Mutant: Year Zero Zone Compendium 5: Hotel Imperator is the fifth supplement for Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, the post-apocalypse set RPG based on Mutant - År Noll, the Swedish RPG from Free League Publishing distributed by Modiphius Entertainment. As with the previous supplements in this series—Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Compendium 1 – Lair of the Saurians, Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Compendium 2 – Dead Blue Sea, Mutant: Year Zero Zone Compendium 3: Die, Meat-Eater, Die!, and Mutant: Year Zero Zone Compendium 4: The Eternal War—this is a slim supplement that presents various scenario set-ups and situations, or ‘Special Zone Sectors’ which can be quickly and easily dropped into a Game Master’s campaign and the sectors of her Zone map.

Where Mutant: Year Zero Zone Compendium 4: The Eternal War was a supplement to a supplement, providing further robot encounters for Mutant: Year Zero – Mechatron – Rise of the Robots Roleplaying, Mutant: Year Zero Zone Compendium 5: Hotel Imperator returns to the Zone found in Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days—either the Big Smoke, the Big Apple, or a Zone of the Game Master’s own devising. It includes numerous encounters with the anthropomorphic animals of Mutant: Genlab Alpha and the sentient robots of Mechatron – Rise of the Robots Roleplaying, as well as some Humans of Mutant: Year Zero – Elysium. However, technically, Mutant: Year Zero Zone Compendium 5: Hotel Imperator is set before the events of Mutant: Year Zero – Elysium, and really, would work just as after its events too, perhaps in conjunction with Mutant: Year Zero – The Gray Death.

The first of the four ‘Special Zone Sectors’ in Mutant: Year Zero Zone Compendium 5: Hotel Imperator is the eponymous ‘Hotel Imperator’. This describes a weirdly still functioning hotel, complete with advanced features, but put to another purpose. It is the headquarters of a Psionically capable cabal called the Brain Ring with long term plans of domination for the Zone. If the Player Characters get inside, they will find an almost cornucopia of artefacts and things to be scavenged, but also a certain creepiness to both its atmosphere and its inhabitants. The situation and relationship between the inhabitants is on a knife edge, really awaiting the arrival of the Player Characters, but ‘Hotel Imperator’ is not best used simply plumped down as just another place for them to visit. Its write-up includes a number of events—some of them linked to previous entries in the ‘Zone Compendium’ series, suggesting how it can be worked into a campaign, but as a location it best works as the final part of plotline which the Game Master has worked into her campaign.

Of more immediate use is ‘The Long Road’, an encounter with relatively recently formed caravan operated by a band of anthropomorphic animals. Lead by an aggressive Orangutan, this is a relatively flexible encounter which does not have the big plot of ‘Hotel Imperator’, but rather can be used in a number of different ways, including trading partner, blockade, furthering another plot, and so on, but being nomadic, it can be moved around a lot.

Where Mutant: Year Zero Zone Compendium 4: The Eternal War took the robots to a theme park, the Wild West-themed ‘Fort Robot’, Mutant: Year Zero Zone Compendium 5: Hotel Imperator takes us to ‘The Zone Fair’. This is an amusement park, replete with various attractions such as Fortune Teller, Shooting Range, Casino, and more. The Player Characters can come here to trade, enjoy the entertainments, and even participate in the upcoming poker contest—rules are provided for ‘Zone Poker’, as well as get involved in other plots. As a static location, there is plenty for the Player Characters to do, and the likelihood is that they will return again and again. However, there is at least one element to do with an NPC which is left undeveloped and the Game Master wondering what to do with him if the Player Characters want to dig into his background.

The last of the four ‘Special Zone Sectors’ in Mutant: Year Zero Zone Compendium 5: Hotel Imperator is ‘The Great Zone Walker’. This is another mobile encounter, but where the caravan of ‘The Long Road’ consists of just a few vehicles, ‘The Great Zone Walker’ is a behemoth, a monstrously colossal device which trundles across the Zone, home to a small tribe. In fact, in comparison to the encounters the Player Characters will have had in the Zone, it is on the scale of Mortal Engines, and being so big, it is not a subtle thing to bring into a campaign, and indeed could smash it apart. As an object though, its huge physicality means it is a fantastic object to clamber over and swing across.

Rounding out Mutant: Year Zero Zone Compendium 5: Hotel Imperator is something different to the other titles in the series—new rules. These though are relatively minor additions and tie back to the ‘Hotel Imperator’ ‘Special Zone Sector’ found at the start of the book. They include a number of new psionic mutations and two related artefacts. These are the Psionic Enhancer and Psionic Blocker, and whilst their inclusion makes sense, the inclusion of the new mutations not quite so much. Unfortunately, they only seem to have appeared in the Mutant: Mechatron – Custom Card Deck and so needed to put into print, and since Mutant: Year Zero Zone Compendium 5: Hotel Imperator includes the one psionic encounter, it makes sense to have them included here.

Physically, Mutant: Year Zero Zone Compendium 5: Hotel Imperator is as well presented as the other titles in the series. The artwork is excellent and the maps, both illustrated and cartographic, are nicely done. In fact, the artwork also serves as great illustrations to show the players when they encounter the various locations and NPCs. The book is also well written, with solid descriptions and a handful of events and scenario ideas for the Game Master to flesh out.

Mutant: Year Zero Zone Compendium 5: Hotel Imperator presents a good collection of Special Zone Sectors. The second, third, and fourth—‘The Long Road’, ‘The Zone Fair’, and ‘The Great Zone Walker’—are generally easy to bring into a campaign and the Game Master’s Zone, but ‘Hotel Imperator’ will need some to work into a campaign and lay the groundwork for its payoff climax. In general, these are really useful to add to a standard campaign as detailed in Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, but one which mixes elements from both Mutant: Genlab Alpha and the sentient robots of Mechatron – Rise of the Robots Roleplaying. Overall, Mutant: Year Zero Zone Compendium 5: Hotel Imperator is a great addition to a late campaign of Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days.

It is an undeniable truth that the Witch gets a lot of bad press. Not necessarily within the roleplaying hobby, but from without, for the Witch is seen as a figure of evil, often—though not necessarily—a female figure of evil, and a figure to be feared and persecuted. Much of this stems from the historical witch-hunts of the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeen, and eighteenth centuries, along with the associated imagery, that is, the crone with the broom, pointy hat, black cat, cauldron, and more. When a Witch does appear in roleplaying, whether it is a historical or a fantasy setting, it is typically as the villain, as the perpetrator of some vile crime or mystery for the player characters to solve and stop. Publisher The Other Side has published a number of supplements written not only as a counter to the clichés of the witch figure, but to bring the Witch as a character Class to roleplaying after being disappointed at the lack of the Witch in the Player’s Handbook for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. Each of these supplements draws upon more historical interpretations of the Witch—sometimes to counter the clichés, sometimes to enforce them—and presents her as a playable character Class. Each book is published under the label of ‘Basic Era Games’, and whilst the exact Retroclone each book is written to be used with may vary, essentially, they are all compatible. Which means that the Game Master can mix and match traditions, have player characters from matching traditions, and so on.

The first book in the series, Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games is written is designed for use with Goblinoid Games’ Labyrinth Lord and presents the Witch as dedicated to the Mara Tradition, that of the Dark Mother—Lilith, the First Woman, the First Witch, and the Mother of Demons. The next book in the series is The Children of the Gods: The Classical Witch for Basic Era Games and its approach to the witch—whilst starting from the same base—is broader and gives more options, is less focused on ‘Evil’ or Chaotic witches, as well as being written for a different roleplaying game. Specifically, it focuses upon the Classical traditions of Egypt, Greece, Phoenicia, Rome, and Sumeria, and it is written for use with Dreamscape Design’s Blueholme Rules, the retroclone based on the 1977 Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set designed by J. Eric Holmes.

The Children of the Gods: The Classical Witch for Basic Era Games starts by presenting the same version of the Witch Class as in Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games, but what this means is that from one book to the next, this Class is going to serve as a template for the rest of the other supplements devoted to the Witch from The Other Side. So the Witch is spellcaster capable of casting Witch spells and Witch rituals—a mixture of arcane and divine spells, has Occult Powers including herbal healing, many are reluctant to cast ‘black’ or evil magic, many are of Lawful Alignment, and have answered the Call of their Goddess (or other patron). 

So far, so good, but where The Children of the Gods: The Classical Witch for Basic Era Games begins to get interesting is in the number of options it gives beyond this. First in the Combination Classes, so Witch/Cleric, Witch/Fighter, Witch/Magic-User, and Witch/Thief. These are not treated as dual Classes, but Classes of their own with an explanation of how they work in play and in a campaign as well as their own Experience Tables. So the Witch/Fighter often, often known as a Witch Guardian, protects other Witches against persecution and so can use any weapon a Fighter can, whilst the Witch/Thief has no title, though Jugglers often find themselves labelled as Witches and Thieves, but they are typically streetwise and useful when it comes to dealing with the dangers of exploring underground. Next, the supplement looks at the tradition of the Witch amongst non-humans, from Amazons, Bugbears, and Deep Ones to the ape-like Sagath, Troglodytes, and Trolls. Each entry gives some idea as to who or what they worship, so Trolls follow either the Faerie or Winter Witch Tradition, Deep Ones worship the demonic Dagon and his consort, and Medusa worship the daughters of primordial sea god and goddess, Phorcys and Ceto. This section does not just focus on NPC or monstrous Races, but covers how the Witch Tradition is found amongst the Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, and Halflings in lengthier descriptions. With the latter, the supplement provides solid context for Player Character Witches from those Races, especially together with the Combination Classes, whilst with the former, the Dungeon Master has some background upon which to create some interesting non-human Witch NPCs.

Both The Children of the Gods: The Classical Witch for Basic Era Games and Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games offer the one Tradition. In The Children of the Gods: The Classical Witch for Basic Era Games this is the Classical Tradition, a Witch who has a familiar, the ‘Gift of Prophecy’’, can refresh many of her spells with ‘Drawing Down the Moon’, and even summon the power of her patron with the ‘Charge of the Goddess’. The Children of the Gods: The Classical Witch for Basic Era Games is also different because it does not offer one Coven, but many. These are drawn from Classical Tradition and various ancient cultures. These include the Brotherhood of Set from Egypt, an evil cult which practices human sacrifice and which only allows male Witches to join; the Cult of Ereshkigal, which has some crossover with the Cult of Mara from Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games and whose members serve the Queen of the Night; and the Coven of Hecate, which consist of covens of three and claim to be the first witches. In general the combination of the Classic Tradition with these Covens is designed to cover Classic, Neo-Classical, and Pagan traditions, and whilst the Covens provide no mechanical benefit, they do add further flavour and detail.

Mosco Took
Second Level Witch Guardian
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Coven: Temple of Astártē

STR 10 (+0)
DEX 15 (+1 Missile Attack)
CON 03 (-1 HP)
INT 15 (+5 Languages, Literate)
WIS 14 
CHR 15 (5 Retainers)

Armour Class: 7 (Padded)
Hit Points: 5
Weapons: Dagger, Bow, Staff
THAC0 20

Halfling Abilities: +1 to hit to all ranged weapons; Resilient: +2 bonus on all saves.
Languages: Halfling, Common, Elvish, Dwarvish, Gnomish, Dragonic, Faerie

Occult Powers
Healing balms (1d4+1/three times per day)

Spells: (First Level) – Foretell, Obedient Beast, Protection of the Dead (Ritual)

Familiar: Owl (+2 Wisdom checks)

The Children of the Gods: The Classical Witch for Basic Era Games offers some hundred spells, twenty monsters, thirty magic items, or so. The spells are more of a supportive nature—though there are a few offensive spells also—and feel markedly different from the standard spells of Dungeons & Dragons. So, Athena’s Blessing fills allies with battle insight with a +1 to hit bonus and +2 bonus to Wisdom checks; Obedient Beast makes animals lie down and take no action or makes trained animals obey verbal commands; and House Spirits calls upon the ‘Lares Familiares’ to protect a home or structure. There are familiar spells too, such as Augury and Spider Climb, but these do not feel out of place and the supplement includes plenty of new spells that help add flavour and feel to the Witch Class. As do the Rituals, each of which takes multiple Witches—or a coven—to cast, many of them again being of a supportive nature, for example, Drawing Down the Sun brings down healing upon allies and fear upon enemies, all allies receiving 2d6 points of healing, a +2 bonus to all Saves, -2 Armour Class, weapons are all +1 to hit and considered to be magical, and Undead are struck with fear and react as if Turned.

The monsters also feel less adversarial, more beasts and beings to interact with rather than simply fight. Many are drawn from classical myth and legend—just as those of Dungeons & Dragons are, but more so. Thus, they include Dryads, Fauns, Hags, Lares Familiares, Sphinxes, and more. The Classical is carried into the selection of magic items, such as the Ankh of Life, a holy symbol which adds a bonus to turning undead and healing; the Book of the Dead contains spells for the protection of and speaking with the dead; the Minoan Labrys is a brass axe which is both a +1 weapon and a holy symbol; and Hydra’s Teeth can be sown onto the ground to have skeletons appear and fight for you. Rounding out The Children of the Gods: The Classical Witch for Basic Era Games is a trio of stats and write-ups of Classical Witches—Circe, Medea, and Medusa. These provide major NPCs for a campaign involving the Witch Class, especially one drawing upon the ancient world.

Physically, The Children of the Gods: The Classical Witch for Basic Era Games is generally tidily presented. It needs an edit in places, but the artwork is better handled, and the content is better organised, meaning that neither Dungeon Master nor player will need to dig quite so hard to get the most out of the book. Overall, the book is a definite improvement over Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games.

Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games was good, but The Children of the Gods: The Classical Witch for Basic Era Games is simply better. It would work really well with a campaign set in or inspired by the Ancient World, but then it would work with most other fantasy settings too. It provides more options for the type of witch a player wants to roleplay or a Dungeon Master wants to create with the combination of the Class and its Tradition with the Combination Classes and the Covens. Even more, it fulfils the author’s agenda of creating a Witch Class which is not inherently evil, and which is neither a cliché nor a stereotype. In doing so, The Children of the Gods: The Classical Witch for Basic Era Games presents the Witch as a Class which is more inclusive, more diverse, more interesting, and thus more appealing to a wider group of players and Dungeons Masters.

High and Dry is an introductory adventure for Béthorm: The Plane of Tékumel, the most recent roleplaying game to explore the world of Tékumel, the linguistic and cultural setting developed by Professor M.A.R. Barker. Published by UniGames, it is designed to be played between four and six players with beginning characters, but can easily be adjusted should there be more. It takes place in the small town of Mishábar, east of Katalál which has been beset by a rash of disappearances. All three of them have been of good clan women belonging to the Flat Rock clan of Mishábar, but worse, the disappearances have disrupted the Flat Rock clan’s farming business. Worse than that, this has come to the attention of the local clan’s patron and since business has been disrupted, there must be something wrong. From this background, High and Dry comes not with one introduction, but five! There is one each for if the Player Characters are all from the same Clan, from the same temple, from the same legion, they belong to a bunch of typical adventurers, or the Game Master is running a ‘Heroes of the Age’ campaign. So, if the Player Characters are from the Clan or temple, they are sent to find out why the most recent grain shipment is late; if they belong to a Legion, then they have been sent to assess the condition of a ruined fort near Mishábar, for possible future strategic use; if they are adventurers, then they will have heard childhood tales about the ruins of an accursed castle east of Katalál, and after hearing of the disappearances, decide to visit; and lastly, in an ‘Heroes of the Age’ campaign, they are drawn by a vision.

What the Player Characters find in Mishábar is a fraught situation. The local Clan Chief and mayor Shrakán hiTekkú’une has reacted poorly to the situation that both he and the town find themselves in. Not only is his third wife, Dijáya, one of the missing women, but he knows that the town and the clan are in trouble because of the missed grain shipment. This has made him paranoid and exacerbated his pettiness—he does not trust the newly arrived Player Characters, but he wants their help in locating the missing women and solving the situation before it escalates out of his control. The other clan elders are worried about the mayor’s current mental state and what it means for the future of the clan as well as the disappearances.

Dealing with the bullish mayor will be a challenge for beginning Player Characters, and even if they have greater status than he does—a distinct possibility—they may need to be subtle about how they deal with him rather running over him roughshod with their social differences. Ultimately, whether the Player Characters are pushed to act by the mayor or working with the other elders, they will find themselves tracking down the missing women. The actual mystery behind the missing women will actually be very quickly solved, being tied to the ruins of the accursed castle east of Katalál. As this should be the Player Characters’ first adventure this should be played up to be slightly creepy, but should otherwise be a straightforward bit of action to counter the awkward social situation in Mishábar.

High and Dry can really be divided into two parts—the social and the action, but its primary focus is upon the social interaction with the mayor and the elders. The issue with this is that the scenario does not include notes to help explain to the Player Characters their roles and responsibilities and thus their standing with the mayor when dealing with him. All of course will vary according to the positions held by the Player Characters—clan, temple, military, or mere adventurers, but some advice would have been useful. There is advice on the Tsolyáni custom of Shámtla or ‘blood money’, and this is useful as it does feature in the scenario.

Physically, High and Dry is a fifteen-page, full colour, 16.04 MB PDF. The artwork is excellent, the maps are decent, and everything is easy to read. Unfortunately, High and Dry does need another edit.

As an introductory adventure, High and Dry works best with the Player Characters as members of a Clan, Temple, or Legion. The lack of advice on handling the social interaction and the relationship between the Player Characters may hinder players new to Tékumel and the Empire of the Petal Throne, but experienced ‘Petalheads’ will not have a problem. Similarly, a Game Master with knowledge of Tékumel will not have a problem running High and Dry, and if necessary, can supply the advice on handling the social interaction and the relationship between the Player Characters at the heart of the scenario. Overall, High and Dry is a good introductory scenario for playing on Tékumel with Béthorm: The Plane of Tékumel, but will benefit from being run by a knowledgeable Game Master.

Fear’s Sharp Little Needles: Twenty-Six Hunting Forays into Horror is an anthology of scenarios published by Stygian Fox for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Published following a successful Kickstarterter campaign, it follows on from the highly-regarded Things We Leave Behind in being set in the modern day, in dealing with mature themes, and in containing contributions from a number of tried-and-tested scenario authors from the last decade or so. What sets it apart though, is that Fear’s Sharp Little Needles contains some twenty-six scenarios, all but one of them, short, sharp stabs of horror—typically each five or six pages in length and thus the length of a magazine scenario or so. All twenty-six can work as one-shots, all but the last can work as convention scenarios, and all but the last require minimum preparation—the latter feature making Fear’s Sharp Little Needles a useful anthology for the Keeper to pull off the shelf at the last minute and have something ready for her gaming group with relatively little effort. In many cases, the scenarios would also work with just the one player and Investigator and the one Keeper. However, with a little more effort, many of the scenarios in the campaign would also work in an ongoing campaign, and in fact, some of them would work with Arc Dream Publishing’s Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game and some of them are actually linked together.

The design and the shortness of the scenarios in Fear’s Sharp Little Needles means that none of them are lengthy, sophisticated, or convoluted pieces of investigation. They are direct, straightforward pieces of horror—in other words, ‘sharp, little needles’, each with a quick set-up, a relatively easy mystery to investigate and explain, and a solution. Each follows the same format. This starts with a one-page, full colour illustration as a frontispiece, and an introduction followed by a guide to ‘Involving the Investigators’  and ending with ‘Rewards and Repercussions’. In between which is the scenario itself. The frontispiece includes the scenario’s title, author, and four tags for the scenario’s four elements. So, for Brian Courtemanche’s ‘Do Not Call Up That Which You Cannot Put Down’, these are ‘Sea Monster’, ‘Summoning’, ‘Cover-Up’, and ‘Martin’s Beach’. The ‘Rewards and Repercussions’ covers the possible Sanity rewards and losses for a successful or unsuccessful conclusion of the scenario respectively as well as any consequences. This section is also where the monster and NPC stats are listed. Lastly, some scenarios contain an extra box marked ‘Track Marks’, not only keeping in theme with the anthology’s title, but also making connections between some of the scenarios in Fear’s Sharp Little Needles. Not every scenario has a ‘Track Marks’ section, and even those that do can still be run as standalone scenarios rather than being linked in some way.

The anthology opens with the first of two scenarios by Jeffrey Moeller. ‘Separation Anxiety’ concerns a missing biomedical researcher whose investigation into her own condition lead to her being covertly investigated herself and then her disappearance. In tracking her down, the investigators will end up in the hometown of a creepy family in what is nicely traditional style Call of Cthulhu scenario to start the collection with.

Simon Brake’s ‘Undertow’ is more underplayed in its horror in comparison to the other scenarios in the anthology. A new horror novel from Justin Hayes after a gap of a few years has hit the bestseller lists, but its dark tale of a Los Angeles-based actress whose downward spiral into despair appears to be influenced by the Cthulhu Mythos. The question is, just how much does the novelist know about the Mythos? What exactly is going on feels slightly oblique, but the relative lack of lethality means that it would nicely work as a single-Investigator scenario.

Oscar Rios contributes three scenarios to Fear’s Sharp Little Needles. The first is ‘Sins Of My Youth’, in which a seemingly inexplicable attack by a homeless person swathed in manky clothing quickly escalates into something much more personal. Inspired by The Terminator franchise, this is a nasty confrontational set-up which best works when played out as a series of interludes. Oscar Rios’ second scenario, ‘Poetry Night’ takes place at a poetry event at The Lakeside, a coffee shop which sits on Juniper Lake in the Pine County Artist Enclave. What should be a relaxing evening takes a nasty turn as a bad ode draws the attendees to the shores of another lake. Veteran devotees of Call of Cthulhu will recognise familiar elements in the scenario, but the brevity of the format means that the author pleasingly filters these elements down to an espresso rather than perhaps a latte. Oscar Rios’ third scenario, is the penultimate scenario in Fear’s Sharp Little Needles. ‘The Winoka Point Research Center’ is really a location-based scenario, being primarily set on an island that is the subject of several urban legends. It is said that it was once home to a government research facility, but this is utterly disavowed and seemingly wiped from history—and as the Investigators get closer to the island, actually increasingly difficult to get ashore. Of course, there is certainly more than a grain of truth to the urban legends and there are some nasty surprises to be found in the Winoka Point Research Center. The issue here really, is player or Investigator motivation, so using this scenario in an ongoing campaign is likely to be challenging.

In ‘Walter’s Final Wish’, the Investigators are either visitors, employees, or residents at the Whispering Willow Retirement Home when everything goes to hell. Initially, Matt Wiseman and Jennifer Thrasher’s scenario has a traditional horror set-up—a zombie outbreak—which gives a fun, familiar feel until it delivers a nasty twist to the ‘Investigators’. Jason Williams’ ‘Whose Fuel Is Men And Stones’ is specifically written to be played by one Investigator and one Keeper and takes that Investigator on holiday to London as the result of an inheritance. The holiday takes an increasingly odd, even weird turn, and then has a nasty twist. This though is balanced against an opportunity for some solid roleplaying interaction between player and Keeper, and so will require fairly careful roleplaying upon the part of the Keeper to work effectively.

Matthew Sanderson contributes two scenarios to Fear’s Sharp Little Needles. The first, ‘Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus’ brings together several Investigators from across the USA to rural Maine. Each is from a large city, each is relatively poor and in debt, but all learn that they are the beneficiaries of a will. Of course, being the beneficiary of a will is never a good thing in Call of Cthulhu and such is the case in this scenario, which places innocents in a terrible situation and forces them to deal with it. In the second scenario, ‘Dissociation’, has the Investigators all aboard a night flight up the USA’s Pacific coast when the aeroplane is cut up, the passengers are sucked out into the open sky, and- This has the Investigators running around like rats in a maze and whilst both scenarios essentially cast the Investigators as victims, ‘Dissociation’ is the more interesting of the two, and definitely has the more powerful opening scene.

‘The Great And Terrible Awto’ by Jo Kreil, begins with a ‘hit and run’ and the victim begging for help. It turns out that he is a scientist working on a revolutionary new automobile engine, but who would want to kill him? The truth is as always, both weird and horrifying and the Investigators will need to rush in order to prevent one hell of a car crash.

‘Spilsbury #9485’ is the first of two scenarios by Adam Gauntlett. It takes its set-up from the idea of the disposing of bodies in large pieces of luggage and then turns that luggage—in this case, a well-travelled steamer trunk which certainly got as far as Istanbul—into an artifact which keeps appearing over and over to spread chaos, horror, and death. Unfortunately, the Investigators are just at the railway station when this happens once again… The Spilsbury of the title refers to the noted pathologist, Sir Bernard Spilsbury, and also in the scenario to the Spilsburys, a group dedicated to keeping track of the steamer trunk. The Spilsburys would certainly work as an Investigator group with some development. The scenario also affords the Keeper—or Handler—the opportunity to bring PISCES from the Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game into play, has some entertaining nods to Call of Cthulhu scenarios past, and in general, this has nicely done echoes of Nigel Kneale’s work (or even the television series, Sapphire & Steel). Adam Gauntlett’s second scenario is co-written with Brian M. Sammons, and is a much bloodier, nastier affair. ‘The Special Menu’ would also work well with the Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game as various investigators and agencies are called into to investigate an incident at a Wyse Fries fast food outlet where an employee and a customer have been found dead from having ingested rat poison.

Joe Trier’s ‘Lights Out’ begins as a simple missing persons case—a teenager, depressed after the death of her boyfriend, has disappeared. However, it quickly escalates into murder and arson, and presents the Investiagtors with a potentially difficult dilemma. This scenario moves smartly along and feels not unlike a horror film. Strange murders and missing body parts spur the investigation in Alan Goodall’s ‘Bone Deep’, which again would work with the Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game. A weird medical condition and a winding down funeral home are nicely tied together by new lore for the ghoulish antagonists. In comparison to the previous ‘Lights Out’, this has more of a televisual feel.

However, ‘Do Not Call Up That Which You Cannot Put Down’ has again a filmic tone—in particular, Jaws. Brian Courtemanche’s scenario is the first of two in the anthology to be set at sea and is set aboard a boat whose crew is taking part in the Massachusetts State Fisheries Department’s annual shark-tagging programme. The crew—or Investigators—have already had an encounter ashore with a drunk rambling about sea monsters,  and whilst they will probably have dismissed his ravings, events out at sea prove that they should have listened. Taking place aboard a small boat, it has a claustrophobic feel despite it being at sea and really delivers a horrible dilemma for the Investigators.

In Tyler Hudak’s ‘Hit And Run’, the Investigators witness the eponymous death on the road. That would seem to be that, but then the driver of the other car comes to them for help, telling them that following the incident, he is being hunted. This is a serviceable adventure which has potential as an on-the-road encounter between the larger parts of a campaign.

Andi Newton has two scenarios in Fear’s Sharp Little Needles. The first is the other sea-based scenario in the anthology, ‘Remaking The Hatteras Reef’. This is set on the North Carolina coast where strangely mutated fish have recently begun to be caught and a diver has been badly injured in a fish attack. The North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission believes that an old ship, recently scuttled to rebuild the reef, has leaked some sort of contaminants. Getting  the Investigators directly involved may be difficult for a campaign, but with the right characters this has a nice sense of atmosphere and place, and sets up an interesting technical challenge.

The second scenario by Andi Newton is ‘The Tormiss Crd Model Z-17’. The Tormiss CRD Model Z-17 of the title is a successful model of pacemaker which has a perfect record. Now when one is removed from a cadaver at a mortuary, a strange discovery is made—the leads which connect to the heart are full of a clear, viscous fluid instead of the standard electrically conductive material, and then the fluid seems to wriggle… Now a video of the device has been put online and the Investigators are tasked with looking into both what happened and the strange device. Of course, the trail leads back to the manufacturer. This scenario would work well with Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game, but however it is used, it makes nice use of a common medical device.

Most of the scenarios in Fear’s Sharp Little Needles are set in the USA. Of course, many of them can be moved elsewhere, but ‘The Sores’ by Helen Gould is specifically set elsewhere. In the 1990s, a terrible illness swept the small town of Dirgel, Wales, causing weeping sores and, eventually, death. Now, it has returned. Whether as medical personnel, police detectives, or even local residents in the now quarantined town, the investigators must race to find out the cause even as they break out in sores… This is weird and creepy, though the Keeper may want to do a little research on what Welsh towns are like as part of her scenario preparation.

Chad Bowser’s ‘Up Jumped The Reaper’ is another case of a missing person. This time a promising graduate student pursuing a degree in American Folklore. Her research has taken her into the Western North Carolina Mountains and her family is growing concerned about the whereabouts of both her and her boyfriend. Essentially, this is a decent rural bogeyman horror tale. In the earlier ‘Sins Of My Youth’, only the one Investigator is the target, but in Stuart Boon’s ‘Resurrection’, all of the Investigators become the targets. The scenario begins at the rain-sodden funeral of a college friend when they are confronted by someone who looks like another college friend who disappeared years ago and is thought to be dead. The question is, where has he been, and then, why is he targeting the Investigators? This scenario is simply okay.

‘Waiting To Be Born’ by Christopher Smith Adair is a one-location scenario, primarily being set in and around the New Life Fertility Center in the Canyon Lake, Texas area, fifty miles north of San Antonio. The clinic was set up to provide holistic solutions for infertile couples, but the Investigators are asked to look into it by a couple who blame their son’s death on the clinic. Alternative options are suggested, which give stronger reasons for the Investigators to be at the clinic, as perhaps this is not the strongest reason for them to investigate or get into the clinic. That said, when they do, there is a slightly odd feel to the clinic, which turns downright weird once they penetrate its depths. One potential angle or location feels slightly underdeveloped, but overall the scenario really works once the Investigators are inside the facility.

Scott Dorward’s ‘Unland’ takes place at former amusement park which was shut down two decades ago following a terrible scandal. The Investigators will need a good reason to visit the dilapidated site, but once inside find themselves trapped in a horrid funhouse, full of hellishly collapsed rides, mirrors, and strange remnants of former attendees. Ultimately the horror in ‘Unland’ will take a very personal turn for each of the Investigators and so may not be to the taste of every player. Nevertheless, short and creepy. 

At just three pages, ‘The Focus Group’ by Simon Yee, is the shortest scenario in Fear’s Sharp Little Needles at just three pages. Prior to the start of the scenario, the  Investigators were brought together as a play test focus group for a geo-caching, puzzle-solving game called ‘The Cage of Morpheus’, but after a problem with the music, they are brought back in to test the new version. When their smartphones start displaying odd content and things start getting weird, is it the game or is it something else? This is a good scenario if the Keeper wanted to inflict pithecophobia on an Investigator, but it is a short scenario, probably too short to run as a convention scenario.

Glynn Owen Barras’ ‘Ghosts Of Ravenscar’ is another missing persons case, this time in England, at an abandoned village, just south of Whitby, on the Yorkshire coast. The investigators find themselves stalked amongst the ruins and must deal with the monsters if they are to escape. Coming towards the end of the anthology, this suffers from being too similar to earlier adventures and reliant upon a similar set-up. So again, it is okay.

Rounding out Fear’s Sharp Little Needles is ‘Phlebotomy’, Jeffery Moeller’s second contribution to the anthology. Unlike the previous twenty-five scenarios in the book, this is a full length scenario, one which will take multiple sessions to complete. It begins in nasty fashion at the QwikLab Phlebotomy Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio when on an ordinary morning, a patient suddenly begins screaming in rage and pain, before driving a syringe through the eye of a nurse and into her brain, thus killing her. He then explodes into a puddle of goop. This set-up leads into a lengthy and convoluted investigation, perhaps linked to a mysterious patient who was also at the clinic that morning. The problem with the scenario is the difference between the set-up and the investigation. The set-up really works well with one or more of the Investigators at the clinic and the investigation really works with the Investigators as law enforcement or Delta Green agents. However, having the Investigators as the law enforcement or Delta Green agents means that they are unlikely to experience the set-up, and having the Investigators at the set-up makes it harder for them to be law enforcement or Delta Green agents, and so the investigation is going to be a whole lot more challenging. Find a way to balance the issue and this is still a good investigative scenario, throwing the Investigators into a modern celebrity culture, a conspiracy of sorts, and potentially, to a link back to the first scenario in the book, ‘Separation Anxiety’. In fact, the two work well together and perhaps it would have been interesting to see the two pulled out of the anthology and perhaps developed with another scenario or two as a mini-campaign. Ultimately, this scenario is not as good as the author’s ‘Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home’ from Things We Leave Behind, but it is still a very good, well detailed scenario. The nod to the superb Nameless Cults Volume One: Lost in the Lights – A Call of Cthulhu sourcebook of cult horror in the handouts is a nice touch.

Physically, Fear’s Sharp Little Needles is very well presented, the layout being pleasingly uncluttered and easy to read. Reuben Dodd’s colour artwork is excellent, the layout is clean, the maps are clear, and the writing is good. Plus all of the handouts, all of them done in full colour, are repeated at the end of the book.

Whether they are looking for a one-shot, a convention scenario, or something short to add to a campaign, then Fear’s Sharp Little Needles has about everything a Keeper would want. Though some of them will need some development in terms of set-up for a campaign or even just preparation of pre-generated Investigators, there is not a bad scenario amongst the twenty-six entries in the anthology, and some of them are excellent pieces of horror. Each one of the short scenarios in this anthology is clearly presented, easy to understand, and easy to prepare, enabling the Keeper to deliver each one of Fear’s Sharp Little Needles: Twenty-Six Hunting Forays into Horror with the horror they deserve.

It is an undeniable truth that the Witch gets a lot of bad press. Not necessarily within the roleplaying hobby, but from without, for the Witch is seen as a figure of evil, often—though not necessarily—a female figure of evil, and a figure to be feared and persecuted. Much of this stems from the historical witch-hunts of the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeen, and eighteenth centuries, along with the associated imagery, that is, the crone with the broom, pointy hat, black cat, cauldron, and more. When a Witch does appear in roleplaying, whether it is a historical or a fantasy setting, it is typically as the villain, as the perpetrator of some vile crime or mystery for the player characters to solve and stop. Publisher The Other Side has published a number of supplements written not only as a counter to the clichés of the witch figure, but to bring the Witch as a character Class to roleplaying after being disappointed at the lack of the Witch in the Player’s Handbook for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. Each of these supplements draws upon more historical interpretations of the Witch—sometimes to counter the clichés, sometimes to enforce them—and presents her as a playable character Class. Each book is published under the label of ‘Basic Era Games’, and whilst the exact Retroclone each book is written to be used with may vary, essentially, they are all compatible. Which means that the Game Master can mix and match traditions, have player characters from matching traditions, and so on.

Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games is the first book in the series and is designed for use with Goblinoid Games’ Labyrinth Lord. It presents the Witch dedicated to the Mara Tradition, that of the Dark Mother—Lillith, the First Woman, the First Witch, and the Mother of Demons. Although for use for Labyrinth Lord, it presents several options for the Class, depending upon the Dungeons & Dragons ‘tradition’ that a gaming group follows. So that is Levels One to Thirty and with Race limits or not, so Daughters of Darkness can be run with Labyrinth Lord, Labyrinth Lord and Advanced Labyrinth Lord, or another retroclone. In addition to the Class, the supplement includes some one-hundred-and-seventy-five spells and rituals for the Witch character Class, almost forty monsters as allies or enemies, and a trio of unique witches for the Player Characters to encounter.

As a Class, the Witch has much in common with the Cleric and the Wizard. Primarily, the Witch is an arcane spellcaster who studies her spells and records them in her spell book or Book of Shadows. However, she may also gain some divine or ritual spells. She is religious in that she honours, follows and worships a patron, a single Goddess, and where for the Cleric, this worship is for good of the community, for the Witch, it is very much personal in nature. Where a Wizard prepares his spells and a Cleric prays for his spells, a Witch prepares them via ritual to her goddess or patron. Whatever her god, goddess, or patron, the Witch does not believe in the afterlife, but sees life as a cycle of life, death, and rebirth—and so cannot be raised from the dead or use the spells Raise Dead or Resurrect. Most Witches are Lawful and are reluctant to cast ‘black’ or evil magic, but can be of any Alignment. Like the Warlock, the Witch’s primary attribute is Charisma and gains more spells and an Experience Point bonus the higher her Charisma is. They see their magic as being older than that of either the Cleric or the Wizard. The Witch also has Occult Powers, the most basic of which is an understanding of healing herbs at Second Level and beyond.

Each Witch, after answering ‘the Call’ to her goddess or patron, follows a Tradition. This can be a Family Tradition, the Witch following her family into or joining a Coven; she can follow a mix of Traditions—an ‘Eclectic’ Tradition; or even be a Solitary Practitioner. The Tradition explored in Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games is the Mara Tradition. This Tradition serves deities dedicated to Death, Transition, Change, and even Destruction. In terms of Alignment, it can be either Lawful or Chaotic, never Neutral, but a Daughters of Darkness—or Mara—Coven is typically Chaotic and Evil in nature, their primary patron being Lilith, the Queen of the Night. They may revel in, and benefit from, death and destruction, and consort with vampires and demons.

The Mara Tradition adds a number of elements to the base Witch Class. It grants the Witch a Familiar, such as a Crow, Hyena, or Wolf, more as the Witch grows in power. At higher Levels, a Witch can invade the dreams of others and drain their Constitution, polymorph into nightmares, and places curses on others. The Mara Tradition grants access to Necromancy spells, though not the Raise Dead or Resurrect spells.

Artemise Mallor
Second Level Witch
Alignment: Chaotic Evil

STR 10 (+0)
DEX 13 (-1 AC, +1 Missile Attack/Imitative)
CON 15 (+1 HP)
INT 15 (+1 Languages, Literate)
WIS 13 (+1 Saving Throw Modifier)
CHR 17 (-1 Reaction Adjustment, six Retainers, Morale 9)

Armour Class: 7 (Padded)
Hit Points: 3
Weapons: Dagger, Sling, Whip
THAC0 20

Occult Powers
Healing balms (1d4+1/three times per day)

Spells: (First Level) – Allure, Blood Augury, Consecration Ritual, Minor Curse

Familiar: Jackal (+1 Intelligence, +1 Constitution checks)

In terms of spells, Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games offers a wide selection. So, at Level One, Bewitch I is a variant of the Charm spell, Blood Augury allows the caster to ask a single question of her own blood, Minor Curse temporarily inflicts a -3 penalty on a target, and Sickly reduces both the victim’s health and constitution. At Level Two, a Witch gets familiar spells such Augury and Cause Light Wounds, but also spells particular to her Class like Ghoulish Hands which the victim’s hands clawed like those of a ghoul, complete with paralysing effect, and Raven Spy for sending a corvid to keep watch on a victim. The spells go all the way up to Eighth Level and really include some meaty spells that are more interesting to roleplay than the simple flashbang of a Wizard’s repertoire. In addition, the Witch also has access to Ritual spells, which gains at every even Level. These are cast as a group, so require more than the one Witch. So, Curse of Lycanthropy lets a coven turn the victim of the spell into a wererat or wereboar or werewolf.

Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games describes nearly forty monsters. Many are drawn from folklore and lore to do with witches—Barghests, Black Cats, Demons, Imps of the Perverse, and more. Others are less obvious in their sources, such as the Demonic Ghūl, a worse type of the Ghoul or Ghast, or the Olitiau, a monstress riding bat. The Lilim are included as another group who claim Lilith as their mother and may be seen as the sisters to the Daughters of Darkness, some of whom claim to be part-demon as a consequence. The bestiary section is rounded out with a selection of vampires. The last section of the supplement describes three unique witches—‘Bloody’ Mary Worth, who haunts mirrors scaring away girls who come looking for their fates; Darlessa is a Queen of Vampires and  former witch; and lastly Lilith herself.

Physically, Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games is generally tidily presented. It needs an edit in places and some of the illustrations—which do vary in quality and style—are poorly handled. In general, the supplement feels slightly rough around the edges.

There is a great to like in Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games. There are some good monsters and lots and lots of spells which should be fun to game when roleplaying a Witch. Yet there is an issue at the heart of the supplement and that is that as much as the Witch Class clicks together easily with the Mara Tradition, there are dissonant differences between the Class and the Tradition. What it boils down to is that the Witch Class as written is not inherently evil, and in fact, the Class states that Witches avoid casting ‘black’ evil magic, yet to get the fullest out of Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games, a Player Character Witch will have to be evil—or at least Chaotic. Some players may have an issue with this, as will some playing groups, and that is understandable. However, for a player wanting to roleplay that type of character, there is a fair amount of detail in Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games for him to dig into and bring into his portrayal of his character, whereas a player not wanting to play a Witch from the Mara Tradition, or not wanting to play a Witch of the Mara Tradition who is neither evil or Chaotic, will have a harder time. Similarly, the Labyrinth Lord can easily take the information in this supplement and make an interesting NPC and more.

Overall, Daughters of Darkness: The Mara Witch for Basic Era Games is a good supplement for a player wanting to play a darker, perhaps even evil character in a Dungeons & Dragons-style campaign which allows such characters or for the Game Master wanting to create Witch NPCs for her campaign.

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

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What is it?
Monster of the Month #6: Petty Spirits presents four minor spirits for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is an eight-page, full colour, 911.74 KB PDF.

Monster of the Month #6: Petty Spirits is well presented and decently written.

Where is it set?
The four petty spirits may be found almost anywhere in Dragon Pass, although some may not be found in the Praxian Wastes.

Who do you play?
Shamans, farmers, and redsmiths will be interested in some of these spirits.

What do you need?
Monster of the Month #6: Petty Spirits requires both RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and RuneQuest – Glorantha Bestiary. 

What do you get?
Monster of the Month #6: Petty Spirits presents four different, minor spirits which can annoy, interact with, or even be used by the Player Characters. The four are Bronzebiters, Lily’s Eyes,Premonitions, and Seed-Eaters. Each is broken down to cover its ecology and both superstitions and rites related to it, as well as stats.

Bronzebiters are red mouths with black teeth which devour the bones of Air and Storm gods—or bronze. When they attack bronze, it appears pitted and discoloured, or diseased. They are a nuisance, but also a warning to oil, polish, and maintain a weapon. They cannot enter a space sacred to Gustbran, the god of redsmiths, and Praxian shamans will bind them and send them against enemy tribes.

Lily’s Eye spirits are flowers with tiny eyes which grow in the Spirit World before they manifest and grow in the Middle Realm—especially in wild, fertile areas. Oddly, Aldryami consider them to be spies, as do Orlanthi. Lily’s Eye spirits can be plucked, their magical properties being highly valued by shamans and alchemists.

Premonitions are manifestations of the Movement Rune which carry a glimpse of the future from the far Outer Regions of the Spirit World, where boundaries grow vague, and Eternity draws near.

Seed-Eaters are small rural Darkness spirits with long snouts used to rummage through the furrow of plowed fields, plucking up and eating seeds. They like spiritual foods linked to Chaos—strife, disease, and hate. Despite this, they are associated with Mallia, the Goddess of Disease.

On one level, these are four inconsequential spirits which the heroes should not be bothering themselves with, but on another there is scope with each one to add flavour or detail to an adventure or scenario. The presence of Seed-Eaters might suggest the influence of Mallia and thus work as a clue, but the passing of the seasons could be indicated by the annual ceremony to win their favour. Similarly, Red Mouths might be a simple annoyance, but perhaps be the indication of an attack by the shaman from a rival tribe. 

Is it worth your time?
Yes. Monster of the Month #6: Petty Spirits gives the Game Master four interesting spirits that can be used to add small, flavoursome details, and serve as clues, challenges, and so on.
No. Monster of the Month #6: Petty Spirits consists of details too small to really bother about—especially if the Player Characters lack a shaman.
Maybe. Monster of the Month #6: Petty Spirits are mostly colour, mostly the small details, and some of the four are easier to use than others. 

Somewhere on the far reaches of Europe’s north, high amidst its snow-covered mountains lies the Dorag Passage. Recently, a scientific expedition consisting of botanical cataloguers, geographers, geologists, and even a noted alchemist, led by Hastik Melmark, headed into the region. It has been weeks, even months since the expedition has been heard of, and perhaps there are rumours of nightmares and hysteria plaguing the sparsely settled regions near the Dorag Passage. Does the expedition need rescuing or simply checking upon? Is there any truth to the rumours? Perhaps the Player Characters are employed to conduct that check or need to find Hastik Melmark—or another member of the expedition—for reasons of their own. This is the set-up for The Feast on Titanhead, a weird-fantasy, Lovecraftian-tinged scenario of body horror which echoes Death Frost Doom by way of The Thing From Another World. It is also a heavy-metal, grind-core interpretation of the Manifestus Omnivorous.

Published by Games Omnivorous, The Feast on Titanhead is a system agnostic scenario of fantasy horror which would work with any number of Old School Renaissance retroclones. The most obvious one is Lamentations of the Flame Weird Fantasy Roleplay, another is the publisher’s own 17th Century Minimalist: A Historical Low-Fantasy OSR Rulebook, but with some adjustment it would work with Cthulhu by Gaslight or a darker toned version of Leagues of Gothic Horror for use with Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration  and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age!. Take it away from its European setting and The Feast on Titanhead would work well with Mörk Borg as they share a similar tone and sensibility. Notably though it adheres to the Manifestus Omnivorous, the ten points of which are:

1. All books are adventures.
2. The adventures must be system agnostic.
3. The adventures must take place on Earth.
4. The adventures can only have one location.
5. The adventures can only have one monster.
6. The adventures must include saprophagy or osteophagy.
7. The adventures must include a voracious eater.
8. The adventures must have less than 6,666 words.
9. The adventures can only be in two colours.
10. The adventures cannot have good taste. (This is the lost rule.)

So yes, The Feast on Titanhead adheres to all ten rules. It is an adventure, it is system agnostic, it takes place on Earth, it has one location, it has the one monster (the others are extensions of it), it includes Osteophagy—the practice of animals, usually herbivores, consuming bones, it involves a voracious eater, the word count is not high—the scenario only runs to twenty-eight pages, and it is presented in two colours—in this case, black and grey. Lastly, The Feast on Titanhead does lack good taste. Be warned, this scenario is one of gut churning—in some cases, literally—horror, bodily fluids, and madness. To that end, the scenario includes a sense of ‘Contagious Pyschosis’, a fairly brutal countdown and timing mechanism which drives the Player Characters into insanity and the maw of the monster at the heart of the scenario. This is quite a blunt mechanic and if the roleplaying mechanics that the Game Master is running The Feast on Titanhead with has sanity or madness mechanics of its own, she may want to substitute those instead of using the ones given.

The play of The Feast on Titanhead is actually quite straightforward. The Player Characters will ascend to and Dorag Passage, and after a nasty encounter with weirdly behaving beasts of burden, they descend into a series of passages and rooms uncovered by Hastik Melmark’s expedition. Here in a strange, horridly fetid and organically bloody complex they are likely encounter the former members of the expedition, their possessions, signs of madness, odd energy, and vomit-inducing monsters. The encounters get odder the deeper they penetrate into the complex until they get to the centre of the complex and the scenario, where they can confront the inhuman force behind what is going on. That is, if they get there. Although The Feast on Titanhead presents two options in terms of motivation for the Player Characters to get to the adventuring location, but once inside, there is a dearth of clues or hooks for them to find which would drive them onwards and pull deeper into the complex—though there is the possibility that a Player Character could be snapped up and taken there already, hopefully motivating to rescue them. Balanced against this is the scenario’s weirdness and its ‘Contagious Pyschosis’ which may actually drive the Player Characters to flee before they learn anything.

Much of the problem in The Feast on Titanhead is that it only names three NPCs. Two are members of the expedition, one being Hastik Melmark, whilst the third is a treasure hunter. The latter is left up to the Game Master to develop and decide what he is going to do and how he reacts with the Player Characters—the advice being rather slight. Of the expedition, there is relatively little sign, no real clues as to what they discovered, and so the Player Characters never quite have anyone to actually care about or emphasise with. Ultimately, the Player Characters will only actually learn or gain hints as to what is going on if they penetrate into the complex’s furthest reaches and defeat the monster at its core—and that is a difficult prospect.

Physically, The Feast on Titanhead is a black and grey book a sperate card cover. The map is on the inside of the card cover and the internal illustrations reflect the heavy-metal, grind-core interpretation of the Manifestus Omnivorous manifesto. It needs a slight edit in places, but is overall quite a sturdy product, being done on heavy paper and card stock.

The Feast on Titanhead is short and brutal, it being possible to play through the scenario—and win or lose (even if they survive)—in a single session. It needs fleshing out somewhat in terms of Player Character motivation and drive to delve deeper, and if played as part of a campaign, any failure upon their part—again, if they survive—may have a profound effect upon the future of that campaign. In need of some development upon the part of the Game Master, The Feast on Titanhead probably works best as a heavy-metal, grind-core, bloody body horror grindhouse style one-shot.

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

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

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Name: A Wealth of Knowledge

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Leith Brownlee
Setting: 1930s Miskatonic University 

Product: Scenario
What You Get: 1.22 MB eighteen-page, full-colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Somethings have a greater thirst for knowledge than you do. 
Plot Hook: When your need to find a book to pass an exam is greater then worrying about missing students and academia, are your priorities straight?Plot Development: An impending examination, a better stocked new library, missing friends, an all too friendly librarian, and a deadly book depository.Plot Support: A tight plot and a new Old One.

Pros
# Easy to adapt to other periods
# Easy to set in Lovecraft Country
# Easy to add to a Miskatonic University campaign
# Straightforward plot 
# Forewarns the danger of reading too much

Cons# Linear plot
# Needs a better edit
# No maps
# No illustrations
# No NPC write-ups
# Underdeveloped plot

Conclusion
# Easy to adapt to other settings
# Possible addition to a Miskatonic University campaign# Underdeveloped and linear

As its title suggests, the Tales from the Loop Starter Set is an introductory boxed set for Tales from the Loop – Roleplaying in the '80s That Never Was. Published by the Swedish publisher, Free League Publishing, this is the roleplaying game based on the paintings of Simon Stålenhag, in which young teenagers explore the Sweden of an alternate childhood. It is rural small-town Sweden, but one in which its streets, woods and fields, and skies and seas are populated by robots, gravitic tractors and freighters, strange sensor devices, and even creatures from the long past. To the inhabitants of this landscape, this is all perfectly normal—at least to the adults. To the children of this landscape, this technology is a thing of fascination, of wonderment, and of the strangeness that often only they can see. In Tales from the Loop, it is often this technology that is the cause of the adventures that the children—the player characters—will have away from their mundane lives at home and at school.

Specifically, Tales from the Loop is set on Mälaröarna, the islands of Lake Mälaren, which lies to the west of Stockholm. This is the site of the Facility for Research in High Energy Physics—or ‘The Loop’—the world’s largest particle accelerator, constructed and run by the government agency, Riksenergi. In addition, the Iwasaka corporation of Japan has perfected self-balancing machines, leading to the deployment of robots in the military, security, industrial, and civilian sectors and these robots are employed throughout the Loop and its surrounds. Meanwhile, the skies are filled with ‘magnetrine vessels’, freighters and slow liners whose engines repel against the Earth’s magnetic field, an effect only possible in northern latitudes. There are notes detailing the particulars of life in Sweden in the 1980s, but the culture is radically different—especially in terms of its (almost Socialist) government—to that of the USA and so Tales from the Loop includes an American counterpart to The Loop, this time located under Boulder City in the Mojave Desert in Nevada, near the Hoover Dam. Here the particle accelerator is operated by the Department of Advanced Research into Technology and there is an extensive exchange programme in terms of personnel and knowledge between the staff of both ‘loops’. Similarly, the description of Boulder City and its Loop include plenty of notes on life in the 1980s and as much as the two cultures are different, there are plenty of similarities between the two.

Since its publication in 2017, Tales from the Loop – Roleplaying in the ’80s That Never Was has won many awards and Tales from the Loop itself has been developed into a television series to view on Amazon Prime . The Tales from the Loop Starter Set is released in time to coincide with the release of the television series and is designed introduce roleplayers to the world of the roleplaying game—whether they have watched the television series and want to try Tales from the Loop or are experienced roleplayers wanting to try something different. It comes with everything necessary for the Game Master to present—and both Game Master and players alike—to roleplay a mystery within the Loop over the course of an evening or two.

