Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Shadow Scar: Eyes in Darkness is the ‘Easy Mode’ for Shadowscar, a new setting from R. Talsorian Games, Inc., much like The Witcher: Easy Mode – An Introductory Booklet to the Witcher TRPG for The Witcher and Cyberpunk Red: Easy Mode – An Introduction to the Dark Future for Cyberpunk RED. It is a world/parallel Earth hopping setting across what Shadow Scar calls the Mosaic in which modern day Ninja, armed with high tech tools and magical artefacts, leap from one world to the next to defeat the Yokai and other minions of the corrupted Great Mother Spirit Izanami. The Player Characters—or Agents—are these Ninjas, members of the Shadow Scar Agency, a secret organisation dedicated to keeping reality safe. The Ninja must conduct their assignments in secrecy and ‘Maintain the Veil’, both to keep the civilian population safe and prevent any mystical monsters from learning of their presence and activities until they absolutely have to reveal both to the targets of their operations. Shadow Scar: Eyes in Darkness mixes magic, action, and stealth, including not just an introduction to the setting, but also the rules, six pre-generated Agents, and a complete scenario.
The setting is Nakatsukuni, a peaceful land created by the Kotoamatsukami, the First Great Spirits of the Land. When the Great Mother Spirit Izanami died giving birth to the Spirit of Fire, her husband, Izanagi, attempted to retrieve her spirit from Yomi No Kuni, the Afterlife, and appeared to have succeeded when given permission to return her by the Ruler of the Dead. Unfortunately, Izanami has been corrupted by the Ruler of the Dead, and she brought with her an army of twisted souls and horrible monsters and after corrupting the minds of the Yokai, Izanami set out to destroy reality. The war was won by the combined effort of Izanagi and the Kami, but at great cost. Izanami was cast into the Void via a Shadow Scar, but her monstrous minions were scattered across the Mosaic. To counter the Yokai threat, the Kami established the Shadow Scar Agency, an order of Shinobi—or ninja clans—trained by the Six Great Clans of Shadow. The Shadow Scar Agency still fights the Veil War today.
Nakatsukuni remains an archipelago of islands—many floating—shattered by the war against Izanami and her minions. Other worlds of the Mosaic include ‘Steel Court’, a Grand Victorian Empire in which the Stewart Steam Turbine Engine has powered fantastical industrialisation and inventions even as revolt foments the Empire’s ‘Protectorates’; ‘5th Street’, an early twentieth century world recovering from the Great War that would seem to be utterly mundane except the masked vigilantes on the rooftops and the racial inventors working in their workshops; and ‘Refuge’, a world so blighted by the Yokai that humanity has been forced to retreat to a Lunar Colony and massive station orbiting the moon. All three locations will be visited as part of the scenario included in Shadow Scar: Eyes in Darkness. Thumbnail descriptions are given for the three worlds as well as the Shadow Scar Agency and the six Shinobi clans.
An Agent in Shadow Scar: Eyes in Darkness—and thus Shadow Scar—has three stats. These are Mind, Body, and Spirit, and these are rated between one and five. Each attribute has six associated skills, each of which is rated between one and three. He has Techniques, Mikkyo, and Quirks. Techniques are special abilities, such as ‘Nimble & Quick’, which increases an Agent’s speed, whilst Mikkyo are secret techniques taught by the shinobi clans which require an Agent to expend Ki to trigger, such as ‘Duplicates’ which enables the caster to create silent duplicates himself that he can control. All six pre-generated Agents come with background and illustration.
Mechanically, Shadow Scar is a dice pool system that uses six-sided dice. Every roll of a three or more is a success, whilst a roll of six is equal to six successes. If the number of successes is equal to or greater than the Difficulty Value, the task is successful. An average task has a Task Difficulty of two, Challenging has a Task Difficulty of three, Difficult has a Task Difficulty of four, and so on. Bonuses and penalties adjust the number of dice a player has to roll. To reflect that the world of Shadow Scar is pulled in two directions by different forces of nature, an Agent has access to ‘Inyo’—Japanese for Yingyang. If an Agent fails a task by a single Success, he can call upon the power of ‘Inyo’ to gain that much-needed Success. Or he can use to inflict an additional three points of damage upon a target. However, when the Agent draws upon the power of Inyo, he draws only upon one side. In response, the other side draws back and the Storyteller can draws upon the Agent’s Inyo to make him fail a task by one Success or have an enemy inflict three extra damage on the Agent. Once that has happened, the Agent has access to Inyo again. Essentially, the fortunes of each Agent swings back and forth quite literally.
Combat is an extension of the rules, with Initiative Order being determined by an Awareness Check. During a turn, each Agent can conduct two actions. Some fifteen possible actions are detailed as are the conditions and hazards that they might suffer. The hazards covered include environmental, mechanical, and magical. When an Agent is reduced to three points of Vitality or less, he suffers the Grievously Wounded Condition, and when his Vitality is reduced to zero, in combat, he can either be killed or knocked out. The latter reduces his Vitality to one rather than zero. If an Agent’s Vitality is reduced to zero or less, it is possible to become a Wandering Spirit, but an Agent equipped with a Spirit Lantern can collect and protect a Wandering Spirit. At the end of a mission, if the other Agents return with a dead Agent’s body and his Wandering Spirit in a Spirit Lantern, the Agent can be resurrected. Otherwise, a new body has to be created.

In terms of setting, Shadow Scar: Eyes in Darkness covers the means of travel between worlds, the invisible and magical tattoos which enable communication and understanding, arms and armour and other equipment, before leaping into the scenario, ‘Eyes in Darkness’. The Shadow Scar Agency assigns the Agents to investigate a Dodomeki named Kagura, a lieutenant to a powerful smuggler known as the ‘Green Demon’, who runs operations at the ground level of the Green Demon’s Mountain Branch. Two of the Yokai working for Kagura are attending a black-market auction in a makeshift space station called the Scattery in the Refuge. Whatever the Agents do, the Yokai are likely to cause trouble at the auction, meaning that the Agents will have to work hard to protect the Veil. Following the Yokai—or following the clues they leave behind—the Agents jump through a gate or Rift Dive to find themselves at Easy Ray’s Gas Station outside of New Orleans on 5th Street, and when they or their contact make a run for it, it leads to a car chase through the streets of the city. A pair of tables providing random events both outside and inside the city nicely enliven the car chase.
Although this turns out to be a dead end, the Agent’s Handler suggests that a renegade Agent, currently in ‘Steel Court’ might have some information. The renegade Agent is selfish and immoral, but will trade for information—at a price. Which can be money or some entertainment. The information he provides gives the location of Kagura’s hideout in an isolated village in the mountains which she is beginning to fortify. The climax of the scenario is an assault on the village, initially by stealth, helped and then hindered by two of the Kami of the sky having a violent argument over the borders of their territory and causing a severe snowstorm. Success leads provides clues as to the whereabouts of Kagura’s boss, the Green Demon. Locating the Green Demon will be the Agents’ next mission, the details of which are given in Shadow Scar Jumpstart Kit: The Mask of the Green Demon!, the sequel to Shadow Scar: Eyes in Darkness. The bestiary or ‘Rogues Galley’ at the end of Shadow Scar: Eyes in Darkness provides all of the stats and details of the Yokai and other NPCs that the Agents will encounter over the course of the mission.
Although ‘Eyes in Darkness’ does have a sequel in the form of Shadow Scar Jumpstart Kit: The Mask of the Green Demon!, it is complete and can be played on its own without the need to run the sequel. Thus, the Storyteller and her players can get a full taste of what Shadow Scar is like to play and what a mission feels like. ‘Eyes in Darkness’ is a decent scenario, with lots of action and plenty of stealth and combat. It is accompanied by some decent maps as well.
Physically, Shadow Scar: Eyes in Darkness is decently put together. Much of the artwork is anime in style and bright and colourful. The cartography is excellent. Whilst well-written, it does need an edit in places.
Shadow Scar: Eyes in Darkness is a solid introduction to the Shadow Scar setting and roleplaying game. There is good advice for the Storyteller on running the game and everything is clearly explained and easy to understand, and all supporting an exciting, action-packed scenario which can played through in a single session or two.

Delta Green: ARCHINT is a supplement, for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game. Published by Arc Dream Publishing, this is the modern roleplaying game of conspiratorial and Lovecraftian investigative horror with its conspiratorial agencies within the United States government investigating, confronting, and covering up the Unnatural. Delta Green: ARCHINT details some of the the conspiratorial agency’s worst, vilest, deadliest, and most insidious of objects its investigating Agents have discovered, recovered, examined, and in some cases, hidden away lest exposure to or experience of, drive others to kill, simply disappear, and ultimately lose their minds. The world of modern law enforcement and espionage both rely upon intelligence. Some analysts develop signals intelligence or SIGINT. Some develop human intelligence, HUMINT. Delta Green deals in both, as well as a third type of intelligence—archaeological intelligence. Delta Green: ARCHINT is a supplement for the conspiratorial agency’s worst, vilest, deadliest, and most insidious of objects its investigating Agents have discovered, recovered, examined, and in most cases, hidden away lest exposure to or experience of, drive others to kill, simply disappear, and ultimately lose their minds. These are objects which seem to run counter the laws of physics—let alone mathematics, come from beyond history, and defy ordinary classification.

Delta Green: ARCHINT details eleven items, some new to print, others drawn from previous scenarios. Some are modern, some are not. The collection opens with ‘The Amulet of the Ai-Apa’, one of the two items in the collection seen in an actual scenario for Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game, in this case, Delta Green: A Victim of the Art. Depicting the twin figures of a man and an intertwined flying beast, this is a meso-American artefact that willingly or unwillingly summons a deadly servant. The other is ‘The Stone of Yos’, from Delta Green: Sweetness, a large blob of obsidian which lets the user connected to it to ‘summon’ a shadowy figure. These are not the only commonalities that run throughout the supplement. ‘The Hunahpú Mask’ is also of South American origins, Mayan this time, and shaped like an over-size human skull, which of course, is deadly to anyone who spends tie wearing it. Like ‘The Stone of Yos’, another item which seems to take the user inside itself is ‘The Gowdie Shape’, a green, metal dodecahedron with connections to seventeenth century Scottish witchcraft, that defies mathematical and spatial analysis. Once inside, the user is sorely tested. Similarly, ‘The Mironov Object’ defies analysis, a four hundred pound of unknowable metal that dangerously enhances and energises the user’s mathematical visualisation skills to the point where they begin to resemble reality. Two entries are more modern, one with a shockingly hidden purpose, the other a hidden purpose. Both are constructs of a kind. ‘The Kurville Executable’ is the former, an email-delivered virus that when seen on the screen inflicts what appears to be epileptic seizures so traumatic, that they physically injure the viewer. Their effect is so deadly, the files are physically stored under lock and key with numerous warnings on them. Several artefacts are stored like this by Delta Green, though in some cases the methods of secure storage are laughingly quaint by modern standards. The other constructed item is ‘The Reneteur Device’, an oddly anachronistic computer that tracks the activities of the Great Race of Yith throughout time and space. If only the Agents could decipher the device’s purpose, it could track the Great Race of Yith operatives down and discover what it is they are up to.

Of course, not all of the objects detailed in Delta Green: ARCHINT share such commonalities and where they do, it does not means that they are connected. In fact, as written they are not connected at all. What they do have in common though, is a high level of detail and description that will help the Handler describe them and how they work—or at least what happened when an Agent begins poking around in and about them. The detail and the description includes the known history of each device and how each came into possession of Delta Green. There is more than enough description here to help the Handler bring each and everyone of them into life, whilst also leaving some room for the Handler to add details to the history of each item as she wants. Many of the descriptions, though, will have the Handler repressing a feeling of shock or disgust, whilst also being amazed at how bizarrely inventive they are in detailing each item.

Physically, Delta Green: ARCHINT is well done, although it does need an edit in places. The artwork is as excellent as you would expect for a supplement for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game.

Delta Green: ARCHINT is a good collection of thoroughly nasty objects and artefacts with histories both fearsome and foul. Yet that is all it is. Despite the rich detail accorded to every one of the eleven entries in the supplement, that is all that Delta Green: ARCHINT is. Of course, a Handler is going to be able to use that detail to create cases for her players and their Agents to investigate, but there are no scenario hooks given that might have helped. Equally, there is no broader background to how Delta Green as an organisation handles objects such as those detailed in the pages of Delta Green: ARCHINT or how its experts go about investigating them. For although the title of the supplement is Delta Green: ARCHINT, there is no discussion of the ‘ARCHINT’—the archaeological intelligence—of the title. That is a bigger missed opportunity than the lack of scenario hooks. Ultimately, though, the Handler is not going to be disappointed with the horrible objets d’art on show in Delta Green: ARCHINT—vile, murderous, tempting, and worse.

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Initially it is difficult to work out whether Rojo: A Kurosawa Inspired Bloodshed is a comic book or something actually RPG-related. It is in fact, an adventure for the Terror Target Gemini RPG, an anthropomorphic anime Wild West-Noir action roleplaying game. Published by Need! Games, best known for the Fabula Ultima TTRPG, this is game in which the Player Characters—or Runners, professional adventurers—undertake dangerous missions in the savage lands known as the Maju. It is designed to be hyperviolent, anachronistic, and wacky, a setting which demonic gunslingers, martial arts witches, and more. The scenario itself comes with six pre-generated Player Characters and each of these comes the ‘Quick Rulez for Terror Target Gemini’ on the back. In fact, these six inclusions of the ‘Quick Rulez for Terror Target Gemini’ are the only explanation of the rules for the Terror Target Gemini RPG, even if only in a much-shortened form. So the Narrator will have to copy one for herself as reference during to play.

The scenario itself, ‘Rojo’, is based upon Akira Kurosawa’s film, Yojimbo, in which a rōnin wanders into a town and gets himself involved in a feud between two rival yakuza gangs over control of the local gambling den. In ‘Rojo’, the town of Dorobnōno Machi is dominated by the Rojo, a family of mobsters which controls liquor in town, and the rival Mengusu, a Yakuza clan which wants to destroy the Rojo. Add into this, rumours of an Imperial convoy having been hijacked and a powerful weapon stolen, bounties having been placed on the heads of both the Rojo and the Mengusu, and the Mengusu not only hoarding gold, but planning to make a big action movie, and what you have is a febrile situation in Dorobnōno Machi. With the sheriff dead and the town run down, there seems to be no hope for Dorobnōno Machi. Even without the intervention of the Runners, the situation is going to escalate. There are even more dire rumours! One is that Dziga Rojo, the son of the Rojo boss who everyone thinks is an arsehole, is missing and has been kidnapped by the Mengusu Clan. The other is that Pa-Lach, the hired killer known as ‘The Hangman of Menaparavda’, reputably unkillable, will be arriving today, sent from the Capital to recover the missing weapon.
The Runners will arrive in Dorobnōno Machi and get the lay of the land in the bar before exploring what remains of the town. This includes getting involved in the film being shot in the streets by the Mengusu Clan, hanging out at the gambling den, and even searching for the location of the stolen weapon. And that really is it to the plot of Rojo: A Kurosawa Inspired Bloodshed. This is all set-up rather than a scenario with a beginning, a middle, and an end. The action will be primarily player-driven with the Narrator adding events here and there in response.
Mechanically, Rojo: A Kurosawa Inspired Bloodshed is straightforward. To have his Runner undertake an action, a player rolls a twenty-sided die and adds his Runner’s Stat and Skill to roll higher than a Target Number. This is either twelve or Simple, fourteen or Standard, eighteen or Tough, and twenty-two or Gruelling. An Edge allows a reroll and the highest value kept, whilst a Snag forces a reroll and the lowest value kept. If the Runner is responding to unexpected event—such as a trap or ambush—then the player only adds his Runner’s Stat. Combat uses the same mechanic, with a Runner having two different actions per Round. Attack rolls are made versus an Enemy’s Defence, whilst rolls to evade are made versus the Enemy’s Attack. Armour reduces damage suffered, a Runner fainting when his Hit Points are reduced to zero, and then dying if more damage is suffered. Magic and the casting of spells requires the expenditure of Ki points.
A Runner in the Terror Target Gemini RPG and thus Rojo: A Kurosawa Inspired Bloodshed has four Stats and four Skills. The Stats are Power, Co-ordination, Intellect, and Charisma, whilst the Skills are Training, Handcraft, Arcane, and Communication. In Rojo: A Kurosawa Inspired Bloodshed, these range between zero and three. They also have a Bloodline and a Class and Feats. The six Runners in Rojo: A Kurosawa Inspired Bloodshed consist of a Felid Hare who is a good Pilot or driver, a Human Hunter who has a Falcon Hunting Partner, an Elf Merchant who is good at Bargaining, a Kru Berserk who can protect others and can attack with his beak, an Imp Martial Artist who is also lucky, and a Human Witch who can drawn an eye on an object to see through it and has a Charm spell.
Physically, Rojo: A Kurosawa Inspired Bloodshed is very bright and colourful. The comic book look is carried out from start to finish, which means that it does look busy and its content is not an easy to grasp as if the layout was more traditional. The style is definitely anime-like, with just a little bit of a nod to the ‘cel-shading’ style of the Borderlands computer games.
Rojo: A Kurosawa Inspired Bloodshed is bright and colourful, but it is deceptive. It is not a fully fleshed out quick-start or explanation of the Terror Target Gemini RPG, and anyone expecting that will be disappointed. It is also not really suitable for anyone who has not run a roleplaying game before—it is just too underwritten for that. However, an experienced Narrator can pick up Rojo: A Kurosawa Inspired Bloodshed, read through in ten minutes and so quickly bring it to the table for single session of hyperviolent action in a Wild West action-fantasy.

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Of all the items published for Free RPG Day 2024, the X-Men Expansion Preview is not the shortest—that honour goes to the Lost Tome of Monsters: Free RPG Day Edition from Foambrain Games which consists of a Pinature and an encounter—but it is the release with the lightest of gaming content. It is a preview for the forthcoming Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game: X-Men Expansion, which explores and presents the X-Men, their origins, rosters, members, associated teams, events, and threats for the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game. The Marvel Multiverse X-Men Expansion Preview provides a snapshot of what is going to be contained in the supplement and a bit more. The more begins with its opening section, a ‘Rules Primer’, which explains the Marvel 616 System used in the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game. It is quick and simple, but it does not include any examples.

The bulk of the Marvel Multiverse X-Men Expansion Preview is dedicated not to the X-Men, but a team which it always preferred to keep secret—X-Force. As explained in this potted history, X-Force carried out the tasks which the X-Men could not. As the leading protectors of Mutants in the Marvel Universe, the X-men had to be heroic and be seen to be heroic—in all senses of the word. Not so the X-Force. Its members could use force, subterfuge, and militant means to carry out its mission of dealing with threats to Mutant-kind. They could even kill if necessary. A cross between spies, vigilantes, and special forces operatives, they did the dirty work that the X-Men could never do and never sanction. In game terms, this means that members of X-Force are not always heroic and their operations often stray into morally grey areas. The history of the X-Force includes seven different line-ups and details locations important to the team, such as the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier Pericles, and Cavern-X. Floor plans for the latter, a case base in Arizona, are also included.
There are notes on playing as members of X-Force, noting its darker themes of clandestine action and secrecy, as well as its proactive approach. Joining the team is done by invitation only, based on what the current leader wants. In the case of Cable, frequent leader of X-Force, this means combat skills, discipline, and the ability to undertake dangerous missions. Potential members must be Mutants and they should ideally have some military or espionage background. It also notes that there is sometimes a commonality in terms of powers between team members, such as the health regenerating abilities of Deadpool, Wolverine, and X-23. Rounding out the description of X-Force is a couple of sets of adventure hooks, five suitable for any X-Force roster and five for the Krakaon X-Force, the most recent roster. These are no more than a paragraph in length and will need a fair bit of development upon the part of the Game Master.
Rounding out the Marvel Multiverse X-Men Expansion Preview are stats for the Mutants Bishop, Dazzler, and Gambit. Although nice to see these, only one of them, Bishop, has been a member of X-Force.
Physically, the Marvel Multiverse X-Men Expansion Preview is clean and tidy, and very readable. And that is really the best that can be said about it, since it would actually take quite a bit of effort to really turn any of its content into something playable and ready to be played at the table. Many of the characters across the different rosters are not here or given in the core rulebook for Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game, such that it would be difficult to assemble a full team. A team of all-stars—sans Cable—would be possible. Then the Game Master would need to develop one of the adventure hooks included in its pages. Of course, a preview like this, is only designed to give you a snapshot of what in the forthcoming game book and the Marvel Multiverse X-Men Expansion Preview does a good job of that—and actually it is not a bad read either.

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

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

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Name: Flash Cthulhu – The Deeper ArtsPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michael Reid

Setting: San Francisco, 1971Product: One-Location, One-Hour Scenario
What You Get: Eight page, 1.59 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions; when it ceases to be dangerous, you don’t want it.” — Duke EllingtonPlot Hook: What price inspiration?Plot Support: Staging advice, three NPCs, and four pre-generated Investigators.Production Values: Decent
Pros# Short slide into a higher consciousness# Woozy, louche encounter with the Mythos# Enjoyable period feel# Easy to adjust to other eras and locations# Artpobia# Melophobia# Pharmacophobia
Cons# Too short# Little scope for investigation
Conclusion# Queasy, end of an era, anti-climax# Period feel comes to an end too soon. This should have been longer.

Beyond death there is a place of waiting, somewhere between the world of the living and the afterlife. This is Limbo and were it not for the fact that it is staffed by demons and ghouls, you would be hard-pressed to mistake it for anything other than a dentist’s waiting room, complete with beige walls and magazines and newspapers on the table. You are dead, but according to Greta, the administrative demon working your case file, not ready to pass on to wherever the soul goes to. You have a task to resolve. Perhaps you need to bring your own killer to justice, prevent an unexpected death, or complete some other unfinished business. Doing so will stop a Shattering Event that would otherwise trap you here permanently, and prevent you from passing on. Yet you only have limited time—four nights, each night awaking to find yourself back where you started—before that Shattering Event occurs and when you return you are still dead. Dead as the day your corpse was committed to the grave or left to rot undiscovered and missing. Thus, you must navigate the world of the living in the shadows as the undead, swathed in perfumes to hide the stench of decay and formaldehyde and wreathed in clothes to hide the signs. Worse, your memories have been disrupted and broken by your passing, and only by recovering what you cannot recall will come closer to preventing the Shattering Event. You are a Revenant and you have four nights in which to explore the last days of your life and stop the Shattering Event.

This is the set-up for The Revenant Society: The Endless Loop Beneath the City, a roleplaying game designed by Banana Chan and Sen-Foong Lim—best known for the highly regarded Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall from Wet Ink Games—and Julie Ahern. Published by Van Ryder Games, a company better known for its Final Girl and Hostage Negotiator board games, following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is designed to be played by two to four players, plus a Fate Weaver (as the Game Master is known), aged fourteen and over. It is also a storytelling style game, using Powered by the Apocalypse, which can be played as a one-shot or as a mini-campaign of four, up to four-hour sessions. The core rulebook for The Revenant Society: The Endless Loop Beneath the City contains six scenarios that will play out in La Belle Époque Paris at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, or in Jazz Age New York, which play out in and around the Paris Métro and the New York Subway.

The Revenant Society: The Endless Loop Beneath the City Deluxe Box Set includes not just the core rulebook, but also a Fate Weaver Screen, maps of both Paris and New York, a Map of Intrigue for tying NPCs together, maps, a Loop Board, and six Playbook Boards. The Fate Weaver Screen lists the Fate Weaver’s Hard and Soft Moves, a Loop Event Generator, an NPC Generator, and a Location Generator. The maps of both Paris and New York are marked with their respective underground stations, whilst the Loop Board tracks the time clocks, events, and questions for the four Loops. It is double-sided, one side for a One-Shot, the other for a Mini-Campaign Loop. The six Playbooks are also double-sided and consist of ‘The Grizzled’, ‘The Compassionate’, ‘The Philosophical’, ‘The Diplomatic’, ‘The Hopeful’, and ‘The Glamourous’. Each of the Playbooks list the stats, Moves, and more, as well as having space for the player to fill out his Revenant’s background. Both the Playbooks and the Loop Board are write on/wipe off and The Revenant Society: The Endless Loop Beneath the City Deluxe Box Set comes with several pens suitable for that purpose. There are also miniatures for the Watchers, the supernatural creatures who will dog the efforts of the Revenants and a Team Miniature used to track the progress of the players and their Revenants across the four Loops. The thirty or so Memory cards, many of them period photographs, will be used by the players to prompt their Revenants’ memories.

A Revenant in The Revenant Society looks similar to other Playbooks in Powered by the Apocalypse roleplaying games. He has four Stats—Resolve, Nerve, Calm, and Vigour—ranging between -1 and +2, and a set of four Moves. For example, ‘The Grizzled’ has ‘Browbeat’ for coercing answers out of an NPC, ‘Supernatural Strength’ when using his extreme physical strength, ‘Body Part Substitution’ for replacing a part of his body with an item to reduce damage taken, and ‘Clumsy Brawler’ for fighting. ‘Body Part Substitution’ is the Undead Move for ‘The Grizzled’ and each Revenant has its own Undead Move. Beyond this, a Playbook has a lot of background details that the player fills in during preparation for play. The only mechanical choice that a player makes is to choose a beginning Move. The other choices he needs to make deal with his background and relationships with the other characters. All six of the Playbooks are built on archetypes and inspired by film and media. For example, ‘The Hopeful’ is either a factory worker, a hairdresser, or a telephone operator, and is inspired by the anti-nihilist and fool tropes, Waymond Wang from Everything, Everywhere, All At Once and Phil at the end of Groundhog Day.

The four Moves inherent to each Playbook are not the only Moves a Revenant has access to. Basic Moves include ‘Investigate’, ‘Blend In’, ‘Persuade’, ‘Struggle’, ‘Flee’, and ‘Dirt Nap’, and ‘Saving Grace’. ‘Dirt Nap’ is used when a Revenant wants to rest, whilst ‘Saving Grace’ is for helping another Revenant. There are also two Team Moves, ‘Burn This City’ and ‘Take Them Out’, which can only be performed when all of the Revenants are in the same location. They are drastic in nature, the first seeing the Revenants create a supernatural fire to disrupt the situation, the latter having the Revenants open a door to Limbo and push an NPC through and so kill them. The Fate Weaver has her own Moves, split between Hard Moves and Soft Moves. Both are designed to push the narrative along and might be to add a Watcher when a player rolls high on a Move, pass out a clue when a player is stumped, restart a Loop, and so on. Like the Revenants, Watchers have returned from Limbo, but they take pleasure in the Revenants’ failure. There can be up to four of these faceless creatures in play, their presence acting as a penalty on all dice rolls made by the Revenants and also highlighting the undead nature of the Revenants to the living.

Mechanically, The Revenant Society works like other Powered by the Apocalypse roleplaying games. A player chooses the Move he wants his Revenant to use, rolls two six-sided dice, and adds a Stat to the result. If a Revenant is at a location where he worked, he instead rolls three dice and chooses the highest results. On a result of six or less, the Revenant fails, and may take damage, but will gain a point of Experience; on a result of seven, eight, or nine, the action is a success and the player can choose one of the options listed for the Move; and on ten or more, the action is a higher success, and the player can select two options. However, a roll of ten or more also adds a Watcher to the Loop. Effectively, failure rewards a Revenant with a chance to learn, whereas a higher success grants greater benefits, but may attract the attention of the Watchers—some Moves include an option to not have a Watcher appear.

Set-up for The Revenant Society sees the Fate Weaver seed the Loops with Events and clues, some of which are Red Herrings, for the Revenants to discover. These can ones of a mystery that the Fate Weaver can create herself or one of the six included in The Revenant Society. Notably, these are seeded across only six locations across the Paris Métro or the New York Subway, the rest marked as under construction and inaccessible. This effectively focuses play, at least in a geographical sense. In Session Zero, the Fate Weaver introduces the game, sets expectations and responsibilities—both of which are neatly set out for Fate Weaver and players alike, sets the scene in Limbo, and then the players introduce their Revenants and fill out their Playbooks.

Play then begins with the Revenants awaking in the Subway or Métro. In the first Loop, the Revenants awake to find themselves in the dirt of a tunnel with a train bearing down on them, armed with only one Memory card. They will also have an Item card, representing an object that they will always wake up with at the start of a Loop. Their reaction, typically to use the ‘Flee’ Move, is designed to teach the roleplaying game’s mechanics. In subsequent Loops, the Revenants will awake in different locations around the underground. The Revenants will then proceed to explore the Location they are in, looking for Clues and responding to Loop Events and Fixed Events. Whenever they employ a Move—either Basic, Undead, or Team—they fill out a segment on the Clock for the Location. The number of segments on the Clock will vary according to the number of Revenants, but when the Clock is filled out, the Revenants move on to a new Location, a two-hour window of time, and a fresh Clock. This is done collectively. The Revenants cannot split up to go to different Locations, but they can split up to explore a Location. When they reach the end of a Loop, whether because time has run out or because a Revenant has taken too much damage, the Loop begins again. Although it starts in a different place under different circumstances, as the Revenants explore this Loop they encounter new Loop Events, but also Fixed Events that do not change from Loop to Loop. In effect, each Loop is a chance to reset the investigation and let the Revenants start again with the information they have found out so far and then go look for new clues. At the start of each Loop each Revenant will also have new Memory cards that will trigger further questions about who they are. As the Revenants explore Locations and look for Clues, the Fate Weaver will be keep track of both them and the connections between the various NPCs, one of whom will be the Culprit. The Map of Intrigue is used to record the connections where everyone can see and ultimately help the Revenants and their players identify the Culprit.

The investigation of a case should ideally culminate in the revelation as to who the Culprit is and the Revenants acting to stop him and so prevent the Shattering Event. Whatever happens, whether they stop either or not, the players have the opportunity to explain what happens to their Revenants. If they succeeded, are they are at peace and do they move on to the Afterlife? If they failed, what happens to them trapped endlessly in the Loop? There is even a possibility of setting up a sequel, so that the Revenants return to Limbo in readiness to go through another Loop, attempting to stop another Shattering Event.

For both players and the Fate Weaver, there is solid advice on safety—particularly at beginning and end of a session, content warnings—in general and for each scenario, and the tools necessary to play. The Revenant Society: The Endless Loop Beneath the City Deluxe Box Set includes an X-Card and an O-Card. The Fate Weaver there is background on both La Belle Époque Paris and Jazz Age New York, including both history and details of important locations in and around the Paris Métro and the New York Subway. There are notes on post-World War I Paris, but sadly not on pre-World War I New York. Over a third of The Revenant Society is dedicated to scenarios or cases, three per city, plus advice for the Fate Weaver on creating her own. They include the Revenants trying to find out how they died and how those deaths are related to a cult, to a fire, to an assassination, and so on. Each case clearly lists the objective for the Revenants, events at the start of each Loop, locations, the identity of the Culprit, the nature of the Shattering Event, and the various Clues and Events particular to that Loop. There is also a good guide for the Fate Weaver who wants to create her own cases, whilst the Appendix contains all of the roleplaying game’s printable content as well as the maps, Memory cards, and various Fate Weaver Moves for easy reference.
Physically, The Revenant Society is a lovely book, illustrated with period photographs and other images combined with an Arts Décoratifs—or Art Deco—style. All of the extras, including the dice—in The Revenant Society: The Endless Loop Beneath the City Deluxe Box Set adhere to this style and are lovely. If The Revenant Society is missing anything it is an index and that is a major omission. A lesser omission, but one that would have been helpful, would have been an example of play.

The Revenant Society: The Endless Loop Beneath the City is a collaborative storytelling game, one of horror and tragedy and contrasts. Contrasts between the Living and the undead nature of the Revenants, and between the joie de vivre swirling around the Revenants and the grim nature of their task, all hidden behind a gilded façade of its very lovely period feel. In prior years, a storytelling game like The Revenant Society might have been self-published as a smaller book, a la indie style, but in this larger format, The Revenant Society has room to breath and cast more light onto the darkness of the Loops that the Revenants find themselves trapped within and what they need to do to escape. The result is that The Revenant Society: The Endless Loop Beneath the City is a rich and grimly atmospheric, yet familiar roleplaying game, telling a type of story we have seen before, but where the players and their Revenants are telling it working together with the Fate Weaver.

It seems surprising to realise that The Walking Dead is over two decades old. The comic by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore first appeared in 2003 and the resulting television series from AMC first aired in 2010 and has been followed with numerous spin-off series since. Both revitalised the zombie horror subgenre and the television series in particular, made zombies and horror acceptable to mainstream broadcasting like never before. Both comic book and television series tell the story of Rick Grimes, a sheriff’s deputy from Cynthiana, Kentucky, who after being wounded in the line of duty, awakes to find his wife and family missing and the world very much changed. Society has collapsed, the dead walk and hunger after our flesh, a virus means that everyone will rise as a walker after death, and the survivors huddle together, co-operate and scavenge for supplies, and somehow make choices that will keep them alive. The walkers are everywhere, a menace that cannot be vanquished, but they are not the only threat. Some survivors are prepared to kill and steal from other survivors—and worse. It is into this post-apocalyptic world where the dead walk—there are no such things as zombies—that the Player Characters are thrust into The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game.
The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Core Rules, published by Free League Publishing following a successful Kickstarter campaign, provides everything that a gaming group will need to roleplay in the world of The Walking Dead. The means to create characters, rules for scavenging and surviving in this post-apocalyptic world, dealing with encounters with the Walkers, building a community and sanctuary, and more. The community and sanctuary rules come into play in the second of the roleplaying game’s two modes—Campaign Mode. Where that is intended for long term play, the other mode, Survival Mode, is designed for one-shots, was presented in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set. So far, so good, but the obvious question that anyone is going to ask is, “What does The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game offer that other zombie-themed roleplaying games do not?” The most obvious answer would be that it offers the opportunity to roleplay in a setting that is not that far removed from our own and one that is familiar to anyone who has watched any of the television series. Much like any other licensed roleplaying game, but in terms of a zombie-themed roleplaying game, what The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game focuses on is survival against threats from without and within. The threats from without can, of course, include the Walkers, but in terms of storytelling, the real threats from without are other survivors outside of the Player Characters’ own group. Examples from the television series include the inhabitants of the town of Woodbury, the group called the Wolves, and, of course, the Saviors led by Negan. The threats from within are, of course, fellow survivors and what they might do to jeopardise survival of the group they belong to. The Walkers do remain an ever-lurking, constant threat, but unless their attention is aroused, they are not an active threat, more a passive one that is never going to go away. To that end, the roleplaying advises that the principles of the roleplaying game be made clear to new players, including, “Do whatever it takes to survive”, “Death is inescapable”, “You are never safe”, and so on. Make no mistake, The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game is not like other ‘zombie’ roleplaying games in which the Player Characters go around slaughtering the undead.

A Player Character in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game is first defined by an Archetype. This defines what the Player Character did prior to the apocalypse, as well as also the Player Character’s key Attribute and Skill, possible Talents to choose from, an Anchor, an Issue, and a Drive, plus starting Gear and relationship to other Player Characters. The Archetypes are Criminal, Doctor, Farmer, Homemaker, Kid, Law Enforcer, Nobody, Outcast, Politician, Preacher, Scientist, and Soldier. He has four Attributes—Strength, Agility, Wits and Empathy. These range in value between two and four, as do skills, but the key Attribute and key Skill can be five. Health Points represent a Player Character’s physical health and cannot be higher than three. A Player Character also has an Anchor, an Issue, and a Drive. An Anchor is another person—Player Character or NPC—that the Player Character cares about and who is used narratively to ‘Handle Your Fear’ and when attempting to relieve Stress. The Issue is a roleplaying hook, such as ‘You think you are better than them’ or ‘Unable to sit down and shut up’ that the Game Master can use to create interesting, typically challenging situations. Drive is what pushes a Player Character to grit his teeth and withstand the pain, like ‘You love your mother’ and ‘God put me here to save their souls’. Once a session, a Drive can be invoked to gain extra dice on a test. The Drive can also be lost, which triggers a ‘Breaking Point’ and if not regained or replaced, it can result in the Player Character being ‘Shattered’.
To create a character, a player selects an Archetype, distributes thirteen points between the four attributes, twelve between skills, and choses Issue, Drive, and Anchor.
Name: Brady FerrellArchetype: FarmerStrength 5 Agility 3 Wits 2 Empathy 3Skills: Close Combat 1, Force 4, Manipulation 1, Ranged Combat 2, Scout 2, Tech 2Talents: Tough as NailsDrive: I do what is right
Issue: DogmatistGear: Toolbox, Jeep, Survival EquipmentRelationships: You are family
Mechanically, as with other Year Zero Engine roleplaying games, whenever a Player Character wants to undertake an action in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game, his player roles a number of Base Dice equal to the attribute plus skill plus any modifiers from gear, Talents, help, or the situation. If a single six, a Success, is rolled on the Base Dice, the Player Character succeeds, although extra Success will add bonus effects. However, if no Successes are rolled and the action is failed, or he wants to roll more Successes, the player has the choice to Push the roll. In which case, the Player Character suffers a point of Stress and gains a Stress Die. The player must also explain what the character is doing differently in order to Push the roll. For the pushed roll, the player will roll all of the Base Dice which did not roll success and the Stress Die. In fact, until the Player Character finds a way to reduce his Stress points, his player will continue to add Stress Dice equal to his character’s Stress Points on every roll. Only one pushed roll can be made per action, but the danger of having Stress Dice is if their results should be a one or ‘Walker’ symbol. It means two things. First, if the player has not yet pushed the roll, he cannot do so. Second, whether or not he has pushed the roll, it means that the Player Character has ‘Messed Up’. Typically, this means that he increased the numbers of Walkers nearby and attracted their attention, turning up the dial on the Threat Meter. In other situations, a ‘Messed Up’ might mean the Player Character has got lost, lost his footing, said the wrong thing in a tense standoff, and so on. Other sources of Stress include being short on food and water, getting shot at, seeing someone in the group get bitten by a Walker, killing someone in cold blood, and so on.

There are several means of getting rid of Stress. Primarily, these consist of a Player Character connecting and interacting with his Anchor, and at the end of the day, simply getting a good night’s sleep and plenty of rest. Whilst interacting with an Anchor can be during play, at the end of each session, a Player Character has to deal with the dreadful things that he has seen and done that session. This is done via the ‘Handle Your Fear’ mechanic and is triggered if the Player Character has suffered a Breaking Point like his Anchor being killed or disappearing, brutally killing or beating someone who is defenceless, is Broken by damage, suffers five Stress Points, and so on. At this point, the player rolls Base Dice equal to either his character’s Wits or Empathy, with a bonus for any Anchors who are still alive. This roll cannot be pushed, needs only one Success to succeed, but if failed, causes the Player Character to become Overwhelmed, meaning that he loses his Drive, becomes mentally Shattered, or his Issue is changed or added to.

Combat scales in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game depending upon who or what the Player Characters are facing. Duels are one-on-one attacks handled via opposed rolls, each combatant hoping to gain more Successes than the other. Brawls handle combat between multiple participants in which the Leadership skill can be used to hand out bonuses to allies in the fight. Combat is deadly though, a Player Character only possessing three points of Health and once they are lost, the Player Character is Broken, gains a point of Stress, and his player must roll on the Critical Injuries table. The lack of Health in comparison to other roleplaying games is compounded by the limited access to medical care. Make no mistake, The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game is deadly.

A setting which is already deadly due to low health and lack of healing, is compounded by the presence of the Walkers. They are a constant, lurking presence in The Walking Dead Universe, in game terms that presence is typically written into a scenario at a particular location or encounter, as you would expect, but also brought into play randomly whenever a player rolls a ‘Walker’ symbol on a Stress Die. Narratively, this could be as simple as the Player Characters opening a door to discover a room full of Walkers or a Walker bursting out of a bush to attack the Player Characters. The presence of the Walkers is tracked by the Threat Meter, which ranges from zero and ‘You are in a cleared area and safe. For now.’ to six and ‘The dead are in your face, surrounding you.’ The Threat Level is raised by rolling a ‘Walker’ on a Stress Die, failing a skill roll to avoid Walkers, doing something in the game to attract their attention, and so on. Ideally, the Player Characters will sneak around them as they scavenge buildings and search locations, but of course, that is unlikely. At low levels on the Threat Meter, it is possible for the Player Characters to go quiet and wait it out until the Walkers have either wandered off or gone quiet themselves. At higher levels, the Player Characters will need to find a way to distract the Walkers and make them go elsewhere or fight them. Encounters with a few Walkers are possible and these can be engaged in ‘Single Walker Attacks’, but Walkers congregate and then they fight as Swarms. Fights against Swarms are group endeavours, the aim being to roll more Successes than a Swarm to first reduce its size and then escape it. If a Player Character or Player Characters lose against a Walker attack, there is a table of very nasty and brutal ‘Walker Attack’ effects which will have the players wincing when they hear the results. The rules cover sacrificing another, brawling amidst a Swarm, clearing out an area, and lastly, amputation, the latter the last desperate result to resolve after a Walker bite…

One of aspects of The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game that it shares with many other Year Zero roleplaying games, and that is its community rules. In roleplaying games such as Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days and Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, the Player Characters begin with a community that they can improve through play and so gain rewards and advantages that will benefit both the community and further play. In The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game, the Player Characters have a Haven rather than a community. It is where as survivors, they can live protected from both Walkers and predatory humans, grow food, undertake projects to improve the facilities, and go out on supply and scavenging runs. A Haven is defined by its characteristics, its Capacity and Defence, and its Issues. The characteristics are its description, answers to questions such as “Where can you post lookouts?” or “What characteristics of the haven annoy you or make people irritated?”, whilst Capacity measures the maximum number of people who can live there and Defence its ability to withstand an attack—whether from Walkers or other humans. Within the Haven, both Player Characters and NPCs can pursue projects such as creating an apiary or setting up a simple alarm system, teach skills to NPCs, and build and repair gear. However, all Havens have at least one Issue that will cause problems for the inhabitants, such as “Something regularly draws walkers to this location” or “Rats everywhere”. Worse, some Issues will be secret and can only be discovered during play. Issues will drive some of the story and plot to any campaign of The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game. How these play out will affect the Haven’s Capacity and Defence—for good or ill—and ultimately, whether both it and its inhabitants will fall.

The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game offers two modes of play. One is Survival Mode, suitable for convention play or one-shots. The other is Campaign Mode, further divided into two sub-modes. In Free Play, the game is a played as a standard campaign, dealing with the survival of both the Player Characters and their Haven in the long term over a wide area. Season Mode is designed to emulate the television series more than Campaign Mode, structuring the campaign story around particular threats, locations, issues, and in particular Challenges, all of which will change from one Season to the next. Of course, the Player Characters will face Challenges in all three modes and there is advice for the Game Master on how to create and escalate them as needed. Similarly, there is good advice for the Game Master on running the game, creating factions, handling NPCs, scenes, and the horror at the heart of the game. This is all supported with numerous tables of content and possible encounter ideas, as well as two scenarios.

Both scenarios complete with pre-generated Player Characters, detailed descriptions of their set-ups, and good write-ups of the various NPCs and factions and they want. The Survival Mode scenario is ‘The Golden Ambulance’, which is set between Seasons Two and Three of The Walking Dead. The Player Characters go out in search of much-needed medicine and discover an abandoned ambulance which seems to contain some ready to scavenge medical supplies. Is it too good to be true? Add in the tensions between the pre-generated Player Characters and this is a tight, fraught affair. For the Campaign Mode, the ‘Atlanta Campaign Set-Up’ provides the Game Master with everything she needs for a campaign set after the events of The Walking Dead.

If there is one thing missing from The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game, it is the stats and write-ups of the NPCs from the various television series. Some do appear in The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Starter Set, but anyone coming to this roleplaying game from the television expecting to see the heroes and villains from the series will be disappointed. That said, this is a roleplaying about The Walking Dead Universe, not any one television series and its cast. The setting content in the roleplaying game is also post Series Eleven after the protagonists of The Walking Dead have left the Atlanta area.

In addition, there are rules for Solo Play in which the player works to ingratiate himself in a Haven that he has recently arrived at. A Player Character for this is slightly more skilled than standard beginning Player Characters. The Player Character will also be accompanied a Companion NPC. The rules are very serviceable and even suggests that the player play himself as a Player Character, but given the brutality of the roleplaying game, the player had best get used to the idea that he might die in the process!

Ultimately, the issue with The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game is its brutality and the grim nature of the world it depicts. By design, neither this brutality nor the grim nature are wholly externalised as you would expect in a survival horror roleplaying game. They occur within the Haven where the Player Characters have taken sanctuary as well as the outside world. Issues within the Haven—both personal and integral to the Haven—will instigate and drive conflict, not just between the Player Characters and NPCs, but also between Player Characters. This is even shown in the examples of play that run throughout the book, which from a reading standpoint, will make you hate the character of Hannah. In terms of play, it demands a maturity of player to handle that and the necessity of Safety Tools. The discussion of the latter and of the possibility, even likelihood, of Player Character versus Player Character conflict and Safety Tools could have been better handled.

Physically, The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game is a superb looking book, although no photographs are used from The Walking Dead television series, so fans may be disappointed. That said, the artwork, done in the house style for Free League Publishing is very good and fits the world very well.

The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game is a really tight, sparse design, feeling quite light in comparison to other core rulebooks and more so in comparison to core books for other licensed roleplaying games. That though, is really due to the lack of background or setting material, and the need for background or setting material. After all, this is a roleplaying game set in our world just a few months from now and it is both a genre and a setting that we are familiar with. Thus, the Game Master has everything that she needs to run a post apocalypse game, whether that is as a one-shot or campaign, or even a solo game. A gaming group had better be prepared though, for The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game and the world it depicts is bleak, unforgiving, and brutal, forcing the players and their characters to make some very tough choices.

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Not A Drop To Drink is a scenario for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. It is published by Loke BattleMats and a preview for publisher’s The Calendar of Many Adventures 2025, which like last year’s The Calendar of Many Adventures 2024, presents twelve maps and twelve associated adventures, one pairing a month. Not A Drop To Drink is designed to be played with four Player Characters, each of Second Level, and completed in a single session, two at most. It opens with a quick ‘5e in 5 Minutes’ guide before giving an overview of the scenario, a possible hook for the Player Characters, and suggestions on how to make it easier for smaller or lover Level parties or more difficult for higher Level parties. It takes place in a region known as the Amber Vale, best known for its verdant fields of wheat and the blessings of the river goddess, Quellia. Unfortunately, this green and pleasant land has been beset by a harsh drought as the wells have run dry and the farmers of the vale are at a loss to explain it. Quick investigation will suggest that perhaps a curse has befallen the land and point the Player Characters in the direction of the shrine of Quellia, following in the footsteps of a trio of labourers who had gone to investigate themselves.
The first sign that there is more to the drought than a curse is the discovery of smashed well at the shrine and the desiccated body of the shrine keeper. With the help of a Agear puppy being raised at the shrine—Agear Hounds being sacred to Quellia—the Player Characters can push up out of the vale and into the Greenwind Caves, where they can confront the villains of the piece. This takes place in a Dammed Wellspring as cultists attempt to sacrifice the parents of the Agear puppy to a god of famine! In order to reach the cultists and their leader, the Player Characters must cross the floor of the cave which is marked by mud-covered rocks between which runs quite deep, but definitely muddy channels of water. The cultists have laid planks from one rock to another in order to get across, but if the Player Characters follow this route, they will be under fire from the cultists.
As you would expect from a publisher of battle maps, Not A Drop To Drink includes two good maps. One is of the Greenwind Caves, done in a much rougher style than is the norm for Loke Battle Maps. This does not mean that it is a poor map, rather that the style is different to that used by the publisher for maps intended as encounter or battle locations. The other map is of the Dammed Wellspring and has nice sense of space and swirling waters. It is also accompanied by a full set of counters to use for the Player Characters, the NPCs, and the monsters in this last battle scene. The scenario includes four pre-generated characters. They consist of a Fighter, a Druid, a Halfling Wizard, and a half-Elf Ranger. They include full stats and background as well as a decent thumbnail illustration. There are stats for all of the monsters and NPCs and dogs in the scenario.

Physically, Not A Drop To Drink is well presented and written. Coloured text is used to indicate that the Dungeon Master refer to the monsters and NPCs and magic items. The two maps are nicely done.
Not A Drop To Drink is quick and easy to prepare and run. The players and their characters should be able work out what is going on quite quickly, so preparing them for the final confrontation in the Dammed Wellspring. Not A Drop To Drink is good for a single session’s worth of play, whether that is as a one-shot or an addition to a campaign.

It has been over a decade since the first release for Les Ombres d’Esteren or Shadows of Esteren, in English. That was Shadows of Esteren 0-Prologue, which provided us with an introduction to this low dark, humancentric fantasy setting with Lovecraftian undertones, as well as a set of player characters/NPCs and three ready-to-play scenarios. The English-speaking hobby was fascinated by this French roleplaying game with its themes of tradition versus modernity, science and industrialisation versus faith, and monotheism versus spiritualism, as well as captivated by its artwork which looked like nothing then being published. Shadows of Esteren 0-Prologue itself was subsequently made available for free to download. However, since the publication of Shadows of Esteren 0-Prologue in 2011 and its release in English in 2012, releases from the publisher, Studio AGATE, have been slow to appear. Shadows of Esteren 1-Universe introduced its setting of Tri-Kazel peninsula in more detail, introducing properly the three nations of the region—Tol-Kaer with its old tribal ways and Demorthèn spiritual cults; Gwidre which has been converted to the Temple of the One God by missionaries from the Great Theocracy from the rest of the continent to the north and adopted feudalism; and Reizh, which has taken up the science of Magience, developing and creating devices, machines, and ‘toys’ powered by ‘Flux’, an energy derived from matter itself, though not without its cost to the environment and land itself. It also provided rules for character generation and is also available as a ‘Pay What You Want’ title. The third release, Shadows of Esteren 2-Travels expanded the setting from an in-character point-of-view, as well as several ‘canvases’ or short scenarios, a longer scenario, and more NPCs as well as a bestiary. Together, these three releases form the core of Shadows of Esteren and they underpin the sixth release, Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg, a great campaign that is divided into two parts that is culmination of what has been released to date.

Shadows of Esteren: Melwan is a supplement published between Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 1 and Shadows of Esteren 3-Dearg – Volume 2. This is a companion to the earlier Shadows of Esteren 1-Universe, expanding as it does the setting of Tri-Kazel and taking player and Game Leader alike into the Vale of Melwan, which lies next to the Vale of Dearg. It ties deeply into both the background and the story of the major characters explored over the course of the Shadows of Esteren roleplaying game. For example, Wailen, the grandmother of Yldiane the Varigal and Adeliane the Ionnthén, is a Demorthèn. Much of it is written as a guide by Neala the Bard which describes the small region, its inhabitants, and notable locations. It begins with a description of the Vale of Melwan, small and bucolic, quiet and isolated, but not unwelcoming of passing strangers. It visits several places in and around the village, beginning with the Old Oak Inn, the heart of the community, a plain and plainly run establishment, except for the food, which is renowned for its quality and the number of recipes adopted from outside of the vale. Touchingly, it incudes actual recipes which a gaming group could actually cook, such as duck with mushrooms and turnip mash or apple and raisin fritters. There is a rough homeliness to the inn, complete with descriptions of its owners and regulars. Melwan’s apothecary is described in less detail, focusing on what might be sale—and if it is not, then on the reasons why in a pleasingly useful table.

The influence of the Mac Lyrs, long the family rulers of the Vale of Melwan, is felt far beyond its borders, so it is nice to have the family and its history and its family seat explored within the pages of Shadows of Esteren: Melwan. Yet it takes a more personal and intimate tone when Neala the Bard explores the library of the Mac Lyrs, a refuge for him when he has no mentor and instead relies upon the books and scrolls in the library as his teachers. Perhaps the oddest place visited in Shadows of Esteren: Melwan is the laboratory of the magientist, Talacien, established in an old building with the permission of the Mac Lyrs, but much to the consternation of the inhabitants of the Vale of Melwan. When his request to interview the magientist and visit the laboratory, Neala admits to being awed by what he found and the possibilities that it represented in being able to look at the universe in a way previously unimagined, but is ultimately reviled by the insane rush of uncontrolled power and likely damage is would result in. When his request to interview the magientist and visit the laboratory, Neala admits to being awed by what he found and the possibilities that it represented in being able to look at the universe in a way previously unimagined, but is ultimately reviled by the insane rush of uncontrolled power and likely damage is would result in. Fortunately, he retreats from what he regards as insanity to recover his equanimity by losing himself in the contemplation of the vale—and that is also something that the supplement does as well.

More than a third of Shadows of Esteren: Melwan is dedicated to the flora and fauna of the vale in some fashion. In taking the reader into its dark forests and across its peaceful wetlands, Neala not only tells of the creatures and plants to be found, but also how they are put to use by the peoples of Melwan and how they feature in stories that he performs for the villagers. For adults, the ‘Tales of Fur and Feather’ are often satires on the mores of power and those that wield it, whilst for children they are heroic stories featuring their favourite animal heroes. Although no tales are included, several of the protagonists of these tales are detailed, providing a cast of characters that could be brought into play as allusions to current events and important figures in a scenario. Numerous crops are described, as are various ingredients that are gathered locally and brewed and mixed into remedies and other concoctions. The rules here for brewing potions compliment the earlier description of the village’s apothecary and detail numerous ingredients and mixtures. There is an in-world guide to how they are brewed as well as actual game mechanics, so that a knowledgeable Player Character, with a skill such as ‘Demorthèn (Traditional Medicine)’ or Science (Botany), can create various cures, including poison-based cures. All of this is very nicely done with well-balanced mix of in-game flavour and mechanics.

The ‘Bestiary of Melwan’ includes beasts such as the single-horned, goat-like Calyre, boars, the feared Mórbear, and the Caernide, a horned deer-like creature which is also domesticated as a beast of burden. In fact, the latter gets its own section, with Neala giving a guide to the creatures and their advantages as a domesticated animal compared to that of horse. This is understandable since he actually keeps a stable of them himself! There are a few skill checks listed here for both horse and Caernide, enabling a mechanical comparison of the two. There is, however, one monster included in the bestiary, a murderous Feond known as the Guilthas Man—though the inhabitants of the vale are not sure whether it truly exists and if it does, if it is an actual Feond. The misshapen humpback creature lurks in the woods, unsettling, even scaring those it encounters, but no one knows if its has killed anyone yet. So, might it not be a monster? Rounding out is a glossary, perhaps not as lengthy as it should have been.

Physically, Shadows of Esteren: Melwan is simply beautiful, in some ways more artbook than roleplaying supplement. There is some roleplaying content within the book, but it is more background and flavour rather than instantly useable content. That though suits both book and setting, very quiet and understated in describing a location on the Tri-Kazel peninsula, the setting for the Shadows of Esteren roleplaying game, often mentioned, but never fully detailed.

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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The Rebels & Refugees Adventure is a scenario released for Free RPG Day 2024 for Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game, one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns for any roleplaying game. Published by Magpie Games, this is the roleplaying adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, animated series which are inspired by the indigenous cultures of North America and Asia, in particular, China, Chinese martial arts, and the ability to ‘bend’ or manipulate the four elements—water, earth, fire, and air. Only one person can bend all four elements, and he is known as the ‘Avatar’, and not only does he serve as the link between the physical world and the spirit world, but he is also responsible for maintaining harmony between the world’s four nations. In the roleplaying game, the players roleplay characters, or companions, who are capable of bending one of the elements as well as practising martial arts, all with the aim of protecting the world from harm and those unable to stand up to misuse of power. The Rebels & Refugees Adventure can be run using the Movers & Shakers Quick-Start Booklet rather than the full rules and there is advice for the Game Master to that end. It is designed for three to six players, one of whom will be the Game Master, and includes five pre-generated Player Characters, rules and advice for the Game Master, and a situation or scenario, the ‘Rebels & Refugees’ of the title.
The Rebels & Refugees Adventure and thus Avatar Legends: The 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. It is set during the ‘100 Year War Era’ and opens with the Player Characters, or Benders, having joined a group of Earth Kingdom rebels and Earth Kingdom refugees fleeing the Fire Nation Army. They have taken refuge in the Western Air Temple, hoping to find respite from an enemy which has been behind them every step of the way. Unfortunately, the Western Air Temple is not as safe as they hoped that it would be. Long abandoned, the only inhabitant now is a spirit whose antics quickly escalate from throwing oranges at the new arrivals to collapsing columns and blocking passages. Faced with a threat from within as well as the Fire Nation Army closing in, tensions grow as it becomes clear that the Western Air Temple is not as safe as everyone thought it was. When neither the leader of the rebels or the leader of the refugees can agree on what the best course of is—stay in hiding from the Fire Nation Army, but at the mercy of a malicious spirit, or make a run for it and hope that the Fire Nation Army does not catch with them, both they and the refugees and the rebels turn to the Player Characters for help and advice.
The scenario opens with the Player Characters and the rebels and the refugees they are accompanying in the Western Air Temple having lowered themselves by ropes down cliffs to the entrance. Both the rebels and the refugees are spooked by the first of the strange events in the temple and already on edge. Beyond this set-up, the Rebels & Refugees Adventure provides all of the bits and pieces that the Game Master needs to run it and even possibly run a sequel. This includes a very good summary and description of the scenario, all of its NPCs, and its locations. Among the NPC descriptions are the leaders if the rebels and the refugees, the spirit lurking in the Western Air Temple, even General Uyanga, the commander of the Fire Nation Army, whom it is possible for the Player Characters to meet in the course of the adventure. There is a number of pre-plotted events, but much of what the Game Master will be doing is reacting to the actions of the Player Characters in order to construct a pursuit clock. This will ultimately measure the chase between the Player Characters and the many people with them as they try to escape from the Western Air Temple to a southern port where they can properly escape the Fire Nation Army. Numerous actions and options in terms of what the Player Characters might do, and ultimately, the outcome is very much player-driven and the Game Master will need to adapt as necessary.

In terms of Player Characters, the scenario comes with a varied selection. There is a headstrong inventor with a penchant for sabotage, an Earth-Bending farmer able to adjust the plans of others, an acrobat with a walrus-yak companion—although how the Player Characters got it down the cliff to the Western Air Temple is a whole other scenario of its own, a nun wants to heal the world of its war woes and fights defensively, and a Water Bender who is an astute judge of character. All five start play with a single mastered technique and other unique advancement options, so they are not equal to starting characters. There is advice given on how to adjust new characters to play the scenario if the players want to create their own.
Physically, the Rebels & Refugees Adventure is well presented, sturdy booklet. The booklet is well written with plenty of advice and help for the Game Master, including summaries of the Moves, Combat Exchanges, Fighting Techniques, and more at the back.

Rebels & Refugees Adventure is good scenario for Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game and the worlds of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. It will also appeal to fans of anime and martial arts, but this is still a scenario for an experienced Game Master even if it can played with just the quick-start rules in Movers & Shakers Free RPG Day Booklet.

Ragnarök has fallen and the Twilight of the Gods nears when all will end, as the Norns have foretold from the beginning. The celestial wolves, Skoll and Hati, have finally chased down the Sun and the Moon, and in devouring them plunged Midgard into a time when there is little difference between day and night. The howl of Garm, Hel’s hound, has been heard all across the realms of Yggdrasil, and Fimbulwinter has fallen on Midgard, blanketing all of the known lands in ice and snow so that no man can sow seed or raise crops, and man has been set against man, family against family, karl against karl, kingdom against kingdom, as food and resources grow scare and they are forced to fight to survive. Where the Vikings once raided foreigners for gold and other plunder, and were greatly feared across all of Midgard, now they raid each other. It is the Sword Age, the second act of Ragnarök, the Wind Age when Surt, the Jotun Keeper of Fire, will lead his fiery host across Bifrost Bridge lay siege to Asgard is yet to come. Beyond that lies the Sword Age, when the final battle will be joined between the gods—or Aesir—and the Jotun and Surt will split the sky with a sword brighter than the sun and so set Yggdrasil ablaze with divine fire. After that, who knows? As the gods and the Jotun prepare for battle, the people of Midgard are faced by another threat—the crusaders of the White Christ ride from the south to drive out all Aesir and Jotun, and convert at the point of the sword. Yet even in this time of great stress and desperation, as the gods prepare for war against the Jotun, as in tales and sagas told of old, there is the need for heroes, for mighty warriors, clever skalds, and wily witches, to stand against the chaos of now and the chaos to come. Some will fall in the fight, some will return, and many will take inspiration from those who have fallen before them! Will they change destiny or will they embrace the fate of Midgard and the other realms of Yggdrasil as was foretold?
This is the set-up for Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök, a roleplaying inspired not only by Norse myths and sagas, but by the Norse runes too. Published by Pendelhaven, Inc., this is a radically immersive roleplaying game that presents its end of days in swathes of swallowing black, blanketing white, and fiery orange and engages the players and their heroes through thematically appropriate, but challenging mechanics. Make no mistake, there is a steep learning curve to Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök, both in terms of learning to play and teaching to play. This is because Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök is a diceless roleplaying game, instead using the Norse runes or Futhark, as a gaming mechanic. Therein lies one of the first issues with Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök—and that is the degree of buy-in upon everyone’s part. Every player requires his own set of Runes, tokens marked with the Futhark, plus a bag from which they can be dawn. These Runes can be cardboard, but there are more expensive options, including a set of steel Futhark! A print and play option is readily available, but they are not as effective and lack the impact of drawing something physical and uncertain from a bag. In addition, playmats are required for various aspects of the game’s play, and admittedly, all of this combined, especially with the pulling of the Runes from the bag gives Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök a very physical feel at the table.

A Player Character in Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök is a Dweller, an inhabitant of Midgard, whereas the NPC inhabitants are called Denizens. He has three types of Runes—Physical, Mental, and Spiritual. They range in value for a Dweller between one and six, one being weak in that area, whilst six represents the peak of human potential. Beyond that and the Viking is approaching the gods in terms of his abilities. The Runes are colour coded to the three types of Ayetts of the Futhark. Red Ayett for Physical, blue Ayett for Mental, and green Ayett for Spiritual. There are a total of twenty-four Runes, eight per Ayett, plus an extra one, Void, which represents the spaces between the branches of Yggdrasil, and also a Viking’s soul. A Dweller’s life force is represented by Essence, which is also the number of Runes he knows. Destiny is the Dweller’s ability to affect the world around him, represented by the number of Runes his player can draw when resolving an action. The actual drawing process is known as the Wyrd, meaning ‘to reveal your destiny’. In addition, a Dweller knows a number of active powers, passive powers, and skills equal to his Essence for each. Thus, if he has an Essence of six, he knows six active powers, six passive powers, and six skills. These are mapped or bound onto the Runes.

To create a Dweller, a player spends points on Essence and Destiny based on the Level that the Norn—as the Game Master is known in Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök—with Destiny costing more than Essence. It is also possible spend the points of Level on upgrades such as ‘Troll-Blood (Aspect)’ or ‘Legend/Infamy’, but these require the character to have Dwellers in the heavens, that is, previous characters having died and gone on valiantly to fight in the afterlife. So, they are not available necessarily until a player has lost one or more characters in heroic circumstances. When they are available, they grant access to certain powers and skills. The player then performs a Wyrd, drawing Runes from his bag equal to the decided upon Essence. A player can also draw for his character’s personality, motivation and ambitions, social standing—which includes net worth and literacy, social connections, and name. These are all optional, but do add flavour to a campaign.

Then the player choses an archetype. Five of these are given in Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök and each comes with three specialisations. The three archetypes are the Galdr, who wields rune magic; Maidens of Ratatosk are mischief-makers who seek adventure; Seithkona are witches who inflict spiritual damage; Skalds have been blessed with the Mead of Poetry; and Ulfhednar are warriors who fight like wolfpacks. Each of these has three specialisations. For example, the Maidens of Ratatosk have the Death Dancer, who inspires her allies and frustrates her foes with a flawless mix of death and grace; the Scorn Dominatrix, a dark flower in a bed of weeds capable of distracting her opponents; and the Aggravatrix whose insults and taunts drive her opponents into a rage! In general, the female Archetypes are more interesting than the male or the shared Archetypes, and another issue is that five is not enough! Fortunately, supplements such as Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök- Denizens of the North and Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök- Lords of the Ash.

Each Archetype has not one, but three seven-by-seven boards. There is a board each for each Archetype’s Active Powers, Passive Powers, and Skills. There are some base options that Dweller of the Archetype and Specialisation should always have, tied to his Void, and after that, whenever a Dweller gains a Level and higher Essence, he can select other connected options from the board, as well as adding more Runes to his bag to be drawn for the Wyrd. The very outer edges of each board only became available, like the Upgrades when one or more of a player’s Dwellers have died.

Name: Biflindi
Level: 20
Essence: 12
Destiny: 4
Physical: 4
Mental: 3
Spiritual: 5

Archetype: Skald
Specialisation: Poet
Active Powers: Night of the Long Knives (Spell Song) (Void), Melody of Discord, Muspeli Nightmares, Meadows of a Vanagard, Analytical Power Stance, Evasive Manoeuvre, Lunging Attack, Versatile Combat Manoeuvre, Backstab, Power Attack, Apples of Idun, Arcane Shield, Devour Thought
Passive Powers: Suave Singers (Void), Warrior of Song, Carried by Song, Stealthy Striker, Tactician, Fleet-Footed, Insight, Mob Mentality, Leaping Striker, Nimble, Agility, Tactical Advantage, Combat Awareness
Skills: Survival Urban (Void), Sense Motive, Read and Write, Drinking/Wenching, Verbal Manipulation, Omens/Portents, Lore: Personas, Etiquette, Lore: Locales, Perform, Riding, Perception, Lore: Arcana, Feather Fingers

Personality: Cynic
Motivation and Ambitions: Secrecy
Social Standing: Undertaker
Social Connections: Town Guard

Mechanically, under the Runic Game System of Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök, when a Dweller wants to undertake an action or perform a skill, his player performs a Wyrd equal to his Destiny. The aim is to draw enough Runes of the right Ayett to successfully perform the action or skill. A player can also morph two Runes of another Ayett into the right one. Each successfully drawn Rune reduces the difficulty of a task, ranging from one for Trivial to five for Unlikely. If it is reduced to zero, the Dweller has been successful, but if the difficulty has been reduced to one or two, it is possible to achieve a marginal or imperfect success. The difficulty is also reduced by the skill level possessed by the Dweller. That sounds simple enough, but a player’s Runes are tracked back and forth across a play mat, whether they are in-play or in-hand, the latter being held to activate Active Powers and thus shift them to the appropriate spaces on the Play Mat. Combat and spellcasting use the same mechanics, plus, in order to use Active Powers, a player will be chaining Runes in order to activate and maintain them, and this requires more knowledge of the Runes and the mapping out of the Rune Chain on a hex map. All of which, when combined with the Play Mat, the boards for the Active Powers, Passive Powers, and Skills, and so on, makes for a very busy table and a lot for each player to keep track of. Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök works very hard to teach the rules and show each of these aspects of the game work, but it is a lot to take in and grasp.

For the Norn, there is a great bestiary of Denizens and Thanes. These include some very familiar to the genre and the culture, including the Crusader, familiars such as cats and ravens, polar bear, trolls, and winter rusalki. They are joined by the less familiar, like the Haugbui, cursed undead bound to remain in the land of the living or less familiar versions of the familiar, like Kobolds who wield illusions, telekinesis, and shape changing. Others, like the Mugger and the Zealot, represent Denizens forced to desperation by the changed circumstances of Midgard. Besides a handful of magical items, there is a treasure generator, and also ‘The Saga’, intended as an introductory scenario. It is based on the 13th-century story, ‘Egil’s Saga’. It gives some guidance to Dweller creation and is designed to be played by Ninth Level Dwellers. It is set on the islands of Atloy and Saudoy, to which the owner, Bard, invites King Erik Bloodaxe to a ceremony that will honour Erik’s father, the former king, and also the Vaettir, the spirit native to the island. The Dwellers are forced by a storm to stay on the island as the ceremony takes place and get to feast and participate. Unfortunately, the festivities take a bad turn when the host is killed and the King orders the murderer found. This is an excellent scenario, nicely detailed and nuanced, with scope for the Dwellers to side with the king or even with the culprit if he is found. There is the chance for the Dwellers to prove themselves worthy heroes in the eyes of the king as well and they will probably come away well rewarded. Lastly, Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök includes all of the various Play Mats and play aids that the Norn and the players will need to play the roleplaying game.

Physically, Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök is a fantastic looking roleplaying game. The artwork is superb, echoing a style that British readers will recognise as similar to the classic children’s animated series, Noggin the Nog, but full of mythic power and energy. The writing could be clearer, but the book does try.

Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök is a fantastically thematic roleplaying, bringing to life the heroics of the great Norse sagas at the Twilight of the Gods. That theme shows in the use of the Runes throughout as the mechanic and in the very physicality of the Wyrd, the drawing of the Runes and placing then to power abilities and so be mighty heroes of the age. Yet both are an impediment to play. Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök is not a roleplaying game that can be simply picked up and played. It has to be learned and it has to be taught. That takes commitment. It also has to be supported physically. That too, takes commitment. Fate of the Norns: Ragnarök is the Norse-est of Norse roleplaying games, a game that will deliver a Viking roleplaying experience like no other, but the commitment required means it is no mere casual game.

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Quick-starts are means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps too. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game for the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she can still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

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What is it?
The Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game – Quickstart Guide introduces Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game, an adaptation of the RuneScape MMORPG, sat in the medieval fantasy world of Gielinor.
It includes the rules to play and a scenario, ‘Trance of Ellar’.

It can be played with up to six Player Characters. They are not included in the Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game – Quickstart Guide, but can be downloaded here.

It is a thirty-six page, full colour book.

The quick-start is decently illustrated with a decent map of Gielinor.

The Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game – Quickstart Guide is published by Steamforged Games.

How long will it take to play?
The Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game – Quickstart Guide can be played through in a single session, or two sessions at most.

What else do you need to play?
The Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game – Quickstart Guide requires multiple six-sided dice.

Where is it set?
The Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game – Quickstart Guide is set in the city of Varrock.

Who do you play?
There are six ready-to-play Player Characters available to play with the Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game – Quickstart Guide. They consist of a Ranger/Explorer, Farmer/Soldier, Forester/Druid, Miner/Wanderer, Cutpurse/Raider, and Apprentice Wizard/Travelling Healer.

How is a Player Character defined?
A Player Character in the Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game – Quickstart Guide and thus Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game has three attributes—Strength, Agility, and Intellect—and points in a range of up to twenty-one skills. Values for both the attributes and the skills typically range between one and five for the pre-generated Player Characters, but can go much higher. All six pre-generated Player Characters are human.

How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, the Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game – Quickstart Guide and thus Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game, is based around rolls of three six-sided dice. The target number which the player has to roll equal to or under is equal to the total of the appropriate attribute and skill for the action that the player wants his character to undertake. If a triple value is roll and it is under the target number, the Player Character will gain an extra benefit, including doubling damage in combat. If the roll is a triple value and above the target number, the Player Character suffers a consequence. If the circumstances of a situation favour the Player Character, then the roll is made with Advantage, an extra die is rolled, and the three lowest results kept. Conversely, if the circumstances are not favourable, the role is made at Disadvantage and an extra die is rolled and the highest three results kept.

All rolls are player-facing. This means that the players always roll the dice whilst the Game Master never does.

The explanation of the rules also cover crafting and gaining resources.

How does combat work?
Conflict in the Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game – Quickstart uses the same core mechanics. The rules for conflict cover both ranged and close combat. The Player Characters always act first—except when the Player Characters are ambushed—and both Player Characters and enemies can take two actions per round. This includes Move, Melee Attack, Ranged Attack, Cast a Spell, Use a Skill, and more. Neither Player Character nor enemy is constricted in what actions they can take, so that a Player Character could take a Melee Attack twice in a round!

If an attack is successful, it inflicts the base damage for the weapon, but if the roll for the attack is one or more under the Target Number, the attack inflicts the special ability of the weapon. This might be to inflict a Bleed effect which causes ongoing damage, a Puncture attack which ignores the Soak effect of armour, and Swift, which allows a second attack at Advantage. If the attack is successful and two or more under the Target Number, then it deals the special effect of the weapon wielded and extra damage equal to the difference between the Target Number and number rolled.

Armour soaks damage on a one-for-one basis. In addition, it is possible to actively defend against an attack. This is treated as a standard skill roll and if successful soaks damage equal to the equal to the difference between the Target Number and number rolled. This is in addition to the standard amount soaked by the armour.

Damage is deducted from Player Character’s Life Points, which roughly equal to forty-five points for the six pre-generated Player Characters. However, much like in an MMORPG, death is not necessarily the end of a Player Character. If a Player Character does die, Death will claim his prize, typically some equipment, a weapon or a piece of armour, or some money, and be resurrected, typically at the end of a battle. Death will also deliver a ticking off for the carelessness of the Player Character in getting himself killed.

How does magic work?
Magic in Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game uses Runes. The spellcaster expends the correct number of Runes to cast a spell and the player makes a skill check using the character’s Magic skill. If the result of the skill test is equal to the Target Number, the spell is successfully cast. If the spell inflicts damage, it takes effect. However, all spells have an effect which is triggered if the result of the skill test is lower than the Target Number. This can be an effect similar to those inflicted in combat or it can be particular to the spell. For example, Fire Bolt does nine damage if the spell is simply cast, but if the skill test result is lower than the Target Number, it also inflicts Incendiary, meaning that the target takes ongoing damage. However, this only applies to spells which inflict damage. If a spell does not do damage, then its effect is triggered if the roll is equal to the Target Number or less.

The Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game – Quickstart lists five spells and the pre-generated Player Character spellcaster starts play with numerous Runes which he can use to cast them.

What do you play?
The scenario in the Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game – Quickstart is ‘Trance of Ellar’, which takes up half of the quick-start. It is designed to be played by one to five Player Characters in one or two sessions. One of the Player Characters should be a spellcaster. It takes place in Varrock, the capital city of the kingdom of Misthalin, which has recently been beset by an outbreak of criminal activities. Businesses have been ransacked, churches broken into, and the city walls vandalised. The Player Characters are first hired by an aggrieved business owner and then the king to investigate the criminal activities. The investigation is quite straightforward and following an encounter with an unexpected victim, the Player Characters receive a summons from the King and put on the trail of the person responsible for the crimes, leading to a final battle with a demon!

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in the Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game – Quickstart are easy to prepare and understand, and the scenario itself is quite straightforward. Overall, it requires very little in the way of preparation.
Is it worth it?
Yes. The Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game – Quickstart is a serviceable introduction to both its setting and its rules. Both are easy to grasp, and anyone familiar with the RuneScape MMORPG will have issue adapting to the tabletop version.

Where can you get it?
The Runescape Kingdoms: The Roleplaying Game – Quickstart is available to download here.

The kingdom has suffered trouble and strife for as long as many of its citizens can remember. Yet there is hope on the horizon. The Queen has decided to entreat with a distant power and hopes to enter an alliance that will ensure peace for the nation. She has assembled the retinue that will accompany her on what will prove to be a long and arduous journey, testing the loyalties of members of the retinue, and ultimately forcing each of them to decide whether their love of the Queen is enough to guarantee their support in the face of an attack! This is the set-up for For the Queen, a collaborative storytelling game published by Darrington Press. Designed to be played by between two and six players, aged thirteen and up, it has a playing time of between thirty minutes and two hours. It is easy to set up and play, requires no preparation, no Game Master, and in asking a lot of questions of the players, creates characters, relationships, a world, and ultimately a story.
The place to start with For the Queen is not with how the game is played, but with its physicality. For the Queen comes in a very sturdy little box—designed to look like a pocketbook—which slips easily into a bag and makes a very handy addition to any game night or convention. The artwork on the box is eye-catching, but it is only a hint of things to come. Inside the box there are ninety-one cards. These consist of sixty Question Cards, seventeen Rules Cards, an X-Card, and thirteen Queen Cards. The Rules Cards contain one rule or aspect of the game each and they are read out in order, one player after another, and in the process, set the game up. There are barely eleven rules in the game and they are very easy to grasp. The sixty Question Cards consist of one or two questions which will serve as prompts to the players’ imaginations. For example, “Why are some others at the royal court jealous of your relationship with the Queen?” or “What question do you wish you could ask the Queen? What keeps you from asking it?” One Question Card has the statement and question, “The Queen is under attack. Do you defend her?” When this Question Card is drawn, it indicates the final round of the game and unlike the other Question Cards, it is one that everyone answers.

However, the most eye-catching cards are the Queen Cards. There are thirteen of these, each doubled-sided, with an illustration on each side, except for the last card which lists all of the Queens. Each illustration depicts a queen, but a different queen each time. A Birthday Queen. A Pirate Queen. A Drag Queen. A Queen Mother. A Cyberpunk Queen. A Shadow Queen. And so on, with the players picking just one of these as their Queen for their journey and their play through of For the Queen. The choice of Queen will heavily influence the story told. A journey made with the Pirate Queen will lend itself to a very different journey and story compared to one made with a CEO Queen. This is the main variable in the game—a different Queen Card means a different genre and a different story. Essentially, the Queen Card serves as the initial prompt for the players and is something that they will return to again and again over the course of a game.

The last thing done as part of set-up is to shuffle the sixty Question Cards and then the “The Queen is under attack. Do you defend her?” Question Card is placed into the deck. The closer it is placed to the bottom of the deck, the longer the game will last. Then the game begins. The players take it in turn to draw a Question Card and answer it. The Question Cards really do one thing—they push each player to examine his relationship with the Queen. In doing so, the player will also create a character for himself and establish that relationship, which depending on the Question Cards drawn and answered, will probably be a negative one, or at least a nuanced and conflicted one. As a player draws and answers more and more Question Cards, it will ultimately influence his answer to the last Question Card, “The Queen is under attack. Do you defend her?”.

When a player draws a Question Card, he is not duty bound to answer it. If he does not want to answer it because its question makes him uncomfortable, he can simply tap the X-Card included in the game and move on. Similarly, if the game is straying into a subject matter that makes a player uncomfortable, that player can simply tap the X-Card included in the game and the subject matter can be excised from the game. The other option if a player does not want to answer a Question Card is for him to pass it to the next player, which can sometimes reveal something big about that player and his character. When a player is answering a Question Card, the other players are free to ask questions of him and to get him to elaborate and reveal more about his character’s relationship to the Queen. This, though, does not mean that For the Queen becomes a game of interrogation, but one of gentle inquiry, and if it does become of interrogation, there is always the X-Card.

Physically, For the Queen is beautiful. The writing is simple, clear, and direct.

For the Queen is about discovering who you are in relationship to a central figure, the Queen, and what the nature of the relationship is. The longer the player, the more Question Cards are drawn and answered, and the deeper and more nuanced the relationship becomes, and thus the more difficult answering the last Question Card, “The Queen is under attack. Do you defend her?”, becomes. It constantly asks direct questions of the players, pushing them to improvise answers that build both the relationships between the Queen and her retinue and the world through which they must journey. The result is a tensely enthralling experience as each Question Card is drawn and more secrets are revealed about the relationships between the players and their Queen, that you immediately want to play it again.

For the Queen is a brilliantly tense and engaging storytelling game of creative improvisation. Its easy set-up and portability means that it is ready to play in minutes wherever you are. For the Queen is the perfect game to pack for game nights and for conventions to play when there is no game, in between games, and when a player or two cannot make it.

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Unnatural Disaster is a scenario for not one roleplaying game, but four! Published by Renegade Games Studios, it can be used with the Transformers Roleplaying Game, the G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game, the Power Rangers Roleplaying Game, or the My Little Pony Roleplaying Game. This is not to say that the scenario can be used by one or more of them together, but rather be run using whichever one of the four roleplaying games that the Game Master is running. This is done by combining the plot of the scenario with the villains, minions, device, and purpose given for each one of the four different roleplaying games and referenced in their pages. In addition, the Game Master needs to use the suggested Metropolitan City for each setting or use one from her own campaign, the Innocents in danger throughout the scenario, the reasons for the Player Characters being there, and the Supervisor who will working alongside the NPCs.

For example, the Villains for Unnatural Disaster for the My Little Pony Roleplaying Game are listed as the Diamond Dog, Cooper, his Minions are three Parasprites, the Device is the Crown of the Hive Queen, and the purpose is to dig for the gems that the Diamond Dogs love. The Metropolitan City is Manehattan, the Innocents who will be placed in danger are Manehattanitte Ponies and other creatures, the Player Characters are there for a ‘Rarity For You’ paid internship, and the supervisor is Sassy Saddles. In comparison, the Villains for the G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game is The Garnet of the Crimson Guard, whose Minions are five COBRA Troopers, the Device is The Weather Dominator, and the Purpose is for The Garnet is to make an impression and so rise up the ranks of the COBRA. The Metropolitan City is Los Angeles, the Innocents who will be placed in danger are the Angelenos, the Player Characters are there on an Undercover Urban Assignment, and the supervisor is Roadblock. All the Game Master has to do is to remember to refer to the particular elements from the roleplaying game she is running and use them during play.

Unnatural Disaster is a three-act scenario which begins en media res with the Menagerie District of Metropolitan City being best by an earthquake and the Player Characters being caught up in the middle of it. As the Player Characters unearth themselves from the cave-in and navigate the aftershocks, they discover the district to be in disarray and the citizens in a state of panic and in need of help. There are three sub missions here. These are escorting innocents to safety, stabilising structures, stopping bad behaviour—that is, looting and similar actions. In each case, these are clearly explained with suggestions as to which skills should be used and how. Notable are the suggestions as to how to deal with the incidences of bad behaviour. The Player Characters might try an emotional approach with a heart-to-heart; a logical approach to persuade that what the miscreants are doing, that it is not worth it; or a physical approach if all else fails. It also states that there is no one way to solve the problem, but there is probably an ideal way—and the advice for the Game Master essentially covers them all.

In addition to helping citizens of the Menagerie District recover in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and get to safety, the Player Characters are also doing one more thing—they are looking for clues as the cause of the disaster. The first of which is the initial point of the earthquake, which looks very different—‘unnatural’ if you will—to what the obvious signs of an earthquake should be. This clue-gathering will ultimately, with a bit of thought by the players and the use of a handout grid to work what clues their characters have found to date, point to the possible source of the disaster and its location. This leads into the third and final act, in which they will climb down into a basement and confront the villain responsible for the earthquake. This sets up a big battle in which the Player Characters can defeat the villain, capture him, and shut down the device to prevent it doing any further damage, all before the authorities turn up to take the villains into custody and begin the clean up of the city.

Lastly, there is advice for the Game Master as to whether or not the Player Characters should go up a Level and some suggestions as a possible sequel, though these are understandably generic given that the scenario is designed to work with four different roleplaying games! Reward definitely comes though, in the form of bonuses to any social skill tests whilst in the Menagerie District. The citizens will not forget the aid rendered by the Player Characters.

Physically, Unnatural Disaster is a decently, cleanly laid out booklet with artwork from all four roleplaying games. The map is clear and simple, and easy to use. However, it does need an edit in places.

Unnatural Disaster is a straightforward, uncomplicated scenario—whichever roleplaying game the Game Master is running it for. It can be played in a single session and it gives plenty of opportunities for the Player Characters to be heroic, which is exactly what you want whether you are playing the Transformers Roleplaying Game, the G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game, the Power Rangers Roleplaying Game, or the My Little Pony Roleplaying Game.

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Sword of the Brigand King for Return to Dark Tower Fantasy Roleplaying is an intriguing release for Free RPG Day 2024 due to both the roleplaying game it is an introduction to and its format. Published by 9th Level Games, it is a mini-scenario designed to be played in thirty minutes, an introduction to Return to Dark Tower Fantasy Roleplaying, the roleplaying game set in the same world as the board game, Return to Dark Tower, the sequel from Restoration Games to Dark Tower, the electronic board game published by Milton Bradley in 1981. It is fair to say that Dark Tower and its sequel are swathed in nostalgia, so there is a fascination about and the resulting roleplaying game. The format of Sword of the Brigand King is surprisingly clever. It is done as a notebook complete with tear-off pages. A slim notebook at that, just ten pages long. Flip the pages open and the Adversary—as the Game Master is known—is taken, step-by-step, through the process of setting the game up, explaining the rules, handing out the characters, and then running the encounters. As she does so, it quickly becomes apparent that there is more on the back page of each page and in each case, it is literally and physically, player-facing. So, opposite the page where the Adversary explains the rules is the character sheet for the Bog Witch, then flip over the page where the Adversary explains the rules and on the back of that is character sheet for the Dyrad Outrider. In the case of each of the four Player Characters, the Adversary tears them from the notepad that is Sword of the Brigand King and hands them to her players. Each of the four Player Characters can folded in half to form a triangle with the character on the player-facing side and an illustration facing everyone else on the front. Once the Adversary starts running the scenario, the player-facing side gives maps for each of the scenes in Sword of the Brigand King.
A Player Character in Sword of the Brigand King and thus Return to Dark Tower Fantasy Roleplaying, is defined by four attributes—Books, Boots, Blades, and Bones. Books covers senses and knowledge, Boots physical action, Blades combat, and Bones to be brave and strong. Each Player Character has a run of numbers assigned to each attribute. For example, the Bog Witch has ‘2 and 3’ assigned to Books, ‘3, 4, and 5’ to Boots, ‘4, 5, 6, and 7’ to Blades’, and ‘5, 6, 7,8, and 9’ to Bones. To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls a single die, the size of which depends on the character. A Bog Witch always rolls a four-sided die, for example. In order to roll higher than the maximum on the die, the player needs to roll the maximum on the die, and that allows him to roll again and add the result. In addition, if the player rolls a one and can justify to the Adversary that his character can do an action, he succeeds. In addition, some Player Characters can undertake actions with Advantage, meaning that two dice are rolled and the highest selected.
If a roll is a failure or something bad happens to a Player Character, there is a chance that he is in danger and takes a point of Danger. In which case, the player rolls his character’s die type and if the result is equal to or less than the character’s current Danger value, the character dies! If the roll is above his character’s current Danger value, he survives. Thus, Player Characters with low die types need to be careful, but the system—called the Polymorph System—and used also for the Mazes Fantasy Roleplaying, also published by 9th Level Games, can be lethal. This is especially so with combat, as the system is player-facing, that is, all the rolls in the game are made by the players. So, missing an opponent, means there is a chance of being fatally struck and killed by an opponent!
There are four Player Characters. The Howling Barbarian, Dryad Outrider, and Bog Watch are all companions to a Brutal Warlord, who have all come to Plains of Plovo in search of Glavius, the Bandit King, an agent of the Dark Tower, whom they have sworn to kill. The local villagers, having been subject to the predations of the Bandit King, happily provide the Player Characters with a map to his hiding place, a hilltop fort in the Cloudrest Mountains. The adventure itself consists of just a few locations, a twisting cavern, the courtyard to the fort, and the great hall where the Bandit King, Glavius, is waiting for the scenario’s big showdown. Succeed and the Player Characters will have come away knowing that have defeated one of the agents of the Dark Tower and won themselves some useful artefacts.
Physically, Sword of the Brigand King is surprisingly well presented, in that it is surprise to work out exactly how it works and when you do… The information is clearly and cleverly presented for both the Adversary and the Player Characters in a format which is reminiscent of the flipbooks used for the scenarios for the Dark Sun setting for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition from TSR, Inc. However, the rules for the play are not quite as clearly presented for the Adversary as they could have been, but most of them become apparent once you play.
Sword of the Brigand King is a bit cheap and cheerful, but it does succeed in what it sets out to do, and that is present a simple, direct, and exciting roleplaying experience in thirty minutes. It does this with easy to learn rules, a very straightforward scenario, and a clever format.

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It is pitches the Allied Agents of the Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance into a secret war against those Nazi Agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. They are willing to risk their lives and their sanity against malicious Nazi villains and the unfathomable gods and monsters of the Mythos themselves, each striving for supremacy in mankind’s darkest yet finest hour! Yet even the darkest of drives to take advantage of the Mythos is riven by differing ideologies and approaches pandering to Hitler’s whims. The Black Sun consists of Nazi warrior-sorcerers supreme who use foul magic and summoned creatures from nameless dimensions to dominate the battlefields of men, whilst Nachtwölfe, the Night Wolves utilise technology, biological enhancements, and wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) to win the war for Germany. Ultimately, both utilise and fall under the malign influence of the Mythos, the forces of which have their own unknowable designs…

Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Operation Marseille is a short adventure for the roleplaying game. It takes place in the summer of 1941 in Southern France, then governed by the pro-Nazi Vichy government. Section M has learned from its Maquis contacts that soldiers of the Black Sun are about to perform a ritual which could unleash the power and influence of the Dreamlands on the port city of Marseille. Section M’s orders for its Agents are clear—disrupt the ritual, and then, if possible, eliminate both the Black Sun researcher, Eveline Schrötter, and her assistant, the Black Sun Master, Lisette Laurent, and destroy the research. They are then to take refuge in a Maquis safehouse—a book shop called Joie de Livres—for a few hours before proceeding to the harbour where evacuation has been arranged.

The operation begins en media res. The Agents are on site and the ritual is about to begin. Thus, the opening scene will be a big fight! With what might be the climax of any other scenario of Lovecraftian investigative horror addressed up front, the question is, what is the rest of Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Operation Marseille all about? Simple—consequences and escape! All the Agents have to do is get from the ritual site at Église Saint-Vincent-de-Paul to the safehouse, lay low for a few hours, and then make their way to the port, hop onto the already arranged boat, and sail to safety. Naturally, both the forces of the Black Sun and the Vichy authorities with its Armistice Army, will outlooking for the interlopers who sabotaged an important German research project. There are also members of the public who support the Vichy government and they will have no issue reporting the presence of foreigners to the authorities. That is to be expected. What is not to be expected is the increasingly weird series of hallucinations that the Agents begin to experience as they make their escape. Affected by Dreamlands energy from the ritual, the Agents will find themselves cast into blizzard-bound mountains where something unnatural hunts them; a chasm splits open the street and the Agents must climb out under a rain of iridescent burning spheres; and lastly, they must solve puzzles if they are to escape a Daliesque dinner party!

These three are not the only hallucinations that will beset the Agents as they attempt to escape the city—merely the major ones. The scenario’s second appendix details nine minor hallucinations that can affect the Agents. These include seeing a lurker in the dark which the Agent is sure is hunting him and the Dreamlands-appropriate ‘being pursued by cats’. Each minor hallucination is done as a handout and enforces the ‘Hallucinating’ Truth on the Agent imposed at the start of the scenario by the Black Sun ritual, a fact that means he can affected by it again and again. If they are repeated, the Game Master is advised to vary it slightly according to the situation. This condition cannot be removed by normal means. It is possible to do it within the scenario, but it requires a spellcaster, it is difficult, and more importantly, it takes time. Unfortunately, time is not something that the Agents have on their side. They need to escape the city and they are being hunted. Whilst laying low is likely to make it more difficult for the Vichy authorities and its Armistice Army forces to find the Agents, laying low is likely to make it easier for the Black Sun troopers to find them—they do have the means to do so! Lastly, the Agents must get to Port in Marseille, find their contact who arranged their evacuation, and make their escape from France across the Mediterranean. Of course, Black Sun will be chasing them all the way…

All of which is played out against the clock. Quite literally, as one of the handouts in the scenario’s first appendix is a pocket watch. The majority of the handouts consist of mathematical puzzles that the players and their Agents must solve during one of the hallucinations. Some of them are harder than others.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Operation Marseille is well presented. There are no illustrations. However, the layout is big and bold and the handouts and the cartography—especially the latter—more than make up for the absence of any illustrations.

Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Operation Marseille combines fast-paced action with woozy weirdness as the Agents are hunted across a city under pro-Nazi control. It is playable in a single session (or two) and its en media res set-up makes it very easy to drop into or even start a campaign.

Civilisations rise and fall, and even transcend, and they all leave their mark on their landscape. Islands of crystal float in the sky. Massive machines, some abandoned, some still operational, wheeze and groan to purposes unknown, thrust high into the sky and deep into the ground. A plain of broken glass stretches to the horizon. The Iron Wind whips across the landscape, fundamentally transforming all caught within its cloud, flesh and non-flesh alike, into new forms. Enormous humanoid statues drift aimlessly across the sky, their purpose long forgotten. A castle continues to expand and grow as more people settle within its walls. The Great Slab stands thousands of feet high and almost ten miles square, a block of synth, metal, and organics, its sides slick with a reddish-black oil that prevents anyone from climbing it or discovering the entirely different ecosystem on its top. Scattered across this landscape borne of nanotech, gravitic technology, genetic engineering, spatial warping, and superdense polymers are smaller devices, all together called numenera. Artifacts that protect the wearer with an invisible force field, arm him with a weapon with the power of the sun, or a pair of lenses that allow the viewer to read any language. Cyphers that when thrown detonate causing a singularity to rip at the fabric of the universe, ingested give the ability to see ten times as far as normal, or fires an anchoring magnet which then creates a bridge. Oddities like a musical instrument which only unmelodic notes, a cape that billows in the wind even if there is no air, or a synth disc that restores a single piece of rotten fruit or vegetable to being fully edible. These are all waiting to be discovered, utilised, and even traded for. The ill-educated may look at all of this and call it magic, but most know that these are the remnants of past ages civilisations—civilisations that reached the far depths of space, engineered planets, toyed with reality, sidestepped into other parallels, and more, waiting to be found, examined, and their secrets revealed. Many devices can be found and worked, some not, but all know that the knowledge of how they are made has long been forgotten. This is the Ninth World.

The Ninth World is our Earth a billion years into the future. It is one continent, still settled humans, though some are abhumans—mutants, crossbreeds, the genetically engineered, and their descendants, or they are visitants, who have come to Earth, but are not native to it. Many reside in the Steadfast, a collection of kingdoms and principalities that exist under the watchful benevolence of the Amber Pope, whose Aeon Priests of the Order of Truth revere the peoples of the past and their knowledge and technology. The Order of Truth not only studies the past and its technologies, it tries to find a use for them to the betterment of the peoples of the Steadfast. The peoples of the Ninth World make use of the technology that they can scavenge—and which the Aeon Priests tell them is safe to use, turning it into armour, weapons, and everyday devices and tools to enhance the mediaeval technology they currently possess. In particular, they employ numenera—Artifacts, Cyphers, and Oddities— bits of technology leftover from past civilizations, that may have an obvious function; may have once had an obvious function, but what that has been lost and the device is put to another use; or may have once had an obvious function, but what that was, has been lost and can no longer be discerned.

The is the setting for Numenera, a Science Fantasy roleplaying game of exploration and adventure the very far future, originally published in 2013 by Monte Cook Games. It is often forgotten what a big hit Numenera was, introducing a style of play that looked familiar—the exploration of labyrinths and complexes—but placing it in a very different genre and thus shorn of that familiarity and its historical constraints. Numenera would go on to win the 2014 Origins Award for ‘Best New Roleplaying Game’, the 2014 Ennie Award for Best Writing, the 2014 Ennie Award for Best Setting, and 2014 Ennie Award for Product of the Year, be the basis of its own set of mechanics in the form of the Cypher System, and introduce new ideas in terms of roleplaying, such as player-facing mechanics and Game Master Intrusions, a new way of narratively increasing tension and awarding Experience Points. Funded via a Kickstarter campaign, the second edition of Numenera is split into two volumes, Numenera Discovery and Numenera Destiny. Of these, Numenera Discovery, presents the setting of the Ninth World with everything needed to play including character creation, rules, Cyphers, a bestiary, advice for the Game Master, and some ready-to-pay scenarios. Numenera Destiny expands the setting with new Player Character archetypes, salvaging and crafting rules, numenera, scenarios, and more, all designed to facilitate campaign play in charting the future of the Ninth World is part of that play.

Numenera Discovery opens with some setting fiction, ‘The Amber Monolith’, before going on to explain what the Ninth World is and how it differs from other roleplaying games and even from how the world is viewed in the here and now, whether that is a more cosmopolitan outlook, an acceptance though not an understanding of the technology of the past, and a medievalism without the burden of history. The rules and mechanics are clearly explained before the character creation is explained.

Characters in Numenera are primarily humans in one form or another—visitants are an advanced option and one of three Types—Glaives, Nanos, or Jacks. Glaives are warriors, either wearing heavy armour and wielding heavy weaponry or relying on light arms and armour to give them movement and agility. Nanos are sorcerers, capable of tapping into the Numenera to alter reality or learn more about it, wielding ‘Esoteries’ to command nano-spirits. Jacks are somewhere in between, being flexible in what they can do, capable of learning to fight, using ‘Esoteries’, and more. At their core, each character is defined by three stats—Might, Speed, and Intellect, and a descriptive sentence. This sentence has the structure of “I am a [adjective] [noun] who [verbs]”, where the noun is the character’s Type; the adjective a descriptor, such as Clever or Swift, that defines the character and how he does things; and the verb is the Focus or what the character does that makes him unique. For example, “I am an Intelligent Nano who Talks to Machines”. A player will also need to assign some points to the three Stats and choose some options in terms of Background—how the character became a Glaive, Nano, or Jack—and select some skills from the Type. The choice of descriptor and the verb further defines and modifies the character, whilst the Background and the Connection help hook the character into the setting. Characters begin at Tier One and can advance as far as Tier Six, gaining skills and abilities along the way. An appendix details some non-human character options.

Here, though, are the first major changes to Numenera Discovery. Whilst Foci remain relatively unchanged, there have been changes to the Descriptors. Notably, this includes both ‘Creates Unique Objects’ and ‘Leads’, which have been removed as essentially what they did is covered in the second book, Numenera Destiny. One new addition is ‘Speaks With a Silver Tongue’, which makes the character highly persuasive. Of the three Types, the Glaive and the Jack have undergone tweaks to varying degrees to make both more interesting to play. The Fighting Move options for the Glaive now include ‘Aggression’, ‘Fleet of Foot’, ‘Impressive Display’, and ‘Misdirect’, as well as ‘No Need for Weapons’ and ‘Trained Without Armour’. These allow for some interesting combinations, such as ‘Aggression’, which grants the Glaive an asset on attacks whilst hindering Speed rolls against attacks, and ‘No Need for Weapons’, which increases damage from unarmed attacks, so the Glaive becomes a brawling berserker. ‘Fleet of Foot’ lets a Glaive combine movement with actions, and with ‘Misdirect’ which enables him to deflect attacks at him back at others, he could zip around the battlefield disrupting attacks.

Whilst the Nano is unchanged, the biggest changes have been made to the Jack. Named for ‘Jack of all trades’, the Jack never quite felt distinctive enough between the Glaive and the Nano. Although there is some crossover still between the Glaive and the Jack with abilities such as ‘Trained in Armor’ and ‘Fleet of Foot’, but the new abilities like ‘Create Deadly Poison’, ‘Critter Companion’, ‘Face Morph’, ‘Link Senses’, and others all serve to make the Jack unique rather than being a bit of both the Glaive and the Nano, but not fully one or the other. One major addition is a set of suggested Cyphers that each character type can begin play with.

Lottie
“I am a Clever Jack who Speaks With a Silver Tongue”
Tier One Jack
Might 10 (Edge 0)
Speed 12 (Edge 0)
Intellect 16 (Edge 1) Effort 1
Cyphers (2): machine control implant, visage changer
Oddities: Small square cage that puts whatever single creature is inside it into stasis
Tricks of the Trade: Face Morph (2+ Intellect), Late Inspiration (3+ Intellect), Flex Skill
Skills: Interactions Involving Lies or Trickery (Trained); Defence Rolls to Resist Mental Effects (Trained); All Tasks Involving, Identifying, or Assessing Danger, Lies, Quality, Importance, Function, or Power (Trained); Persuasion, Deception, and Intimidation (Trained); Lock Picking (Trained) Inability: Studying or Retaining Trivial Knowledge (Hindered)
Equipment: Book of Favourite Words, Clothing, two weapons, explorer’s pack, pack of light tools, 8 shins Connection: You’re drinking buddies with a number of the local guards and glaives.
Origin: Born Lucky

Mechanically, Numenera Discovery—as with the other Cypher System roleplaying games which have followed—is player facing—and in its original version, arguably was one of the first systems to be player facing. Thus, in combat, a player not only rolls for his character to make an attack, but also rolls to avoid any attacks made against his character. Essentially this shifts the game’s mechanical elements from the Game Master to the player, leaving the Game Master to focus on the story, on roleplaying NPCs, and so on. When it comes to tasks, the character is attempting to overcome a Task Difficulty, ranging from one and Simple to ten and Impossible. This is done on a twenty-sided die. The target number is actually three times the Task Difficulty. So, a Task Difficulty of four or Difficult, means that the target number is twelve, whilst a Task Difficulty of seven or Formidable, means that the target number is twenty-one. The aim of the player is to lower this Task Difficulty. This can be done in a number of ways.

Modifiers, whether from favourable circumstances, skills, or good equipment, can decrease the Difficulty, whilst skills give bonuses to the roll. Trained skills—skills can either be Practised or Trained—can reduce the Difficulty, but the primary method is for a player to spend points from his relevant Stat pools. This is called applying Effort. Applying the first level of Effort, which will reduce the target number by one, is three points from the relevant Stat pool. Additional applications of Effort beyond this cost two points. The cost of spending points from a Stat pool is reduced by its associated Edge, which if the Edge is high enough, can reduce the Effort to zero, which means that the Player Character gets to do the action for free—or effortlessly!

Rolls of one enable a free GM Intrusion—essentially a complication to the current situation that does reward the Player Character with any Experience Points, whereas rolls of seventeen and eighteen in combat grant damage bonuses. Rolls of nineteen and twenty in combat can also grant damage bonuses, but alternatively, can grant minor and major effects. For example, distracting an opponent or striking a specific body part. Rolls of nineteen and twenty in non-combat situations grant minor and major effects, which the player and Game Master can decide on in play. In combat, light weapons always inflict two points of damage, medium weapons four points, and heavy weapons six points, and damage is reduced by armour. NPCs simply possess a Level, which like the Task Difficulty ranges between one and ten and is multiplied by three to get a target number to successfully attack them.

Experience Points under the Cypher System are earned in several ways, primarily through achieving objectives, making interesting discoveries, and so on. However, they are not awarded for simply killing monsters or finding treasure. There are two significant means of a Player Character gaining Experience Points. The first is ‘GM Intrusion’. These are designed to make a situation and the Player Character’s life more interesting or more complicated. For example, the Player Character might automatically set off a trap or an NPC important to the Player Character is imperilled. Suggested Intrusions are given for the three character Types and also for all of the ninety or more Foci. When this occurs, the Game Master makes an Intrusion and offers the player and his character two Experience Points. The player does not have to accept this ‘GM Intrusion’, but this costs an Experience Point. If he does accept the Intrusion, the player receives the two Experience Points, keeps one and then gives the other to another player, explaining why he and his character deserves the other Experience Point. The ‘GM Intrusion’ mechanic encourages a player to accept story and situational complications and place their character in danger, making the story much more exciting.

The major mechanical addition is the ‘Player Intrusion’, the reverse of the ‘GM Intrusion’. With this, a player spends an Experience Point to present a solution to a problem or complication. These make relatively small, quite immediate changes to a situation. For example, a Cypher or Artifact is expended, but it might be that the situation really demands the device’s use again, so the player decides to make a ‘Player Intrusion’ and at the cost of single Experience Point, give it one more use of charge or a player wants to reroll a failed task.

Creatures and numenera—Artifacts, Cyphers, Oddities—receive their own sections. There is a wide selection of both in Numenera Discovery, though with very little change between this edition of the roleplaying game and the first. A nice touch is that for each of the creatures, the Game Master is given an ‘Intrusion’ which he can use to make the encounter more challenging. One notable aspect of Numenera Discovery is that the Player Characters are limited in the number of Cyphers that they can each possess by their Type (Glaive, Nano, or Jack). Possess too many and a Player Character’s Cyphers begin to have side effects, sometimes dangerous ones. The people of the Ninth World know this and distrust those with too many. This limit is both a game mechanic and a setting mechanic. It both enforces the fleeting nature of Cyphers and the need to use—because using them is fundamentally cool—whilst at the same preventing any player from just hoarding them.

A good fifth of Numenera Discovery is dedicated to the setting of the Steadfast, its environs and beyond, literally, The Beyond. This is anything that lies outside of the nine kingdoms of the Steadfast and the Beyond the Beyond is also detailed. One such location Beyond the Beyond is The University of Doors, a place of learning found in an alternate universe that can only be reached via one or more hidden doors—getting to the door could be an adventure in itself. These sections are full of interesting details and places—such as the ‘mud’ city of Nihliesh, built atop an ancient, but immobile city-vehicle; that the lady Anatrea of Castle Aventur hosts salons for scholars and nanos, such is her fascination with numenera; and that a sphere of an unknown black material is rumoured to constantly roll across the Plain of Kataru. Several organisations besides the Order of Truth, including the Convergence, whose members value numenera as much as the Order of Truth, but for themselves rather than for society itself; the Angulan Knights, who are dedicated to humanity’s advancement and have the blessings of Order of Truth and ride the great xi-drakes as mounts; and the Jagged Dream, a secret anarchist cult dedicated to engineering conflict on a massive scale, are also detailed.

Similarly, a good tenth of Numenera Discovery is dedicated to advice for the Game Master on running the game. This covers how to use the rules, how to build a story, and how to realise the Ninth World. There is guidance on how to use GM Intrusions, including as a narrative tool and as a resolution mechanic, along with plenty of examples; handling the flow of information, when to have the players roll dice, how to encourage player creativity, and a lot more. There is advice on running the first few sessions and beyond, as well as suggestions on how to use the Ninth World by shifting the genre, for example, by making it a post-apocalyptic or weird horror setting, a look at what sciences and technologies can be found across the Ninth World, and numerous scenario ideas in addition to the three scenarios already included in Numenera Discovery. The three are each very different. ‘Taker of Sorrow’ is an introductory scenario for both players and the Game Master, an investigation into an outbreak of monsters, weirdly mouthy and emotional lumps of carnivorous flesh, that are plaguing the route the Player Characters are travelling on. It includes some diversions that the Game Master can place in the Player Characters’ way—and even places the second adventure, ‘Vault of Reflections’, nearby as a diversion, but otherwise, ‘Taker of Sorrow’ is a straightforward affair. That second scenario, ‘Vault of Reflections’, focuses on exploration and encounters with the weird technologies left behind by a previous age, whilst the third scenario, ‘Legacy’ is an investigative affair set in and around a university. Notably it uses an abbreviated adventure format that links its various scenes as a flowchart, and relies on a mix of stealth and interaction than the previous two scenarios. All three scenarios are new to this edition and do a decent job of showcasing the types of adventure possible in Numenera Discovery.

Physically, Numenera Discovery is very well presented and put together. Although it needs a slight edit in places, the book is well written, and everything is easy to grasp. Above all, the artwork is excellent and this is a great looking book.

As a second edition, the changes introduced with Numenera Discovery are more adjustments—for example, the tweaks to both the Glaive and the Jack character types and the addition of the Player Intrusion mechanic—to make the roleplaying game more interesting to play rather than a series of wholesale overhauls. Otherwise, the innovative rules and mechanics remain the same and as playable as ever. The fact that Numenera Discovery has not been changed since its publication shows how little needed to be changed to make what was a good game simply better.

Numenera Discovery is a very complete introduction to the Ninth World and more. It has everything that a Game Master and her players need to play Numenera—rules, scenarios, advice, the lot—and it remains the definitive edition of the core rules for Numenera.

Since 2015, we have been able to leave the Ark and explore the post-apocalypse, perhaps discover what happened, and even search for somewhere safe to live alongside the different groups. First with the mutants of Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, then with the uplifted animals of Mutant: Genlab Alpha, the robots of Mutant: Year Zero – Mechatron – Rise of the Robots Roleplaying, and with the surviving humans of Mutant: Year Zero – Elysium. These four books consist of campaigns in their own right and they come together in The Gray Death, but the relationships between these diverse groups is not always an easy one and with resources scarce, including artefacts left over from before in the Old Age, it can lead to these very different groups coming to blows—and worse! This then, is the set-up for Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars, a skirmish wargame set in a post-apocalyptic future which takes place in an area known as the Zone.

Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe is a complete skirmish game which comes with everything that you need to play. This includes miniatures, rules, dice, cards, terrain, and more, all designed to be played by two players, aged fourteen and up, and plays in roughly ninety minutes. An expansion, Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics adds a second set of factions so that four players can play. Published by Free League Publishing following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars is notable for a number of things. Most obviously, that it is set in the Mutant: Year Zero universe, and not only that, but it is compatible with the four setting and campaign books for Mutant: Year Zero and the Year Zero mechanics such that it is possible to take a Player Character from one of the roleplaying games and adapt it to Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars. In fact, fans of Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days and Mutant: Genlab Alpha will recognise many of figures in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe as being based on the artwork from those books. As will fans of the computer game, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. Both Dux, a duck hybrid, and Bormin, a pig hybrid, are included as miniatures in the core game.
Further, it is designed by Andy Chambers, whose wargames pedigree is unparalleled—Necromunda, Battlefleet Gothic, and Warhammer Fantasy Battle for Games Workshop and Dropzone Commander from Hawk Games. Altogether, Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe sounds like an attractive package—and that is before you even get to open the box.

Inside Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars can be found ten miniatures, over eighty cards, over one hundred tokens, ten custom dice, three sheets of cardboard terrain, a map sheet, a measuring rule, and a rulebook. Open the book and the first thing you see is the map sheet and the cardboard terrain. The map sheet is thirty-six inches square, on heavy paper, and double-sided. Both show a rough scrubland in green and brown, whilst one of them has a dual carriage way running across it. The terrain is done in full colour and on heavy cardstock, slotting together easily to create a total of ten pieces, consisting of walls, trees, and the ruins of buildings, some of them with an upper floor. The terrain also comes apart easily for easy storage. The measuring rule and the tokens are bright and breezy and easy to use and see. The dice consist of two sets, the yellow base dice and the black gear dice, and they are easy to read and feel good in the hand. The cards come in two sizes. The standard size cards consist of the character cards which list each character’s stats, starting gear, and mutations. They are double-sided, one side showing the character healthy, the other when he is bloodied. Other standard size cards depict obstacles and monsters that might be encountered during play. The small cards consist of the starting equipment and mutations for the characters, as well as artefacts that can be found and are often being fought over in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars.

Then of course, there are the miniatures. These are done in 32 millimetre, a durable plastic, and divided into two sets of five. One set of five from the Ark Mutants and one set of five from the Genlab Tribe Mutants. The Nova Cult Mutants and the Mechatron Robots do not appear in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe, but are included in the expansion, Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics. All ten miniatures are highly detailed and highly individualised and really stand out in play. Lastly, the miniatures, cards, and dice all sit in their own tray which has a lid, for very easy storage. There is even an empty slot on the try in which the game’s tokens can be readily stored.

The rules booklet runs to just twenty-four pages—and half of that is dedicated to the core set’s five scenarios. Each character or miniature is defined by four Attributes—Ranged, Melee, Survival, and Health. Ranged and Melee covers the types of attacks a miniature can make, Survival a measure of how well he avoid the dangers of the Zone or take advantage of them, and Health indicates how much damage he can take before he is Broken and cannot act until he recovers. Miniatures also have Mutations and Modules. The Modules are specific to Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics, whilst everyone else uses Mutations. Ark Mutants use physical mutations, like ‘Acid Spit’ and ‘Four-Armed’, whilst ‘Antlers’ and ‘Flight Response’ are used by the Genlab Alpha Mutants. These are activated in play using M-points, which a player acquires by pushing combat rolls or from Zone cards.

Mechanically, anyone who has played Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days or any roleplaying game from Free League Publishing will be familiar with Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars. They all use the Year Zero engine. This involves a player rolling six-sided dice and aiming to roll one or more successes, indicated by the Radiation symbol. The dice pool will be made up of two dice types. The yellow Base Dice are rolled for a miniature’s Attributes, whilst the black Gear Dice are rolled for any weapons he is wielding, armour he is wearing, or item he is using. One success is enough to hit, but more Successes indicates more hits and more potential damage inflicted. If the attack is a miss or the player wants more Successes, he can Push the roll. This allows him to reroll any dice that did not roll Radiation symbols or Biohazard symbols on the base Dice or the Explosion Symbols on the Gear Dice. Pushing a dice roll, though, has consequences. If there are any Biohazard symbols on the base Dice generates M-points, whilst Explosion Symbols on the Gear Dice indicate damage has been done to the gear used, reducing the bonuses that the Gear provides. If that bonus is reduced to zero, then that Gear is broken and can no longer be used.

Any miniature which is successfully attacked will take damage equal to the number of Radiation symbols rolled on both the Base Dice and the Gear Dice. Fortunately, armour and cover can provide protection— armour and cover against ranged attacks and armour only against melee attacks. Armour and cover indicate the number of Gear Dice the defending player rolls and for each success or Radiation symbol rolled, the damage suffered is reduced by one. Damage is deducted from a miniature’s Health and if this falls below zero, he is Broken. In which case, the only action he can take is a Recovery action and if successful, he is considered to be Bloodied. His player turns the miniature’s card over onto its Bloodied side, and if the miniature suffers enough damage again to be considered Broken, he is actually Taken Out and removed from the game.

Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars is played as a series of rounds. At the start of a round, an Action Token is placed in a cup for each miniature. Over the course of a round, when a token from a faction is drawn, that faction’s player can activate one of his miniatures who has not been yet activated. This continues until all of the Action Tokens have been drawn and each miniature activated. When activated, a miniature can do one of two options. Either enter Overwatch so that the miniature can make a ranged later in the round, or take an Action. This can be ‘Move & Attack’, ‘Aimed Fire’, ‘Charge’, ‘Recover’, ‘Assist recovery’, ‘Simple Operation’, ‘Activate Mutation/Module’, and more. All of the Actions are clearly explained and many are accompanied by an example. The rules also cover finding, using, and losing artefacts, and adding Zone Tokens which add a random event determined by drawing a Zone Card. These might indicate that the miniature has discovered a ‘Rot Hotspot’ and must make a Survival Test, gaining an M-point if it is passed and a point of damage if failed, set off an event in the scenario with a ‘Trigger card, or disturbed a monster in the Zone, such as a Razorback or a Landshark. There are only four monsters in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars, but they are all nasty.

In addition, Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars includes rules for campaign which allows the miniatures to improve and keep a single found artefact each between scenarios, a guide to converting characters from the roleplaying games, and solo play. The latter allow a player to play on his own or co-operate with another, the rules suggesting that this is a good way to teach the rules. The advice is that solo play should not involve too complex a scenario. There is also a quick and dirty guide for a player creating his own characters, but the player would have to provide his own miniatures.

Play in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars continues until either one faction has all of its miniatures are Taken Out or have left the table, or the scenario objectives have been achieved. There are five scenarios in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars. These start with ‘Throw Down’, a simple scrap between factions for artefacts and Victory Points gained from defeating the other side, but with a time limit set by a worsening shower of acid rain! They continue with ‘Block War’, which has the same objectives as well as Victory Points gained from holding buildings. Others involve a street fight for juicy loot, a chase, and the defence of one faction’s ark. They are all fairly straightforward, uncomplicated affairs. For veteran wargamers they may be too basic, but for anyone new to the hobby, they are fine.

Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars is easy to learn and set-up. From opening the box to setting up, the first game can be ready in thirty minutes. The rules are light enough to read in that time and setting up the first scenario and the terrain is very easy. Then once it is set up, Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars is fun to play. It helps that the artwork on the cards captures the vibrancy, weirdness, and grottiness of the Zone, and the miniatures reflect this. There is a giddy absurdity to leading a mutant with insect wings, another wearing a diving helmet who can give off spores, and another who can eat the Rot that poisons everyone into a scrap against anthropomorphic duck armed with a crossbow, a boar-man with a giant club who charges into battle, and Moose-man who can gore with antlers, all fighting over a flamethrower, cooking pan that can be worn on the head as armour, or a speed limit sign that can be used as a shield! As with any skirmish game, it plays fast with lots of back-and-forth action, the Action Token mechanic means that play can swing this way or that, as can the dice rolls. Plus, as with any other Year Zero engine game, there is always that need to Push the rolls to succeed, but knowing that if you do, there may be consequences. The game is not too tactically complex either, a player needing to take advantage of cover, try and work his miniatures into the right position to get close enough to close with a melee attack, and then when the time is right unleash a devasting Mutation move! The miniatures or mutants are quite hardy, so it take two or more attempts them to be Broken and then again Taken Out, aided of course, by the luck of the Action Tokens and the dice rolls.

Physically, Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe is very well put together and every is of a decent quality. The cards and the tokens are bright and colourful, the terrain and the map sheet are sturdy if suitably drab, the dice feel good in the hand, and the rulebook is light and easy to read. Above all, the miniatures are superb and really stand out in play, and are pleasingly individual so that you do get attached to them.

Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe is very impressive, very complete, and above all, very accessible. A veteran wargamer will pick this up with ease and appreciate its fast-playing, light mechanics, whilst anyone new to wargaming will be eased in those same light mechanics. Anyone who has played any of the roleplaying games that this skirmish game is based upon will find much that is familiar and also pick the game up with ease. All will love the miniatures that capture the weirdness and wackiness of the Zone. Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe is fun, fast, and sometimes freaky with the mutations, a great skirmish wargaming adaptation of the Mutant: Year Zero setting.

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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One of the perennial contributors to Free RPG Day 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 the event. The emphasis in these releases have invariably been upon small species. Thus, in past years, the titles released for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game have typically involved adventures with diminutive Player Characters, first Kobolds, then Goblins, and then with the release of A Fistful of Flowers for Free RPG Day 2022 and A Few Flowers More for Free RPG Day 2023, and now for Free RPG Day 2024, it is the turn of toys with The Great Toy Heist! This is a short adventure for Second Level Player Characters—of which four pre-generated examples are provided—who are all one of Golarion’s rare ancestries. This is ‘Poppet’. Usually in Golarion and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, a poppet is a small, mindless magical construct designed to serve as familiars and help with simple tasks. However, with The Great Toy Heist, all four pre-generated have achieved magical sentience and so can go adventure on their own.

To get the most out of The Great Toy Heist, the Game Master will need access to the Pathfinder Player Core, Pathfinder GM Core, Pathfinder Monster Core, Pathfinder Lost Omens Grand Bazaar, and Pathfinder Lost Omens Worlds Guide. However, a Game Master should be able to run the adventure with the core rules and further references found in the Pathfinder Reference Document.

The setting for The Great Toy Heist is the Chelish capital of Egorian, notorious for its inhabitants engaging in the practice of devil-worshipping. Not everyone is a devil-worshipper though and in-between the gothic buildings of the temples to Asmodeus, there are ordinary businesses such as The Terrific Toybox. It is famous for the quality of the toys its owner, Gettorio Galla, makes and sells. The shop is sat atop a source of occult magical energy, some of which seeps into some of those toys and so awake them to sentience. These Poppets revere their creator and help her about the shop as well as keeping an eye on when she is not there or asleep. However, a greedy, unprincipled, and wealthy noble, Baron Falgrimous Vreen, has learned about the magical source and decided to take for himself. He found a loophole in the diabolically complicated laws of the city and exploited it to seize the deed to the toyshop and now plans to evict Gettorio Galla and her fantastic creations—including the Player Characters. Loyal to Gettorio Galla, the four Player Characters have decided to break into the mansion of Baron Vreen and steal back the deed to The Terrific Toybox!
The Great Toy Heist opens en media res. The Player Characters have had themselves shipped into Baron Vreen’s mansion and can take the advantage of the head of the house holding a party, to search the for the deed. As players, the scenario gives them time here to go over their characters and introduce themselves to each other before beginning the scenario proper. The first encounter is combat driven, a fun battle with a pair of Imps engagingly called ‘Tsk’ and ‘Tut’, who will taunt and tease the Player Characters throughout the fight. The guidance for the fight suggests making it a very physical affair that takes in the environment, such as climbing and pulling down bookshelves, dropping chandeliers on the Imps, and so on.
The battle, which takes place in the mansion’s sitting room, is the first of the scenario’s three acts. The second is the ‘Manor Infiltration’ in which the Player Characters sneak about the mansion. This is handled not room by room, by more narratively as a montage of scenes in which the Player Characters overcome obstacles and take advantage of opportunities. Through rolling successes and failures, the Player Characters accrue Infiltration Points and Awareness Points, and these can be used by the Game Master to trigger Obstacles, Complications, and Opportunities, such as a ‘Messy Office’, ‘Drunken Guest’, ‘Not Like That!’, and ‘Lucky Break’. Eventually, the Player Characters will find the vault, deal with its guardian, and having found the deed to the land under The Terrific Toybox, escape back home with its future ensured.
Whilst half of The Great Toy Heist is dedicated to the scenario, the other is decided to its four pre-generated Player Characters. These consist of Cutie Killstuff, a pink, fluffy bunny rabbit Barbarian; Hellpup, a hellhound toy and Witch done in leather; Marcella the Marionette, a classic Domino puppet and Rogue; and The Tin Wizard, a clockwork toy Wizard. All four are given a two-page spread complete with background, a guide to playing them in terms of combat, exploration, and healing, , relationships with the other three Player Characters, and the full stats along with a good illustration. These are really very well done, though quite a lot of information for a one-shot scenario.
Physically, The Great Toy Heist is as well presented as you would expect for a release from Paizo, Inc. Everything is in full colour, the illustrations are excellent, and the maps attractive.
The Great Toy Heist is a fun scenario, though very short. The only problem perhaps is the inclusion of Cutie Killstuff, a pink, fluffy bunny rabbit Barbarian. Everyone is going to want to play them and only one player can! The Great Toy Heist is a great release for Free RPG Day 2024, just as you would expect from Paizo, Inc.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #10: Unholy Nights in Lankhmar is a scenario for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the tennth scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics tend be darker, grimmer, and even pulpier than traditional Dungeons & Dragons scenarios, even veering close to the Swords & Sorcery subgenre. Scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set are set in and around the City of the Black Toga, Lankhmar, the home to the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, the creation of author Fritz Leiber. The city is described as an urban jungle, rife with cutpurses and corruption, guilds and graft, temples and trouble, whores and wonders, and more. Under the cover the frequent fogs and smogs, the streets of the city are home to thieves, pickpockets, burglars, cutpurses, muggers, and anyone else who would skulk in the night! Which includes the Player Characters. And it is these roles which the Player Characters get to be in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #10: Unholy Nights in Lankhmar, small time crooks trying to make a living and a name for themselves, but without attracting the attention of either the city constabulary or worse, the Thieves’ Guild!
Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #10: Unholy Nights in Lankhmar is a slightly longer and slightly different scenario to others released for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. It is also a whole lot weirder, because it involves encounters with an extraplanetary traveller who comes dressed in red and runs around on rooftops, which sounds exactly like you think it does. After all, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #10: Unholy Nights in Lankhmar is a ‘A Level 2 Holiday Adventure’ and there really only one holiday where a traveller dressed in red runs around the rooftops. So you have you know who running around on the rooftops of Lankhmar, which to be honest, sounds goofy. It is. However, it is not quite what you expect, so it just about works. Expect the players to groan at you or at least roll their eyes.

Designed for two or three Player Characters of Second Level, the other reason why Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #10: Unholy Nights in Lankhmar is different is because it is an investigation. This is not a type of adventure that the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game is known for, but the one thing that the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set has encouraged is a wider range of scenario types. Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #10: Unholy Nights in Lankhmar begins with the discovery of the body of one of the Player Characters’ contacts in strange circumstances—they find him dead on the roof of his building with a living pine tree growing through him! All of which occurs under even weirder skies, as only tens days before, thick clouds settled over the city and have yet to move, plunging Lankhmar into a perpetual, unnatural darkness that means it remains gloomy even in the middle of the day. The clouds have yet to move and no one has any idea why!

The scenario is split into two parts. The first is the investigation. This leads the Player Characters back and forth across the city, first attempting to discover what the strange tree is and where it comes from and the rash of victims whose deaths have occurred in exactly the same fashion. In the process, they run into some surprisingly useful and interesting NPCs. This includes a gardener and a member of the city constabulary who actually thinks that the Player Characters can help, though of course, his boss wants to pin the murders on the Player Characters and throw them in gaol! Which should not be a surprise, since they do keep hanging around murder sites. Then there is the strange figure in red on the rooftops...

The investigative process is eased for the Judge with the inclusion of an ‘Investigation Map’ which handily links all of the clues together and for the players and their characters with ‘The Rumour Mill’, a list of possible rumours that the Player Characters can easily pick up by visiting their usual haunts and plying their fellow patrons with a few drinks. Pleasingly written in the vernacular and sounding just a little English with the use of words such as ‘tosspot’, these are handy means of directing the players and their characters back on track. The investigation process though, is not all talk and looking for clues. The likelihood is that there will be a couple of fights along the way, a possible confrontation with the city constabulary, and if that is not enough, the Judge is given two combative events to throw into the mix. One of these, ‘New (Possibly Old) Friends’, can be tied back to previous scenarios, such as Masks of Lankhmar or Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #1: Gang Lords of Lankhmar.

Completing the investigative half of Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #10: Unholy Nights in Lankhmar leads to the second half, the ‘Confrontation’. This is where the action really happens as the Player Characters locate the lair of the culprit behind both the murders and the strange weather and attempt to stop him. It is a classic Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar ending, the Player Characters having to sneak into the building and ascend to the scene of the final confrontation, the likes of which we have seen before from the author. This is not to say that it is not either badly done or detailed, as it is nicely detailed and a fitting culmination to the investigation, just similar to ones we have seen before.

The scenario does come with a nice pay-off for the Player Characters and as well as gaining the satisfaction of saving the city, should earn a contact or two in the process. Rounding out Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #10: Unholy Nights in Lankhmar leads is a pair of appendices. The first is the aforementioned ‘The Rumour Mill’, whilst the second is ‘Khahkht of the Black Ice’. This details the villain behind the scenario, a god-wizard from Nehwon’s far north, around the Frozen Sea, much feared and whispered of by the Mingols. In fact, any Mongol Player Character may be already be aware of him. ‘Khahkht of the Black Ice’ presents him as a possible Patron, along with the benefits of invoking him and suffering taint from him, as well as his three spells, Ray of the Anti-Sun, Craft of the Chill Smithy, and Khahkht’s Icy Breath. Khahkht is definitely a cruel and uncaring Patron, even evil, and certainly a wizard would have to be similarly evil or desperate to pledge himself to him. His inclusion then is suited for use with NPCs rather than Player Characters.
Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #10: Unholy Nights in Lankhmar is well presented. Both artwork and cartography are good, with some entertaining action scenes depicted.

If there is an issue with Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #10: Unholy Nights in Lankhmar, it is in its set-up. This requires the Player Characters to know the victim at the start of the adventure and to have his death be meaningful at the start of the start of the adventure, the Judge needs to add him to an earlier scenario. Given that this is the tenth scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set that makes it a bit difficult to set up unless the Judge is waiting to have every scenario to hand before running her campaign. Another issue is the ‘holiday’ or ‘Christmas’ element of the scenario which feels as if it was levered in almost sufferance rather than willingly. There is no denying that it is silly, but fortunately, it is not particular intrusive.
Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #10: Unholy Nights in Lankhmar is an engaging mix of investigation and action, as well as roleplaying, which under the unnaturally cloudy skies over the city of Lankhmar, feels just a little like film noir.