement initiative begun in the ‘before times’ of the thirtieth century, aiming to combine the impartial judgement of A.I. law enforcement with the moral oversight of a human partner, thus mitigating human prejudices and sympathies. The programme developer, Automates, Inc., built several prototypes before the Great Disaster which buried its manufacturing complexes. Recent tectonic shifting has exposed the complexes, allowing the prototypes, each in the friendly form of a robotic horse, to escape and begin their duties as law enforcement devices. A S.A.B.L.E. Ranger unit—of which three types are detailed in the article—might already be found with a partner sitting astride it, but the obvious option and the one explored more fully is ‘A Sentient and the Horse’, in which the robot teams up with a Player Character. In addition to the obvious nod to A Dog and his Boy, the article nicely explores the idea and sets up great roleplaying potential between the Player Character and the S.A.B.L.E. Ranger unit, effectively giving the Judge a Player Character of her own to play. This would lend itself to play with just the Judge and a single player, but it could also work with another player roleplaying the S.A.B.L.E. Ranger unit too, although that is not supported in the article. Which is a pity as it is a missed opportunity. There is a Saturday morning cartoon and very American Wild West feel to the article, but otherwise an engaging piece.
‘Mutant Maladies’ by Skeeter Green is a preview of a forthcoming supplement of the same name which adds diseases and contagions to the Post Apocalypse. It gives stats and effects for several diseases, including AMD-6 or ‘Marrowblight’, which hardens the bone marrow of Pure Strain Humans, or Ultra-Coagulation or ‘Thickblood’, which turns the liquid blood of its sufferers into goop. The three diseases are described in some detail, but whilst their utility is obvious, it may be limited, since the Judge may not want to expose her Player Characters to such maladies too often, since their debilitating effects may impede game play. This is not to say that the diseases are not well designed or that the article is not decently written, but of limited scope. More useful then, is ‘Glowing Good Looks’ by James M. Ward, the designer of both Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World, which presents a set of three tables to be rolled on whenever a saving throw versus radiation is missed or fumbled. There are tables for humanoids, winged-folk, and four-legged mutants, all of which provide minor mutations. As promised, these are quick and easy, and sufficiently utilitarian that they work with any post-apocalyptic roleplaying game.
Pride of place in Scientific Barbarian #1 goes to Jim Wampler’s ‘The Gene Looms of Janeck-Vac’. Designed for Player Characters of Fourth and Fifth Levels, this scenario has a traditional set-up—a village suddenly imperilled by a rash of strange creatures with new mutations appearing from the nearby jungles and the Player Characters ordered by the tribal elders to investigate and put a stop to it. After a few encounters in the jungle with these strange creatures—swarms of Batslugs, Spiderhogs, and Cobrapedes—they come upon a caldera and below that a facility of the ancients full of strange devices the interfering of which will have unfathomable consequences for the Player Characters, but then again, they are Player Characters and this is the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, so of course they will interfere. As the title of the scenario suggests, the underground complex is a genetics laboratory, and if they are careful, there are lots of secrets to be discovered and even the real Janeck-Vac to be encountered. If they are really lucky, there are some singular artefacts of the Ancients which would make fine additions to the Player Characters’ equipment and provide some excellent roleplaying opportunities into the bargain. As well as a decent set of floorplans for the facility, the scenario is accompanied by stats and write-ups for all eight of the weird mutant strains that the genetics laboratory has released to date, which of course, could appear elsewhere in the Omega-Terra of the Judge’s own campaign. The structure of the scenario does feel familiar, having been seen in multiple scenarios for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and other Post-Apocalypse roleplaying games before, but it is nicely detailed and adds a twist or two on the threat from the past coming back to haunt the future.