The Tales from the Loop Starter Set comes in a surprisingly sturdy box. Open up and the first thing you see is a set of Tales from the Loop dice—some ten in all, with the number six on each of them replaced with the symbol for Riksenergi, the Swedish government agency which built and ran the Facility for Research in High Energy Physics or ‘The Loop’. Underneath that is a double-sided map of the region around the Loop. Roughly A3 in size, this depicted the region of Mälaröarna, the islands of Lake Mälaren on the main side, whilst on the other is marked the area around Boulder City, Nevada. The map is full colour and printed on thick paper. Below that there are five sheets, one for each of the five pre-generated player characters. Marked ‘Kid 1’ through ‘Kid 5’, they are again double-sided and include a Popular Kid, a Weirdo, a Jock, a Computer Geek, and a Bookworm. All five are part of the same gang and have connected relationships, and they have background and illustration on the front and the stats on the back. Like Tales from the Loop, they give suggestions which pertain to both the Swedish and the American Loops. Here this consists of names, so the player character Frederik is given the name Chad when playing in the American setting.

Lastly, there are two books in the Tales from the Loop Starter Set. These are the ‘Rules’ and ‘The Recycled Boy’ booklets. The former presents the game’s rules and explains how Tales from the Loop is played, and is marked, ‘Read This First’. The latter contains the scenario and is marked ‘For The Gamemaster Only’. The ‘Rules’ covers everything in four chapters—‘Welcome to the Loop’, ‘The Age of the Loop’, ‘The Kids’, and ‘Trouble’. The first of these, ‘Welcome to the Loop’, introduces the setting of Tales from the Loop and explains what roleplaying is. It does decent job and is backed up in the examples of play throughout the book. It also gives and explains the ‘Principles of the Loop’, essentially the six fundamental elements of the setting which set it apart from other roleplaying games. These are that ‘Your home town is full of strange and fantastic things’, ‘Everyday life is dull and unforgiving’, ‘Adults are out of reach and out of touch’, ‘The Land of the dangerous, but kids will not die’, ‘The game is played scene by scene’, and ‘The world is described collaboratively’. These nicely sum up the world of the Loop, that Kids will explore a world just outside their homes which is full of scientific marvels and mysteries, one that the Adults are unlikely to really appreciate, being wrapped up in their problems and dramas—problems and dramas which are likely to have an impact on the Kids on an ongoing basis. Although dangerous—the Kids can be robbed, beaten up, mocked, and so on, they cannot be killed (though they can be forced to leave the game due to trauma). The collaborative element of play means that not only can the Game Master set scenes, she can ask her players to do so too, and she can also ask the players to describe and add elements to the setting too. What this means is that Tales from the Loop is a game in which the story is played out together, some of the setting elements are worked out together as well.

 ‘The Age of the Loop’ describes the setting for the Swedish and the American Loops. As such, anyone familiar with the contents of Tales from the Loop will recognise the much shorter descriptions given here. Here though it sets the scene for the scenario to come rather than the full game, so is done in broader strokes. For anyone new to roleplaying or new to Tales from the Loop, perhaps what is interesting here are the cultural and political differences between Sweden and the U.S.A. Of the two, the Swedish Loop is the more interesting because it is different, the outlook and attitudes of its inhabitants presenting more of a roleplaying challenge because of the differences. Essentially, despite the presence of the Loop making many things different, the American Loop still feels too familiar from film and television, so too easy to fall into clichés.

The shortest chapter is ‘The Kids’. This describes what the various elements on the character sheets are—age, attributes, skills, Luck points, items, Drives, Problems, Pride, Relationships, and Conditions—and how they affect game play. Each Kid has four attributes—Body, Tech, Heart, and Mind—and each of these has three associated skills. Both are rated between one and five. Luck points are used to reroll dice and younger Kids have more Luck points than older Kids as they are simply luckier. Items can dice if appropriate to the situation, a Drive pushes a Kid to act and to investigate mysteries, a Problem is a personal thing related to a Kid’s home life and will get him into Trouble, Pride is what a Kid values and can get a Kid into Trouble as well as help him, and Relationships are between the other Kids in the gang as well as another NPC. So Dave or Isak might have the Drive of ‘I am fascinated by self-balancing machines, I’ve always wanted a robot of my own’, the Problem of ‘My parents are getting a divorce, but my dad hasn’t moved out yet’, and the Pride of ‘I know how that works’. Dave’s item might be an electronics toolkit. All of the various elements of a Kid are clearly explained and easy to understand.

Lastly, almost a third of the ‘Rules’ is devoted to the last chapter—‘Troubles’. This explains how the dice work and the dice pool mechanics in both Tales from the Loop and Tales from the Loop Starter Set. Known as the ‘Year Zero’ mechanics, dice pools are formed from a combination of a Kid’s attribute and appropriate skill, or just the latter if no skill applies. The player rolls the Tales from the Loop dice and if a six—or a Riksenergi symbol—comes up, the Kid succeeds. Failures can complicate situations or impose a Condition upon a Kid, like Upset or Exhausted, but a player can push a roll and get a reroll, though this is not without its consequences. Typically, only one Riksenergi symbol is needed for a Kid to succeed, but more challenging Trouble may require more. Sometimes extra successes can be used to add further narrative elements to play, such as to find out more information about a machine and its maker, not only beat a bully, but upset him, and so forth. Lastly, the ‘Troubles’ explains how the game’s skills work and give some bonus effects for those extra Successes.

‘The Recycled Boy’ is half the length of ‘Rules’ and contains the scenario of the same name. It presents a four or five scene mystery which can be played out in a session or two. Written to be run in either the Swedish or the American Loop, it concerns a fellow student at the pre-generated characters’ school who has begun acting oddly. Its plot feels suitably eighties, being too dissimilar to films of the period, though perhaps the title of the scenario might be a bit knowing. Either way, it is a good first scenario for Tales from the Loop, presenting a problem which can be best solved through roleplaying rather than other means and it would be easy for a Game Master to add it to her campaign.

Physically, the Tales from the Loop Starter Set is well presented. Notably both books are presented on glossy paper rather than the matt paper of the Tales of the Loop core rulebook. The package as a whole does need a slight edit in places, but throughout, is illustrated with Simon Stålenhag’s fantastic artwork. Everything is of a high quality and presents an attractive product, especially if you have not looked at a roleplaying book before.

However, there is a problem with the Tales from the Loop Starter Set and it is very simple. There is just the one scenario. What this means is that there is not the easy, next step to take after playing ‘The Recycled Boy’. Now of course, there is the Tales of the Loop core rulebook and Our Friends the Machines & Other Mysteries, but another scenario would support the continued interest of the Game Master and her players more immediately rather than forcing them to cast around for their next scenario. As good as the scenario is in Tales from the Loop Starter Set, it is difficult not to compare it with other recent starter or beginner boxed sets and be somewhat disappointed because they offer more value for money. Similarly, if a gaming group already plays Tales from the Loop, then the Tales from the Loop Starter Set only provides the one scenario—though one which is only available in the Tales from the Loop Starter Set—and so does not offer as much value for money as it could. That said, it comes with another set of dice for the game and good maps of each Loops, as well as the scenario.

Yet the Tales from the Loop Starter Set is a solid, well-presented package. As an introduction to the alternate, fantastic world of Simon Stålenhag’s artwork and the roleplaying game based on it, the Tales from the Loop Starter Set is enjoyably accessible and attractive, presenting a good first step into an eighties that never were.

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—and so on, as the anniversaries come up. 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—

Over the years, Dungeons & Dragons has returned again and again to face its tallest foe—the giants! Most recently Wizards of the Coast pitted adventurers against them in 2016’s Storm King’s Thunder, the sixth campaign for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, but their first appearance was in a trilogy of scenarios which began with G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief and continued with G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, before concluding with G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King. The three would subsequently be collected as G1-2-3 Against the Giants, which itself would form the first three parts of the campaign that would be collected in 1986 as GDQ1–7 Queen of the Spiders. In 1999, these three modules would be reprinted as part of the Dungeons & Dragons Silver Anniversary Collector’s Edition boxed set and more properly revisited in Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff. It would be followed in 2009 by Revenge of the Giants, the first ‘mega-adventure’ for Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition, and then of course, in 2016 with Wizards of the Coast’s Storm King’s Thunder. For anyone interested in reading or running the series for themselves, G1-3 Against the Giants is available as a surprisingly inexpensive reprint.
Much of this history as well as critical response to both the individual dungeons and the collected G1-2-3 Against the Giants is detailed on Wikipedia. This is worth taking the time to read, so Reviews from R’lyeh recommends doing so before returning to this series of reviews. The ‘Giants Review’ series began with G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, continued with G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, and brings the original trilogy to a close with G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King.
G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King is a direct sequel to G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief and G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl. In G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, the Player Characters were directed to investigate the recent attacks upon the  lands of the humans—nominally in the World of Greyhawk—by attacks by giants of various types. Against this unheard of occurrence the rulers of these lands hired the Player Characters to deal a lesson to the Hill Giants. In the course of the adventure, the party carried out a strike—and ‘strike’ is the right term—on the Hill Giant steading, because G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief is nothing more than a commando raid upon a ‘military’ base. As well as discovering the presence of other giants at a feast held in their honour, what the Player Characters also discover is the scenario’s singular link to G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl. It is both figuratively and actually a link, capable of transporting the party to the Glacial Rift of said second scenario. At the end of G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, the players characters find a similar link which gets them to Muspelheim, in front of the great obsidian valve-like doors of King Snurre’s halls which make up G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King.
From the outset, G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King is very different in terms of tone and presentation. The scenario is longer—at sixteen pages, double the length of G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief and G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl—and presents three levels rather than two. It is also wrapped in a triple-gatefold cover than the double one of the previous two scenarios. Where G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl was fog and ice over bare rock, G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King consists of a three hundred foot tall, smoking slag heap, its halls and rooms of black and brown worked rock, its special rooms of obsidian and black marble, all lit with torches, braziers, jets of natural gas, and even pools of molten lava. The inhabitants, predominately the Fire Giants, are warier and cannier, better reacting to intruders—more so if the player characters make multiple sorties into the halls. Notably though, unlike in the first parts of the trilogy where the big bosses are placed at the end of the scenario, the likelihood is that the player characters will encounter Snurre, the black-armoured, orange tusked and bewhiskered, bandy-legged, and ugly King of the Fire Giants, along with his bodyguards, very early on in the dungeon. They are literally found in the dungeon’s third room and a careful party could get inside and deal a mighty blow to the Fire Giants and their mysterious backers before anyone can react by killing King Snurre. That though, still leaves his even uglier and wartier wife, Frupy, and a lot of angry Fire Giants. On the other hand, the Fire Giants will react quickly to any intruders and the adventurers could find themselves forced to retreat very quickly. As with G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief and G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, a handy bolthole is described at the beginning of the scenario should the player characters decide they need to beat a hasty retreat.
With what is essentially the ‘reception room’ upfront, the areas beyond are given over to communal and private quarters, barracks, storage, guest chambers, and the like. Amongst the more mundane locations, E. Gary Gygax gets to write some interesting set pieces. These include the eerie Hall of Dead Kings—the crypts of the Fire Giant Kings, a smithy heated by molten lava, a torture chamber, and the Temple of the Eye—actually in use as opposed to the strange temple all but abandoned below the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief—where the Drow conduct ceremonies to some unnamed elder god. Some of these encounters veer between incredibly deadly to deadly and silly, though are horrifically weird. The fact that the King’s Torturer can throw a player character into an iron maiden and slam the door shut—killing them instantly, and the Royal Headsman can lop of heads and limbs aplenty with little recourse from the player characters point to just how deadly the adventure is. The silly is the fact that G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King repeats the error of G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl by shoving a very large and ancient Red Dragon atop a huge mound of coins and other treasures into a tiny cavern. This is compounded by the addition of an illusion of a Red Dragon in the adjacent, much larger cavern. It goes against the whole sense of naturalism which permeates the rest of the scenario.
The weird includes the Temple of the Eye and its priests’ quarters. The temple is all unease and a sense of foreboding, swirling lights, purple stone, rusty black mineral block altar, and malachite pillars, where the player characters’ meddling is likely to either kill them, send mad, enrage them, age them, and so on, or under the right—potentially terrible—circumstances grant them just what they need. The quarters of the Drow priests is protected by a Wall of Tentacles, a horrid spell which will reach out with tentacles and beaks to bite, abrade, and constrict those forbidden to pass through it.
The last and third level is entirely different. Rather than worked or polished stone, it consists of natural caverns and is populated by a range of monsters more suited to the environment—Ropers, Piercers, Lurkers, and the like—although in a relatively small area. However, it is currently occupied by a number of visiting forces. These include the Drow, divided between forces divided between Eclavdra and Nedylene, the latter and her forces not only stuck out of the way, but hemmed in by a group of Mind Flayers, also monitoring Drow activities near the service. Beyond the third level itself, a tunnel leads off into the depths... 
Then there are the Drow themselves—the existence of which is the big reveal in G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King. Famously, this is their first appearance in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and the end of the module includes their full write up as if they had been included in the Monster Manual. This feared, even infamous, Race of Dark Elves has continued to feature in Dungeons & Dragons ever since, but here they remain mysterious and intriguing. The contingent in and below the Hall of the Fire Giant King is led by the warrior-priestess Eclavdra, many of them wielding a new magic item, Rod of Tentacles. 
In terms of plot, G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King is rather hit and miss. There are links to the wider plot in the correspondence found in the Council Room, including instructions given to King Snurre by the mysterious ‘Eclavdra’ about bring together various other species, including Ogres, Orge-Magi, Cloud Giants, and other in readiness to attack the lands of civilised Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and so on. In these scrolls is the first mention of the ‘Drow’, the allies of—or rather the power directing the Giants. Perhaps one of the best links to the wider plot is that rooms in the Halls of the Fire Giant King are potentially put aside for the Frost Giant Jarl and his wife and Chief Nosnra and his wife—that is, if they survived the events of G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief and G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl respectively. Its inclusion not only points to the wider involvement of the Hill Giants and the Frost Giants, it points to the effect that the player characters have had on the ongoing campaign. In other words, that both Hill Giant Nosnra and the Frost Giant Jarl and their respective wives are there because of the player characters. Another really nice touch is that Queen Frupy actually has a Potion of Giant Control for using on her husband, Snurre!
Yet in other places, plot within the scenario is either sorely underdeveloped or overused. Not once, not twice, but four times NPCs in the scenario are subject to ‘Curse your inevitable betrayal’ plot lines. There is Ombi, the Dwarf who was once Snurre’s slave, but is now his advisor; there are three Rakshasas—who even King Snurre distrusts, but who the player characters we are told, are sure to see as “…trusted friends and associates”; a Human female Thief, who will help out before running off with any loot she can—including that stolen from the player characters; and Boldo, King Snurre’s former lieutenant who will do anything to get back in his majesty’s good books despite having been locked up for his lack of deference. All four will eventually betray the player characters should they be prepared to befriend them, though the Dungeon Master will need to determine exactly who the Rakshasas look like and what they want as no advice is given to that end. Similarly, the Titan NPC who will ally with the player characters—and the only potential ally who not actually portray them—is left up to the Dungeon Master to develop in terms of personality and motivations.
However, what this does means is that there are much stronger roleplaying elements in G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King than there are in the first two part parts of the trilogy. Most of this will be with the various traitorous NPCs already mentioned, of whom Obmi is the most notable given that he would appear again in E. Gary Gygax’s work on the World of Greyhawk as the ‘Hammer of Iuz’ and as a villain in Gygax’s Gord the Rogue novels. Then there is obvious rivalry between Eclavdra, the envoy to  the surface world from below, and Nedylene, the Drow sent to check up on her. Neither NPC is really developed and again, this is left up to the Dungeon Master to handle.
In terms of the overall plot, G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King both delivers and disappoints. Yes, there is the big reveal about the power behind the hostile activities of the giants on the surface world—the Drow, and there is no denying the impact of that. However, no information is given and again, another tunnel or exit leads off to the next part of the campaign, which at this point feels like it should be complete with the publication and play through of G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King. The next part is, of course, D1 Descent into the Depths of the Earth and so it is actually far from being complete.
G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King is rewarding in terms of the treasure that the player characters will be able to carry away from its halls and caverns. In comparison to their lesser brethren in the earlier modules, the Fire Giants are rich. Most carry gems about their person, but both King Snurre and Queen Frupy have much, much more. Some of this though, is locked up in vaults and even then, hidden. Often the player characters will find it challenging to uncover it, whilst getting back to the civilised presents a whole other set of problems...
For all that G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King describes the Fire Giants as being tough opponents, and able to cleverly react to the intrusion by the player characters, the advice on how they react is underwritten. With the Throne Room and both the quarters of King Snurre and Queen Frupy so close to the entrance of the hall, there is the possibility that either or both of them are killed early on in the player characters’ sorties into the Fire Giant lair. What happens then? How do the survivors react? Given that the purpose of the scenario for the player characters is as the module states, “…to slay fire giants and all who associate with them.”, why is there so little advice to help the Dungeon Master here? Now of course, this is an ‘Old School’ module and yes, that means that the Dungeon Master is left to decide these things for herself, and whilst that is intentional, it leaves the Dungeon Master with a lot of variables to work through when preparing the adventure.
Physically, G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King is again a slim booklet, but sixteen pages rather than eight. Again, the booklet is cramped, but E. Gary Gygax again packs in a lot of detail, especially in the descriptions of Queen Frupy, of King Snurre’s vaults, Ombi and his quarters, the Temple of the Eye, and so on. The maps are generally clear and benefit from being across three levels rather than two. Unfortunately, the artwork is mostly terrible. In fact, the best piece of artwork is Dave Trampier’s profile portrait of King Snurre himself.
—oOo—
G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King was published at a time when there were few magazines in which they could be reviewed. In many cases, G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King would be reviewed when it was published in the collected G1-2-3 Against the Giants in 1981. For example, this is the version that Anders Swenson reviewed in Different Worlds Issue 20 (March 1982). He wrote of G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King that, “The fire giants live in a well-constructed dungeon complex inside a volcanic mountain. This is simply a tough nut for the adventurers - the giants are in a place constructed for defense where they can repel a sortie with secondary positions, impromptu barricades, and ambushes. The designer expects this tobe a running battle.”
White Dwarf was the exception and managed to review the trilogy of G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, and G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King together in Open Box in White Dwarf Issue No. 9. However, this did not mean that they were reviewing independently of each other, the late Don Turnbull concluding, “In summary, there are three D&D scenarios which have been very carefully planned in considerable detail, both individually and collectively; they have been presented in exemplary fashion and are fit to grace the collection of the most discerning. They require skill in play (which is right) but also require a party of high-level characters, and my one regret is that they were not aimed at parties more likely to be readily available to players (though, in fairness, you can't expect a weak party to take on gangs of Giants). No DM should be without them, for even if he never gets a chance to run them, they are a source of much excellent design advice.”
However, G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King was reviewed separately in Space Gamer Number 44 (October, 1981) by Kurt Butterfield. He wrote that, “The scenario is well thought out and nicely detailed.  DMs will find some intriguing special instructions given for deviously playing several of the intelligent inhabitants of the dungeon. There’s also some useful and interesting information on the Drow (dark elves).” before continuing, “This is definitely not ab easy dungeon, and since the monsters are quite strong and numerous, players will often be hard put to survive. Many of the monsters could be left out and this would still have been a challenging adventure.” He concluded by writing, “I advise all DMs who are looking for an exciting, worthwhile adventure for their players to pick this one up. You won’t be disappointed.”
—oOo—
G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King brings the ‘G’ series of adventures to a big, challenging finale—if not necessarily a conclusion. In comparison to G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, it is undeniably a better dungeon. Perhaps not quite as atmospheric, but better and more interesting in terms of individual locations, plotting, and roleplaying potential. Unfortunately, neither the plotting nor the roleplaying potential is as developed as it should be, that is, sufficiently enough to be helpful to the Dungeon Master, and ultimately, enough to explain the reasons for what is going on between the Drow and the Fire Giants. There is though a sense of scale and grandeur to G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King, the enemies and big and tough, the halls are tall and eerie, and there is a sense of mystery to the place in uncovering just what is going on (as much as the module explains everything). Unlike G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, the dungeon in G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King does not feel as static, but much of what is going on is confined to individual locations rather than the whole complex and perhaps in as organised a place as the Hall of the Fire Giant King, the module could have done with a schedule of events to give some idea of what its various inhabitants are doing and when. Again, this something that is left up to the Dungeon Master to decide. 
G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King is a big, bruising, even brutal dungeon crawl. It will take clever gameplay and tactics upon the part of the players and their characters to survive, but just like G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl before it, G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King needs a lot of input from the Dungeon Master to bring out the best of its details.
—oOo—
It should be noted that Wizards of the Coast collected and published G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, and G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King as part of Tales from the Yawning Portal for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. It is a pity that Goodman Games would not have a chance to revisit, develop, and update the series as it did for B1 In Search of the Unknown and B2 Keep on the Borderlands with Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands. Certainly there is some archival material in the early issues of Dragon magazine, such as the examination of these modules as tournament adventures in Dragon 19. In the meantime, the next review in the series will be of Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff.

