Eratniki 

Pyakel'niki 

Gartsuki 

Younik 

Tsmok 

Mara 

Chort 

Sheshki 

Zlydni 

Vampire 

Baba Yaga 

Little Witch 

Valasen 

Lazavik and Lozniki 

Durny Chort 

Badzyulya 

Lyadashtsik 

Zmyainy Tsar 

Dzikiya Lyudzi 

Klikun 

Gayovy Dzed and Gayouki 

Balotnik 

Hihitun 

Tsuda Yuda 

Shatany 

Stryga 

Balamutsen 

Pavetnik 

Arzhaven 

Dzedka 

Nachnitsy 

Zhalezny Chalavek 

Hapun 

Twilight 

Dragon 

Pleasure Trip

Survival 

Visitors 

Hollow 

Ball Game 

Pagan 

Way 

Genetics 

Race 

Winter Hunt 

Forest 

In the Trees 

 Conversation 

Tree

Arena 

 

See more artworks by Slauk at Saaatchi Art.com and Mythology.by. 

 The higher resolution version of "Arena" shared by Sergio Almendro.

Eve Tushnet / November 8, 2021

Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985
Edited by Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre
PM Press, 2021

Disclosure: This collection includes an essay by Kelly Roberts, editor-in-chief of We Are the Mutants.

In troubled times, we must be grateful for every touch of the ridiculous. And so let’s raise a glass to psychologist and pop scientist Steven Pinker, who in his most recent book burbles forth: “Rationality is uncool.” Pinker pledges fealty to Reason, the chaste goddess, even though he “cannot argue that reason is dope, phat, chill, fly, sick, or da bomb.” This delightful complaint evokes a vanished era in which we all were just vibing on reason, knowledge, hexagons and vaccines and supercolliders and, I don’t know, eugenics. But this timeline, if it ever existed, ended long ago. For the authors whose works are explored in PM Press’s new collection, Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985, cool rationality was the old religion — and they were the acolytes of the strange new gods who displaced it.

Dangerous Visions is the third in a series, edited by Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre, exploring the radical elements in pulp and genre publishing of the Cold War era. (We Are the Mutants has reviewed the first volume, on postwar youth culture, and the second, on revolution and the 1960s counterculture.) Like the first two installments, this one combines short essays with plentiful examples of weird, enticing cover art — such as a 1955 cover for 1984 that looks like nothing so much as a juvenile-delinquency pulp. The book is punctuated with little round-ups, less like essays and more like annotated lists of sci-fi on subjects like nuclear war, drugs, or animals, which show how cover illustrators could depict similar themes as dream or nightmare, action-adventure or inner journey. The “dystopias” list, for example, includes a threatening cover for Stephen King’s The Long Walk (1979) and an eerily seductive one for Mary Vigliante’s The Colony (also 1979).

The book begins with the opposing open letters published in 1968 in Galaxy Science Fiction, one supporting the war in Vietnam and the other protesting it. This contrast offers an obvious political gloss on the word “radical” in the book’s subtitle: “Radical” means left-wing politics; it means the antiwar stance of Samuel R. Delany, Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Kate Wilhelm set against the conservatism of the pro-war Marion Zimmer Bradley, L. Sprague de Camp, Robert A. Heinlein, and Larry Niven. But an early mention of the transition from the term “science fiction” to “speculative fiction” is a more accurate guide to the kind of radicalism Dangerous Visions celebrates. Both Heinlein and the pro-war R.A. Lafferty get thoughtful essays in this volume, suggesting that they, too, were in some way radical visionaries.

There’s little explicit effort to tie the works together or nail down what makes something radical, dangerous, or new. It’s a wise choice that allows the essayists to avoid fixed narratives and Procrustean politics. The new world is a place where a new kind of person lives — although many would argue that this new and dangerous person was always the only kind of person around. The old SF hero was that rational man you used to hear so much about: the imagined actor in liberal political philosophy, the person without dependents or dependencies, who confronted the stars with reason, self-control, and a spirit of adventure. He travels, as the introduction puts it, “from the suburbs to the stars.” The old guard’s heroes were white, even when they were green. The old SF hero might die, but he’d never worry about getting pregnant. Mind and body were manageable; desires were reasonable, inspiring, and above all intelligible, both to the hero himself and to the reader. Whether this is a fair description of the old-school hero, I can’t say. I only like this kind of guy when he’s played by William Shatner — in a book, I just can’t see the appeal. I can say that the works explored in the PM Press collection are rebelling against this hero. These books are populated by mystics and criminals, artists and threatened children, even animals and creatures who are some blend of human and Other. The political apparatus of the state does not enable constructive action; it provokes fear or anger. In these books knowledge is less like an equation and more like a hallucination.