The monsters found in ‘The Gene Looms of Janeck-Vac’ are not the only ones to be found in Scientific Barbarian #1. ‘Creature Cryptology’ provides a half dozen new creatures which the Judge can include in her campaign. Some, like the ‘Eye-Cap’ is a weird variation upon a Dungeons & Dragons-style monster, the occasionally mobile, sentient fungus covered in chitinous plates and eyestalks which grant it 360° vision and which can launch a cloud of tiny flying eye spores each capable of firing an infrared laser beam! This is a nasty creature whose main means of attack can only be targeted by area effect attacks. Others are particular to the genre and the setting, such as the ‘Gem Thief’, a holographic data crystal which attempts to mind control its current possessor and subtly directs him to where others of its kind might be found. In fact, each ‘Gem Thief’ once belonged to a lost A.I. deity and seeks to find others of its kind to resurrect the A.I. deity. The nature and identity of the lost A.I. deity is left up to the Judge to decide. Overall, the selection to be found in ‘Creature Cryptology’ is variable in terms of quality or usefulness, but that is the nature of the fanzine, plus the Judge can easily adjust any one of the new creatures in the issue.
Rounding out Scientific Barbarian #1 is a ‘Retro-Review’ of Jack Kirby’s Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth. Written by Scott Robinson, the review focusses mainly on the reviewer’s personal reaction to the collected omnibus—now and original issues when he was thirteen years old. The result is oddly uninformative and so not all that helpful to the reader when determining his interest in Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth. This could have been addressed by the editor as well. The review is followed by a pair of cartoon strips, one an excerpt from the comic strip, Knights of the Dinner Table, the other entitled ‘Onto the Wasteland…’ Together they bring the first issue of Scientific Barbarian #1 to an entertaining close.
Scientific Barbarian #1 is something of a curate’s egg—partly bad and partly good. Or rather partly merely adequate and partly good. There are perhaps a few too many monsters in the issue, what with monsters in both the scenario and their department, the review could have been much tighter, and other articles shorter. Oddly, for a fanzine dedicated to Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, there is a lack of new technology described in its pages. However, the table of new mutations is efficient and useful, the write-up and development of the S.A.B.L.E. Ranger unit concept is nicely done, and of course, ‘The Gene Looms of Janeck-Vac’ is a decent scenario with some hidden depths to it. Overall, the good definitely outweighs the not so good and just like the magazine it pastiches, Scientific Barbarian #1 is the first issue of fanzine which should be worth subscribing to, whatever Post-Apocalypse roleplaying game you already have a subscription for.

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

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

Echoes From Fomalhaut is a fanzine of a different stripe. Published and edited by Gabor Lux, it is a Hungarian fanzine which focuses on ‘Advanced’ fantasy roleplaying games, such as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Labyrinth. The inaugural issue, Echoes From Fomalhaut #01: Beware the Beekeeper!, published in March, 2018, presented a solid mix of dungeons, adventures, and various articles designed to present ‘good vanilla’, that is, standard fantasy, but with a heart. Published in August, 2018, the second issue, Echoes From Fomalhaut #02: Gont, Nest of Spies continued this trend with content mostly drawn from the publisher’s own campaign, but as decent as its content was, really needed more of a hook to pull reader and potential Dungeon Master into the issue and the players and their characters into the content. Echoes From Fomalhaut #03: Blood, Death, and Tourism was published in September, 2018 and in reducing the number of articles it gave the fanzine more of a focus and allowed more of the feel of the publisher’s ‘City of Vultures’ campaign to shine through.
Echoes From Fomalhaut #04: Revenge of the Frogs continues this focus and again keeps the article count down to just four. Published in January, 2019, the issue opens with ‘The Technological Table’, a list of futuristic weapons and gadgets, ranging from laser pistol and laser spear to the God-box and The Dark Eye. Many of these items will be familiar from Science Fiction and other gaming articles, so it is refreshing to see some interesting entries alongside the usual electro-whip and laser sword. For example, Aquastel is a liquid so weighty, that when mixed with other liquids, it separates their constituent parts into layers according to their density, so could be used to neutralise poisons or extract valuable metals. The God-box is a communications link to an information bank located deep underground which can be consulted for information, though it is likely to be out of date or phrased on language that the Player Characters do not understand. This sort of article supports a setting where the campaign planet has links to a star faring civilisation or the various weapons and gadgets are remnants of a prior civilisation, fallen long ago. There are echoes of the lost civilisation set-up in the scenario, ‘Terror on Tridentfish Island’, published in Echoes From Fomalhaut #03: Blood, Death, and Tourism.
The scenario in Echoes From Fomalhaut #04: Revenge of the Frogs is the eponymous ‘Revenge of the Frogs’. The has always been an element of batrachian horror in Dungeons & Dragons, going back to Dave Arneson’s scenario, ‘Temple of the Frog’ and creatures such as the Bullywug, as well as drawing on H.P. Lovecraft’s short story, ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’. Frogs can be alien and emotionless creatures, so make a weird, but worthy enemy in any Dungeons & Dragons scenario. Designed for Player Characters of Third to Fifth Levels, ‘Revenge of the Frogs’ maroons them in the mouldering port of Silvash. The winds have ceased and the local high-priest of Murtar, God of Murky Waters hires the Player Characters to locate the means to restore them in the nearby marshland and prevent the rising of a frog-cult and its dread god that in ages past was destroyed by the priesthood of Murtar. The scenario is designed as a sandbox which will see the Player Characters delving deeper and deeper into the marshland, encountering various dank dangers and independently-minded inhabitants, all of whom are nicely fleshed out and bring colour to the region. Originally written as a companion piece to ‘Cloister of the Frog God’, part of Frog God Games’ Rappan Athuk megadungeon, Revenge of the Frogs’ is a bit rough around the edges and underwritten in terms of set-up and its explanation, especially in the placement of one of its magical items needed to complete the scenario. Otherwise, the scenario has a Lovecraftian tinge combined with a pleasing sense of mouldering decay.
Echoes From Fomalhaut #04: Revenge of the Frogs comes with a map which depicts the outline of a city. This of ‘Arfel – City State of the Charnel God’, which is fully detailed in the issue of the fanzine. This is a city dominated by Ozolba the Zombie God from his labyrinth temple-complex and necropolis which overlooks the city. He and his priesthood—both undead and living—can claim what they want and who they want, and to object is a sin. The nobility of Arfel abide by the stifling Necrotic Traditions, rarely if ever leaving their mansions which are perpetually shrouded in mourning, giving parts of Arfel a sepulchral feel. In the absence of civil government, crime syndicates and gangs have stepped in to run the city, though only unofficially. Only the Outer City beyond its walls is free from Ozolba the Zombie God’s reach, though it a lawless, rough place, where protection much be bought. Meanwhile, throughout the city can be found cat after cat after cat, which hunt in packs against the cat-catchers of the Outer City and know its secret ways from one end to the other. Again, there is the sense of the Lovecraftian to Arfel, it having a Dreamlands-like feel, though heavily influenced by Clark Ashton Smith’s Mordiggian, the Charnel God.
As with Echoes From Fomalhaut #03: Blood, Death, and Tourism, the remaining half of Echoes From Fomalhaut #04: Revenge of the Frogs is dedicated to one article. In the previous issue, this was ‘Erillion, East’, in this issue it is ‘Erillion, West’. This is the second half of a gazetteer detailing the island of Erillion, previously described in Echoes From Fomalhaut #02 and for the most part completed here—there are still plenty of locations mentioned here to be fully detailed in future issues. It continues to detail numerous locations and aspects of this end of the island, some forty or more of them. There is a strand of religiosity which runs through the location descriptions, notably the ‘Lunar Path’, a pilgrimage which leads from black lunar stones to black lunar stones and which will grant those successful with access to the world of dreams, but test them mightily in the process, and the ‘Isle of Trials’, an island west of Erillion, but connected by a pirate infested bridge, which is home to numerous persecuted cults and religious movements. Here the thumbnail descriptions never get as far as living up to their promise, since the reader is left wondering more about the cult or the religious movement and what their religious beliefs are. Hopefully, these might be detailed in a future issue. Otherwise, the thumbnail descriptions are decently done, such as the band of Ogre bandits which capture children and fatten them up for the pot, the court of Lord Virguard the Besieger who keeps five chairs empty in memory of his lost adventuring companions and who will reward tales of brave adventuring, and a marble chess high in the mountains, where two legendary wizards, one transformed into a mountain, the other a cloud, play out an endless game with living figures for the Staff of Power. There are also lots of bandits and thieves and berserkers to encounter too. This western half of Erillion is even more lawless than the Eastern half, and like the earlier ‘Erillion, East’, this half consists of many locations that might be passed through or discovered rather than necessarily visited with any purpose and the Dungeon Master will want to create that purpose or use the scenarios published in the earlier issues which are set on the island.
Echoes From Fomalhaut #04: Revenge of the Frogs definitely feels all the better for having just four articles, their content being allowed to breath and not feel crammed in. It is lightly illustrated, but much of the artwork is really quite good, whether it is public domain or commissioned for the issue, it all fits the oppressive ‘Mitteleuropa’ feel of the author’s ‘City of Vultures’ campaign and is well chosen. It needs an edit here and there, but is generally well written. Of the content, ‘The Technological Table’ is the outlier. It is a good article, but it feels out of place with the rest of the content, whilst the enjoyable ‘Revenge of the Frogs’, creepy ‘Arfel – City State of the Charnel God’, and completing overview that is ‘Erillion, West’, all feel as if they are in the same world. And that perhaps is a problem too, because so far Echoes From Fomalhaut is only giving us snapshots of the ‘City of Vultures’ campaign, not quite a partwork, but getting there. Overall, Echoes From Fomalhaut #04: Revenge of the Frogs is sol'd issue of the fanzine, but it is beginning to feel as if something is wanted to begin pulling the ‘City of Vultures’ campaign together.

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

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

Delayed Blast Gamemaster is a fanzine of a different stripe. Published by Philip Reed Games following successful Kickstarter campaigns, Delayed Blast Gamemaster is a fanzine dedicated to supporting roleplaying fantasy games, but a particular style of fantasy roleplaying games—Dungeons & Dragons. Yet the issues are entirely systemless, which means that their contents can be used in Dungeons & Dragons, any of the fantasy roleplaying retroclones you care to name, and most fantasy roleplaying games with a little effort. Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign as part of the inaugural Zine Quest, the first issue of Delayed Blast Gamemaster was published in September, 2019, followed by the second issue a year later in September, 2020, again following a successful Kickstarter campaign.
Delayed Blast Gamemaster #2 is as physically striking as Delayed Blast Gamemaster #1. Its graphical design is all white art and text on matt black pages (a printer friendly version is also available), the effect being striking, almost jauntily creepy and oppressive in its artwork’s depiction of mad mages, wiggle cubes, undying angers, gnashing rock beasts, and more. Again, the text is both heavy and large, so is a lot easier to read than it otherwise might have been.

As to the concept behind Delayed Blast Gamemaster it is simply that of inspiration scattered subject by subject across nine tables. So ‘OneDTen Urban Locations’, ‘OneDSix Forgotten Spellbooks’, ‘FiveDSix Unusual Treasures’, ‘OneDEight Dungeon Oddities’, ‘OneDSix Magic Shields’, ‘TwoDSix Potions’, ‘OneDSix Warped Monsters’, ‘OneDTwelve Adventure Hooks’, and ‘OneDFour Dungeon Doors’. So all that the Game Master has to do is pick a table or subject, roll the die, check the relevant entry, and use it as inspiration to create something of her or adapt the entry to the roleplaying game of her choice. The most obvious choice to adapt the entry to, is of course, Dungeons & Dragons, due to the similarities in language, but other roleplaying games would work too.