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 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?
GLORANTHA: Trinkets from Dragon Pass is a short supplement for for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a five page, full colour, 9.71 MB PDF.

GLORANTHA: Trinkets from Dragon Pass is decently presented and organised. It needs a slight edit.

Where is it set?
Dragon Pass.

Who do you play?
Adventurers of all types who could come across curios, novelties, gewgaws, and the like.

What do you need?
RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. It can also be run using the RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha – QuickStart Rules and Adventure.

What do you get?
A single table with fifty entries.

GLORANTHA: Trinkets from Dragon Pass is a short—a very short—supplement containing one table. On this table is listed fifty entries listing gewgaws and trinkets and curios and knickknacks that you could find amongst an NPC’s personal possessions. For example, “A bronze clasp, once belonging to the belt of a fierce Orlanthi fighter. It resembles the head of a trollkin.” or “Something which resembles a brass bracelet, but it is instead a decoration for the central horn of a triceratops domesticated by dragonewts.” Some of them are even ever so slightly magical, such as “A miniature wicker boat. When a copper Clack is put in it, a faint, illusory image of Jeset the Ferryman appears for a moment.”

Is it worth your time?
Yes. GLORANTHA: Trinkets from Dragon Pass is an inexpensive way of adding verisimilitude to your RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha campaign.
No. GLORANTHA: Trinkets from Dragon Pass is simply too expensive and does not offer enough value for money for what you get, plus the small details do not always matter.
Maybe. GLORANTHA: Trinkets from Dragon Pass is expensive for what you get, but who knows what you might find packed away on that Issaries merchant caravan?

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

(Note: ‘Gammerstang’ means awkward person in the local dialect.)

Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria details an area of the north of England, bordering Scotland, which is best known as the Lake District—for the lakes Windermere, Coniston Water, Ullswater, Buttermere, Grasmere, and many others, and as the home of the ‘Lake Poet School’ whose members included William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey. Since the Victorian period it has been primarily been seen as a tourist destination, but prior to that, it was a source of worked-flint, a frontier of the Roman Empire, a frontier region between England and Scotland, a rural backwater, and more recently, with the coming of the railways, an industrial centre. Yet in ages past, races of the Mythos like the Elder Things and the Fungi from the Yuggoth operated in the region, whilst with the coming of mankind, the Deep Ones migrate to the Cumbrian coast and begin interacting with them. The Celts brought worship of the Shub-Niggurath and avatars of Nyarlathotep to the region, whilst the Romans also imported the worship of dark gods from the far edges of their empire.

Now despite its title of Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria, the supplement actually describes not the county of Cumbria as it is today—which only dates from 1974—but rather Cumberland, Furness, and Westmoreland. (For ease of play, the supplement simply uses Cumbria.) It covers the region in three chapters. The first of these introduces the area and gives its history, geography, a guide to getting there and what to find when you do, the latter including cuisine, entertainment, policing, and so on. The inclusion of a guide to toponyms—Cumbrian place names, the local dialect, folk remedies, and general superstitions all add a pleasing degree of verisimilitude. In game terms, it suggests various Leagues of Adventure faculties to be found in the region, for example, the Anglers’ Club, Bath Club, Mariners’, and Society of Aquanauts share a clubhouse in Bowness-on-Windemere. (The presence of the latter a knowing nod—backed up by an even more nod to The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.)

The second chapter is the gazetteer and forms the heart of the supplement. It covers ancient sites, natural features, Roman sites, and settlements, many of which are accompanied by adventure seeds. Thus, the Castlerigg Stone Circle outside of Keswik, whose number of stones is said to be uncountable and at the centre of which is a firepit which when unearthed was a blob of “some dark unctuous sort of earth.” The adventure seed for this suggests that this was the remains of a Black Spawn of Tsathoggua. The natural features include the region’s various caves and lakes, the Roman sites two major forts in the area, whilst the settlements cover its towns and villages, from Ashness Bridge and Aspatria to Whitehaven and Workington. It describes the Dacre family, a prominent Cumbrian family which in the past was split between its worship of Cthulhu and Shub-Niggurath, and supports this with a new Bloodline for Leagues of Cthulhu. Tying back to the Lakeland poets and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a notable narcotic ‘Kendal Black Drop’ of the period, better enables users to enter the Dreamlands or simply opens them to the thoughts of the Great Old Ones…

The third chapter presents denizens of the region. They include lists of dignitaries—aristocrats, bureaucrats, clergymen, and Members of Parliament—all names which Game Masters and Keepers will want to research before bringing into their campaigns. The only famous person fully detailed is the bon vivant Earl Lonsdale, known as the ‘Yellow Earl’ for his favourite colour. This may or may not signify something… Lastly, the supplement details a cult, the Brotherhood of the Maimed King. Linked to Arthurian myth, this is horridly both fecund and bucolic and is the content in the book which is probably the easiest for the Game Master and the Keeper to develop into a scenario. 

Physically, Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria is a plain affair. It is simply laid out, there are no illustrations, and there are no maps. The latter is more of an issue than the former, forcing even the most casual of readers to do some research to give context to places and features described in the text. That said, any good Game Master or Keeper will probably do more research if she is going to run a scenario or take her campaign to Cumbria, so maps are not as much of an issue as they could be. Still, it would have been nice if there had been one included.

Anyone coming to Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria expecting the Mythos to be running wild across the rolling hills, up and down the fells, along the long the deep valleys of the region, conspiracies of worshippers working to bring about some grand plan to end the world, will be disappointed. Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria is not that supplement. It is broader in its over overview of the region, encompassing the supernatural as well as the Mythos, but layering it under folklore and myth and superstition. What manifestations of the Mythos there are in Cumbria are holdouts, relics from the ancient past, perhaps best left to linger and die off rather than arise again due to some meddling from all-too inquisitive Globetrotters or investigators. Anything in Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria will need some development upon the part of the Game Master or Keeper to turn into a full mystery, but is still worth keeping on the shelf as reference or just in case the Globetrotters or investigators feel like a holiday in Wordsworth country.

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 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?
Blue Moon, White Moon is a short one-night (one session) scenario for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a fifteen page, full colour, 9.71 MB PDF.

Blue Moon, White Moon is well presented and organised. Its NPC illustrations are excellent, but the scenario needs a slight edit.

Where is it set?
Dragon Pass, specifically Sartar, but it could be set anywhere where the rule or influence of the Lunar Empire has been felt.

Who do you play?
Adventurers with a few adventures under their belt with a prejudice against the Lunar Empire. The scenario may have more of an emotional impact if one of the player characters is a Lunar Tarshite. It may also be quite fun if a player character is an Issaries initiate.

What do you need?
RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. It can also be run using the RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha – QuickStart Rules and Adventure. Access to A Rough Guide to Glamour may provide further background and context, but is not needed to play Blue Moon, White Moon.

What do you get?
Blue Moon, White Moon is a short, simple scenario which presents the player characters with a physical and a moral challenge. In it, they encounter an Imperial assassin from the Lunar Empire. Fortunately, she is not after them, but is in fact on the run. The question is why, and then, what do the player characters do about or with her? By default, player characters in RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha are from Dragon Pass and are likely to possess strong feelings towards the Lunar Empire. Blue Moon, White Moon is intended to test those prejudices and perhaps give them a slightly altered view of the Lunar Empire.

The other aspect to the scenario’s set-up is that the assassin has encountered some bandits. This is where the player characters enter the story—are they hunting the bandits, is the assassin hunting the bandits, is this a chance encounter, and so on? All of this will probably be resolved in the scenario’s first scene, the second scene will revolve around what the player characters decide to do about the assassin and the consequences of this decision. Although the scenario will involve some combat, this decision lies at the heart of Blue Moon, White Moon. Ideally, it should foster no little roleplaying at the table and despite the brevity of the scenario’s length, those consequences could continue to play out in a campaign for a while after.

The scenario is easy to set up, has only three NPCs which the Game Master will need to handle, and requires relatively little preparation. The simple set-up also means that the scenario could any time that the player characters are on the road or between other scenarios, and its short preparation time means that it could also be dropped into a campaign at as equally short a notice. Ultimately consisting of just two scenes, Blue Moon, White Moon is really all about the set-up, leaving the Game Master and her players to explore the consequences, the Game Master needing to adjust and adapt as normal.

Besides the three NPCs—only one of whom is actually a ‘villain’ (and as written, it is not who the player characters will think it is given their probable Passions)—the Game Master is given details of a new Occupation, the Blue Moon Assassin, one of the Lunar Emperor’s septet of personal protectors and executioners and two associated new Rune spells. These are likely for the use of these NPCs only, that is unless a player really, really wants to play an extremely challenging character.

Lastly, Blue Moon, White Moon would also work as a convention scenario. Especially for players with some experience of Glorantha.

One minor issue with Blue Moon, White Moon is that it shares a similar ‘Lunar woman in peril’ set-up as Jorthan’s Rescue Redux,* which was also designed to test the player characters’ prejudices towards the Lunar Empire. Of course, the actual set-up and scenario is otherwise entirely different, and the testing of the player characters’ prejudices is implicit rather than explicit. Nevertheless, the Game Master should be wary of running the two scenarios too closely together.

* Which in the interests of disclosure I did write.

Is it worth your time?
Yes. Blue Moon, White Moon is an excellent scenario which will present the player characters with an interesting moral dilemma and test their passions. It is also quick to set up and add to a campaign. It is also written by John Wick.
No. Blue Moon, White Moon will be of little use to you if your campaign is not set anywhere near Sartar or you want nothing to do with the Lunar Empire.
Maybe. The Lunar Empire and its minions get everywhere, and one day your player characters might run into the ‘worst’ of them.

Dungeons & Dragons has a problem. From Dungeons & Dragons to Basic Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeon & Dragons, First Edition to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, that problem has been one of Race. In Dungeons & Dragons, a player’s choice of Race has always what core special abilities his character has, what attribute bonuses, what training he has undertaken, through a common Alignment for that Race, what his outlook upon the world is, as well as in many cases, what the world’s outlook is of his Race is in general. So under the current version of the rules, a Dwarf will an increased Constitution of +2, a starting age of fifty, tend to be of Lawful Alignment, stand between four and five feet tall and weigh about one-hundred-and-fifty pounds, be of Medium Size and have a base walking speed of twenty-five feet, have Darkvision, Dwarven Resilience against poisons, Dwarven Combat Training with battleaxes, handaxes, light hammers, and warhammers, tool proficiency with either smith’s tools, brewer’s supplies, or mason’s tools, and Stonecunning, a proficiency bonus in things related to stone. This question is, is this a typical Dwarf? Are all Dwarves like this? If so, is this not a racial stereotype, and would a Dwarven scribe have proficiencies with different tools rather than either smith’s tools, brewer’s supplies, or mason’s tools? Might the Dwarf be trained in different skills depending upon where and among whom he grew up? What if he grew up in a Halfling village, would he be exactly the same as the rules say he should be?

Another problem with Dungeons & Dragons and race is why are there only Half-Orcs and Half-Elves? And why only with Humans? And why such characters with mixed parentage always seem to have difficulty with the Race of one of their parents—of not both? Then another problem with Dungeons & Dragons and race is a continuation of the Race as stereotype issue. That problem can be addressed by answering the question, “What is the point of Orcs?”. Author N.K. Jemisin’s answer is that, “Orcs are fruit of the poison vine that is human fear of “the Other”. In games like Dungeons & Dragons, orcs are a “fun” way to bring faceless savage dark hordes into a fantasy setting and then gleefully go genocidal on them.” By extension, this answer can be applied to the Drow too, but essentially the answer is that depicting Orcs, Half-Orcs, and Drow as evil and vile—and in the case of the first two, rapists and the victims of rape—is, well, racism.

Now if you disagree with those points or you do not think that such questions should be answered, or even asked, then this review is not for you. Nobody is going to come to your house and tell you that the way you play Dungeons & Dragons is wrong. It might not be how the designers intended Dungeons & Dragons to be played and it might not be what some parts of the Dungeons & Dragons community want to hear about the game being played. If so, then again, this review is not for you, and the book being reviewed, Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e, is not for you. Similarly, that does not mean that there are no reviews on Reviews from R’lyeh of interest to you. For example, here is a review of G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl which was only published last week. However, if you are interested—whether with a sceptical or an open mind—in hearing about solutions to the problems that Dungeons & Dragons has with race and racism, then this review is for you. And if you think that Wizards of the Coast, the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, is right to address the issue, then this review is also for you.

Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e is published by Arcanist Press. It is a supplement for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition which offers solutions to both counter the problem of racism in the roleplaying game, options to enhance the diversity in the game, and a pair of scenarios which feature this diversity and have an emphasis on co-operation and roleplaying rather than on direct combat. The supplement begins by examining the problem, looking at where it originates from, and identifying how it exhibits in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. At its heart, the roleplaying game takes a number of elements, mixes them together, and packages together under the term, Race. Fundamentally, it packages elements which are genetic—Age, Size, Speed, Darkvision, and so on, together with those which due to upbringing—Ability increase values, Alignment, Tool Proficiencies, and the like. The solution that Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e offers is to take each ‘Race’ as defined in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and divide its  constituent parts into packages—or Traits—of their own. These Ancestral and Cultural Traits. So into the Ancestral Trait goes all of a species’ traits which would be inherited from their parents, that is, the simply biological elements such as Age, Size, Speed, Darkvision, and so on. This leaves learned or trained traits like Alignment, Languages, Proficiencies, Attribute bonuses, and so on, to go into the Cultural Trait. Thus, the Dwarven Ancestral Traits consist of Age, Size, Speed, Darkvision, Dwarven Resilience, and Dwarven Toughness, whereas the Dwarven Cultural Traits are made up of the Ability Score Increases—Constitution by two and Wisdom by one, Alignment, Dwarven Combat Training with battleaxes, handaxes, light hammers, and warhammers, tool proficiency with either smith’s tools, brewer’s supplies, or mason’s tools, and Stonecunning, a proficiency bonus in things related to stone, and the Dwarven language.