Speaking of Samuel R. Delany, Dangerous Visions avoids the more thoroughly-trampled pathways in his work in favor of a 1979 memoir of his brief stint in a commune called Heavenly Breakfast. Daniel Shank Cruz highlights not only novel sexual arrangements (“they all get gonorrhea […] because intra-commune sexual encounters are commonplace”) but the group’s economic strategy of drug dealing, and its belief — perhaps even more touching and necessary now than then — “that people have value aside from their financial status, and that it is worth living with someone… even if they are unable to contribute their ‘fair share.’” “It is inaccurate to say that its members shared funds,” Cruz writes, “because many of them had no funds to share, but they all shared in the work of caring for one another.” The whole thing only lasted one winter, which the book’s subtitle calls The Winter of Love. Cruz argues that the winter with Heavenly Breakfast taught Delany that he could live in a fully new way, and infused his later work with communal values and greater “sexual openness.” Delany always insisted that the polymorphic sexual community, no matter how perverse, can offer a postsecondary education in love. Sex is his means of reasoning, not his means of getting beyond rational thought; it’s his language, not his apophatic and apocalyptic self-immolation.

And so he is the happy radical, whereas J.G. Ballard and Philip K. Dick represent more lacerating visions. Erica L. Satifka’s essay suggests that Dick’s work “reflects the at times bizarre course of his own relatively short life more than any radical political beliefs” — but if you’re literally approached by the FBI to spy on your fellow students, it’s not your life that’s weird, it’s your times. Dick lived out many of his age’s forms of altered consciousness, from psychotherapy to amphetamines; his experience with alternative homemaking was also harder than Delany’s, as he went through five divorces and found himself “invit[ing] hippies and/or junkies to live with him on a rotating basis,” which is sweet but not nostalgia fodder. All this touched his work with a poignant separation between the self and some true hidden knowledge. Ballard, by contrast, led a stable domestic life, deranged only by the surrounding culture. He expressed this derangement in funhouse-mirror worlds, dreamscapes and projections, where the shock of the real could only be attained through technology-enabled violence. And these worlds were not future but present, because, as Ballard said in the 1960s, “We live inside an enormous novel…The fiction is already there. The writer’s task is to invent the reality.” The more your world is manmade, shaped by technology and terraforming, the more you live in dreams and fetishes: the substance of our inner lives. (I’m sitting in my bedroom and I can’t see a single object I know how to make.) Delany probes wounds and bruises with his tongue and likes the taste; Ballard gets a mouthful of blood and chromium menace, the taste of a self-discovery that’s also a self-loss. Delany winds up a contented eminence grise, replete with memory like a bee with honey; Dick possibly broke into his own house, blocked out the memories, went on a paranoid tear against fellow SF luminary Stanislaw Lem, and a year later entered rehab after a suicide attempt. I love Delany’s work but his luck is too good — it veils some of the harder truths.

As with any collection, Dangerous Visions is uneven, both in the quality of its own essays and (more intentionally) in that of the works it surveys. The experiments in rebellion and discovery conducted by the books’ motley heroes (and by the authors) brought results that were sometimes exhilarating, sometimes disturbing, and sometimes both at once. An early essay on “sextrapolation” includes a lot of taboo-breaking that just seems silly or gross. The best I can say for the quotes here from Bug Jack Barron is that without them maybe we wouldn’t have actually good stories like “Aye, and Gomorrah…,” in which sex is less of a Sharper Image store and more of a mystery play. Meanwhile, a few essays in Dangerous Visions show individual style, like Nick Mamatas’s feverish, slightly aggro tribute to R.A. Lafferty, but the entire first column of Maitland McDonagh’s essay on gay adult SF is bland boilerplate. Stronger editing would have allowed McDonagh’s camp humor to emerge earlier and with less padding. Scott Adlerberg offers an essay about the radical SF of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, authors of Roadside Picnic (later adapted by Andrei Tarkovsky as the 1979 film Stalker). The critical assessment emerges through biographical data about the grinding, increasing conflict between the brothers and the Soviet censorship apparatus: the Strugatskys seem attuned to fun, adventure, and playful anti-bureaucratic humor in the Douglas Adams vein, but the censorship and fear of a totalitarian system, including a harrowing encounter with the KGB, led them into sharper satire and more hallucinatory blurs of dream and reality. But Michael A. