Dungeons & Dragons has given the hobby a great many things, many of them signature things. In terms of treasures and artefacts, none more so than The Deck of Many Things. Since it appeared on page one-hundred-and forty-two of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition in 1979, The Deck of Many Things has been a wondrous thing, an artefact which dealt out fantastic gifts—both beneficial and baneful, which wrought amazing changes upon a Player Character and the world around them. These ranges from being given a beneficial miscellaneous magic item and fifty thousand Experience Points, being granted between one and four wishes, gaining an enmity between the Player Character and a devil to the Player Character losing all of his magical items—all of them and forever, having their Alignment radically changed, and being imprisoned—instantly! Once found and as each card is drawn from The Deck of Many Things, that card will change the drawing Player Character, the world about him, and the campaign itself. The Deck of Many Things is not just a wondrous artefact, but very probably, a box/bag—whatever it came in, of chaos.

Over the last forty years, The Deck of Many Things has always been part of Dungeons & Dragons, from edition to edition, and in the twenty-first century, there have been numerous attempt to turn The Deck of Many Things from the description in a rulebook into the handout of all handouts—an actual physical Deck of Many Things. Some of them are, like Green Ronin Publishing’sThe Deck of Many Things, have become highly collectible and so surprisingly expensive. Of course, numerous other physical versions of The Deck of Many Things can be found—and for a whole less than what you would pay for a copy of Green Ronin Publishing’s The Deck of Many Things. The latest edition is from Lamentations of the Flame Princess, best known as the publisher of Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay retroclone and its line of associated adventures, but it is not as The Deck of Weird Things.

As an in-game artefact, The Deck of Weird Things is designed to be left in the collection or library of some wizard, the point being that it should be found with some relative ease rather than being secreted away under a mound of treasure in a deep dungeon. It consists of a deck of fifty-two cards, but when found, there will be between two and twenty cards missing, these having been drawn by a previous finder of The Deck of Weird Things. As soon as anyone finds the box or bag containing The Deck of Weird Things, they know what it is, how it works, and that its rules bind all those who find it. These are simple—three or more persons must be present to draw from The Deck of Weird Things, they must all agree to draw, they must agree to draw the same number of cards, and that it must be shuffled before drawing. Then cards are drawn one-by-one, the effects described on each card taking place, and once they have, each card disappears, so further depleting The Deck of Weird Things.

So what effects might happen when a Player Character draws a card? The drawer’s hair—all of it, becomes brittle, inflexible, and like straw; a particularly frail and elderly person becomes obsessed with the drawer and joining the party, and generally though not of any real use, grants a bonus to reaction rolls when present; the drawer’s player must swap their drawer’s highest ability score with the lowest; the drawer can buy one single item or service for free; the drawer is immune to poisons and diseases; once everyone has drawn their cards, the current drawer can choose to draw more just for himself; and suddenly, duplicates appear of those drawing cards, but they do not want to attack their respective drawers, but go and settle down and live an entirely mundane life! There is a huge variety of effects in The Deck of Weird Things, some obviously mechanical, some world related, and so on, and given that each card disappears after having been drawn and taken effect, they are extremely unlikely to see them repeated unless there are multiple copies of The Deck of Weird Things in a game world. Further, given the number of effects in The Deck of Weird Things, its effects are still unlikely to be duplicated even if it turns up in an entirely different campaign.

The Deck of Weird Things requires some preparation before play. For this, two standard decks of playing cards are required. One is used to determine the category, that is, the page to refer to, whilst the other to random determine which of the four possible effects given on the page come into play. As per The Deck of Weird Things, cards are removed from the first deck to reflect cards actually disappearing after being drawn from The Deck of Weird Things.

Essentially, The Deck of Weird Things is a book of—not tables—but of one big table. One big table with what is effectively over two hundred entries. These are divided into categories, one category per page, and four entries per category. These are clearly presented on each page, so that that process from drawing a card to determine the category to drawing a card to determine the specific effect all plays out fairly quickly.

Physically, The Deck of Weird Things is a sturdy, digest-sided book. It is well written and there are nicely done standard deck of playing cards-themed illustrations of Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay signature figures dotted throughout the book. However, the look of the book is pedestrian at best. Not so, the cover, which is a really attractive piece depicting the actual The Deck of Weird Things. The extra slipcover for The Deck of Weird Things is very nice, but entirely optional.

The Deck of Weird Things offers exactly what it promises—a means to change a campaign, to add random effects, to upset the proverbial apple cart, and to add weird effects to campaign. It will do that, and if that is what you as the Game Master want for your campaign and your players are happy with that, then fine, certainly add The Deck of Weird Things to change, potentially really change your campaign. And it should be noted that this does not have to be a campaign just for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay—The Deck of Weird Things will work for any Old School Renaissance retroclone, just as it would work for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.

However, there is just one reason why you would not add The Deck of Weird Things to your campaign—and that is price. The Deck of Weird Things was released as a fundraiser and so is correspondingly expensive, and even more expensive with the now-unavailable limited-edition slipcover which goes with it. Notably, even the publisher does not think that this book is worth its purchase price and for its price, you almost wish that The Deck of Weird Things was actually a copy of The Deck of Weird Things and not a book. Such a thing would really work to entice your players and their characters, to tempt them with ultimate power, or ultimate ruin. Such a physical object would be magical in terms of game play, whereas drawing ordinary playing cards and referring to a big table, not so much. To be fair though, The Deck of Weird Things is not a deck of cards and was never intended be a deck of cards. It is though, given its price, more of a collector’s item than an actual supplement you would bring to the table.

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

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Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age was published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1980 and has the distinction of being the first roleplaying game set in the Ancient World. It is a roleplaying game in which heroes of the age adventure, travel the known world and sail the Aegean Sea and beyond, battle heroes from other lands, and maybe face the monsters that lurk in the seas and caves far from civilisation. It is also a man-to-man combat system, a trireme-to-trireme combat system, a guide to a combination of Greece in the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, and all that packed into thirty-two pages. However, it is very much a roleplaying of its time and vintage—and what that means is there is at best a brevity to game, a focus on combat over other activities, and a lack of background to the setting. Now of course, many of the gamers who would have played Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age in the early nineteen eighties—just as they are today—would have been knowledgeable about the Greek Myths and so been able to flesh out some of the background. However, Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age still leaves the Moderator—as the Game Master is known in Odysseus—with a lot of work to do.

A hero in Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age—and it is very much a case of it being a hero rather than a hero or a heroine, is a young warrior ready to set out on a life of adventure and myth building. Aged between seventeen and twenty-three, he is defined by his home province, which also determines his patron god, his lineage, which determines his primary profession—which he shares with father, and his other skills. Rolls are also made for his family and the armour he begins play with. Notably, a hero has the one skill or ability—his Fighting Skill Number or FSN, initially rated between eleven and twenty, and can go higher. As well as Fighting Skill Number, a player also rolls for his hero’s armour—type, what it covers, and its composition. Heroes with a high FSN are likely to have better, even iron, armour.

Alastair
Age: 23
Home Province: Messenia
Patron God: Hephaestus

FSN: 20

Skills: Accountant (Major), Barber, Architect
Family: Only son, father deceased
Armour: Type II Body Armour (bronze torso and shoulders, greaves, and aspis)
Arms: Shortsword, spear, bow & twenty arrows

So character generation out of the way—although as we shall see, it is not complete—Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age dives not into the mechanics of a skill system (there is none) or the man-to-man ‘combats’ system (as it is described), but the rules for ship-to-ship combat. They describe Greek naval warfare as complex and are essentially a miniatures combat system, for which it is suggested that a large floor space and miniatures are needed. The rules cover movement—by sail and by oars, as well as the effect of the wind, maneuvering, missile fire—from both arrows and spears, collisions and ramming, plus grappling and boarding, taking on water, mast damage, and more. All of this is done in the captain’s orders, which are written down at the beginning of every combat round. The rules cover everything in just three pages.

Man-to-man combat or ‘Combats’ as Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age describes it, is actually more complex than ship-to-ship combat. Initiative is generally handled by weapon range—weapons with longer range or reach indicating that a warrior attacks first. Then each combatant selects two cards, one an Attack Position Card, the other a Defence Position Card. The Attack Position Card indicates where the attacking warrior intends to strike, for example Head, Abdomen, or Calf, whilst the  Defence Position indicates where the defending warrior wants to protect, for example, ‘Parry Middle Without Shield’ or ‘Punch with Shield High’. The chosen Attack Position Card and Defence Position Card are cross referenced on the ‘ATK POS/DEF POS’ table. This can generate an ’NE’ or ‘No Effect’ result, in which case the attack is blocked or the attacker missed, or it can generate a modifier which is applied to the chance to hit number. This is determined by cross referencing the weapon used in the attack against the protection value of the armour on the location struck. This is a percentage value under which the attacking player must roll to succeed. Conversely, the player needs to roll high on the percentage dice to determine how much damage is inflicted, which determined by the Attack Position—as determined by the Attack Position Card cross referenced with the roll, the result varying from ‘No Effect’, ‘Stun’, and one or more Wounds to ‘Kneeling’, ‘Unconscious’, and ‘Kill’.

So the question is, where does a warrior’s Fighting Skill Number come into this if it is not being used to determine whether or not he successfully attacks or defends? Well, it does two things. First, it acts as a warrior’s Hit Points, with points being deducted equal to the number of Wounds suffered. Second, for each five points or part of, a warrior’s Fighting Skill Number is ten or above, he gains an extra attack each round. So between ten and fourteen points, a warrior has two attacks, three attacks for between fifteen and nineteen, and four attacks for twenty and above. When a warrior suffers Wounds and his Fighting Skill Number is reduced, if drops past the threshold, so does his number of attacks per round. Although a Warrior’s Fighting Skill Number can rise above twenty by being a successful combatant, the maximum number of attacks he can make is four. Thus points in Fighting Skill Number above twenty four represent just his Hit Points.

Beyond the mechanics for ship-to-ship combat and man-to-man combats, Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age includes some campaign notes for the Moderator, primarily movement and encounters—by land and by sea, and done daily. The encounter table includes some classic mythic creatures like Gorgons and Centaurs, but essentially, they have no more stats than Player Character. All of the encounters are accorded thumbnail descriptions, as are the gods. The only major piece of advice for the Moderator is how to handle warrior versus god combat, that comes down to allowing it, but inflicting a high degree of bad luck upon the warrior for being so presumptuous!

There are two other mechanics in Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age and both concern the Player Characters, but both are secret. In fact, they are so secret that the Moderator rolls them and never reveals them to his players. Both are straight percentage values. One is the Deity Empathy Score, which reflects how much a warrior’s patron likes or dislikes him, whilst the other is the warrior’s Luck Number. The only suggested use for this is determining how well other people react to the warrior.

In terms of background, Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age is very lightly written, its treatment of the Homeric Age very broad. Oddly, warriors cannot be from Crete or Troy, the choice of weapons is limited, and there is very little historicity to the whole affair. There are also some oddities in Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age. The first is that the example of play appears on the book’s last page. The second is that in the middle of rules there is a quiz about the rules. Which is very probably unique in the history of the hobby. The third is that given its vintage, it is surprising that Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age does not explain what roleplaying is, but that it does not explain what a Moderator really does either.

Physically, Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age is a slim book with rather underwhelming production values. Although the pen and ink illustrations are really quite good, the maps are bland and lack detail. It needs another edit and it is not quite sure what the title is—Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age, Odysseus the Wanderer, or Odysseus Legendry & Mythology (sic). The main issue perhaps is the odd organisation which dives in ship-to-ship combat before personal combat, in the inclusion of a pop quiz about the rules rather than more examples of play, and so on. The game includes a card insert which is intended to be removed and used in play, and includes the Attack Position Cards and Defence Position Cards, and two ship’s deckplans.

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Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age was reviewed by Elisabeth Barrington in Space Gamer Number 31 (September, 1980), who commented that, “The character generation rules are a little skimpy at times, and some of the numerous tables are difficult to figure out.” before concluding that, “As new RP systems go, this one is above average. Only one book, and it is well-designed. Historical gamers specialising  in the classic period, this is for you.” However, Donald Dupont, writing in Different Worlds Issue 11 (Feb/Mar 1981) was far less positive, opening with the comment, “Odysseus is apparently an attempt at a roleplaying system for the Homeric Age of Greece, the Heroic Age of which Homer sings in his epics Iliad and Odyssey. As a mise en scene for the Bronze Age in the Aegean Basin it fails miserably. As a role-playing system it is disorganized, clumsy, and incomplete. The game lacks color, both of the Homeric Age, which it claims in its title, and of the later Classical Age which, in fact, it more closely approximates.” He finished the review by saying that, “Odysseus is a disappointment. The roleplaying world could use a good Heroic Age game system. With a great deal of interpretation and interpolation, Odysseus is perhaps usable by players familiar with role-playing systems, but the confused nature of its rules, and the lack of color in its world hardly make it worthwhile.”

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It is debatable whether Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age is a roleplaying game, its wargaming origins being so evidently on show, its focus being mainly on combat, and there being very little in terms of character to either roleplay or develop. This is not to say that the game cannot be played as either a wargame or a roleplaying game, but it would require a great deal of input from both player and Moderator—especially the Moderator, and whatever roleplaying experience might ensue, would definitely come from their efforts rather than be supported by the game itself. Of course, there are many roleplaying games like this, and this is with the benefit of hindsight, but even then, there really is very little to recommend Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age. It simply does not have the right sort of rules to be a roleplaying game and it does not have the background to really do what the author intended. Odysseus – Role Play for the Homeric Age is very much a collector’s curio, a design from the beginning years of the hobby when not every publisher quite knew what a roleplaying game should be or what it should do, a design still influenced too much by the wargaming hobby before it.

Now in its thirteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2020, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 25th July. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Again, global events meant that Gen Con itself was not only delayed, but run as a virtual event, and likewise, global events meant that Reviews from R’lyeh could not gain access to the titles released on the day as no friendly local gaming shop was participating nearby. Fortunately, Reviews from R’lyeh has been able to gain copies of many of the titles released on the day, and so can review them as is the usual practice. To that end, Reviews from R’lyeh wants to thank both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The release for Free RPG Day 2020 for Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game is Root: The Pellenicky Glade Quickstart. It includes an explanation of the core rules, six pregenerated Player Characters or Vagabonds and their Playbooks, and a complete setting or Clearing for them to explore. From the overview of the game and an explanation of the characters to playing the game and its many Moves, the Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game is Root: The Pellenicky Glade Quickstart is well-written. It is notable that all of the Vagabonds are essentially roguish in nature, so in addition to the Basic Moves, such as ‘Figure Someone Out’, ‘Persuade an NPC’, ‘Trick an NPC’, ‘Trust Fate’, and ‘Wreck Something’, they can ‘Attempt a Roguish Feat’. This covers Acrobatics, Blindside, Counterfeit, Disable Device, Hide, Pick Lock, Pick Pocket, Sleight of Hand, and Sneak. Each of these requires an associated Feat to attempt, and each of the six pregenerated Vagabonds has one, two, or more of the Feats depending just how roguish they are. Otherwise, a Vagabond’s player rolls the ‘Trust to Fate’ Move.

The six pregenerated Vagabonds include Ellora The Arbiter, a powerful Badger warrior devoted to what she thinks is right and just; Quinn The Ranger, a rugged Wolf denizen who left the Woodland proper to escape the war and their past as an Eyrie soldier; Scratch The Scoundrel, a Cat troublemaker, arsonist, and destroyer; Nimble The Thief, a clever and stealthy Raccoon burglar or pickpocket who is on the run from the law; Keilee The Tinker, a Beaver and technically savvy maker of equipment and machines; and Xander The Vagrant, a wandering rabble-rouser and trickster Opossum who survives on his words. Most of these Vagabonds have links to the given Clearing in Root: The Pellenicky Glade Quickstart and all are complete with Natures and Drives, stats, backgrounds, Moves, Feats, and equipment. All a player has to do is decide on a couple of connections and each Playbook is ready to play.

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

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

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

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

Dead Planet: A violent incursion into the land of the living for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game is many things. It is a lost ship to encounter and salvage and survive—and even steal. It is a means to create the layout of any starship you care to encounter. It is a moon to visit, a hellhole of auto-cannibalism, desperation, and caprinaephilia. It is a list of nightmares. It is a planetcrawl on a dead world including a bunker crawl five levels deep. It is a weird-arse incursion from another place, which might not or not be hell. It is all of these things and then it is one thing—a mini campaign in which the Player Characters, or crew of a starship, find themselves trapped around the dead planet of the title. Desperate to survive, desperate to get out, how far will the crew go in dealing with the degenerate survivors around the dead planet? How far will they go in investigating the dead planet in order to get out?

Published by Tuesday Knight Games, Dead Planet: A violent incursion into the land of the living for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game is the first supplement for MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game, which does Science Fiction horror and action. The action of Blue-Collar Science Fiction such as Outland, the horror Science Fiction of Alien, and the action and horror Science Fiction of Aliens. It works as both a companion and a campaign for MOTHERSHIP, but also as a source of scenarios for the roleplaying game. This is because it is designed in modular fashion built onto a framework. This framework is simple. The starship crewed by the Player Characters suffers a malfunction and is sucked into a star system at the heart of which is not a sun, but a dead planet upon which stands a Dead Gateway which spews dark, brooding energy from somewhere else into our universe. The crew is unlikely to discover this until later in the campaign, by which time they will have encountered innumerable other horrors and nightmares. With their ship’s jump drive engines malfunctioning and the ship itself damaged, the crew find themselves floating through a ships’ graveyard of derelicts. Could parts be found on these ships? How did they get here—was it just like their own ship? And where are their crews? Close by is a likely ship for exploration and a boarding party.

Beyond the cloud of derelict ships is a moon and this moon is a community of survivors. How this community has survived is horrifying, it having to degenerated into barbarism, to a point of potential collapse. Indeed, the arrival of the Player Characters is likely to drive the factions within the community to act and send it to a tipping point and beyond. Not everyone in the community welcomes their arrival, and even those that do, do so for a variety of reasons. However, in order to interact with the community, the Player Characters are probably going to have to commit a fairly vile act—and do so willingly. This may well be a step too far for some players, though it should be made clear that this act is not sexual in nature and will be by the Player Characters against themselves individually rather than against others. Nevertheless, it does involve a major a major taboo, and whilst that taboo has been presented and explored innumerable times onscreen, it is another matter to be confronted with it in as a personal a fashion as Dead Planet: A violent incursion into the land of the living for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game does.

Then at last, there is the Dead Planet itself. This is a mini-hex crawl atop a rocky plateau with multiple locations. Not just the source of the system’s issues, nightmares, and madness, but a swamp, a crashed ship, wrecked buildings, a giant quarry, and more. Most of these locations require relatively little exploration, only the deep bunker of the Red Tower does. Plumbing its depths may not seem the obvious course of action for some players and their characters, but it may contain one means of the Player Characters escaping the hold that the Dead Planet has over everyone. Certainly, the Warden—as the Game Master in Mothership is known—may want to lay the groundwork in terms of clues for the Player Characters to follow in working out how they are going to escape.

Taken all together, these parts constitute the mini-campaign that is Dead Planet: A violent incursion into the land of the living for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game. Separate these parts and the Warden has extra elements she can use in her own game. So, these include sets of tables for generating derelict ships and mapping them out, jump drive malfunctions, weapon and supply caches, colonists and survivors, luxuries and goods found in a vault, and nightmares. All of these can be used beyond the pages of Dead Planet, but so could the deck plans of the Alexis, an archaeological research vessel, the floor plans of the bunker, and so on. Not too often, and likely not necessarily if Dead Planet has been run.

Physically, Dead Planet: A violent incursion into the land of the living for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game is like MOTHERSHIP itself, a fantastic exercise in use of space and flavour of writing. However, the cost of this wealth of detail is that text is often crammed onto the pages and can be difficult to read in places. It also needs a slight edit. The maps are also good, though artwork is unlikely to be to everyone’s taste.

Dead Planet: A violent incursion into the land of the living for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game is very good at what it does and it is exactly the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game needed—more of the near future setting, the monsters, and the horror that it hinted at. Dead Planet goes further in presenting a mini-campaign and elements that the Warden can use in her own game, although it is still not what MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game really needs and that is the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Warden’s Horror Guide. As a horror scenario, the set-up in Dead Planet is both creepy and nasty, but definitely needs the input of the Warden to bring it out. There is no real advice in Dead Planet for the Warden, and both it and its horror will benefit from being in the hands of an experienced Referee, if not an experienced Warden.

Dead Planet: A violent incursion into the land of the living for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game is a nasty first expansion for MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game, and that is exactly so delivers on the horror and the genre action first promised in the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game. Ultimately though, the horror in Dead Planet: A violent incursion into the land of the living for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game is not for the fainthearted, being a Grindhouse Sci-Fi combination of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Event Horizon.

Now in its thirteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2020, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 25th July. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Again, global events meant that Gen Con itself was not only delayed, but run as a virtual event, and likewise, global events meant that Reviews from R’lyeh could not gain access to the titles released on the day as no friendly local gaming shop was participating nearby. Fortunately, has been able to gain copies of many of the titles released on the day, and so can review them as is the usual practice. To that end, Reviews from R’lyeh wants to thank both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 [https://www.fanboy3.co.uk/] in sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles.
LEVEL 1 - volume 1 2020 is a little different. Published by 9th Level Games, Level 1 is an annual RPG anthology series of ‘Independent Roleplaying Games’ specifically released for Free RPG Day. LEVEL 1 - volume 1 2020 is a collection of fifteen featuring role-playing games, standalone adventures, two-hundred-word Roleplaying Games, One Page Dungeons, and more! Where the other offerings for Free RPG Day 2020—or any other Free RPG Day—provide one-shot, one use quick-starts or adventures, LEVEL 1 - volume 1 2020 is something that can be dipped into multiple times, in some cases its contents can played once, twice, or more—even in the space of a single evening! The subject matters for these entries ranges from the adult to the weird and back again, but what they have in common is that they are non-commercial in nature and they often tell stories in non-commercial fashion compared to the other offerings for Free RPG Day 2020. The other differences are that Level 1 includes notes on audience—from Kid Friendly to Mature Adults, and tone—from Action and Cozy to Serious and Strange. Many of the games ask questions of the players and possess an internalised nature—more ‘How do I feel?’ than ‘I stride forth and do *this*’, and for some players, this may be uncomfortable or simply too different from traditional roleplaying games. So the anthology includes ‘Be Safe, Have fun’, a set of tools and terms for ensuring that everyone can play within their comfort zone. It is a good essay and useful not just for the fifteen or so games in LEVEL 1 - volume 1 2020.

The difference in LEVEL 1 - volume 1 2020 is that it carries advertising. This advertising is from its sponsors, but it gives Level 1 an old-style magazine feel.

Level 1 opens with the odd. Kira Magrann’s ‘Moose Trip: a game about moose who eat psychedelic mushrooms’. It turns out that as part of their idyllic life in the human-occupied wilds of Montana, Moose actually eat psychedelic mushrooms to get high. Which is what they do in this game and then they engage in relaxed conversation about how they feel and their emotions. It includes twenty different ‘Mushroom Feelings’ and offers a short but relaxed, reflective game.

Density Media’s ‘A Clan of Two: A two-person storytelling game’ is inspired by Shogun Assassin or Lone Wolf and Cub. Whether as an assassin and his son on the run from the Shogun or a bounty hunter protecting his bounty rather than taking him in—see Midnight Run, one player takes the role of the protagonist, a warrior without peer who will adhere to a code. This might the code of Bushido, code of chivalry, and so on, but he will have broken part of the code and gone on the run. The other player takes the role of both Game Master and seer, that is, the baby of the baby cart assassin or the bounty hunter’s quarry, as well of the world around them. He will both roleplay this character and the world. ‘A Clan of two’ uses a table of descriptors and prompts derived from the I Ching to push the story along and to see how the world reacts to the protagonist’s actions. This gives a nice balance between player agency and setting, the player able to roleplay free of rolling dice, whilst the Game Master can focus on the setting and interpreting the results, but together telling a story.

Designed for one player and no Game Master, ‘Dice Friends’ by Tim Hutchings is a one-page game in which stories are built around dice to represent characters and their lives and adventures. Mechanically very simple, there is no genre or setting to this game and beyond some dice dying and some dice leaving, there is little in the way of prompts in the game. Its brevity means that the players need to have strong buy-in to the game and will need to work hard create the world in which the dice/characters live and leave or live and die. The lack of a hook and the need to build the whole world means that despite it being easy to pick up and play, ‘Dice Friends’ may well be too daunting for some.

‘After Ragnarök’ by Cameron Parkinson and Tyler Omichinski, is a post-life, post-apocalyptic roleplaying game of Viking adventure and legends! The player take the role of the Einherjar, the great heroes destined to feast and drink in Vahalla until Ragnarök. That day has come and gone, and with the Gods dead, the Einherjar remain, but with Valhalla decaying, they decide to set out and adventure for the great drinking halls which are still said to exist. This is a roleplaying game in which the Player Characters start out as great heroes with Legends that they create, but as they face Jotun, the great hounds of Hel, and worse, they will fall in battle. However, when they die, there is a chance that their ‘Legends’ will ‘Fade’ and so lose their legendary capabilities. This is much more of traditional roleplaying game, a heroic game of fighting against the dying of the light—that is, the dying of the Player Characters’ light.

Oat & Noodle’s ‘Sojurn’ is a second one-page game for one player and no Game Master. This idea is that the players are leaving on a journey and take three objects with them, such as a mask, an imp, and a key, and when they return from the journey, something has changed. This is another one-player game in which the player is prompted to tell a story, but with actual prompts and an implicit genre, is much less daunting than the earlier ‘Dice Friends’. ‘Breaking Spirals: A single-player RPG inspired by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy’ by Cameron and Colin Kyle is also for one player and no Game Master, but is more complex in that it presents a reflective, self-help game as a tool for active meditation and perspective. To be honest, it is more exercise than game, for although steps can be taken and there can be a sense of achievement in going through the process, there is no sense of winning in traditional way or of a story told. Not that there necessarily has to be either, but the lack either makes it an exercise rather than something to be played.  

‘Bird Trek: A game about raptors in space’ by Maarten Gilberts & Steffie de Vaan is a co-operative game of sentient raptor birds in space who as a flock to steal things, but must make its annual migration from Caldera to Frigia via several moons. Many of these moons are strange and growing stranger every year, making the migration more difficult and increasing the likelihood of the flock’s hunger and exhaustion grow. This is a storytelling game about survival and loss as well as exploration and just as well could have been set between Africa and Europe as it could outer space.

In Graham Gentz’s ‘In the Tank: Roleplaying the life of an Algae Colony in a Tank’, the players take on the role of aspects of algae living in a tank. Individually they control aspects such as width, cell, green, and so on, but together they control it collectively. Their aim is achieve sentience and to avoid death, but from Moment to Moment, they must respond to complications, problems and stimulations from inside the tank and outside the tank—the latter often at the hand of ‘The Dave’. Exactly what ‘The Dave’ is, is up for speculation—tank owner, laboratory technician?—but the Dave Master creates the Complication and the Algae responds to it. Successfully overcome a Complication and the Algae moves closer to sentience, the player with the successful means of overcoming the Complication becoming the new ‘Dave Master’. As a game, ‘In the Tank’ is likely to escalate into sentience and success, or spiral into death and disaster, the point being that either result is acceptable, and it is the story told along the way that matters.

‘Love is Stored in the Elbow’ by Corinne Taylor is a single-character, multi-player in they explore the relationship between emotions, memory, and physical touch. It includes solid guidelines as which parts of the body and what emotions the players do not want to include in their game, and after randomly assigning the agreed upon emotions to the accepted parts of the body, take it in turns to narrate a memory involving an emotion and its connected body part. This can build on, but not negate previous memories, but once done, the players will have created a lifetime’s worth of memory. Potentially silly, potentially adult in nature, this is a nicely done story told through a life.

Midsummer Meinberg’s ‘Graveyard Shift’ is a three-player game about the alienation of working late at night for minimum wage. It explores poverty, family obligation, dead-end jobs, loneliness and alienation, and also drug use as self-medication—so it involves obviously adult themes. The players take the role of the worker, his family, and three customers on a single night and face the drudgery and complication that this brings. There is some excellent roleplaying potential in this situation as the Worker is ground down by his situation and the humiliation he suffers in dealing with difficult customers and the demands of his family all the whilst want to quit.

The fourth one-page game is ‘At Least We Have Tonight’ by Matthew Orr and it again suffers from needing a strong buy-in by the players. Up to eight of them roleplaying slaves aboard a Roman trireme, who at the end of the day recount its events—the moments which broke the toil, such as the song we sang or an injury suffered, what their life was before ship and what ambitions they harbour for life after—if any. It is all quite dispiriting and will either fall flat because of the lack of engagement or descend into melancholy if the players do develop something from the prompts given.

‘Bad Decisions’ by Scott Slater, Michael Faulk, and Jeff Mitchell is a horror game about those moments when a character does something foolish—go into the basement alone, pick up hitchhikers, read the wrong book, et cetera. It is played in two phases. In the first phase, the players take it in turns to narrate the story, pushing the characters into situations where bad decisions can be made, and then rolling to see if they narrate the terrible outcome. In phase one, the results are mild injuries only, but in phase, the story escalates and the players bluff against each other to see which of them survives. The outcomes of the bad decisions in this phase are always fatal as the monster is revealed and chases the characters through the woods. Death is also sudden, nasty, and foolish. Slightly fiddley in its use of the dice, ‘Bad Decisions’ has a wealth of genre conventions to draw from.

Ty Oden’s ‘Hellevator’ is design for a large group whose characters are stuck in a cursed elevator with a devil. The devil seeks to kill or convert everyone in the elevator, whilst the humans must identify and eliminate the devil in order to avoid being corrupted or killed—and so escape. Fortunately, the devil can only use his infernal powers in the darkness. Essentially, this is a LARP, a variant of Murder in the Dark or Mafia or The Resistance played in a six-foot by six-foot space, the Devil player eliminating players in the darkness with a firm touch on the shoulder, the survivors denouncing the devil—or human, if wrong—in the light. The game is obvious into its inspiration, but more interesting in its optional devils which add variants. Another issue of course is that the players have to be happy with playing in the confined space, if only simulated.

‘Mesopotamians:  A little game about undead warrior kings making it big as a rock and roll band’ by Nick Wedig is a bonkers set-up, but undead ancient kings on a tour is not an unenticing one. As their tour progresses, it must deal with concerns like money and fame, but at every town face other issues such as why the townsfolk dislike them, what criminal plot do they accidentally get involved in, or what they are squabbling about in UTTRATU, the Econoline Van that is their tour vehicle? The aim here is to increase value of the Concerns and so win, and this is done by rolling dice at Crisis Points, aiming to find a dice with results of eight or more. As much as this is a great concept, the rules are not very explained and it could have done with an example of how to handle a Crisis point.

The last game in LEVEL 1 - volume 1 2020 is ‘Savage Sisters: Heroic Women Against a Barbaric World’ by Adriel Lee Wilson with Chris O’Neill. Inspired by Xena Warrior Princess, the Player Characters in ‘Savage Sisters’ forma Sodal, a group of powerful, female warriors. Together the player define the rules of the Sodal and each define their Savage Sister. During play, the players take turns as the GM—the Grandmother—to relate tale as they sit around the fire on eve of a great event, such as a battle or a birth or a wedding. When faced with a difficult challenge, a Savage Sister’s player rolls her die to match one of the numbers listed for the test—which can be a books, boots, blades, or bones test. If the Savage Sister succeeds, then she maintains control of the narrative, otherwise the Grandmother takes control. Ultimately, the Soldal is doing two things. One is facing tests to try to improve its destiny—represented by a pool of tokens. If there are three or more tokens in the pool, all test rolls are made at advantage, otherwise the Sodal is suffering despair and Savage Sisters roll at disadvantage. The other is to tell tales whose subject matters and details are determined before the game starts by answering a few questions and then randomly assigned to the players. It could have been better organised and the set-up clearer, but ‘Savage Sisters: Heroic Women Against a Barbaric World’ is probably the most open ended of the games in LEVEL 1 - volume 1 2020 and is worth revisiting again.

LEVEL 1 - volume 1 2020 is a slim, digest-sized book. Although it needs an edit in places, the book is well presented, and reasonably illustrated. In general, it is an easy read, and everything is easy to grasp.

LEVEL 1 - volume 1 2020 is the richest and deepest of the releases for Free RPG Day 2020. There is something for everyone here, from postapocalyptic warriors to midnight shift workers, and any one of the games in the anthology will provide a good session’s worth of play. Not all of the games are of the same quality though with perhaps the best and the most interesting being ‘A Clan of Two: A two-person storytelling game’, ‘After Ragnarök’, and ‘Graveyard Shift’ with ‘Mesopotamians:  A little game about undead warrior kings making it big as a rock and roll band’ being something that needs a bit more development. Despite the variable quality of its content, of all the releases for Free RPG Day 2020, LEVEL 1 - volume 1 2020 is the title that playing groups will come back to again and again to try something new each time.

The primary drive behind the Old School Renaissance is not just a nostalgic drive to emulate the fantasy roleplaying game and style of your youth, but there is another drive—that of simplicity. That is, to play a stripped back set of rules which avoid the complexities and sensibilities of the contemporary hobby. Thus, there are any number of roleplaying games which do this, of which Ancient Odysseys: Treasure Awaits! An Introductory Roleplaying Game is an example. Ordure Fantasy, published by Gorgzu Games is an incredibly simple Old School Renaissance-style fantasy roleplaying game using a single six-sided die with a straightforward mechanic throughout, and providing four character Classes, offbeat monsters, and table upon table for generating elements of the world, from setting, quests, and locations to NPCs, dungeons, and random encounters.

Ordure Fantasy: A simple d6 roleplaying game starts with its mechanic. To undertake an action for his character, a player rolls a single six-sided die, aiming to get equal to or under the value of a Skill or Ability to succeed. Easy and Hard Tests are made with two six-sided dice, the lowest value kept for Easy Tests, the highest value retained for Hard Tests. For deadly, dangerous, cataclysmic or annoying situations, the Referee can demand that a player make an ‘Ordure Test’. On a result of a six, the ‘Ordure’ of the situation happens, on a result of four or five, the Player Character gets a rumbling, warning, or unsettling portent of the ‘Ordure’. If the ‘Ordure’ situation persists, the ‘Ordure’ range on the die expands from a six to five and six, then four, five, and six, and so on. Essentially, the ‘Ordure’ Test is a random response generator to dire situations, enforcing the fact that the world is a dangerous place, one in which the ‘heroes’ are not actually capable of dealing with based on their own abilities or skills—more random fortune. However, Ordure Fantasy does not suggest what such situations might be.

Combat is more complex in Ordure Fantasy. Initiative is handled by lowest rolls acting first, and attacks by a player rolling under his character’s Combat skill. If a Player Character is hit, then his player can roll a Body or Mind Test for his character to defend. All attacks inflict a single point of damage which is deducted from the Health of a Player Character or NPC. Enemies—whether a monster or an NPC, have only the Ability, that is, Health, and when Health, whether that of a Player Character, monster, or NPC, is reduced to zero, then they are dead. In addition, some Player Characters, NPCs, and monsters have abilities and skills that will inflict various effects in addition to the deduction of a single point of Health—and they can be quite nasty. Thus, the Nursing Acid Wing has a grasp attack and the Mercenary Class’ Sword Skill can be good enough to lop off the limbs and appendages of his enemies—if the rest of the Combat Test is good enough.

Ordure Fantasy provides a half-dozen monsters—not really enough, but very much not traditional fantasy in terms of their design, a page of notes and advice for the Referee, all decent enough, before it gets down to creating Player Characters. A Player Character is defined by three Abilities—Body, Mind, and Luck, plus his Health, Class, equipment, and money. There are four Classes—Mercenary, Conjurer, Scoundrel, and Curate, each of which maps onto the four Classes of classic fantasy roleplaying. The Mercenary is soldier of fortune, trained in the arts of war without loyalty to any lord or realm; the Conjurer an autodidact explorer of unreal realms and summoner of fey things; the Scoundrel a charming alley rat unconcerned with the law; and the Curate, the neophyte scion of some cult excommunicated for heretical and gnostic preachings. So, there is a sense that the characters of the world of Ordure Fantasy are ne’er-do-wells, brutes, uncaring, cynical bastards in a landscape of grim and dangerous peril.

Each Class has four Skills and a Boon. Skills can be used as often as necessary, whilst Boons can be used once per game session. For example, the Mercenary has Bow, which provides a ranged attack; Sword, a melee attack capable of taking off limbs; Shield, which improves a Mercenary’s defence for a melee turn; and Intimidate. The Mercenary’s Boon is ‘Execute’. Simply, the Mercenary declares a target and his next successful attack against them is instantly fatal. Ouch!

To create a Player Character in Ordure Fantasy, a player assigns a value of three to one Ability, two to another, and one to the third. All Player Characters have a Health of five. The player selects a Class and picks three of its Skills, and just like Abilities, assigns a value of three to one, two to another, and one to the third. It is a simple, fast process.

Evota the evasive
Scoundrel, Level 1

Body 1 Mind 2 Luck 3

Skills: Negotiate 1, Hide and Sneak 3, Lockpick 2

Boon: An Old Friend (Roll twice on each side of the Random Reaction table and select combination for the relationship).

Money: 30 sp.

Magic in Ordure Fantasy is both interesting and banal. The Curate simply gets Heal, Curse, and Resurrect as Skills, and these feel banal and flavourless. They ape the divine magical abilities found in other fantasy roleplaying games and they are simply not that interesting. In comparison, the Conjurer has interesting magic and really gets to do things with it. What a Conjurer can do is summon. This is modelled with the Summon Emotion, Summon Element, and Summon Being Skills. The first of these enables a Conjurer to flood a sentient being’s mind with an emotion of the Conjurer’s choice, the second to summon a fist-sized ball of an element the Conjurer has seen before, and the third a being the Conjurer has seen before—and the Conjurer can control numerous beings once he rises far enough in Levels. Simply, there is a flexibility to these Skills, a flexibility limited only by the player’s imagination and the Referee’s agreement. So there is potential for a lot of fun with the Conjurer Class, whereas the Curate not so much.

Experience again is simple in Ordure Fantasy. A Player Character who survives an interesting, dangerous, exciting, or entertaining session goes up a single Level. When he does, the Player Character is awarded a single point which his player can assign to an Ability or Skill to increase its value by one. The maximum value for any Ability or Skill is four, a Player Character can learn its fourth Skill at Third Level, and the maximum Level for any Player Character is six.

Equipment—especially enchanted and mythical equipment, is again simply handled. The former, for example, magical maps or a master thief’s tools, make Skill Tests easy, whilst the latter are so well crafted and infused with magic that they grant a +1 bonus to a particular Ability or Skill. Given the one to six scale of Ordure Fantasy, such mythical items are really powerful and may provide benefits beyond the simple bonus.

Over a third of Ordure Fantasy is devoted to ‘Referee’s Tables’. These start out with a table for what the Player Characters doing when the first session starts, and then goes on to define the danger in the particular realm, what adventurers are needed for or do, and what the town where the Player Characters are is, what quest is available there, what the dangerous region outside the town is, and so on. There are twelve tables here, each with multiple options, which with just a few rolls of a die, the Referee can generate a sheaf of hooks and elements around which she can base an encounter, a scenario, or even a mini-campaign, perhaps even as the game proceeds.

Physically, Ordure Fantasy is a nineteen page, 2.78 Mb, full colour PDF. The layout is clean and tidy, and it is illustrated with okay, if scratchy pen and ink drawings. The use of colour is minimal though and although attractive, does not add to the look of the game. It does need an edit in places. The last page in Ordure Fantasy is the character sheet, which clear and easy to use, and as a nice touch, includes the basics of rolling Tests and the Combat Rules for easy reference by the players.

If there is anything missing from Ordure Fantasy, it is a scenario. Certainly, the inclusion of such a sample adventure would have supported its ‘pick up and play’ quality, for Ordure Fantasy is really easy to learn and lends itself to quick and dirty games. Similarly, It would have been nice to have seen more monsters, though there is a table for generating foes, but it is kind of buried in the back of the game. The only other issue is the Curate Class, which is more useful to have someone playing it rather than actually being interesting to play.

Overall, Ordure Fantasy does what it sets out to do, and that is present a stripped down, fast-playing grim and gritty set of mechanics, that support its grim and gritty tone.

 Now in its thirteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2020, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 25th July. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Again, global events meant that Gen Con itself was not only delayed, but run as a virtual event, and likewise, global events meant that Reviews from R’lyeh could not gain access to the titles released on the day as no friendly local gaming shop was participating nearby. Fortunately, has been able to gain copies of many of the titles released on the day, and so can review them as is the usual practice. To that end, Reviews from R’lyeh wants to thank both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles.

The third offering from Renegade Game Studios is The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl, a quick-start for Overlight: The Roleplaying Game of Kaleidoscopic Journeys. It presents a full scenario—with room for expansion and development by the Game Master, an explanation of the rules, and four pregenerated Player Characters, all designed to introduce both players and Game Master to the world of Overlight. This is a world of seven great continent, known as Shards, hanging in the sky under each other in a sky of limitless, unending light. These continents may shift horizontally, but never vertically, night only falling when one continent passes over another. Each continent is different, from the rocky towers and crumbling mesas across an expanse of blasted desert that is Nova, home to giant, sentient and meditative centipedes, called Novapendra, to Pyre, a landscape swathed in tundra and steppes, rarely lit beyond the fiery glow of its volcanos. They are home to numerous species, not just Humans or Haarkeen, but also Teryxians, the small, feathered reptilians of Quill, once emperors, but now renowned as academics and philosophers; the tribal, sometimes tree-like Banyan; and the eerily tall and thin, mask-wearing Aurumel of Veile, who aspire to build great things.

To a certain few, the brilliant, white light of the Overlight can split into a spectrum of different colours and Virtues—Compassion (green), Logic (blue), Might (red), Spirit (white), Vigor (orange), Wisdom (purple), and Will (yellow). So with ‘Root!’, a Banyan can encourage the vines and branches in his body to grow and grasp something—a person, an object, the ground—in a particularly tight grip or with ‘Speaker’s Fire’, an Embertongue can influence others in a soothing subtle fashion. The Overlight flows through and around everything, but those who can manipulate it are known as Skyborn and their powers of the Overlight as Chroma.

A character in Overlight and thus The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl is defined by the seven Virtues—Compassion, Logic, Might, Spirit, Vigor, Wisdom, and Will. Most Virtues have Virtue has two or skills attached to it and both skills and Virtues are rated by die type. The exception is Spirit, which is just a pool of points for activating Chroma. Besides a name, a character will also be defined by his Folk—species and culture, core Virtue, a background, and wealth. To undertake an action, a character’s player rolls a Test, which depending upon the circumstances can be a Skill Test, an Open test, a Wealth Test, or a Chroma Test. For any Test, the player rolls seven dice, usually consisting of three dice equal to the character’s skill, three equal to his Virtue, plus the Spirit die, which is always four-sided die. For example, a Banyari faced by an angry animal which he wants to calm down, his player would roll three ten-sided ice for his Compassion Virtue, three six-sided dice for his Beastways skill, plus the Spirit die. Results of six or more count as a success and at least two successes are required to succeed at a Test, though without any flourish. A roll of four—or Spirit Flare—on the Spirit die can add a further success. The type of dice rolled varies depending upon the type of Test, but all are built around a pool of seven dice. For example, Chroma Tests, used to active Chroma abilities, typically use a combination of two Virtues plus the Spirit die—and it is the result on the Spirit die which determines how many Spirit points activating the Chroma costs. If it is too many and the character is low on Spirit points, the character suffers a Shatter as the raw divinity of the Overlight powers through him. This can lead to strange side effects and once a character has suffered his third Shatter for a Chroma, he is burnt out and cannot use that Chroma again. Overall, the rules in The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl are succinctly described in just seven pages, including the skills list.

Four pre-generated characters are provided to play the scenario in The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl. They include a Banyari Rootlord capable of using the Overlight to photosynthesise healing, grasp others with its vines and branches, or lash out in a fury of red fists and spectral fire; a Pyroi Embertongue capable of making friends and influencing others, and creating fire; a Haarken Grifter capable of hearing conversations at a distance; and a Teryxian Tutor capable of issuing uncompromising commands. Every character comes with three or pages of backgrounds and stats.

The scenario in The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl is the eponymous ‘The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl’. This is a four-act mystery and missing persons adventure, which offers a mix of horror and exploration as well combat and interaction. It takes place on the on the forested Shard of Banyan where the Player Characters come across The Aquila, a ship-beast known as a Chrysoara, stricken with a sickness, its crew dead from acts of self-inflicted violence. This may simply at random, or they may be going to the rescue of the crashed ship-beast, or they may look for a missing scholar, Zubidiah Molok, who may or not be known to one of the Player Characters, and who even be mentor to one of them. From clues aboard The Aquila, the Player Characters will learn that scholar has made a great discovery deep in the forest. Following these clues will lead the Player Characters into dangerous territory and reveal some of the secrets of Overlight’s past.

As a scenario, ‘The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl’ is okay. It presents some of the setting to Overlight: The Roleplaying Game of Kaleidoscopic Journeys and it provides a good mix of action and investigation, interaction and exploration, combat and horror. Each of the four Player Characters should certainly have a chance to shine. However, because the setting for Overlight: The Roleplaying Game of Kaleidoscopic Journeys, and thus, ‘The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl’, is different, this scenario is not going to be one that flows. There will be plenty of stops and starts along the way as the Game Master has to explain—if not the rules, for they are quite straightforward, then aspect of the setting after setting. As a quick-start, The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl needs a cheat-sheet for it background more than it does for its mechanics. That said, from the information contained in its pages, the Game Master should be able to create one, just as she will be able to create the maps that would have been useful to frame and reference ‘The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl’. Of course, if she is doing that, then a handout or two would make the scenario a whole lot easier for both Game Master and her players.

Physically, The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl is well presented. It is decently written, full colour, and comes with nice artwork. The lack of maps is an issue, but more of a problem is the fact that what is probably meant to be read aloud purple prose is not clearly marked as such and it feels like the author is repeating himself with every location description. This is frustrating experience for the Game Master trying to use the descriptions—both in the purple prose and the write-ups intended for her, because they look the same.

If a Game Master is already running an Overlight: The Roleplaying Game of Kaleidoscopic Journeys campaign, then The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatll is likely easy enough to add to a campaign and it provides a decent enough scenario. For a group new to Overlight: The Roleplaying Game of Kaleidoscopic Journeys, then The Lost Spire of Tziuhuquatl is a decent introduction or a one-shot, although it needs a bit more work and a bit more of an explanation than it really should.

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

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


—oOo—


Name: Down New England Town

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michael LaBossiere

Setting: Small town, modern New England

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Ten page, 3.15 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Hometown Horror Maestro Horror
Plot Hook:  Sheriff stumped by removed remains of the recently deceased director of horror movies. Could his death have become a horror movie?
Plot Support: Five NPCs, new Mythos creature variant, and a map.Production Values: Tidy layout and decent illustrations.

Pros
# Potential hometown sidequest
# Simple story, one session scenario
# Good mix of NPCs for the Keeper to roleplay
# Potential convention scenario
# Easy to adapt to other time periods
# Roleplaying focused investigation
# Scope to play up the horror movie aspects

Cons
# Simple story, one session scenario
# Uninspiring new Mythos monster variant
# Underwritten investigation# one note, combat climax

Conclusion
# Solid addition to any ghoul campaign
# Scope to play up the horror movie aspects
# Roleplaying investigation needs development

A minor side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic is that it has delayed this review, because it has also delayed the reason for this review. The 2020 Tour de France was due to have started on June 27th and finish three weeks later on July 19th, but its starting date was delayed until 29th August and it is due to finish today, 20th September. Consequently, this review—of a cycling-themed game—is equally as late. Published by Lautapelit.fi, Flamme Rouge is a cycling racing game designed for two to four players, aged eight and above, which can be played in between thirty and forty-five minutes. The mechanics involve racing on a modular board, the hand management of dual decks, and simultaneous action selection, supporting play that is both simple and tactical, and ultimately, providing a game that really feels like a stage of one the Grand Tours—the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France, and Vuelta a España. Plus, there is nothing to stop a playing group to play Flamme Rouge more than once to simulate a Grand Tour!

In Flamme Rouge, each player controls a team of two riders. One is the Rouleur, a good all-rounder, capable of maintaining a good pace throughout a race, the other is the Sprinteur, capable of bursts of great—typically as they are racing for the finishing line. Throughout the game, each player will control the speed of both his Rouleur and his Sprinteur, each of whom has a sperate movement deck. In general, he will keep his cyclists in the pack—or peloton—to conserve energy and speed, protecting the Sprinteur until close to the end when he can launch a sprint attack or he might launch a breakaway from the peloton and get to the finishing line before anyone else. However, this will exhaust a cyclist and probably enable the peleton to catch up. All cyclists though can take advantage of the slipstream effect to catch up and keep up with the cyclists in front of them. Since every team is trying to do this, the cyclists will be jockeying for position throughout the game.

Open up the box and you will find twenty-one double-sided Track Tiles consisting of Start and Finish sections, plus various straight and corner sections. All of the Track Tiles have two lanes and on the reverse are marked with Ascent and Descent sections which indicate mountain sections. There are eight custom plastic Cyclists—one Rouleur and one Sprinteur per player, marked with an ‘R’ and an ‘S’ respectively, and four Player Boards, one per player. Each board has spaces for the two decks of cards a player will draw from throughout the game. The game’s almost two hundred cards are divided into ten decks. Four of these are Energy decks for both the Rouleur and the Sprinteur, whilst the other two are Exhaustion decks, again one for Rouleurs and one for Sprinteurs. Each player has two Energy decks, one for his Rouleur and one for his Sprinteur. The two Exhaustion decks are drawn from by all of the players. Both Rouleur and Sprinteur Energy decks consist of numbered cards—each indicating the number of spaces a Rouleur or Sprinteur can move, the Rouleur’s between three and seven, and the Sprinteur’s between two and five, plus several nines. The value of the Exhaustion cards are all equal to two. Lastly, there are four Reference cards and six Stage cards. Each of the latter gives a layout for the Track Tiles to model a Stage from one of the Grand Tours. Lastly, the large, four-page rulebook explains how to set up and play Flame Rouge.

All of these components are of an excellent quality. Both the cards and Track Tiles have a linen finish and the Track Tiles are of thick cardboard. The rulebook is short and easy to read, and includes samples of play where necessary. Lastly, the plastic cyclists are not quite as nice as the other components, but both the Rouleur and the Sprinteur have different poses and the back of their jerseys are marked with an ‘R’ or an ‘S’ respectively for easy identification. The look of the game, of French cycling the 1930s, is really attractive and gives the game a classic feel.

Game set-up is simple. Each player receives a Rouleur and Sprinteur, Rouleur deck and Sprinteur deck, and player board, all in the same colour. The Track Tiles are laid out according to one of the Stage cards or a Stage of the players’ own design, and both Exhaustion decks are put beside the Stage layout. Then each player places his Rouleur and Sprinteur at the start of the Stage layout, the order determined by age and the last time the players each rode a bicycle.

Each round of Flamme Rouge consists of three phases—the Energy, Movement, and End phases. In the Energy phase, each player draws four cards from either his Sprinteur or Rouleur Energy deck, selects one to play, and returns the other three to the bottom of the appropriate deck. Then he does it to the other deck so that he one card from both of the Sprinteur and Rouleur Energy decks ready to play in the Movement phase. This can be done in any order, but once a card has been selected, a player cannot go back and change it.

In the Movement phase, the players reveal their cards and begin moving their cyclists, starting with the one at the front and working backwards in order. Each cyclist is moved forward a number of spaces as indicated on the respective Energy cards. A cyclist can be moved past another cyclist, but cannot land on a space occupied by one. Instead, the cyclist moves in behind the other. This will typically forces a player to be conservative in the choice of Energy cards he plays in order to prevent his wasting them in attempts to get his cyclists to pass those ahead of him, and whilst the players with cyclists at the front have a wider choice in the cards they play, they not do want necessarily to separate their cyclists from the ones behind them lest they begin to gain Exhaustion cards.

The End phase, all played Energy cards—for both Sprinteur and Rouleur—are discarded, and Slipstreaming and Exhaustion occur. If a cyclist ends his movement with exactly one empty space between him and the cyclist in front of him, then the cyclist can move exactly one space forward and close the gap. If there is more than one space between cyclists, then they are considered to be separate groups. It is also perfectly possible and legal to slipstream multiple groups, the slightly strung out cyclists taking advantage of the slipstream effect to come back together form a larger pack.

However, if there is still a gap of more than one space between any cyclists after those able to take advantage of the Slipstream effect, then those cyclists earn an Exhaustion card each. This is added to their respective Energy decks and when drawn and played, only enable a cyclist to move two spaces. What this means is that it pays for a cyclist to be conservative in his use of Energy. In the peleton, he can maintain the same speed as his fellow cyclists and gain advantage of the Slipstream effect if a rival cyclist decides to speed up. There is nothing to stop a cyclist making a break from the peleton, and just like in an actual Grand Tour, racing off into the distance, his player using the high value Energy cards in a cyclist’s deck to gain an advantage over his fellow cyclists. Just like a Grand Tower though, this will tire the cyclist out fairly quickly, modelled by the breakaway cyclist picking up more and more Exhaustion cards over the course of several turns. These will come to clog up a cyclist’s Energy deck, even as his player uses the higher value Energy cards up and discards them, ultimately slowing a cyclist down.

In the base set-up, a game will typically see the cyclists jockeying for position right down to the finishing line when Sprinteurs make a break for it in an attempt to win the stage. In the advanced game—which really only adds one or two rules, mountains can be added to Stages. Mountain sections on the tiles are marked into two colours—orange for ascent and blue for descent. When a cyclist is in an ascent section, and therefore travelling fairly slowly, the maximum value of any Energy card played is always five. If a higher value card is played, the number of spaces of movement it grants is reduced to five. Conversely, on the descent sections, when the cyclist is travelling really quickly, the minimal value of any Energy card played is five. What this means is that lower value Energy cards can be played and the cyclist gets the benefit of the increased value and because the card is also discarded from the game, it means that the player is not forced to use it later when it will not help his cyclists. This includes Exhaustion cards, and this is one way in which to remove them from a cyclist’s Energy deck.

Effectively, Flamme Rouge is a finely balanced energy management game, with players needing to keep their cyclists up with those of the other players and either not let their rivals get to far ahead—or at least keep up with them when they are! A player can also keep track of what Energy cards his rivals have played, but it is still possible to be outfoxed by a rival especially when mountains come into play and break up the cyclists into smaller groups. The mountains are all but a necessity as without them, Flamme Rouge is well, a bit flat, and just as the mountains break up the terrain, they provide an opportunity for the players to break up the bigger groups and form breakaways.

Flamme Rouge looks good and is both easy to learn, play, and teach. Above all, Flamme Rouge plays and feels like a stage of a Grand Tour, and there is a great ebb and flow to it—just like the real thing. For gamers who are also fans of cycling, Flamme Rouge is a game they are going to appreciate, whilst being accessible by gamers who are not cycling fans and cycling fans who are not gamers.

Dead Light and other Dark Turns: Two Unsettling Encounters on the Road is not a wholly new book for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. This is because it combines one of the first scenarios published for the then new version of the venerable Lovecraftian investigative horror with a wholly new scenario and several scenario seeds. The ‘old’ scenario is ‘Dead Light’, published in 2014 as Dead Light: Surviving One Night Outside Of Arkham, which in this new anthology published by Chaosium, Inc. has been joined by the new scenario, ‘Saturnine Chalice’. What connects the two—or at least what they have in common—is that they take place whilst the investigators on the road, and either because of the weather or because they get lost, the investigators will be confronted with mystery, magic, and mortality. Both scenarios are set in the 1920s, are quite nasty, both are self-contained, and both are nominally set in Lovecraft Country. What this means is that either can be slotted into an ongoing campaign whilst the investigators are travelling between locations or run as oneshots, and be moved to any remote location—all with relative ease. With a little effort, they could also be shifted to time periods other than the Jazz Age of the 1920s. Other than that, each scenario is very different in terms of structure, tone, and story, and so will provide very different roleplaying experiences.

‘Dead Light’ opens with the investigators on the road out of Arkham, heading for the town Ipswich. The weather has drawn and as the road is lashed by a fierce storm, the investigators are forced to slow—which proves to be fortunate when a disheveled and bewildered girl runs into the road. Thankfully, the investigators can take refuge with other travellers at the roadside Orchard Run Gas and Diner. Here they can also learn who the girl is and where she came from, but that begs the question of what forced her to flee into the night when the weather is as bad as this? Another question is what caused a local farmer to swerve his truck so leaving the road all but blocked and left him incoherent with shock? Is it because he is just drunk or are his claims of a bright light that caused him to swerve on the road true?

Further checking on the girl reveals more of the mystery and something of the threat that the investigators will face in and about the Orchard Run Gas and Diner. The threat almost has a Science Fiction feel to it and that is perfectly in keeping with the nature of Cosmic horror. Although its origins are never quite revealed, the purpose to which it has been put can be discerned, and it is horribly rational and thoroughly in keeping with the wider miscegenation found in Lovecraft Country.

‘Dead Light’ is both a tale of jealousy and greed, and a survival horror scenario. As a survival horror scenario, it is light both in terms of the traditional Mythos and detailed investigation. As a tale of jealousy and greed, there are plenty of opportunities for roleplaying though as the consequences of both come to roost in and around the Orchard Run Gas and Diner. The likelihood is that the scenario is much physical in nature as the investigators and the NPCs are stalked in the woods surrounding the roadside stop. Yet as physical as the scenario is likely to become, any investigator attempting to confront the threat with brute force is likely to end up sorely disappointed and quite possibly dead. What this means is that the investigators will need to look for the means to stop the threat—and doing so will reveal the origins of the threat and perhaps the human folly that led to its release.

The issue with survival horror and with a threat as deadly as that in Dead Light is that it is too easy to kill the investigators. Whilst the thing is hunting them and everyone at the café, the Keeper needs to pace the scenario and not have it hunt down and kill everyone. This does not mean that she should be lenient should a player have his investigator act foolishly, but with plenty of NPCs around to show how the monster works, the Keeper should sacrifice them and so hint at the thing’s lethality and give time for the investigators to uncover what is really going on. The danger here is that in the hands of an inexperienced Keeper, ‘Dead Light’ has the potential to result in the death of everyone at the Orchard Run Gas and Diner—including the investigators. A more experienced Keeper will know to play and draw the events of the scenario and the deaths of everyone present out over the course of the evening. Pleasingly, ‘Dead Light’ gives the Keeper the means and advice to that end. Essentially, the second or revised edition of the original scenario, minor tweaks and edits having been made here and there, ‘Dead Light’ is a still as good a scenario as it was in 2014.

‘Saturnine Chalice’ is a radically different scenario in comparison to ‘Dead Light’. It is very much smoke and mirrors, a drawing room mystery bordering on farce, all contained within a puzzle box. The scenario opens again with the investigators on the road and then, whether they have got lost or their vehicle has run out of petrol, needing to go for help. They find themselves at the home of Augustus Weyland and his daughter, Veronica, their hosts welcoming, offering to help them with their plight, and even inviting them to dinner. Surprisingly, both father and daughter are willing to not only entertain the existence of the occult, but openly discuss it, which seems all the stranger given that the investigators have not come looking for it—at least not at the Weyland house. As they interact with the hosts and servants, things get odder and there seems to be gaps in what each knows, culminating in what is a truly bizarre dinner—a scene which the Keeper should really relish portraying.

This and other clues should indicate that there is something strange going on in the house, which should ideally drive the investigators to search the house further—and if they refrain, then other events certainly will. What the investigators find is a clue-rich environment pointing to the events which lead up to the current situation, what is going on when the investigators enter the house, and how they can escape their predicament. Two methods are suggested in ‘Saturnine Chalice’ for handling these clues. One is to rely for the investigators’ skills and abilities, but the other is for the players themselves to take the clues and work out themselves aspects of the puzzle their investigators find themselves in. Certainly, the latter option adds a degree of physicality not normally present in Call of Cthulhu investigations. However, this may complicate play for some players and potentially increase the playing length of the scenario’s single session. Here the Keeper needs to take into account her players’ playing preferences—or at least be aware of their being expressed if ‘Saturnine Chalice’ is run for relatively inexperienced or new players.

In comparison to ‘Dead Light’, ‘Saturnine Chalice’ is far more of cerebral affair, though there are still moments of action. Both possess a fair degree of back story as well as potential hooks which could be developed by the Keeper—especially if either is run as part of a Lovecraft Country campaign. Even if the links are not developed, both are easy to slot into a campaign, or simply run as oneshots.

Rounding out Dead Light and other Dark Turns: Two Unsettling Encounters on the Road is a half dozen scenario seeds. In keeping with the theme of the book, these all start on the road. They take the investigators to a roadside cabin camp where the fellow guests are up to something in the nearby woods, past a strange, giant animal attraction which could be something more, to a suitcase left in the middle of the road, and then on past the same signpost—again, to be diverted into a deadly game of cat and mouse in a scrapyard, and at last, to a chance to be charitable and pick up a pair of innocent looking hitchhikers. In some cases, the scenario sees include one or more explanations as to what is going on, and a couple do include some interesting historical background. That said, some of them are perhaps a bit mundane. All though require some effort upon the part of the Keeper to develop into a full scenario.

Physically, Dead Light and other Dark Turns: Two Unsettling Encounters on the Road is nicely presented. It is well written, cleanly laid out, and the artwork, cartography, and handouts are all decent. The only thing which could be held against the book is that it is in black and white in comparison to the publisher’s other for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, but to be fair, this does not detract from the production values and this is still a good looking book.

Even with just the two scenarios, Dead Light and other Dark Turns: Two Unsettling Encounters on the Road is a nicely versatile anthology. Both scenario are very different in terms of their structure, tone, and play style, but both are easy to use. Whether the Keeper is looking to taunt her investigators with a night’s survival horror or a puzzle to unlock, Dead Light and other Dark Turns: Two Unsettling Encounters on the Road delivers both for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, along with a few extras.

Now in its thirteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2020, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 25th July. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Again, global events meant that Gen Con itself was not only delayed, but run as a virtual event, and likewise, global events meant that Reviews from R’lyeh could not gain access to the titles released on the day as no friendly local gaming shop was participating nearby. Fortunately, Reviews from R’lyeh has been able to gain copies of many of the titles released on the day, and so can review them as is the usual practice. To that end, Reviews from R’lyeh wants to thank both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles.

The contribution to Free RPG Day 2020 from Fantasy Flight Games is Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas. This is a quick-start for use with Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible, the roleplaying game based on the setting for Richard Garfield’s KeyForge: Call of the Archons, the world’s first Unique Deck Game. It uses the Genesys Narrative Dice System—first seen in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Third Edition—but ultimately derived from the original Doom and Descent board games. Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas comes with everything necessary to play—an explanation of the rules, four pregenerated characters, and an exciting, action-packed scenario for the Game Master to run. What it does not come with is dice and the fact that both the Genesys Narrative Dice System and Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible—and therefore Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas—use propriety dice is a problem. Not an insurmountable one, but a problem, nonetheless.

Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas opens with a rules summary. The core mechanic requires a player to roll a pool of dice to generate successes and should the roll generate enough successes, his character succeeds in the action being attempted. The complexity comes in the number of dice types and the number of symbols that the players need to keep track of. On the plus side, a player will be rolling Ability dice to represent his character’s innate ability and characteristics, Proficiency dice to represent his skill, and Boost dice to represent situational advantages such as time, assistance, and equipment. On the negative side, a player will be rolling Difficulty dice to represent the complexity of the task being undertaken, Challenge dice if it is a particularly difficult task, and Setback dice to represent hindrances such as poor lighting, difficult terrain, and lack of resources. Ability and Difficulty dice are eight-sided, Proficiency and Challenge dice are twelve-sided, and Boost and Setback dice are six-sided.

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

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

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

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

A character in Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible has six characteristics—Agility, Brawn, Cunning, Intellect, Presence, and Willpower, plus a range of skills from Charm, Computers, and Cool to Ranged (attacks), Skulduggery, and Vigilance, as well as range of special abilities. The four pregenerated Player Characters include a Saurian Crœniac with a Cybersensor Implant for better perception and a hacking rig; a Human Discoverer whose Zoomclaw is a rocket-propelled grappling hook that both climbing tool and weapon; a Spirit Arbitrator, an incorporeal being clad in containment armour who was exiled from his knightly order for bounding with a sentient sword called Vizer; and an Elf of the Shadowws whose faerie companions aid him in mechanical tasks and acts of skulduggery. All four Player Characters are nicely presented in a busy, but easy to access character sheet.

Each Player Character also has a way to use Æmber, the golden, glowing substance found only on the Crucible—the setting for Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible—which is often processed to perform a single, specific function, such as currency. In its raw state it can be used to do strange and wondrous things. For example, Saurian Crœniac uses it to fuel a hazard field which makes attacks against more difficult, the Human Discoverer to make attacks with Zoomclaw jet-propelled, and so on. These are all one-shot abilities until the characters can obtain some more raw Æmber.

The setting for ‘Maw of Abraxas’, the scenario in Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas is Crucible, the ‘Impossible World’, a Jupiter-sized world made up of innumerable different zones, each a different environment or climate. In effect, it is a multiverse in one place, a multi-genre setting made up of multiple settings. In ‘Maw of Abraxas’, the Player Characters will see just a few of them—a glass jungle, a tightly regulated agrisector, a lake wrought with multiple storms, and the ancient ruins of a lost civilisation. In the scenario, the quartet of heroes have been asked by their boss, the tentacular Fixer, to recover the Cube of Realities, a weird artefact with the capability of warping the world around its user. He wants to ensure that it does not fall into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, the militant, xenophobic Martians already have it, but to prevent it being stolen or falling into the hands of their enemies have hidden it aboard a prototype saucer ship which even they cannot track or scan for! However, contact with the saucer has been lost, but fixer has learned that its designer created a device, the Vez Q-37 Scanulator, which can detect where the saucer is. So all the Player Characters have to do is steal the Vez Q-37 Scanulator from a Martian base and fight their way out, get across several sectors by Teleporter Cannon and then a couple more by whatever means necessary, find the lost saucer ship and grab the Cube of Realities. Easy, right? Of course not!

Consisting of just three acts, ‘Maw of Abraxas’ begins by dropping the Player Characters in media res and never lets up on the action or pacing. It should provide a session or so’s worth of play and comes with suggestions as to what each Player Character could do in a scene, and showcases a little of the diversity of the Crucible as a setting. The Player Characters all feel very different and the adventure should give them each a chance to shine.

Physically, Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas is very nicely presented, in full vibrant colour. The artwork is excellent, if a little busy in places, and the book is well written and easy to understand.

The one downside to Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas is that it uses the Genesys Narrative Dice System and that means using propriety dice. Now on the weekend of Free RPG Day 2020, the dice app for Genesys was available for free and that was very generous of the publisher. Of course, if a group is already playing Genesys or Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible, and has either the dice or the app, then Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas is easy enough to run and play, whether that is as extra scenario for an existing Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible campaign or as an introduction to the setting. If not, then Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas is unplayable, which is a pity because it is a fun scenario, though of course, a Game Master might be inspired to get either dice or app after reading though it so that she can run the scenario.

That issue aside, Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible – Maw of Abraxas is an entertaining and fun introduction to Keyforge: Secrets of the Crucible. As a quick-start to both rules and setting, it is exactly the type of thing you want to pick up on Free RPG Day.

Now in its thirteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2020, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 25th July. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Again, global events meant that Gen Con itself was not only delayed, but run as a virtual event, and likewise, global events meant that Reviews from R’lyeh could not gain access to the titles released on the day as no friendly local gaming shop was participating nearby. Fortunately, Reviews from R’lyeh has been able to gain copies of many of the titles released on the day, and so can review them as is the usual practice. To that end, Reviews from R’lyeh wants to thank both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles.

One of the perennial contributors is Paizo, Inc., a publisher whose titles for both the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Starfinder Roleplaying Game have proved popular and often in demand long after Free RPG Day. For 2020, the title released for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is Little Trouble in Big Absalom, and the title released for the Starfinder Roleplaying Game is Starfinder: Skitter Home. As in past years, this is an adventure involving four of the cheerfully manic, gleefully helpful, vibrantly coloured, six-armed and furry creatures known as Skittermanders—Dakoyo, Gazigaz, Nako, and Quonx. They were introduced in the Free RPG Day adventure for 2018, Starfinder: Skitter Shot, in which as the crew of the starship Clutch performed salvage tasks in the Vast beyond the Pact Worlds and then came across a derelict luxury liner, before being boarded by pirates and forced to crash land on a nearby world and survive as detailed in the Free RPG Day adventure for 2019, Starfinder: Skitter Crash. The foursome return in Starfinder: Skitter Home—not to have adventures, but to have fun!

Starfinder: Skitter Home shares elements with Little Trouble in Big Absalom. Both are written for player characters of Fourth Level and both consist of two adventures which can be run together or separately—and in any order. In Starfinder: Skitter Home, the four Skittermanders have come to their home world of Vesk-3 for a vacation—first for a party and a celebration, and then for a leisurely safari. The party, detailed in the scenario ‘Festival of the Exclipse’, is at Reetamander, a festival celebrating a lunar eclipse on the skittermanders’ home world. There are games to play, market stalls to peruse, songs to sing, and once the eclipse is over, food and drink aplenty. Events—or rather the intervention of a horrid villain—means that things go awry, but the heroes do get to have some fun first. Unfortunately, the villain turns the Reetamander against its celebrants and the heroes must come to their rescue and stop him from enacting his inconceivable plan! Overall, ‘Festival of the Eclipse’ is a fun adventure, intentionally raucous—even a little riotous, and a very positive adventure since it plays into the helpful nature of the Skittermanders and there are some nice rewards for the Player Characters being helpful.

The second part, or scenario, in Starfinder: Skitter Home is much darker and a shift in tone. In ‘Hunters Hunted’ the heroes have been given the gift of an underground hunting expedition into the caves beneath Vesta-3 where stridermanders—massive, terrifying cousins of the skittermander species—are said to be found. Unfortunately, when the Skittermanders arrive at the hunt agency, it seems all trips into the caves are off, because contact has been lost with the last trip which went into the caves. Of course, the Skittermanders, being as naturally helpful as they are, they offer to join the search for the lost hunting party and pointed to an ancient side tunnel which nobody has been able to check yet due to the agency being short-staffed. ‘Hunters Hunted’ is a mini-dungeon, consisting of just eight locations, and focusing on stealth and exploration. It is all perfectly playable and enjoyable, but not quite as much fun—and nowhere near as raucous as ‘Festival of the Eclipse’. There is a sense of urgency to it though, as the surviving members of the lost party are hurt and very much in need a rescue.

Rounding out Starfinder: Skitter Home are the Skittermander pre-generated characters. There are four of these provided for use with Starfinder: Skitter Shot. They include a Priest Mystic, a Xenoseeker Mystic, a Spacefarer Soldier, and a Scholar Mechanic, all Third Level (up one Level from Starfinder: Skitter Crash). Each is detailed on a full page, complete with background and a really nice illustration, as well as the stats. Players will need to refer to the Starfinder Alien Archive for full details of the Skittermanders, but really, they should be played as they appear—bumptious, gleeful, up for a challenge, and manically helpful!

Physically, as with Starfinder: Skitter Shot and Starfinder: Skitter Crash, Starfinder: Skitter Home is very nicely laid out and presented. The artwork is excellent, the writing clear, and the maps—placed inside the front and back covers—easy to use. All exactly as you would expect for a scenario from Paizo, Inc.

If a group has played Starfinder: Skitter Shot and Starfinder: Skitter Crash before it, then doubtless they will be pleased to return to playing the humorous, if not silly, Skittermanders. Players new to Starfinder and Skitterfinders may find the rules of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game slightly more complex than they expect and they certainly will not have the same sense of attachment to the Skitterfinder quartet as someone who has played either—or both—Starfinder: Skitter Shot and Starfinder: Skitter Crash will have. Either way, the likelihood is that they will enjoy ‘Festival of the Eclipse’ more than they will ‘Hunters Hunted’, as it gives more scope for fun and action, and gives more for them to do, whereas ‘Hunters Hunted’ is just a bit too straightforward an adventure to be really exciting. Overall, Starfinder: Skitter Home is very nicely presented, but really one for fans of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game rather than a good introduction to it.

Now in its thirteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2020, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 25th July. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Again, global events meant that Gen Con itself was not only delayed, but run as a virtual event, and likewise, global events meant that Reviews from R’lyeh could not gain access to the titles released on the day as no friendly local gaming shop was participating nearby. Fortunately, Reviews from R’lyeh has been able to gain copies of many of the titles released on the day, and so can review them as is the usual practice. To that end, Reviews from R’lyeh wants to thank both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles.

The Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse Quick-Start is the second title for Free RPG Day 2020 to be ‘Powered by Kids on Bikes’, the other being Kids on Brooms. Published by Renegade Games Studios and based on the Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse graphic novel series, the players take on the roles of Junior Braves, essentially the equivalent of young scouts who are have gone away on camp for week to learn outdoor skills, good citizenship, and teamwork. Unfortunately, since they went away, something has happened, something which has caused apocalypse and brought society to its knees. Of course, being away from their family, friends, and society at large, the Junior Braves have no idea exactly what happened, so part of playing through the Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse Quick-Start is about establishing what happened as much as it is establishing contact with their friends and families.

The Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse Quick-Start comes nicely complete. It includes a good explanation of the rules, six pregenerated Player Characters, and a sandbox ready for a group to play. In this way, it is complete and presents a ready-to-play package in a way which Kids on Brooms failed to be.
Instead of character generation, the Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse Quick-Start includes six Tropes—or basic character types. These are Honcho, Rustic, Ruffian, Tinkerer, Dreamer, and Tribe Master—the latter the leader of the troupe whom the Game Master roleplays as well as the NPCs. Each of these has its own special ability. For example, when the Dreamer earns a Brave Token—the equivalent of luck points or tokens—his player must give one to another Junior Brave, and the Ruffian gains a +3 bonus to solve problems involving force or chutzpah when his player spends a Brave Token. As per Kids on Bikes, each Junior Brave is defined by six stats—Brains, Brawn, Charm, Fight, Flight, and Grit—to which are attached to a die type, from a twenty-sided die for the character’s best stat down to a four-sided die for his worst stat. The ten-sided die represents an above average stat, whereas an eight-sided die represents a below average stat. So, a Honcho has a Charm d20, Fight d12, Grit d10, Brawn d8, Brains d6, and Flight d4, and a Rustic has Brawn d20, Charm d12, Flight d10, Brains d8, Fight d6, and Grit d4.

Tropes in the Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse and thus the quick-start do not have skills, but in keeping with the theme of the game, they have Skill Patches, each sewn onto their Skill Sashes. Example Skill Patches include Orienteering, Woodworking, Knots & Ropes, Radios & Codes, and Sign Language. Each of these grants a +3 bonus to skill rolls—or possibly +1 bonus if only tangentially relevant. A Junior Brave will also have a Flaw, which can complicate his actions and increase the Target his player needs beat on a die roll. If a Junior Brave fails a roll due to his Flaw, he earns two Brave Tokens rather than the one usually awarded for failure. Lastly, a Junior Brave has some equipment and gear, stored in his ‘Pack and Pockets’. These consist of a pocketknife, sleeping bag, and a canteen, plus three items he would have had with him on the camp. Some of these are limited use items and will likely run out during the adventure included in Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse Quick-Start.

Mechanically, the Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse Quick-Start uses the same mechanics as Kids on Bikes, Teens in Space, and Kids on Brooms, with each of a Junior Brave’s stats being represented by a single die type. For a Junior Brave to do something, his player rolls the appropriate die for his Trope’s stat and attempts to roll over a difficulty number set by the Game Master, for example, between ten and twelve for an impressive task that a skilled person should be able to do. A player can add a +3 bonus if his Junior Scout has an appropriate Skill Patch and a +1 bonus for any Brave Tokens he wants to spend—or his fellow players want to spend if their Junior Braves are collaborating. However, complications increase the difficulty of the target number by three for each one. If the die roll beats the difficulty number, the Junior Scout succeeds, but if the roll is equal to the difficulty number, then he succeeds at cost, as in ‘Yes, but…’. It should be noted that the mechanics in Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse Quick-Start that player-facing in that only the player roll dice—the Game Master never does.

A potential cost of failure is Stress and Trauma. Stress typically consists of bruises, cuts, scrapes, panic attacks, depression, and other forms of distress. Stress can add a complication to an action, but overnight rest or reassurance can get rid of Stress. However, should a Junior Brave suffer more than four Stress, he suffers from a Trauma. This represents serious injury or distress and until the Junior Brave recovers—which takes either medical treatment or weeks of rest—he cannot use one of his Stats.

Just as the Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse categorises damage into Stress and Trauma, it divides its adversaries and dangers into Troubles and Threats. Troubles are the overall danger, the ultimate cause of the danger that the Junior Braves must face and , such as a zombie uprising, alien invasion, and the like, whilst Threats are individual parts of the Troubles the Junior Braves will encounter upon returning from camp. Notably, Threats are scaled down in Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse, so if a town is taken over by a biker gang, Junior Braves will deal with a few of the Bikers rather than whole gang. The point is that as much as Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse is a post-apocalypse roleplaying game, it is lighter in tone and scaled to the capabilities of the Junior Braves, who are , after all, still children.

Rounding out Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse Quick-Start is a complete set of starting characters, as well as ‘Perils at the Pit-Stop’, a complete campaign starter. The Junior Braves return home from camp and taking a break from the journey in the town of Penelope, discover the clerk at the gas station was dead and zombie-like. What has happened and is it like the zombie television show the Junior Braves are definitely not allowed to watch? ‘Perils at the Pit-Stop’ includes a full description of the town, its current factions, and hints at some of the mysteries going in within its boundaries. It is essentially a mini-sandbox, a place for the Junior Braves to explore and make discoveries, and so there is no single defined plot or outcome, though there are several Troubles which they will encounter.

Physically, the Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse Quick-Start is a simple black and white booklet. It is well written, the artwork is good, and the map nicely done.

Like other ‘Powered by Kids on Bikes’ roleplaying games, the Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse Quick-Start is easy to pick and up and play, the rules are simple—made all the easier by being player-facing, and the set-up easy to grasp. Unlike Kids on Brooms, the Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse Quick-Start comes with everything necessary to play. So with just the five characters and the given scenario, ‘Perils at the Pit-Stop’, the Junior Braves Survival Guide to the Apocalypse Quick-Start should provide both a couple of sessions’ worth of play and a good introduction to the full roleplaying game and the setting.

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

—oOo—

What is it?
Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three is both the third part of the campaign set in Sun County in Prax following on Tales of the Sun County Militia: Sandheart Volume 1 and The Corn Dolls: Sandheart Volume 2, and a campaign framework for all three parts, for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is an eighty-nine-page, full colour, 29.15 MB PDF.

It is an eighty-nine page, full colour hardback.
Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three is well presented and decently written, with artwork that is full of character—the image of a VW Camper Rhino disgorging sixties-style hippies on the India hippie trail is worth the price of admission alone.

Where is it set?
As with Tales of the Sun County Militia: Sandheart Volume 1 and The Corn Dolls: Sandheart Volume 2 before it, Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three takes place in Sun County, the small, isolated province of Yelmalio-worshipping farmers and soldiers located in the fertile River of Cradles valley of Eastern Prax, south of the city of Pavis, where it is beset by hostile nomads and surrounded by dry desert. Where Tales of the Sun County Militia: Sandheart Volume 1 is specifically it is set in and around the remote hamlet of Sandheart, where the inhabitants are used to dealing and even trading with the nomads who come to worship at the ruins inside Sandheart’s walls and The Corn Dolls: Sandheart Volume 2 is set in and around Cliffheath, on the eastern edge of the county, Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three is set in and around a cave known as Dark Watch on the far western edge of the county.

Who do you play?
The player characters are members of the Sun County militia based in Sandheart. Used to dealing with nomads and outsiders and oddities and agitators, the local militia serves as the dumping ground for any militia member who proves too difficult to deal with by the often xenophobic, misogynistic, repressive, and strict culture of both Sun County and the Sun County militia. It also accepts nomads and outsiders, foreigners and non-Yemalions, not necessarily as regular militia-men, but as ‘specials’, better capable of dealing with said foreigners and non-Yemalions.

What do you need?
Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. RuneQuest – Glorantha Bestiary might be useful. 

What do you get?
Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three is not really a scenario, but more a campaign framework around which the earlier scenarios, Tales of the Sun County Militia: Sandheart Volume 1 and The Corn Dolls: Sandheart Volume 2 can take place, as well as other scenarios of the Game Master’s choice or devising. This is because it concerns events at one location, a location that by tradition—and if the Yelmalions do anything, it is by tradition—the militia must visit year after year, and perform the same ceremony each time. And each time, the ceremony is completed as instructed by the cult, and nothing happens. In fact, nobody in the militia knows why the task is carried out one year after the next, because nothing ever happens and why it was done the first place has been long forgotten. Only this time—no, only next time, and the time after that, it will be different, and perhaps the members of militia assigned the duty just might find out why the cult has been performing this ceremony for hundreds of years… 
What this means is that if the scenario is played as is, it will not have the impact that playing it episodically will do. Essentially, being asked to return again and again to perform the ceremony at the Dark Watch Cave—without the benefit of a break in the narrative, signals to the Player Characters that their being at the cave is significant rather than the ordinary task it is initially intended to be. So, Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three is best played before, between, and after the events depicted in Tales of the Sun County Militia: Sandheart Volume 1 and The Corn Dolls: Sandheart Volume 2. The downside of this is that if you have already run either of those, then Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three takes more effort to implement. Another issue is one of what else to run between the parts of Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three. The setting and tone of the ‘Sandheart’ series is quite particular—and it is not one that is easily supported by the other scenarios available on the Jonstown Compendium. Advice to that purpose would have been useful. (Potential scenarios which would work include Jorthan’s Rescue Redux,* Rock’s Fall, and Blue Moon, White Moon.)
* Please note that for the purposes of transparency, I co-authored Jorthan’s Rescue Redux.
The Player Characters’ initial forays into the Dark Watch Cave will somewhat mundane, a simple task of lighting several braziers within its walls and then maintaining a vigil overnight. Here is a chance for them to explore the fullest extent of the cave and so educate themselves about its layout for when they return the next and subsequent years. However, the Dark Watch Cave has a deep, dark secret. It is home to a demon of darkness and deceit, one which is trying to escape its prison. Over the course of four tests—as the first four parts of Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three are known, the vigilance of the Player Characters will be tested again and again, as attempts to enter the cave and break their watch grow in their intensity and obviousness. In the early tests, they are actually quite amusing—and there is opportunity for some light-hearted roleplaying, but as the Player Characters return, they become vicious and ultimately spread to the wider area. In these later stages, the tests emphasises action and combat rather than roleplaying, but that reflects the threat which grows and grows over the course of Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three.
Ultimately, the likelihood is the Player Characters will fail and in order to defeat the darkness, the Player Characters will need to undertake a Hero Quest. Compared to the first part of the campaign framework, this is a radical change in pace, structure, and play style. It is very rigidly structured and both players and their characters—as well as the Game Master—need to be quite regimented in how they play through this. It presents some fantastic scenes, especially for Yelmalions as they fight against Darkness, and should they prevail, brings Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three—and if used in conjunction with Tales of the Sun County Militia: Sandheart Volume 1 and The Corn Dolls: Sandheart Volume 2—the ‘Sandheart’ campaign to a rousing climax.
In addition to a full description of Dark Watch Cave, Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three comes with three handouts, full stats for the NPCs and monsters, and multiple maps of the Dark Watch Cave. Some of the handouts are slightly lengthy and as the campaign framework progresses, it does grow in complexity and the need for increased preparation upon the part of the Game Master.

Is it worth your time?
Yes—Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three is an excellent campaign framework around which to structure the ‘Sandheart’ campaign and bring it to a rousing climax.No—Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three is not worth your time if you are running a campaign or scenarios set elsewhere, especially in Sartar.
Maybe—Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three might be useful for a campaign involving Yelmalions and the worship of Yelm from places other than Sun County, but its framework structure may be more challenging to use if the Game Master has already run Tales of the Sun County Militia: Sandheart Volume 1 or The Corn Dolls: Sandheart Volume 2—if not both.

Now in its thirteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2020, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 25th July. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Again, global events meant that Gen Con itself was not only delayed, but run as a virtual event, and likewise, global events meant that Reviews from R’lyeh could not gain access to the titles released on the day as no friendly local gaming shop was participating nearby. Fortunately, Reviews from R’lyeh has been able to gain copies of many of the titles released on the day, and so can review them as is the usual practice. To that end, Reviews from R’lyeh wants to thank both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles.

Like the support for Free RPG Day in 2017, 2018, and 2019, Goodman Games has released the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure, which provides an introduction to the publisher’s Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. It takes its cue from the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Adventure Starter published in 2011, but has been expanded enough for the rules to cover characters from Zero Level to Second Level, provide two adventures, and introduce the key concepts of the roleplaying game. In the process, it has grown from sixteen to forty-eight pages. As with the previous versions from 2017, 2018, and 2019, the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure can be divided into three parts. The longest are rules, followed by a short introductory adventure and then by flipping the booklet over, a longer adventure.
Derived from the d20 System, the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game sits somewhere between Basic Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in terms of its complexity. The most radical step in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game is the starting point. Players begin by playing not one, but several Zero Level characters, each a serf or peasant looking beyond a life tied to the fields and the seasons or the forge and the hammer to prove themselves and perhaps progress enough to become a skilled adventurer and eventually make a name for themselves. In other words, to advance from Zero Level to First Level. Unfortunately, delving into tombs and the lairs of both men and beasts is a risky venture and death is all but a certainty for the lone delver… In numbers, there is the chance that one or more will survive long enough to go onto greater things! This is what the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game terms a ‘Character Creation Funnel’.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure provides rules for the creation process, a player rolling for six Abilities—Strength, Agility, Stamina, Personality, Intelligence, and Luck—in strict order on three six-sided dice, plus Hit Points on a four-sided die and an occupation. The latter will determine the character’s Race—Race is a Class in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game just as it was in Basic Dungeons & Dragons, a weapon, and a possession related to his occupation.

Farmer Galton
Zero Level Human Mendicant
STR 9 (+0) AGL 9 (+0) STM 12 (+0)
PER 8 (-1) INT 10 (+0) LCK 11 (+0)
Hit Points: 4
Saving Throws
Fortitude +0 Reflex +0 Willpower +0
Alignment: Lawful
Birth Augur: Harsh Winter
Luck Benefit: All Attack Rolls
Weapon: Pitchfork (1d6)
Equipment: Hen (Daisy)
34cp

Of the stats, only Luck requires any explanation. It can be used for various skill checks and rolls, but its primary use is for each character’s single Luck Benefit—which unfortunately, Farmer Galton lacks. It is burned when used in this fashion and can only be regained by a player roleplaying his character to his Alignment. The Luck bonus also applies to critical hit, fumble, and corruption rolls as well as various Class-based rolls. For example, the Elf receives it as a bonus to rolls for one single spell and a Warrior to rolls for a single weapon such as a longsword or a war hammer. Further, both the Thief and the Halfling Classes are exceptionally lucky. Not only is the Halfling’s Luck bonus doubled and the Thief’s determined by a random roll when they burn Luck, they actually regain Luck each day equal to their Level. In addition, if a party has a Halfling amongst its numbers that Halfling can pass his expended Luck to other members of the party!

Mechanically, for a character to do anything, whether Sneak Silently, cast a spell, or make an attack, a player rolls a twenty-sided die and after adding any bonuses hopes to beat a Difficulty Class or an Armor Class. Rolls of one are a fumble and rolls of a twenty are a critical. The Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure includes a Fumble Table as well Critical Hit Tables for each of the Classes. Famously, the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game also uses a multitude of dice, including three, five, seven, fourteen, sixteen, twenty-four, and thirty-sided dice as well as the standard polyhedral dice. Although penalties and bonuses can be applied to dice rolls, the dice themselves can get better or worse, stepping up or stepping down a size depending upon the situation. For example, a Warrior can attack twice in a Round instead of attacking and moving, but makes the first attack using a twenty-sided die and the second attack using a sixteen-sided die. Fortunately, neither of the scenarios in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure make much use of this full polyhedral panoply, but if necessary, dice rolling apps can be found which will handle such dice rolls.

Magic works differently to the Vancian arrangement typically seen in Dungeons & Dragons. Magic is mercurial. What this means is that from one casting of a spell to the next, a spell can have different results. For example, the classic standby of First Level Wizards everywhere, Magic Missile, might manifest as a meteor, a screaming, clawing eagle, a ray of frost, a force axe, or so on. When cast, a Wizard might throw a single Magic Missile that only does a single point of damage; one that might do normal damage; unleash multiple missiles or a single powerful one; and so on. Alternatively, the Wizard’s casting might result in a Misfire, which for Magic Missile might cause the caster’s allies or himself to be hit by multiple Magic Missiles, or to blow a hole under the caster’s feet! Worse, the casting of the spell might have a Corrupting influence upon the caster, which for Magic Missile might cause the skin of the caster’s hands and forearms to change colour to acid green or become translucent or to become invisible every time he casts Magic Missile! This is in addition to the chances of the Wizard suffering from Major or even Greater Corruption… Some ten spells are detailed Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure, taking up roughly, a quarter of the booklet.

One of the major differences between the 2018 version of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure and the editions before it was the range of spells it included for the Cleric and Wizard Classes. Notably, it Magic Missile with Choking Cloud and Colour Spray for the Wizard. The 2019 version was tweaked again, and similarly, the 2020 version has also been tweaked. So instead of Magic Missile, the Wizard has Flaming Hands. 

Once past the funnel, the characters can move up to First Level and acquire a proper Class—either Cleric, Thief, Warrior, or Wizard, or one of the Races, Dwarf, Elf, or Halfling. Further information is provided so that a character can progress to Second Level. The adventures in Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure should be enough for a character to reach First Level. Getting to Second Level and the second adventure is another issue, at least with this version of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure includes two adventures. The first, which immediately follows the rules is ‘The Portal Under The Stairs’, which appeared in the original Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Adventure Starter back in 2011. This has the would-be adventurers venturing into an ancient war-wizard’s tomb after its entryway becomes open when the stars come right. Designed for Zero Level and First Level characters this is a short, just ten location dungeon primarily consisting of traps and puzzles with some deadly combat encounters thrown in. Its three pages are short enough that a group could roll up their characters and funnel them through the adventure to see who survives in a single session. The second scenario, located on the opposite side of Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure is a Level 1 adventure, ‘The Legend of the Silver Skull’.

The other adventures in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure have been different each time. ‘Gnole House’, the adventure from the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure from 2017 was inspired by the writings of Lord Dunsany and presented a bucolic, genteel demesne, a lonely house full of detail and hidden horrors. Where ‘Gnole House’ provided a good mix of exploration and examination with some combat and a little roleplaying, the scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure from 2018, ‘Man-Bait for the Soul Stealer’ was again different. It was a classic dungeon, as was ‘Geas of the Star-chons’, the second adventure in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure from 2019—and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure continues this trend for 2020.

In ‘The Legend of the Silver Skull’, the Player Characters are lured to a mysterious island with a skull atop its single barren hill, with promises of treasure. Inside the skull they find stairs going down to a damp, water-surrounded complex of rooms where fishmen and other salty creatures lurk… Both dungeon and adventure are quite straightforward, the former consisting of just eight rooms and it being highly possible for the Player Characters to discover and confront the antagonist behind the plot very shortly. What nicely drives the Player Characters into the confrontation is a series of visions one of them will suffer throughout the adventure, and if they defeat the antagonist and survive, then the adventure comes with a decent handful of plot hooks and a really nice artefact—if any Lawful Cleric will the Player Characters use it. However, The Legend of the Silver Skull’ is not an enticing adventure or a bad adventure or a good adventure. It is simply okay for s single session’s worth of dungeoneering. To be honest, the only thing to be said against it, is the fact that it is not set entirely within a giant skull. That, as they say, would have been cool…

Physically, the 2020 version of Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure is, like the previous versions, well presented, the writing is clear, and artwork is in general excellent throughout, echoing the style and ethos of the three core rulebooks for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Notable for this edition is cover—which depicts the demon skull, iconic to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, in gold on a black background. It really stands out.

As in past years, the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure is a good package. The rules are nicely explained, the style of game is nicely explained, the artwork is good, the two adventures are good, if disconnected. Any player or Game Master with any experience of Dungeons & Dragons will pick this up with ease and be able to bring it to the table with relatively little experience—and once the first adventure is complete, quickly graduate onto running the second. Overall, ‘The Portal Under The Stairs’ might be getting somewhat long in the tooth, but ‘The Legend of the Silver Skull’ is a fun one session adventure of visionary and potentially fishy weirdness, together serving to make The Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game Quick Start Rules & Intro Adventure simply a good introduction to the game and a bit more.

Now in its thirteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2020, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 25th July. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Again, global events meant that Gen Con itself was not only delayed, but run as a virtual event, and likewise, global events meant that Reviews from R’lyeh could not gain access to the titles released on the day as no friendly local gaming shop was participating nearby. Fortunately, Reviews from R’lyeh has been able to gain copies of many of the titles released on the day, and so can review them as is the usual practice. To that end, Reviews from R’lyeh wants to thank both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles.

Rain of Mercy is an introduction to the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium and Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath & Glory, published by Cubicle Seven Entertainment. Fairly short, in just sixteen pages it provides an introduction to the setting of the 41st Millennium, an overview of the specific setting for Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath & Glory, and a short scenario designed to be played by four players and the Game Master and if not the full mechanics of the roleplaying game. It does not however, provide a full introduction to the mechanics of Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath & Glory, but the given explanation is sufficient to play through the included scenario, ‘Rain of Mercy’.

The setting for Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath & Glory is of course, the Imperium of Man, over which the Emperor, his body a rotting carcass sustained only by power from the Dark Age of Technology, has maintained a watch from the Golden Throne of Holy Terra. His mind is the very beacon by which the great ships of the Imperium the Warp and travel between the stars. They ferry not just goods and people, but also the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors, and members of the Imperial Guard, the ever-vigilant Inquisition, and the Tech-Priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus, from world to world, to investigate and scourge untold xenos, heretics, mutants, and more—including Chaos! Of course, this setting is better known as the background for Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 miniatures wargame, in Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath & Glory the focus will be on induvial rather than military regiments and units.

The specific setting Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath & Glory is the forsaken Gilead System, which lies beyond the Great Rift, left behind by the Cicatrix Maledictum, the Warp Storm which rent the Imperium in two. The Gilead System is home to several different worlds, such as Avachrus, the Forge World, where the system’s technology is built and maintained; Ostia, the Agri World whose farmer are driven to point of starvation by having to feed the Gilead System; Gilead Primus, a Hive World home to billions; and Enoch, the Shrine World dedicated to the worship of the Emperor. Three years after the Great Rift, a flotilla of ships under the command of Rogue Trader Jakel Varonius, arrived in the system, having managed to find a stable route across the rift, bringing order and relief to the Gilead System which was on the point of collapse, suffering under the weight of too many refugees, most of them pilgrims to the Shrine World of Enoch, stranded by the opening of the Great Rift.

The Player Characters are assembled by Jakel Varonious to undertake a mission for the Ecclesiarchy. A troubling situation has arisen on Enoch, the Shrine World of thin desert land masses amidst extensive oceans, these land masses consisting of shrines around which cluster tent cities inhabited by refugees. A new cult has arisen amongst the slums—the Water Bringers, which might be loyal to the Emperor, but might also be a gang extorting money for the water it appears to have a ready supply of, and there is also talk of new saint on Enoch as well. The characters are charged with infiltrating the Water Bringers and determine the veracity of the supposed saint—be they unsanctioned Psyker, heretic, or one of the Emperor’s blessed. The scenario is short, but involves a reasonable mix of interaction, investigation, and combat, and ultimately leaves the outcome very much in the hands of the players and their characters.

The four characters consist of a Space Marine Scout who dreams of becoming a fully fledged Space Marine; a zealous and uncompromising member of the Adepta Soroitas, a Sister of Battle; a Skitarius and Tech-Priest, who monitors for the use of heretical tech; and a silver-tongued Rogue Trader. All four consist of a description, a nice illustration, some combat stats, and a single ability. For example, the Space Marine Scout always goes first in combat and once per game can attack twice per combat round, whilst the Sister of Battle can pray to the Emperor and once per game, cause an attack to miss any target.

Mechanically, Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath & Glory employs a six-sided dice pool system. Results of four and five generate single Icons, whilst rolls of six generate two. If the total roll generates more Icons than the Difficulty Number, then the Player Character or NPC succeeds at the task. Good roleplaying can earn a player Wrath points which can be spent to reroll results of one, two, or three. And that really is the extent of the explanation of the mechanics for Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath & Glory in Rain of Mercy, bar rolling for damage in combat. Indeed, there is not even a skill system or anything in the way of attributes for characters presented in Rain of Mercy. Instead, the Difficulty Numbers are given for possible actions by the pregenerated Player Characters—Cunning or Persuasion Tests, Intimidation or Leadership Tests, and so on—in individual scenes. This gives rise to a couple of issues with Rain of Mercy as an introduction to Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath & Glory.

Mechanically, what it ignores is the possibility of rolls of six generate extra effects and the use of the Wrath die, which can either trigger a gloriously gory critical hit in combat or a narrative Complication. Narratively, the lack of a skills system or any attributes placed in front of the players reduces their agency because they do not know what their characters can do or what they are good at. Now there is some indication in the Player Character descriptions, but that is not quite as easily digestible as a skills list. On the plus side, this means that the rules are fast, and the rules are furious, and the rules are easy, and the rules are simplistic, but on the downside, it means that whilst Rain of Mercy is playable as is, it does not properly prepare either the Game Master or the players to play the full version of Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath & Glory.

Physically, Rain of Mercy is well written and well presented. It is not extensively illustrated, but the full colour illustrations are excellent.

There is a great deal to like about Rain of Mercy. The booklet is well presented, the explanation of the background is good, the scenario is decent, and it is all nicely playable in a session or so. However, as an introduction to Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath & Glory, the fact is that Rain of Mercy is severely underwritten in terms of the mechanics. It simply fails to give enough of an impression as to what those rules are and how they work in play, the result being that Rain of Mercy only succeeds as an introduction to the setting of Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath & Glory; as an introduction to the mechanics of Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Wrath & Glory it is a complete and utter failure.

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

—oOo—


What is it?
Monster of the Month #8: Storm Rams presents a noble spirit venerated by the Air pantheon which brings the seasonal rains to Glorantha for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a nineteen-page, full colour, 1.52 MB PDF.

Monster of the Month #8: Storm Rams is well presented and decently written.

Where is it set?
Storm Rams, the subject of Monster of the Month #8: Storm Rams, can be encountered anywhere in Dragon Pass, most notably in Startar, Tarsh, Esrolia, and Prax, but especially in the lands of the Balmyr Tribe in the high valleys of the Quivin Mountains, where they are known to come down out of the sky and graze.

Who do you play?
Anyone can encounter a Storm Ram, but Orlanth and Heler initiates may be able to summon them as can members of some weather-worshiping spirit societies of Prax. Herders and Weavers of Balmyr Tribe will seek out the fur left behind when the Cloud Rams come to earth.

What do you need?
Monster of the Month #8: Storm Rams requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, but RuneQuest – Glorantha Bestiary might be useful. 

What do you get?
Monster of the Month #8: Storm Rams describes Storm Rams, the most well-known ‘weather-sheep’ or Urothing spirits of the air, who drive their herds through the air, bringing fertile rains and destructive storms alike. They are defenders of the rain, migrating across Glorantha in regular patterns throughout the year, typically driven back to the Spirit World by the heat of the Fire Tribe. They are known to descend to the earth and graze. In the lands of the Balmyr Tribe, the fur they leave behind is collected and woven into Mistwool, a textile constantly cool in the highest of temperature.

Full stats and descriptions are provided not just for the Storm Ram, but for other ‘weather-sheep’ too. These include the Greater Storm Ram, the Lightning Ram, and the Cloud Sheep, with suggestions how to individualise them and for them to become allied spirits. All three are given their own Summoning Rune spells for the Orlanth Thunderous and Heler cults, but the caster should at least be Rune Masters of either cult, and the caster needs to persuade the Storm Ram to come as well as casting the spell. In addition, Monster of the Month #8: Storm Rams gives a description of where Mistwool comes from, what it is woven into, and its importance to the Balmyr Tribe.

Monster of the Month #8: Storm Rams could have simply presented the ‘weather-sheep’ as a set of spirits tied to the Air pantheon and Orlanth worshippers, but it widens the scope of the supplement by having Storm Rams honoured by Heler and certain Praxian Spirit Societies, including detailing a Storm Ram Spirit Cult. In all three cases, it explains the reasons why through differing, often contradictory, mythologies. These are decent little pieces which will help underpin their appearance in game. Lastly, the supplement gives sample stats for all four types of ‘weather-sheep’, including the Greater Storm Ram, Urothtrai the Lover, who passes through the Red Cow clan’s lands in Sea Season every year, where Orlanth Adventurous worshipers compete to help him woo his beloved ewe, Helurtha, and so gain the blessings of bountiful rain in Fire Season.

However, beyond becoming a possible allied spirit or a source of Mistwool, where Monster of the Month #8: Storm Rams is underwritten is in terms of application. Of course, a Game Master will be able to dig into the supplement’s contents to develop ideas for her own campaign, but a scenario seed or three would have been useful additions to help her bring the Urothing into play.

Is it worth your time?
Yes—Monster of the Month #8: Storm Rams presents an interesting embodiment of the storms and the rain, pleasingly from differing points of view, which the Game Master can work into her campaign.
No—Monster of the Month #8: Storm Rams is yet more spirits, and as much as it falls under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’, one word might make you wonder how varied it will be when you add ‘weather-sheep’. 
Maybe—Monster of the Month #8: Storm Rams is an interesting supplement and it does a nice job of bringing a type of sprint into play through differing points for view, but the lack of immediate use or scenario suggestions may not make it as useful as it could be.

Strange New Worlds: Mission Compendium Vol. 2 is an anthology of eight ready-to-play adventures for use with Modiphius Entertainment’s Star Trek Adventures: The Roleplaying Game. Like the core rules and the These Are the Voyages: Mission Compendium Vol. 1 anthology before it, this nonet provides adventures set during the periods of Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: The Original Series, and Star Trek: The Next Generation, all of which the Game Master can easily adapt to the period she is setting her campaign in. Notes are included exactly for this purpose at the beginning of each scenario, so that with a little bit of effort upon her part, the Game Master can run all of these scenarios without the need to switch time periods.

In terms of setting, these scenarios all take place on different planets across the Federation—and beyond, typically beyond explored space. Not just on planets, but also odd structures, such as orbital rings and super dense discs, and whilst they will often involve meeting new races and alien species, none of them are built around encounters with the Klingons, Romulans, and the like. Instead, there are a lot of mysteries to be investigated and diplomatic difficulties to be solved, mostly with skill and creative thinking rather than brawn and phasers. However, this does not mean that combat does not feature—either on the ground or aboard a starship.

The great thing about Strange New Worlds: Mission Compendium Vol. 2 is that all nine scenarios are Star Trek adventures and they feel like it. They feel like they would work as episodes for the era of the television series they are set within and each would be quite difficult to adapt to other Science Fiction settings. They are also all relatively short—each offering just a session or two’s worth of play—and would be easy to slot into an ongoing campaign or run as one-shots. However, the nine are not perfect. First there is only the one scenario for Star Trek: Enterprise compared to the four each for Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation, forcing the Game Master to work to adapt these eight to the earlier period if she wants to run more of the scenarios in Strange New Worlds: Mission Compendium Vol. 2 for a Star Trek: Enterprise-set campaign. Second, whilst the graphics of the nine scenarios are differentiated between the three time periods—so LCARS (Library Computer Access/Retrieval System) is only used for the four Star Trek: The Next Generation-era scenarios—the use of graphics is generally disappointing throughout. In all too many cases, locations go unmapped and ships and alien races unillustrated. This particularly shows in the maps, the only locations given maps being combat encounters—rather than the whole of the locations and bases where the adventures take place. Now whilst there are reasonable descriptions, the lack of the maps and illustrations leaves the Game Master with more work to do in describing them.

Strange New Worlds: Mission Compendium Vol. 2 opens with Fred Love’s ‘A Cure Worse Than the Disease’, its single scenario for Star Trek: Enterprise. The crew receive a distress signal from the previously isolationist planetary government of Fosstarian II requesting help with a virulent plague. Not only is Fosstarian II suffering from a pandemic, but someone has built a planetary ring around the world specifically designed to bath it in radiation! This presents an interesting medical mystery, but there is much more going on, involving a conspiracy and a deep, dark secret, which still leaves plenty of things for the other characters to do. The conspiracy is not too convoluted though, as the scenario like the others in the collection, is not all that long. Overall this is a solid start to the anthology.

‘Plato’s Cave’ by Marco Rafalá is the first of four scenarios which take place during the Star Trek: The Original Series period. The crew is sent to resupply a remote Federation archaeological outpost on the ice-age world of Tanghal IV, only to discover the lead archaeologist dead and the rest of the team missing. Searching the facility leads to a doomsday seed vault and missile silo converted into a survival bunker prior to radical climate change millennia before. The facility is full of strange technology and indications that the away team is not alone. With its mix of ancient aliens and ancient technology, this is the first of a number of eerie, almost creepy scenarios in Strange New Worlds: Mission Compendium Vol. 2, dealing with survival, making contact, and morality.

Ancient technology also plays a role in ‘Drawing Deeply from the Well, No Good Deed’ by Aaron M. Pollyea. The crew is ordered to an alien megastructure nicknamed ‘The Big Dipper’ which has suffered a number of incidents, possibly attacks, since it recently became operational. ‘The Big Dipper’ is a skyhook which uses massive ramjet-driven scoops to mine the atmosphere of Purgatory, the gas giant below for common heavy metals and dilithium. This has a nice sense of scale, something which Star Trek: The Original Series was not always able to effectively depict onscreen, both in terms of the megastructure and the planet below. The adventure itself is good, and begins a theme of first contact and misunderstandings which runs throughout the anthology.

Joe Rixman’s ‘No Good Deed’ has an interesting call back to Star Trek: Enterprise as the crew track a call for help to a space station above a volcanic world devoid of life. The crew members discover the corpses of two species aboard the station—one avian, one arthropod, and upon further investigation, a pattern of war between them on the planet below. This led to a virus being engineered and released by the arthropods, which resulted in the rapid extermination of the avian species. Ultimately, they also find that the last survivors might have established a capsule of frozen embryos from both species. This is another good medical mystery, combined with a historical mystery and sets a dilemma or two for the crew as what they do with the embryos.

The last scenario set in the Star Trek: The Original Series-era is Christopher L.
Bennett’s ‘The Whole of Law’. It takes place on an exotic object, a large, flat disk of hyperdense matter with its own gravitational field on each side. Called Thelema, it is occupied and run as a resort world, the Light Face for relatively wholesome activities, the Dark Face for more extreme entertainment which puts visitors’ lives at risk. Visitors make the choice as to which side they want to visit voluntarily. Both the scenario’s title and the exotic object’s name are obvious nods to the writings and philosophies of occultist Aleister Crowley—as is actually pointed out in the scenario. The scenario is also connected to the classic Star Trek: The Original Series episode, ‘Shore Leave’,  and is also the most difficult of the nine scenarios to run in Strange New Worlds: Mission Compendium Vol. 2. The issue is that the Player Characters are intentionally divided and then kept apart for most of its events, which will require careful timing upon the part of the Game Master throughout. The separation also feels forced and is difficult not to telegraph.

The first scenario set in the Star Trek: The Next Generation-era is Andrew Peregrine’s ‘Footfall’. This is also a difficult scenario, but for different reasons. It is also a fascinating scenario for its themes. It explores the role of religion in the Star Trek: The Next Generation-era and how many of members of the Federation approach civilisation, particularly as it pertains to the Player Characters. The crew is directed to a world known as Footfall, a reputed religious sanctuary for numerous faiths, but not actually particular to any one faith. Recently, the world, governed by a Federation outpost, has been beset by the violent activities of a militant group. As the religious members of the crew undergo increased spirituality, they must contact the militants and attempt to calm them down. Attacks by ‘demons’ only exacerbate the situation until the Player Characters are effectively pointed to one location, a mountain top holy to everyone on the planet. Here, in a nod to Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, they get to confront the ‘Creator’ or ‘God’, though in a more benign fashion than in the film. The difficulty is really what the Player Characters do with what they learn from this confrontation, since it undermines the faith of everyone visiting the planet. The author offers several solutions, including lying—and whilst that might cause the least upset, is it really ethical? This is perhaps the most difficult dilemma in the anthology, not just in how the Player Characters deal with it, but whether a player group wants to deal with it too.

The source of an extremely powerful subspace message which almost disables its ship, leads the crew to a strange planet with a crystalline ocean in ‘A Cry from the Void’ by Ian Lemke and Spring Netto. Surprisingly, the Player Characters are welcomed with open arms by a renegade Ferengi female who is running her own mining operation on the planet. She wants their help in locating several missing miners. The question is, are the two incidents connected? The scenario adds a nice little twist to the backstory of its duplicity and a strange new environment, but this otherwise a straightforward affair.

Things get really strange and dark in Sam Webb’s ‘Darkness’, the penultimate scenario in the anthology. The crew comes to the aid of a Vulcan Expeditionary Group studying Trax Episilon 1, a Class-H which has suddenly transformed into a black, light absorbing world. There is a decent opportunity for some moments of horror in the darkness of this scenario which again, apart from the weird environment, is another straightforward affair.

The last scenario in Strange New Worlds: Mission Compendium Vol. 2 is ‘The Angstrom Operation’ by Jason Bulmahn and it is a bit of a romp. The crew is ordered to answer a distress call from a small research facility on a tidally locked world in the Dran’Ankos system near the Cardassian Demilitarized Zone. They find that the system’s star is losing its mass and the base damaged and in disarray after its staff have seemingly gone mad and attacked each other. The away team will need to restore the base, determine what its staff was doing and the cause of the madness, all the while fending off crazed crewman, a strange parasitical lifeform, and ultimately, a belligerent Cardassian patrol, if it is to save the day. A busy scenario, a nice nod to the classic Star Trek: The Original Series episode, ‘Operation Annihilation’, with a pleasing sense of growing peril, and should be good fun to play.

Physically, bar the issues with the inconsistent use of illustrations and the maps, Strange New Worlds: Mission Compendium Vol. 2 is nicely laid out and looks. The artwork is good, but just not always helpful. The book does need another edit in places. All nine scenarios are neatly organised into three acts, with notes on how to adapt each to the other two eras, and a discussion of possible outcomes and potential follow-ups.

Strange New Worlds: Mission Compendium Vol. 2 does contain a number of common themes and elements. Notably, a high number of the scenarios involve encounters with planetary-wide or sized intelligences which are mistaken for something else, their attempts at communication being potentially damaging, which will be a problem if these scenarios are played too close to each other, since the players (and their characters) are likely to have learned from earlier encounters. There also seems a concerted effort across several of the latter eight scenarios—the one scenario for the Star Trek: Enterprise era does not count—to prevent the Player Characters from using their ship’s Transporters. Of course, on screen the use of the Transporters was an easy way of avoiding having to use shuttlecraft, but in Strange New Worlds: Mission Compendium Vol. 2, the crew will find itself using one or more again and again. Which to an extent, does not feel very much like Star Trek.

In general, what issues there are with Strange New Worlds: Mission Compendium Vol. 2 are minor. In fact, the biggest issue is that there is only one scenario for Star Trek: Enterprise compared to the four each for Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation and that seems so unbalanced. The nine though, lend themselves to a very episodic style of play and are better worked into a campaign over the long term. Overall, Strange New Worlds: Mission Compendium Vol. 2 is a solid anthology of Star Trek adventures for Star Trek Adventures, each one nicely suited to its era of play.

Now in its thirteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2020, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 25th July. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Again, global events meant that Gen Con itself was not only delayed, but run as a virtual event, and likewise, global events meant that Reviews from R’lyeh could not gain access to the titles released on the day as no friendly local gaming shop was participating nearby. Fortunately, Reviews from R’lyeh has been able to gain copies of many of the titles released on the day, and so can review them as is the usual practice. To that end, Reviews from R’lyeh wants to thank both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles.

Amongst some gaming groups, there is much anguish and wailing that there is no roleplaying dedicated to the Harry Potter franchise. This is not to say that there have been no pretenders to the throne, no attempts to something in a Harry Potter-style setting, but with the serial numbers well and truly filed off. For example, the Redhurst Academy of Magic Student Handbook was a d20 System supplement published by Humanhead Studios in 2003. In 2020, Renegade Game Studios supported Free RPG Day with an ‘ashcan’ version of Kids on Brooms. This is a collaborative role-playing game—using the Kids on Bikes model and mechanics—about life at a magical school, where as a teenage witch or wizard you will study various types of magic, cast spells using your wands, and participate in sports astride brooms you ride through the air! You will have adventures, face dangers and mysteries, and uncover the fantastic secrets of the school and magic!

The Kids on Brooms Free RPG Day Edition presents a cut down version of the full Kids on Brooms rules. It starts by discussing the setting of boundaries, the Game Master and her players being expected to agree on what they want and do not want in their game—what they want to see, what they are okay with, what they want to gloss over, and what they want to avoid. The point is all about be being respectful to each other, especially in light of the fact the players are going to be roleplaying children. The Kids on Brooms Free RPG Day Edition omits though, both rules for setting creation and character creation. In the full rules for Kids on Brooms the players and Game Master gets to create their school of magic and the players roleplay pupils from all years. In the Kids on Brooms Free RPG Day Edition, the setting is the Rainheart Academy of Magic just outside of Tacoma, Washington, an old Victorian manor house perpetually hidden from the normal world by fog, its surrounding trees and buildings covered with a fungus whose study is one of the more dangerous classes on the curriculum, and its primary sport being Branderball, a combination of rugby and bowling, only played, of course, on brooms. Also, the only characters available to roleplay are Underclass Students—essentially, First Years.

Instead of character generation, Kids on Brooms Free RPG Day Edition includes six Tropes—or basic character types—and the means to modify them with the scope if their all being Underclass Students. These Tropes are Teacher’s Pet, Bullheaded Muscle, Firstborn Caster, Haughty Descendant, Offbeat Eccentric, and Reliable Bestie. As per Kids on Bikes, each student is six stats—Brains, Brawn, Charm, Fight, light, and Grit—which are attached to a die type, from a twenty-sided die for the character’s best stat down to a four-sided die for his worst stat. The ten-sided die represents an above average stat, whereas an eight-sided die represents a below average stat. So, a Bullhead has a Brawn d20, Fight d12, Grit d10, Flight d8, Brains d6, and Charm d4, whereas an Offbeat Eccentric has Flight d20, Grit d12, Brains d10, Charm d8, Brawn d6, and Fight d4.

Each Trope also has its own Strengths—or advantages, for example Loyal & Prepared for the Teacher’s Pet and Spell Slinger & Wealthy for the Haughty Descendant, each of which grants an advantage during play. So Loyal for the Reliable Bestie grants each Adversity Token spent to help a friend a +2 bonus rather than +1 and the Intuitive of the Firstborn Caster enables his player to spend Adversity Tokens to ask questions of the Game Master, who must answer truthfully. A Trop also has a Wand, which consists of the Wood and the Core, both of which grant bonuses to casting particular types of magic. So Cherry Wood grants a bonus for Charm magic and Pine Wood a bonus for Brawn magic, whereas dragon’s heartstring, wolf’s tooth, and elk antler grant a bonus to Fight magic and parchment, phoenix’s feather, and owl’s feather to Brains magic. Every student also has his own broom, such as The Blocker’s Broom which grants the rider the Guardian Strength, a familiar such as an owl or a frog, and an expansive schoolbag (of holding).

Having selected a Trope and made all of these choices, each player answers a random question about the relationship between his Trope and the Trope of the player to his left. Then each player notes down his Trope’s motivation, fear, and what might be found in his schoolbag. Given that this only the Kids on Brooms Free RPG Day Edition and the Trope or character options are fairly limited, there is a fair amount of advice given on the process.

Mechanically, Kids on Brooms Free RPG Day Edition uses the same mechanics as Kids on Bikes and Teens in Space, with each of a Trope’s stats being represented by a single die type. For a Trope to do something, player rolls the appropriate die for his Trope’s stat and attempts to roll over a difficulty number set by the Game Master, for example, between ten and twelve for an impressive task that a skilled person should be able to do. When a die is rolled and its maximum number is rolled, the die explodes, the Trope gets a Lucky Break, and a player gets to re-roll and add to the total. A player only has to keep rolling exploding results until his Trope succeeds. The Game Master also decides whether an action is a Planned Action or a Snap Decision, although a player can attempt to persuade her either way. Primarily, a Planned Action allows a player to take the average of a Trope’s stat and so forego the need to roll, whereas with a Snap Decision, this is not possible.

In addition, Adversity Tokens can be spent to modify a roll on a one-for-one basis. If a Trope succeeds at a stat check, his player gets to narrate the result, whereas, if he fails, then the Game Master narrates the outcome. Failures tend to be worse for Planned Actions rather than Snap Decisions, but whatever the failure, the Trope earns an Adversity Token.

So far, so like Kids on Bikes, but Kids on Brooms, magic complicates things—or at least adds aspect to the game. In fact, magic and the casting of spells is surprisingly simple, yet flexible. Each Stat is associated with a particular type of magic—Brains for astral projection, finding hidden things, and so on; Brains for levitation, magically locking doors, and binding opponents; Fight for attacking, disarming, and exploding magic; Flight for deflecting magic, moving magically, and blending into the surrounds; Charm for disguising yourself, magically persuading others, and projecting illusions; and Grit for keeping yourself and others safe, dispelling magic, and healing. Of all these spells, there are ethical limitations on the use of Charm and Fight spells—especially against others.

Mechanically, spellcasting in Kids on Brooms uses the same dice rolls as stat checks, with the Game Master setting the difficulty of the task based on what the player wants his Trope to do with the spell. This is modified by the magnitude, area, and duration of the effect, as well as the caster’s experience with the spell, so the more unnatural the effect, the greater area it affects, the longer it lasts, and the less experience his Trope has with the spell, the greater target difficulty the player has to beat. In addition to the stat die, a player also has a Magic Die or a four-sided die, which he rolls and adds to the total. The Magic Die is not rolled if the target of the magic is a living being, but it does explode, and since it is a smaller die type, there is a greater chance of it exploding and so of a Trope successfully casting the spell. As with standard stat checks, there is a table for interpreting the results for the Game Master to use.

And… this is where Kids on Brooms Free RPG Day Edition effectively ends. There are no NPCs given and there is no scenario. So in effect, Kids on Brooms Free RPG Day Edition gives a group everything it needs to play, but nothing roleplay or act against, and worse, nothing to do. In effect, it handicaps any group wanting to find out what Kids on Brooms is like to play. What is worse is the fact that almost two thirds of a page is left empty, which could have used for  scenario seed or three and perhaps the stats of monster or two—just something to make the Kids on Brooms Free RPG Day Edition more immediately playable.

Physically, the Kids on Brooms Free RPG Day Edition is where well presented. The artwork is reasonable and the booklet is decently written. 

The Kids on Brooms Free RPG Day Edition is a good introduction to Kids on Brooms. It is easy to pick up and understand, the setting is instantly accessible, and the rules are light, providing for a good narrative-based storytelling game. However, as a full introduction to Kids on Brooms, the Kids on Brooms Free RPG Day Edition is frustratingly, unnecessarily incomplete.

Delta Green: PX Poker Night is a scenario for use with Arc Dream Publishing’s Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game which can be played using the roleplaying game’s full rules or those from Delta Green: Need to Know. It is significant in that it was originally published in the late nineteen-nineties, and so is actually set before the events which saw Delta Green accepted back into the fold and before Delta Green became a roleplaying game of its own. It also served as the demonstration scenario for the setting, being basically a one-shot set in an isolated location on one singular night of terror.

Some twenty or so years on, Delta Green: PX Poker Night has been updated and refurbished as a scenario for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game. It can still be run as a one-shot, but if any of the pregenerated Player Characters survive the strange encounter and the madness, they may go on to become Delta Green friendlies, even Delta Green agents if the conspiracy can improve the situation with their careers, and so have the potential to be roleplayed through the events of the millennium and beyond… Alternatively, Delta Green: PX Poker Night could be used as a flashback, as the re-examination of a cold ‘Night at the Opera’, or even as an origins scenario for a Delta Green Agent a la Control Group.

Delta Green: PX Poker Night takes place at Platte Air Force Base, a cemetery for both Air Force aeroplanes—the base is a boneyard for decommissioned aeroplanes, and air force careers. Here in the middle of nowhere, misfits, malcontents, and ne’er-do-wells serve out the remainder of their careers, all but avoiding the possibility of a dishonourable discharge. They have little to do bar maintain the base and perform guard duty, and little to look forward to except the weekly poker game—held at the base’s PX, a holdover from when Platte AFB was an army base—and the opportunity to take money off the base’s officers. All that will change on the night of Saturday, August 22nd, 1998.

On that evening an unmarked van is driven onto the base and parked at its far end. It sits there silently for hours, guarded by men armed with rifles and wearing strange metal helmets. The base commander says that they have permission to be there and their orders are correct. Then as the poker night begins, the van seems to hum, and the mood turns strange. The air force personnel grow disgruntled, then agitated, and worse, petty rivalries and miseries escalating into out and out violence as they suffer weird hallucinations. Then events really take a turn for the weird…

Delta Green: PX Poker Night is designed to be played by between three and six characters, the scenario including six pregenerated Air Force personnel. They include a diverse mix of men and women, some them of actual misfits and malcontents, most but not all of them at Platte AFB due to their own actions. However, there is a problem with the two women in the group. Not that they are African American, but rather that both are victims of misogyny within the Air Force. In story-telling terms, their backgrounds feel too similar and although they are different in terms of personality, perhaps another reason for one of being assigned to Platte AFB could have been given to make her less of a victim and more responsible for her own actions as the majority of the pre-generated male characters are.
Given that the scenario is designed as a one-shot and comes with pregenerated characters, it would also have been useful to have a briefing for each character, detailing in particular how each feels about the other five. This may not be necessary with every group playing PX Poker Night, but will definitely be useful for a convention game. That said, in addition to the character sheets for each of the six pregenerated characters, the scenario supports their insanity spiral with a set of effect cards which are designed to be handed out as the effects whatever the van brought onto the base degrades their mental stability.

Delta Green: PX Poker Night is primarily character and player driven. For the most part, they will be reacting to the events around them, a combination of weird hallucinations and the increasing unstable, then aggressive or panicked actions of their fellow servicemen, and there is plenty of roleplaying potential involved in that, though some players may find it to be too much of a grind. The scenario also presents the opportunity for the player to roleplay characters in the Delta Green setting who are not stalwart investigators, but both victims and malcontents. Ultimately, the scenario will drive them to investigate lest they be driven insane. However, whilst the scenario’s weird events escalate and its denouement is interesting, that denouement is not necessarily a satisfying one—especially if the scenario is run as a one shot. As a flashback or introduction to the setting of Delta Green, there may be more opportunity to explore the repercussions of Delta Green: PX Poker Night.
Physically, Delta Green: PX Poker Night is decently presented as you would expect for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game. It includes good maps and a useful set of tables to help the Handler gauge the reactions of the NPCs.

As good as it is to see Delta Green: PX Poker Night back in print, it is of limited use to an ongoing Delta Green campaign. Its time frame also means that it is difficult to add to a campaign set in the current period, so it best works as a flashback or a campaign starter set earlier in the setting’s history. As a nasty, Sanity shaving one-shot Delta Green: PX Poker Night is an interesting introduction to Delta Green.