Now one of the issues with repackaging is where the Attribute bonuses go and it does look odd for them to be under the Cultural Trait and so suggest that they due to upbringing rather than innate, biological nature. After all, this is how it has been for the past forty years. The explanation is simple. The designers have moved away from the problematic concept that intelligence or strength is higher or lower in certain ethnic groups, a concept which underpins various aspects of racism. That said, as a player or a Dungeon Master there is nothing to stop you playing a Dwarf who was brought up among the Dwarven culture and combining the Dwarven Ancestral Trait and the Dwarven Cultural Trait to create a Dwarf in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. The division though, allows a couple of interesting options. Most obviously you could create a character with Diverse Cultural Traits, that is, a character of one species who was brought up in the culture of another, so a character with the Ancestral Trait of one species and the Cultural Trait of another. For example, a Halfling who was brought up amongst Dwarves or a Human who was bought up amongst the Elves—such as Aragon did in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The other is Mixed Ancestral Traits in which a character has one parent of one Ancestral Trait and one parent of another Ancestral Trait. So you could have a Tielfling-Elf or a Halfling-Dwarf or a Dragonborn-Human and Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e provides rules on how to do this.

In addition, Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e offers two appendices offering additional rules, options, and resources. These include further rejecting the essentialist nature of the Cultural Traits which still suggests that a member of any one culture will have the same traits, so someone who grew up amidst a Dwarven culture would always have high Constitution and Wisdom, a Lawful Alignment, Dwarven Combat Training, particular Tool Proficiencies, and Stonecunning. How then, would you do a Dwarven scribe or merchant or entertainer. Here Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e provides the means to create that by giving a player the choice in what Attributes to increase, Tool Proficiencies to select, and the like. The supplement actually gives the Ancestral Traits and Cultural Traits for the core species in the Player’s Handbook—Dragonborn, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Halfling, Human, Orc, and Tielfling, so that a gaming group can just slot that in the character creation process with ease. Of any other species, a second appendix suggests how they can be adapted to the new format of the Ancestral Traits and Cultural Traits.

Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e also includes two scenarios. Both are what the author calls ‘’An Ancestry and Culture Adventure’ and both are set in and around communities with diverse, mixed-heritage populations. Both are designed for a party of five Third Level characters, but advice is given to adjust as necessary for weaker or stronger parties. In ‘Light of Unity’, the player characters come across a village beset by a shadowy corruption emanating from a nearby forest where a team of archaeologists has recently gone. To get the best out of the scenario, the player characters need to interact with the villagers and learn more of what is going on before proceeding to the source of the mystery. The interactive and roleplaying elements of the scenario are its best feature because otherwise ‘Light of Unity’ still adheres to the well-worn ‘village in peril’ set-up. It does not mean that it is unplayable, but perhaps just familiar. The second scenario, however, ‘Helping Hands’ takes the set-up one step further. It has a village in peril, in fact ablaze, but not only has the player characters help with the fire and the ensuing panic, but has them deal with the consequences, going for help in neighbouring communities. What is so enjoyable about ‘Helping Hands’ is that the solutions to problems it poses to the player characters are do not rely upon combat, but investigation and interaction. This is not to say that there is no combat in the scenario, but the emphasis is not upon fighting.

Physically, Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e is well written and presented. The maps are clear, but the standout feature is the artwork—which is gorgeous. None of it is in colour, but the depictions of a Dwarf of Dwarf Ancestry and Elf Culture, of a character of Dwarven and Orcish Ancestry and Orcish Culture, and others are really quite lovely. 

If Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e is missing anything, it is perhaps that it does not explore what mixed cultures look like. It does what a character of mixed culture and heritage will look like, easily slotting into the Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition character creation process to do so, but not what a society and a culture might look. Of course, the scope for that would be enormous, but some advice might have been useful.

Ultimately, if you have an issue with either the questions raised by Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e or the solutions its offers, then the book is entirely optional. Bear in mind though, that Wizards of the Coast will be addressing them as the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and so the roleplaying game will be changing. And again, nothing is stopping you from ignoring those changes and adhering to the version that you like. However, what Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e is doing—and what Wizards of the Coast is going to do—is looking at Dungeons & Dragons from another perspective and asking difficult, uncomfortable questions about the game, and not only identifying problems with the game, but offering solutions. And even if you still want to play a Halfling who is a Halfling with both the Halfling Ancestral Trait and Cultural Trait or a Tielfling with both the Tielfling Ancestral Trait and Cultural Trait, you still can, but other players sat round the table might not want to, and Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e gives them options to mix and match the options that they want, to create the characters that they want. Plus, it is doing it without the stereotyping of the Race element in Dungeons & Dragons. It means that you can create characters who can still be interesting without being stereotypes or clichés and without being, well, racist—even if unintentionally.

As its title suggests Bayt al Azif – A magazine for Cthulhu Mythos roleplaying games is a magazine dedicated to roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror. Published by Bayt al Azif it includes content for both Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition from Chaosium, Inc. and Trail of Cthulhu from Pelgrane Press, which means that its content can also be used with Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game and The Fall of DELTA GREEN. Published in September, 2019, Bayt al Azif Issue 02 does not include any content for use with the latter two roleplaying games, but instead includes three scenarios—stated for both Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and Trail of Cthulhu, discussion of how to run a specific modern campaign, a review of a recently-rereleased classic campaign for Call of Cthulhu, interviews, an overview of Lovecraftian investigative horror roleplaying in 2018, and more. All of which, once again, comes packaged in a solid, full colour, Print On Demand book.
Bayt al Azif Issue 02 opens with editorial, ‘Houses of the Unholy’, which really takes stock of the progress of the magazine from the first issue to this one. So it is somewhat reflective in nature before it sets out what the Bayt al Azif Issue 02 is all about, and so is also focused on the job at hand. Its reflective nature is coupled with ‘Sacrifices’ and then ‘Cthulhu in 2018: A Review’. ‘Sacrifices’ is the letters page, which covers the response to Bayt al Azif Issue 01 and so lays the background for the potential community which come to be built around the magazine. ‘Cthulhu in 2018: A Review’ is by Dean Englehardt of CthulhuReborn.com—publisher of Convicts & Cthulhu: Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying in the Penal Colonies of 18th Century Australia. In Bayt al Azif Issue 01, he presented ‘CthuReview 2017’, a look back from 2018 of the previous year in terms of Lovecraftian investigative horror and its associated segment of the gaming hobby. It covered the notable figures and their doings as well as the various publishers, projects, Kickstarters, and more. Now ‘Cthulhu in 2018: A Review’ does not look at the notable figures in the hobby, so focuses on the releases, the Kickstarters—fulfilled and unfulfilled, the highlights, and the trends. From Masks of Nyarlathotep to the Yellow King Roleplaying Game, Devil’s Swamp to Crawl-thulhu, Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos to The Shadow Over Dunsmore Point, this is an extensive overview, which again nicely chronicles the year keeps us abreast of anything that we may have missed or forgotten. (An interesting touch is that the author does include links to reviews of some of these titles—including some to Reviews from R’lyeh. Of course these look a little odd in print, but highlight the origins of the article as an online piece.)

Bayt al Azif Issue 02 has a decidedly Germanic feel to it. This is because it follows in the footsteps of Worlds of Cthulhu which adapted over the course of its six issues, content from the official German Cthulhu magazine, Cthuloide Welten. Bayt al Azif plans to draw content from another German Cthulhu magazine, Cthulhus Rus, and to that end, Bayt al Azif Issue 02 includes a number of German-sourced pieces. The first of these is Ralf Sandfuchs’ ‘Who Needs Lovecraft Country? – Why the Weimar Republic is the Best Setting for Cthulhu Games’, which espouses the virtues of interwar Germany as a setting for roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror. We have already seen this potential come to the page with the publication of Berlin: The Wicked City – Unveiling the Mythos in Weimar Berlin, but this only focuses on Germany’s capital, so there is yet a supplement dedicated to Germany as a whole to be published. Certainly, this article makes the case that Germany is highly suitable and certainly, Berlin: The Wicked City is good starting point for any Keeper interested in the setting.
The content sourced from Cthulhus Rus continues with ‘False Friends’, a scenario by Philipp Christophel and Ralf Sandfuchs. Set in the 1920s and the university town of Göttingen, ‘False Friends’ is designed as an introductory scenario and is the first part of a campaign, further installments of which will appear in future issues of Bayt al Azif. A young student, recently gone up to university, missing under odd circumstances, and her worried parents ready to engage the investigators to find their daughter, will be familiar to any veteran of Lovecraftian investigative horror roleplaying games. So on the whole, this is a comparatively simple, straightforward scenario, and whilst the background of Germany after the Great War adds a degree of social conservatism, perhaps an opportunity was missed to frame the differences between roleplaying in the USA or United Kingdom of the period and in the Weimar Republic. Like all three scenarios in Bayt al Azif Issue 02, ‘False Friends’ includes stats for both Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and the GUMSHOE System of Trail of Cthulhu. 
The second scenario is Ash DelVillan’s ‘Nighted’. This is a Cthulhu by Gaslight scenario set in England in 1899, in which the player characters are invited to a masquerade at a country mansion. It is written primarily as a one-shot with pre-generated characters with links to each other and the NPCs. Like ‘False Friends’, the format is very familiar—a country house, a masked ball, a wayward host, and rooms packed with curio after curio. Then of course, it turns into a locked room situation, one with threats from without, and growing within! This drives the second half of the scenario, the first being the invitation and the manners of the player characters to stay in the mansion and await their host. It is fairly tightly plotted in terms of its timing and ratcheting up of the tension. It does deliver a nasty poke in the eye—or two—and will probably have the player characters scrambling to find a solution to their situation as lycanthropic creatures stalk the grounds outside.
There is lycanthropic theme—more obviously so, in the third scenario, ‘Beasts of Gévaudan’. As the name suggests, Bridgette Jeffries’ scenario is set in 1760s and is inspired by real events. The investigators are tasked by the crown—and some by other interested parties—to travel to the region and determine the cause of the attacks. Again, this is a one-shot, its pre-generated investigators each having their motives which should add to the tension as the relatively simple investigation is carried out. The scenario should involve a high degree of action and horror, but ultimately will present the players and their investigators with a moral choice. ‘Beasts of Gévaudan’ has enjoyable historical feel to it and should derail anyone coming to it thinking that it will be like the film, The Brotherhood of the Wolf.
A whole campaign comes under scrutiny in Lisa Padol’s ‘Adapting a Scenario – Our Ladies of Sorrow’. The editor examines the non-Call of Cthulhu modern horror campaign published by the much missed Miskatonic River Press in 2009 in some detail, highlighting some of the difficulties faced in both adapting it to Trail of Cthulhu and to the early nineteen-sixties. It is  a highly detailed, often character-focused piece that is worth the time of any Keeper wanting to run the campaign. Or indeed get some idea how to individualise any campaign, although it is very specific to Our Ladies of Sorrow. The issue with the article is that the campaign has been out of print for a decade and unless it is reprinted or a copy can be found on the second-hand market, its contents are not immediate use.
There are just two reviews in Bayt al Azif Issue 02—and they are a huge improvement upon the two reviews in Bayt al Azif Issue 01. First, Stu Horvath discusses Masks of Nyarlathotep in ‘Vintage RPG’. If his reviews in the first issue were slight and image heavy, here the author is given the space cover the history of, as much review, the new edition and it shows in being a better written, more detailed, and interesting article. For veterans of Call of Cthulhu, there will be much here that is familiar, but for anyone new to Call of Cthulhu will nevertheless, this is informative and interesting. The second review is actually of Call of Cthulhu itself, but not of Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Rather, ‘“It is not dead which can eternal lie…” Game Review: Call of Cthulhu’ is actually a review of Call of Cthulhu, First Edition by J. Eric Holmes, the editor of the 1977 Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set RPG. This is fascinating continuation of Zach Howard’s ‘Clerical Cosmic Horror: The Brief Era of the Cthulhu Mythos as Dungeons & Dragons Pantheon’ from Bayt al Azif Issue 01 and he adds a commentary to the end of the review. Together they provide a contrast between a time when Cthulhu was just beginning to appear in the gaming hobby and its prevalence today.
Jared Smith, the editor of Bayt al Azif conducts two interviews in this second issue. The first, ‘Die Gesellschaft – An Interview with Cthulhus Rus’ is with the team behind Cthulhus Rus—Stefan Droste, Daniel Neugebauer, and Marc Meiburg, whilst ‘Cracking Adventures – An Interview with Lynne Hardy’ is with the Associate Editor for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Both are interesting and informative, the one with the team behind Cthulhus Rus only slightly more interesting because it is with players and authors from another Call of Cthulhu community. Jared Smith also contributes another entry in the ‘Sites of Antiquity’ series, this time ‘Temple of Melqart at Marat’ and suggests how the ruined Phoenician temple could be used with the Mythos.
Rounding out Bayt al Azif Issue 02 is the next part of Evan Johnston’s ‘Grave Spirits’. In Bayt al Azif Issue 01, this story took the central character of a doctor into Red Hook, but it was very much set-up and needed more episodes to develop the story. This part does and so delivers more impact and horror. It will be interesting to see where the story goes.
Physically, Bayt al Azif Issue 02 is a step forward in terms of production values and look. The layout is cleaner, tidier, and not as cramped or fiddly. The images are better handled and the is writing better.
Bayt al Azif Issue 02 is a better issue than Bayt al Azif Issue 01. It benefits from longer articles and a more diverse range of voices. In particular, the content from Cthulhus Rus opens up an aspect of the Call of Cthulhu community which would otherwise be inaccessible to the predominately English-speaking community, and of course, the scenarios are not only well done, but they also highlight Bayt al Azif as a vehicle for scenarios that whilst good, are not necessarily commercial enough to be published by Chaosium, Inc., Pelgrane Press, or a licensee. If there is perhaps an issue with the series it is that many of the articles around the scenario are about Call of Cthulhu rather than for Call of Cthulhu. So, there is no mechanical, historical, or background support for the roleplaying game and that does mean that neither a Keeper nor player has reason to come back to Bayt al Azif Issue 02.
Overall, Bayt al Azif Issue 02 is a good second issue, much improved on the first. Its better sense of professionalism is combined with a good range of voices, scenarios, and articles about Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. 

Tournaments of Madness and Death is a scenario anthology for Crypts & Things: A Swords & Sorcery Roleplaying Game. Published by D101 Games, this is a grim and dark, Old School Renaissance retroclone which draws its inspiration from Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser by Fritz Leiber, and L. Sprague de Camp’s Swords and Sorcery anthology. Tournaments of Madness and Death presents two scenarios—almost an ‘A’ and a ‘B’ side, almost because you cannot turn the book over to run either—and more. Both scenarios are designed for a party of between three and six characters of between Fourth and Fifth Levels; both are self-contained, but can be added to a Game Master’s own Crypts & Things campaign, whether one of her design or the default setting of The Continent of Terror; and notably, also designed to be run at conventions.

In fact, this is an important aspect of the two scenarios in Tournaments of Madness and Death. As written, both ‘The Furnace’ and ‘The Tomb of the Evil Emperor’ are designed to be run—and have been run—within a four-hour convention game slot and both include information to that end as part of their advice on how to stage them. In addition, the ‘more’ to Tournaments of Madness and Death includes the equivalent of an insert, slipped between the two scenarios. This is ‘Dark, Delicious and Deadly’, which explains how the author runs Crypts & Things at conventions. This focuses on what makes Crypts & Things different, keeping up the pace—as necessary, rewarding exploration and interaction, how to handle the flow of monsters in the game (primarily, do not over do it), and how to structure the game over the four-hour convention window. It is really good advice for anyone running this style of game and so could be applied to any number of retroclones. If there is an issue with the advice, it is that the author does not quite completely adhere to it himself. The advice states that the Game Master should use pre-generated characters to give out to the players rather than have them create them at the table, which just takes time. So why are there none given for either scenario?

The ‘A’ side or ‘The Furnace’ takes the player characters to the City of Eternal Shadow under Iron Moon chained above and onto the Iron Moon itself. In ages past, the powerful ancient immortals known as the Nine pulled the moon from the heavens and used it to imprison for the evil tyrant, The Mad Tzar. Now, chunks are falling from the Iron Moon onto the city below and everyone is fleeing the city of the dead for fear that the demonic Mad Tzar is about to break free. Can he be prevented from escaping? Will the adventurers come to the aid of the White Wizard Arksal, the last of the Nine? The adventurers have scope for a little investigation in the city before finding their way onto the Iron Moon, though the scenario is very much not investigative in nature. There are secrets to be found in the city below however—and the scenario highlights these as one of the features of Crypts & Things—and these hint that there is something more to this straightforward prevention of The Mad Tzar’s rebirth.

Once on the Iron Moon, the adventurers find themselves in the prison crypt of The Mad Tzar. Like most tombs in most fantasy roleplaying games, it is essentially linear and full of traps and the odd puzzle. There are more secrets to be found, but the dungeon design is itself not terribly interesting. In fact, run as a standard adventure it might even be a bit dull, but run at the suggested pace of a convention game and the players are unlikely to notice. It works to throw a challenge or three into the path of the adventurers to get them to the scenario’s denouement. This is a whole lot more excitement and escalates the danger that the player characters will face as the climax builds and builds. It is a challenging, big knockdown of a fight ending to the scenario and exactly what you want in a convention scenario.

The ‘B’ Side, ‘The Tomb of the Evil Emperor’ brings the adventurers to the tomb of an emperor so vile his name has been intentionally forgotten from the history of the Continent of Terror. He and his city—now known as the Grand Debris—were smashed when a meteor was pulled down onto his palace, which then became his tomb. Now a cult dedicated to his worship, the Scarlet Riders, has smashed its way through the town of Zonos, the City of the Exiles which immediately abuts the walls surrounding the Grand Debris, and into the ruins beyond. There they plan to awaken the Evil Emperor to once again cast his vile rule over the land as in ages past.