The concept behind Delayed Blast Gamemaster and thus Delayed Blast Gamemaster #2 is tables of inspiration accompanied by more tables. There are eleven such tables in the issue, ranging from ‘OneDSix Dungeon Characters’ and ‘FiveDSix Unusual Treasures’ to ‘OneDEight Dungeon Conditions’ and ‘OneDSix Pockets Picked’. Thus, all that the Game Master has to do is pick a table or subject, roll the die, check the relevant entry, and use it as inspiration to create something of her or adapt the entry to the roleplaying game of her choice. The most obvious choice to adapt the entry to, is of course, Dungeons & Dragons, due to the similarities in terminology, but other roleplaying games would work too.
For example, roll a five on ‘OneDEight Adventure Hooks’ and the Game Master has her adventurers encounter a ‘Grizzled Warrior Questioning His Career’. The veteran, the worse for wear from drink readily shares tales of his exploits, the type of exploits that the Player Characters are likely going to want to emulate, though somewhat ruefully since he seems to regret his career choice. However, his ramblings might contain a nugget of truth or two, necessitating a further roll of a four-sided die. For example, a roll of a three determines that he regales the party of the time that he and his companions were attacked by a giant whose mighty Warhammer crushed many of them, and the last time he saw the giant, it was wandering away with the possessions of those he had slaughtered. Could the giant still have their possessions, and just were they?
Alternatively, roll a fourteen on ‘FiveDSix Unwanted Treasures’—a sequel to ‘FiveDSix Unusual Treasures’ from Delayed Blast Gamemaster #1—and the adventurers find a small book bound in metal with pages of thick parchment, half full with the incomplete memoirs of a halfling merchant which tell of his life as a great lover and warrior. Similarly, ‘OneDEight Dungeon Oddities’ is another sequel to a table from Delayed Blast Gamemaster #1. It provides more monstrous encounters, such as the ‘Wizard’s Goblinoid’, a result of a roll of one on the table, which describes a goblin who really, weirdly enjoys being a Wizard’s familiar and knows a few cantrips, whilst a roll of five would give a ‘Wiggle Cube’, a very rare orange gelatinous cuboid with sufficient awareness to track down and take control of other oozes and slimes. Perhaps one of the most engaging table is ‘OneDSix Guards’, which describes the personalities of six town guards so making them more than just the local watch ready to step in when the party causes trouble!
With eleven tables, there are a lot of entries and ideas in Delayed Blast Gamemaster #2, which is the point. In comparison to the first issue, there is a better range of entries in Delayed Blast Gamemaster #2, including oddities, memorable weapons, adventure hooks, magic scrolls, dungeon conditions, and the contents of pockets picked. There are, however, a few tables and entries which are designed for single use only given their suggested rarity. The ‘Wiggle Cube’ from ‘OneDEight Dungeon Oddities’ is one such entry, whilst the ‘OneDSix Goblins’ table gives six strange, even singular goblins that it is advised that the Dungeon Master consult the table rarely lest their overuse lessen their impact. This slightly reduces the utility of Delayed Blast Gamemaster #2.
Rounding out Delayed Blast Gamemaster #2 is ‘Cave of Eyes’, a six-location set of caverns which comes with a background and some broad detail such that it needs to be fleshed out and detailed by the Dungeon Master. It is not a particularly interesting location as written and really needs that input, and perhaps it might have been more interesting if it had included suggestions as to which tables the Dungeon Master could roll on to further develop the cave complex. Otherwise, a table might have been more useful.
Once again, Delayed Blast Gamemaster #2 presents a plethora of things a Game Master can bring to her game. She will need to do some work to bring them into her campaign, but the ideas will work with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition as much as they would with Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl Classics, or The Fantasy Trip. Whatever your choice of fantasy roleplaying game, further inspiration is never unwanted and Delayed Blast Gamemaster #2 yet more.