This is a much stronger adventure. Although it is still direct in its structure, there is more for the player characters to explore, the encounters are varied, and there is greater scope for roleplaying and exploration. The locations, whether a dissolute court of a governor’s palace or the remains of the Evil Emperor’s Palace under a meteorite, are simply more interesting and the Game Master has a few more NPCs to portray. There is also a ghoulish sensibility to ‘The Tomb of the Evil Emperor’ and if played as part of a campaign, there are more elements to bring into the Game Master’s campaign.

The two scenarios in Tournaments of Madness and Death are similarly structured. Each consists of an introduction or hook, a small urban area for the player characters to explore and perhaps investigate, a connecting adventure section—either an actual dungeon or a dungeon-like area, and finally, a big battle at the end. These elements fit into the suggested timings for running as convention scenarios. They also each deal with the two subjects of the title. Madness in two ways. First in the madness of the locations, the Iron Moon chained over the City of Eternal Shadow of ‘Furnace’ and the palace and city smashed under a meteorite in ‘The Tomb of the Evil Emperor’, as well as in the madness of unleashing unrivalled evil upon the Continent of Terror. Then there is the death that will be unleashed should the player characters fail. That said, there is a sense of familiarity to the locations in both scenarios—a city under a moon and then a smaller city abutting the walls of a much larger, smashed and broken city—that echo elements and locations in Greg Stafford’s Glorantha.

Physically, Tournaments of Madness and Death is slightly disappointing. It definitely needs an edit. However, it is easy enough to read and the maps are quite lovely. The artwork is really rather good and has a weird, often creepy, feel to it, and so fits the grim dark tone of Crypts & Things.

Tournaments of Madness and Death is a solid pair of convention scenarios, accompanied by good advice for running them at such events. In fact, the advice is worth reading by anyone who wants to run a fantasy roleplaying scenario at a convention. Of the two scenarios, ‘The Tomb of the Evil Emperor’ is the better and one that would make a good addition to a campaign. 

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

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

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Name: The World of Necronomicon

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Marek Golonka
Setting: Any 

Product: Campaign set-up
What You Get: 5.82 MB twelve-page, full-colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Sometimes what you read sets you apart. 
Plot Hook: What if encounters with the strange confirmed what you read in The Necronomicon rather than The Necronomicon confirming what you encountered?
Plot Development: Like Lovecraft’s protagonists, investigators know the content of the forbidden The Necronomicon from the start, their studies altering their perception of reality to be able to see what the blasphemous tome alludes to, emphasising its dread influence, and bringing Lovecraftian investigative roleplay closer to Lovecraft’s narrative.
Plot Support: Discussions of Investigator back stories, locations of The Necronomicons, first revelations, adventure seeds, and some mistranslations.

Pros
# Sixth release in English for the ‘Zgrozy’ line
# Works in any period which has The Necronomicon 
# The horror comes pre-loaded
# Closer to Lovecraft’s narrative structure
# Player knowledge becomes investigator knowledge?
# Ties into The Necronomicon description in the Keeper Rulebook
# For both player and Keeper
# Good roleplaying potential# Prequel potential?
# Makes the Investigators themselves weird and ‘special’
# Possible Investigator organisation?

Cons# Sets players and Investigators up with too much information?
# Needs a better edit
# No specific example of it being used with a published scenario
# Increases the Keeper’s workload at the table

Conclusion
# Interesting alternative campaign framework
# Possible Investigator organisation

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—and so on, as the anniversaries come up. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

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Over the years, Dungeons & Dragons has returned again and again to face its tallest foe—the giants! Most recently Wizards of the Coast pitted adventurers against them in 2016’s Storm King’s Thunder, the sixth campaign for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, but their first appearance was in a trilogy of scenarios which began with G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief and continued with G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl and G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King. The three would subsequently be collected as G1-2-3 Against the Giants, which itself would form the first three parts of the campaign that would be collected in 1986 as GDQ1–7 Queen of the Spiders. In 1999, these three modules would be reprinted as part of the Dungeons & Dragons Silver Anniversary Collector’s Edition boxed set and more properly revisited in Against the Giants: The Liberation of Geoff. It would be followed in 2009 by Revenge of the Giants, the first ‘mega-adventure’ for Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition, and then of course, in 2016 with Wizards of the Coast’s Storm King’s Thunder. For anyone interested in reading or running the series for themselves, G1-3 Against the Giants is available as a surprisingly inexpensive reprint.
Much of this history as well as critical response to both the individual dungeons and the collected G1-2-3 Against the Giants is detailed on Wikipedia. This is worth taking the time to read, so Reviews from R’lyeh recommends doing so before returning to this series of reviews. The ‘Giants Review’ series began with G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief and continues with G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl.
G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl is a direct sequel to G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief. In G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, the Player Characters were directed to investigate the recent attacks upon the  lands of the humans—nominally in the World of Greyhawk—by attacks by giants of various types. Against this unheard of occurrence the rulers of these lands hired the Player Characters to deal a lesson to the Hill Giants. In the course of the adventure, the party carried out a strike—and ‘strike’ is the right term—on the Hill Giant steading, because G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief is nothing more than a commando raid upon a ‘military’ base. As well as discovering the presence of other giants at a feast held in their honour, what the Player Characters also discover is the scenario’s singular link to G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl. It is both figuratively and actually a link, capable of transporting the party to the Glacial Rift of said second scenario. It is at this point that G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl begins.
Whether they have arrived via the device found at the end of G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief or via a map if coming to the adventure separate from the campaign, they find themselves standing at a rift which descends into a glacier. Beyond lies what is almost a mini-world of its own, an arctic, icy-fog-bound cavern round which an icy ledge runs off of which are openings after openings to smaller caverns. Of course, these caverns—nearly all of them ‘ice’ caverns—are still large, many of them either the workplace or quarters of, well, Frost Giants. So the Player Characters will encounter ice cavern after ice cave, seemingly many of them full of Frost Giants ready to grab rocks and lumps of ice and throw them at the intruding Player Characters. These are not the only occupants of the cavern complex. The Frost Giants are being visited by Hill Giants, Stone Giants, and Fire Giants as well as Ogre Magi. They also have a variety of servants, such as Ogres and Yetis, whilst in the lower level, there is a large, ancient White Dragon and his mate, which infamously is kept behind a boulder blocking a ten-foot wide tunnel! This is the ‘Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl’, home to a tribe of Frost Giants, who like Hill Giants, have been conducting raids upon the lands of the Humans.
The ‘Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl’ consists of just two levels, just like the Steading of the Hill Giant chief before it. The first level is funnel-like, initially directing the progress of the Player Characters down one side of the enormous central cavern and into the caverns and caves leading off, and perhaps into the depths of the cavern below. Eventually the Player Characters will be funneled into the second, lower level beyond the first. This is more linear in nature, taking the Player Characters into the quarters of tribe’s nobility as well as those of ‘Grugnur’, the Frost Giant Jarl himself—plus his “lady”, Grugni. Here the Player Characters will also encounter many of Jarl’s guests, mostly giants of other species, their presence building on the hints suggested at the banquet in the fortress of Hill Giant chief in G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief to suggest a wider conspiracy. As with G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, the Player Characters by the end of G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl will find clues and links that will point them towards or get them to King Snurre’s hall, as detailed in G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King.
G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl packs a lot of information and play into its eight pages—well, six pages really given that the equivalent of one page is devoted to a single illustration. Yet there is very much a sense of it being a second album, the difficult middle part of a trilogy, brilliant in parts, but for the most part, imperfect. On the plus side, there is a sense of scale and grandeur to the glacial rift. Not only is the glacial rift up a mountain, but is itself cavernous, with an enormous central cave off which high passages and caves lead, marking it all home to the all-too tall Frost Giants and others. There is also a rich atmosphere to the scenario, both meteorologically and tonally. Ice and snow is everywhere, light being chillingly cast through fog and snow, reflecting the light from the Player Characters’ torches, lanterns, and magic in a shimmering glow. Constant wind blows throughout, threatening to whip the Player Characters from the icy ledges and preventing them from using spells like Fly and Levitate. There is always an exploratory aspect to dungeon delving, but in G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl this is made Himalayan or Antarctic in nature, making the scenario a test of the Player Characters’ physical endurance as much a test of their logistical use of magic and spells.
In terms of tone, the scenario is written with the sense of Gygaxian naturalism as G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief—all of the monsters fit the environment (even the Remorhaz, which although capable of producing heat, is actually a Polar Worm) and the caves are rich with small details that add flavour and verisimilitude to the environment. Cave larders full of dead bodies hung as frozen food, great carvings worked into cavern walls depicting great battles, and the wealth of detail describing the richness of Grugnur’s quarters. There are also interesting treasures for the Player Characters to find, such as a +2 Giant Slayer bastard sword, a Ring of Wishes, and a Box of Holding. Curiously, the +2 Giant Slayer sword is given an Alignment, by default, Lawful Good, but lacks the Intelligence and Ego that such special swords would have in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. The difference being explained by the fact that G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, like G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief and G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King before and after it, were written during the earliest days of the development of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. The Ring of Wishes of course, gives the Player Characters an incredibly powerful magical item, whilst the Box of Holding seems overly presented, a trick box whose operation is given in precise details.
However, G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl is not without its problems. These stem, just as with G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, from its age and it being originally designed as a tournament adventure run at a convention. In this case, as part of the Origins Tournament in 1978. This explains its brevity and its emphasis on combat. Whilst there is a much greater exploratory aspect to the play through of G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl than there is to G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, the two share a similar lack of roleplaying opportunities for either the Dungeon Master or her players. These consist of a Storm Giantess who might enter an alliance with the Player Characters and four Human captives currently held ready for Frost Giant cooking pot. None of these NPCs are detailed and it is left up to the Dungeon Master to develop them herself, though any of the Humans could be developed into potential replacement Player Characters.
Another issue is the power level of the scenario. This is shown in the potency of the magical items to be found in the scenario, such as the Ring of Wishes and the +2 Giant Slayer bastard sword. It is also shown in the toughness of the opponents that the Player Characters will face—the numerous Frost Giants, their allies, and their ‘pets’, the White Dragons. It is recommended that the minimum Level of the Player Characters should be Sixth or Seventh, but ideally the optimum party should consist of nine characters who should average Ninth Level and be equipped with several magic items each. Even with Player Characters of such lofty Levels, there is a high chance that they will wander into the wrong section and get caught between two or more groups of the Frost Giants on guard and driven back under a hail of thrown rocks and chunks of ice. That said, the scenario does provide a safe point, a cave outside of the Glacial Rift to which the Player Characters can retreat and heal, rest up, and regain their spells. Of course, if the Player Characters are forced to retreat, the Frost Giants will undoubtedly be on their guard, even more prepared to withstand further invaders.
Of course, one stand-up fight after one stand-up is not necessarily how a playthrough of G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl will proceed. The Player Characters might work their way in so far, strike or be rebuffed, then retreat to the cave refuge outside of the Glacial Rift, and then reenter to attack again and again, until such times as they have made their way to its end. Alternatively, a particularly stealthy and careful party of Player Characters could actually make its way as far as the dungeon’s second level before encountering any meaningful opposition. 
Physically, G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl is a slim booklet, just eight pages with the loose card cover on the inside of which are the maps of the Jarl’s holdings. The booklet is cramped, but E. Gary Gygax again packs in a lot of detail. There are just a few illustrations and they do vary in quality. The maps though, are done in a light blue on white, so they do not leap out as being very clear or easy to read. However, the layout and the presentation of individual encounters is often, Gygax often focusing on elements which interest him rather than are of immediate use to the Game Master running the module. Of course, G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl was one of the first adventure modules to be published and forty years on, the standard of information presentation and handling has much improved.
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G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl was published at a time when there were few magazines in which they could be reviewed. In many cases, G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl would be reviewed when it was published in the collected G1-2-3 Against the Giants in 1981. For example, this is the version that Anders Swenson reviewed in Different Worlds Issue 20 (March 1982). He wrote, “First of all, the standards for adventure length have expanded considerably, so that a single product now contains the material previously considered adequate for three booklets. The text has problems which the later books have avoided - the individual have no consistent format, and important monsters can be literally lost in the middle of a paragraph between descriptions of loot and room contents. As noted, the flaw of making the scale of the maps much too small is made again by the publisher, along with the bad habit of letting the lower levels degenerate into a random monster mix.” He concluded though, “However, this series of adventures has many strong points which outweigh the flaws noted above. First is the theme of a plot which must be followed step by step back to its source. Second is the attempt at a realistic treatment of the giants' living places - except for the problems I have already mentioned, the plans for the various giant forts are realistic and reasonable. Finally, the text is well-written and pleasing to read.”
White Dwarf was the exception and managed to review the trilogy of G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, and G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King together in Open Box in White Dwarf Issue No. 9. However, this did not mean that they were reviewing independently of each other, the late Don Turnbull concluding, “In summary, there are three D&D scenarios which have been very carefully planned in considerable detail, both individually and collectively; they have been presented in exemplary fashion and are fit to grace the collection of the most discerning. They require skill in play (which is right) but also require a party of high-level characters, and my one regret is that they were not aimed at parties more likely to be readily available to players (though, in fairness, you can't expect a weak party to take on gangs of Giants). No DM should be without them, for even if he never gets a chance to run them, they are a source of much excellent design advice.”
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Thematically, G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl is the fitting next step in the Giants trilogy, but it feels too much like the connecting scenario between G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief and G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King. Whilst there is a fantastic atmosphere to G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, its play emphasises combat over either roleplaying or plot. Indeed, there is very little plot to the scenario—it amounts to ‘start at the entrance and make your way to the exit’—and there are very few clues for the Player Characters to find and learn more about the greater conspiracy, about whomever is actually directing the Giants’ attacks on the lands of the Humans. Another issue  is that despite the naturalism of the design to G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, it feels static, for unlike G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief where there was a feast going on, there is nothing happening like that in G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl.
Lastly G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl is a dungeon crawl and a challenging one. However, it needs greater input upon the part of the Dungeon Master to be made more interesting than it really is. 
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It should be noted that Wizards of the Coast collected and published G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, G2 Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, and G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King as part of Tales from the Yawning Portal for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. It is a pity that Goodman Games would not have a chance to revisit, develop, and update the series as it did for B1 In Search of the Unknown and B2 Keep on the Borderlands with Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands. Certainly there is some archival material in the early issues of Dragon magazine, such as the examination of these modules as tournament adventures in Dragon 19. In the meantime, the next review in the series will be of G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King.

As its title suggests, The Tomb of Dreams An Exalted Third Edition Jumpstart, is a ‘jump-start’—or quick-start’—for Exalted Third Edition, the high fantasy anime-inspired roleplaying game published by Onyx Path Publishing. It is set in a forgotten age when the world lay flat atop a sea of chaos, when the elements were sharply defined culturally and geographically. The gods made war upon the monsters that forged this world and give their human champions the gift of Exaltation, their divine power which granted them amazing gifts and fortitude. Led by the Solar Exalted, mankind would defeat the monsters and inaugurate the First Age of Man, but the Dragon-Blooded Exalted grew jealous, threw down the realm that the Solar Exalted had built, slew them one-by-one, and locked away their powers of Solar Exaltation. The Dragon-Blooded empire has ruled over a Second Age—an age of sorrows, warfare, and strife—for centuries. Now as lesser nations chafe at the Dragon-Blooded empire’s grip and the Dragon-Blooded empire has been wounded by the less of its immortal empress, Solar Exaltation has returned from its long banishment and death, its champions unleashing the powers of the Unconquered Sun upon the world anew. Will they bring light to the world or set it alight?

In The Tomb of Dreams An Exalted Third Edition Jumpstart, five Solar Exalted will follow their dreams into mystery from ages past. It provides five pre-generated Solar Exalted player characters, an explanation of the core rules for Exalted Third Edition, and ‘The Tomb of Dreams’, a short scenario. It is designed to introduce the Game Master and her players to both the setting and mechanics, as well as proving a starting point for an ongoing Exalted Third Edition campaign using the full rules. Besides The Tomb of Dreams An Exalted Third Edition Jumpstart, the Game Master and her players will need between ten and fifteen ten-sided dice—preferably per player, and copies of the character sheets and their explanation.

In Exalted Third Edition, a character or ‘Exalted’, ise defined by various traits. These include nine attributes—Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, Charisma, Manipulation, Appearance, Perception, Intelligence, and Wits; Skills such as Archery or Socialise; Merits such as wealth and political power, and traits of a singular nature; Willpower—representing mental fortitude as well as being spent for various things; Essence—magical potency, consisting of personal and peripheral motes which fuel mystical powers and can be committed to power ongoing effects; and Limit and Limit Trigger, representing the curse twisting an Exalted’s soul, levied when they kill the enemies of the gods. He will have Intimacies, what be believes and cares about, used in social interaction. Health and Defence cover static values such as Parry, Evasion, Defense, Resolve, and Guile. Now some of these elements are not used in The Tomb of Dreams An Exalted Third Edition Jumpstart. These include the Merits, Limit and Limit Trigger, Experience, amongst others. 

Mechanically, a player will be rolling a pool of ten-sided dice, typically formed by adding an Attribute and a Skill together—each being rated between one and five. Each die result of seven or more counts as a success with ‘double tens’, or rolls of ten, counting as double. A character may need to beat a given Difficulty, again rated between one and five. One notable way of increasing the number of dice a character rolls is a stunt, earned by a player giving an evocative description of what his character is going to do. Stunts range in value from one to three, and can simply add dice to a pool, raise a Static value, or grant an automatic success. The point of stunts is to make situations and their outcome exciting and grant players a greater degree of narrative control.

The Tomb of Dreams An Exalted Third Edition Jumpstart focuses on three aspects of the Exalted Third Edition rules—combat, battle groups, and social influence. Combat can be divided into two types of attacks which are rolled against the opponent’s Defence static value. These are ‘Withering Attacks’ which seize the flow of battle and steal an opponent’s initiative and enable to the attacker to use it as his own. Decisive attacks inflict damage directly on the opponents, and are typically used after a few Withering attacks have been made. An opponent reduced to an Initiative of zero is forced into Initiative Crash and is limited in his actions. The combat rules also cover rushing into a fight, withdrawing, and taking cover, as well as aiming, making flurry attacks, full defence, and more. Flurry attacks enable a character to act more than once in a round. There is a sense of escalation to combat, of attacks and high action going back and forth between the opponents, until one side or another manages to make enough Withering attacks to follow them up with a Decisive attack.

Battle Groups are designed to handle anything from a squad or a band to a mob or a formation. They have their own values—Size, Drill (training), Might (supernatural power, if any), and Magnitude (health). A Battle Group inflicts Withering attacks, does not gain the benefits of ‘Double Tens’, and only gets one attack per round. Essentially, the rules for Battle Groups treat them as Mooks, making them dangerous, but not as dangerous or powerful as the NPCs who lead them and whom the Exalted player characters are likely to face on the battlefield. The rules for Social Influence work with the Intimacies which are divided between Ties, attachments to people, places, and organisations, and Principles, beliefs and ideals. For example, ‘My Mentor (Grudging Respect)’ or ‘I am the greatest swordsman who ever lived.’ They can be used increase a target’s Resolve against efforts to influence him, change a target’s feelings and beliefs, and threaten, inspire, and more. 

Lastly, an Exalted can tap into the real power of Creation, which expresses through his Anima Banner. This exhibits first in the caste mark on his forehead and then grows into raging glow around him, becoming more and more as an Exalted uses motes of the Essence that underlies all of creation—either his Personal Essence or Peripheral Essence drawn from around him. These motes are used to fuel various Charms and Spells, for example, ‘Excellent Strike’ ensures an automatic success and lets a player reroll any ones, which requires three motes, whilst ‘Death of Obsidian Butterflies’ costs fifteen sorcerous motes and one Willpower to a create a torrent of razor-edged black butterflies which can inflict a Decisive attack!

The five pre-generated Exalted all come with character sheets and a couple of pages of description and explanation, which includes an illustration and some background. They include Volfer, a pit-fighter; Karal Fire Orchid, a retired general who once served the Dragon-Blooded; Iay Selak-Amu, a witch from the Windward Isle; Faka Kun, a desert pygmy acrobat-thief; and Mirror Flag, a revolutionary actor. They are a reasonable mix, though they do lack personal motivations as to their involvement in the scenario.

‘The Tomb of Dreams’ scenario in The Tomb of Dreams An Exalted Third Edition Jumpstart begins with the player characters arriving on a strange island, seemingly walking out of the ocean along a reef. They are drawn here by dreams of their legacy of their recent Solar Exaltation, and must find their way between the ongoing, ancient struggle between a god, an elemental, and a demon. Their ultimate goal is to locate a cache of ancient weapons and more, but to do that, they will need to determine the motives of the three antagonists. This is key to uncovering quite what is going on the island, but the likelihood is that they will need to enter into a few battles too. The adventure is not quite linear, a couple of options being given which vary according to which of the NPCs the Exalted meet first. Overall, this is a decent scenario which hints at the long history before the Third Age, though it could have done with stronger hooks for the given player character Exalted.

Physically, The Tomb of Dreams An Exalted Third Edition Jumpstart is well presented and well written. The artwork is good, some of it excellent, though some of it is slightly cartoony. The four characters are given some fantastic abilities to bring to the game and often the battlefield, both high action and high fantasy.

What The Tomb of Dreams An Exalted Third Edition Jumpstart is not, is a quick-start. Although it drops various elements of the full Exalted Third Edition, there is still a complexity to the mechanics of the roleplaying game which requires a careful read-through upon the part of the Storyteller. In fact, the Storyteller would be advised to sit down and run an example of the various mechanics herself prior to bringing it to the table for her players. Otherwise, The Tomb of Dreams An Exalted Third Edition Jumpstart is a serviceable introduction to Exalted Third Edition, which though requires a bit of preparation, enables the Game Master to bring anime style high action, high fantasy to her gaming table.

Almost twenty years after Games Workshop gave us Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game, another British publisher gave us its take upon the infamous lawman of the future from the pages of the long-running Science Fiction comic, 2000AD. The year was 2002, publisher was Mongoose Publishing, and the rules employed the then system de jour—the d20 System. The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game (notice the subtle shift of the determiner to differentiate between the two games) was the first of several roleplaying games that the publisher would bring out based on the 2000AD licence, the other most notable one being Sláine, The Roleplaying Game of Celtic Fantasy. Like that roleplaying game, The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game was published as a full colour hardback which contained the means to play in its milieu. This is the year 2124 and just like the earlier Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game, this roleplaying game is set after a nuclear war which irradiated much of the Earth and forced most of the world’s population to live in a number of megalopolises—or supercities. Each is home to millions and millions living in great city-blocks, most of whom are unemployed and turn to hobbies, brand new trends or crazes, or even crime to keep themselves sane. The teeming masses are difficult to police and it takes a special dedicated individual, one who has trained for nearly all of his or her childhood to patrol and enforce the law in these great cities. These are the Judges, trained to be the best, armed with the best equipment, and ready to patrol the streets as combined policeman, judge, jury, and executioner. They enforce the law and do so fairly—and none no more fairly than Judge Dredd himself, a figure who is both authoritarian and an anti-hero, the most well known and feared Judge in Mega-City One on the eastern seaboard of what was once the United States of America. On a daily basis, Judge Dredd has to deal with litterers and jaywalkers, slowsters and sponts, robbers and murderers, smokers and boingers, illegal comic book dealers and gangster apes, and even Judge Death from a parallel earth. Over the years, the Judge Dredd comic has presented a carnival of crazy crimes and criminals, certainly more than enough to provide a rich, bonkers background, just as it did for Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game when it was published in 1985 and then again for The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game when it was published in 2002.

From the start, there is a hurdle to playing The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game. This is the fact that it uses the d20 System and so requires access to the Player’s Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition. In fact, The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game is a Class and Level, Feat and Skill roleplaying game. Now in 2002 this was not unusual and mechanically, several roleplaying games of the period were essentially supplements for the Player’s Handbook with extra rules and a background. That said, anyone familiar with the d20 System would be able to pick up The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game, roll up a character, and get playing relatively quickly and without any great difficulties. 

As per Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game, what the players can roleplay in The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game are Judges, the lawmen of the twenty-second century. Two are presented as standard character Classes—the Street Judge and the Psi-Judge—with the Med-Judge, the Tek-Judge, the SJS Judge, and Wally Squad Judge presented as Prestige Classes. There are two major changes in comparison to standard Player Characters. One is that both the Street Judge and the Psi-Judge start at Third Level rather than First Level, the other is that the Street Judge rolls a twelve-sided die for Hit Points, whilst the Psi-Judge rolls an eight-sided die. As Human characters, Judges, both Street Judge and Psi-Judge, receive a bonus Feat at character creation, and they are given more Feats as they acquire Levels. They also gain more skill points in a similar fashion. These can be the Feats standard to the Player’s Handbook or those particular to The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game.

Character creation is a straightforward process. A matter of rolling dice for attributes and Hit Points, then selecting skills and feats. These are a mix of standard skills and feats from the Player’s Handbook and those new in The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game.

Judge Muller
Third Level Street Judge
STR 14 (+2) DEX 09 (-1) CON 10 (+0)
INT 15 (+2) WIS 11 (+0) CHR 13 (+1)

Defence Value: 10
Hit Points: 24
Base Attack Bonus: +3 (Melee: +5/Ranged: +3)

Fort Save: +3 Ref Save:+3 Will Save: +3 

Skills: Balance 1, Bluff 1, Climb 3, Computer Use 4, Concentration 2, Drive 2, Intimidate 4, Jump 3, Knowledge (Law) 4, Listen 1, Medical 1, Pilot 1, Ride 1, Search 4, Sense Motive 3, Spot 2, Swim 3, Technical 4

Feats: Improved Interrogation, Lightning Reflexes, Luck of Grud

Weapon Proficiencies: All

The Psionics mechanics used for Psi-Judges can be best described as being a non-Vancian spell system. Instead of ‘fire-and-forget’ spells—or Psionic abilities—Psi-Judges possess Psi-Powers and receive several Power Points per day. This is in addition to Zero-Level Psi-Powers which a character can use several times per day. A Zero-Level Psi-Power like ‘Daze’ forces the target to lose his next action and costs a single Power Point to cost, whilst ‘Augury’, a Second-Level Psi-Power enables the Psionicist to cast his mind into the future to determine the outcome of an action. It costs two Power Points to cast. The Psionic Powers are a mix of new powers, such as ‘Psi-Lash’ or ‘Detect Thoughts’, and powers which feel familiar to spells from Dungeons & Dragons, like ‘Augury’ and ‘Clairvoyance’. The Psionicist also has access to Psionic Feats such as ‘Quicken Powers’, which enables a practitioner to manifest his psionic talents with a thought; normally it takes a Round to manifest a power. A psionic power can be saved against in a fashion similar to the spells cast by a Sorcerer.

Judge Garcia
Third Level Psi-Judge
STR 09 (-1) DEX 13 (+1) CON 12 (+1)
INT 16 (+2) WIS 15 (+2) CHR 18 (+4)

Defence Value: 11
Hit Points: 15
Base Attack Bonus: +3 (Melee: +4/Ranged: +2)

Fort Save: +4 Ref Save:+4 Will Save: +5

Power Points: 5
Psionic Talents: Zero-Level—Empathy, Missive; First-Level—Demoralise, Psychometry
Psionic Save: 14+Power Level

Skills: Balance 3, Bluff 6, Climb 0, Computer Use 3, Concentration 5, Drive 2, Intimidate 5, Jump 2, Knowledge (Law) 3, Listen 3, Medical 3, Pilot 2, Ride 2, Search 4, Sense Motive 4, Spot 4, Swim 0, Technical 3

Feats: Inner Strength, Psychoanalyst, Psychic Inquisitor

Weapon Proficiencies: All

Unfortunately, the mechanics for psionics are not very interesting, primarily because they are mapped onto the spell mechanics of the d20 System. This does not mean that they are unworkable, but rather that the results do not feel quite in keeping with that portrayed in the comic. The choice of Judges to play is also a potential issue, in that because Psi-Judge is a starting option, a team of Judges could conceivably consist of too many of them, their being weaker than Street Judges and less suited to street investigations. That said, an all Psi-Judge option is explored in the Game Master’s section. Another issue with the Judges as a play option is that a player cannot be a Med-Judge or a Tek-Judge right from the start rather than having to take a Prestige Class later on.

As well as presenting Judges as a play option, The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game also offers another Class, not as a play option, but rather a campaign option. This is the Citizen Class, which notably lacks the training or abilities of the Street Judge or Psi-Judge, and starts at First Level rather than Third Level. To counter this, the Citizen is given a Prior-Life, such as Agitator, Cit-Def Soldier, Failed Cadet, Goon, Jetball Player, Juve, Mo-Pad Driver, Neo-Luddite, Punk, and more. The choices all neatly fit under the umbrella of the Citizen Class, whilst characters can aim for Prestige Classes such as the Assassin, the Bodyguard, the Citi-Def Officer, the Hunters Club Member, and more. This is potentially a fun idea and would make for a very different campaign to that of playing Judges.

Norma Trang
First Level Street Citizen
Prior Life: Agitator
STR 08 (-01) DEX 14 (+2) CON 08 (-1)
INT 12 (+1) WIS 12 (+1) CHR 16 (+3)

Defence Value: 12
Hit Points: 4
Base Attack Bonus: +0 (Melee: -1/Ranged: +2)

Fort Save: -1 Ref Save:+2 Will Save: +1 

Skills: Bluff 6, Craze (Compulsive Eating) 6, Intimidate 6, Knowledge (Law) 6, Sense Motive 5

Feats: Iron Will, Fool Birdie

Weapon Proficiencies: Grenades, Pistols, Melee Weapons

The two character types—the Judges and the Citizens—lend themselves to very different campaign types. A Judge focused campaign will be about patrolling the streets, investigating crimes and mysteries, and apprehending perpetrators, and so on. It does not matter which roleplaying game you are playing based upon the ‘Judge Dredd’ comic strip, this is the default option. The option to play Citizens enables a campaign to become involved in Mega-City One daily life, for the Player Characters to get involved in and enjoy the rash Crazes which sweep the megalopolis, and then to go get involved in and commit crime! Initially though, this has to be on a small scale, to not come to the attention of any Judge, at least until they have acquired a few Levels, given the fact that even a basic Judge will be at least Third Level.

Another reason that Citizen characters will be at a disadvantage when facing any Judge is that the Judge will be superbly equipped, most obviously with the Lawgiver pistol and its wide range of ammunition types, and the Lawmaster motorcycle. To this are added further Judge equipment, such as the Birdie Lie Detector, Override Card, and Pollution Meter. A Citizen, or a Perp, might have a Double-Barrelled Stump Gun, General Arms Sg-1 XX, smoke bombs, lock hacker, and more, though unlike a Judge, a Citizen will have to pay for his equipment.

As with Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game, in terms of roleplaying, the Judges in The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game are a bit one note, but then they are meant to be. That said, they are more skilled and capable, and focusing on different skills and choosing different Feats allows for some customisation and ensuring there are differences between Player Characters. That said, although they are neither as well equipped or as capable, Citizens can be anything and allow a player to roleplay free from the constraints placed upon a Judge.

Mechanically, The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game uses the d20 System. So roll a twenty-sided die for any action and roll high to beat a particular Difficulty Class or Armour Class, that really is about it. The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game of course includes rules for firearms combat and vehicle chases, and so on. Really, the only new mechanic in The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game is that for a Judge making an arrest attempt and a perpetrator resisting the attempt with opposed Charisma rolls.

In terms of background, The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game provides details about the Justice Department, which includes the resources and back-up a Judge can call upon, sentencing guidelines, stats and descriptions of Justice Department equipment and robots, and stats for sample Judges. Similarly, the ‘Life on the Streets’ chapter gives support for campaigns involving just Citizens, to be fair, primarily a number of Prestige Classes, but there are rules too for running street gangs, useful for a crime campaign. Both are supported by a guide to Mega-City One which covers its geography, government, habitats, infrastructure, sports, hobbies, crazes, and organisations, as well as regions beyond its walls. It is decent enough, though the selection of NPCs and perps is intentionally generic, so none of the Angel Gang,  the mobster Uggie Apelino and the Ape Gang, the vigilante Blanche Tatum, the infamous Judge murderer, Whitey, or Judge Death. Such characters and criminals would of course be saved for the supplement, Mega-City One’s Most Wanted. On the plus side, this does mean that the Player Character Judges will be investigating and arresting perps of the Game Master’s own devising and building their own legends instead of emulating that of Judge Dredd himself, but on the downside, The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game loses some of the flavour of the setting without them. A nice touch is that it is possible to play Ape characters, although they do not necessarily have to be gangsters.

Unfortunately, there is no beginning scenario for The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game in the core rule book. That said, there is advice for the Game Master on running both Judge and Citizen campaigns, along with scenario ideas and campaign variants. This is decent enough and the Citizen campaign is certainly supported with supplements such as Rookie’s Guide to Criminal Organisations, Rookie’s Guide to the Block Wars, and The Rookie’s Guide to the Crazes.

Physically, The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game is reasonably well written and comes as a full colour hardback, though calling it that is a slight stretch. Yes, colour is used throughout, literally just on the header, footer, and outside margin of nearly every page. And whilst there is artwork throughout taken from the comic strip, it is all black and white, all taken from the classic strips of the seventies and eighties, and much of it presented in too small a fashion to read with any ease and just so ever so slightly fuzzy. In all too many cases, when the artwork should pop out from the page, it simply fails to do so. That said, there are fantastically good full colour full page pieces in the book, though being towards the back of the book, do not really do a lot to support the game. For example, why are full colour illustrations of Justice Department equipment over a hundred pages away from their descriptions in the text?

So the question is, is The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game any good? Well, simply put, no, it is not any good, but then neither is it any bad either. It could have been better facing towards the players and their characters by having the details about the Justice Department more upfront for the Judges, giving their players access to information about the back-up they could request and what sort of sentences they can hand out. It does give an alternative to Judge campaigns, the Citizen campaign, which could be a lot of fun. It does produce Judge characters who are at least competent and have skills and abilities, and the roleplaying game would go on to be supported by numerous supplements and scenarios. And yet, there are the mechanics. The problem is simply that The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game uses the d20 System and whilst that works, it is just not that interesting. It definitely feels more as if the Judge Dredd setting has been shoehorned on to the d20 System and it does not feel quite like a natural fit.

There is no denying that a good game could be got out of The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game, but in comparison to Games Workshop’s Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game, it lacks character—even though the Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game is not a great design mechanically—and feels as it demands more effort upon both player and Game Master. Overall, The Judge Dredd Role-Playing Game is solid, serviceable, and supported, but its inherent blandness means it lacks that certain something which makes you want to play it.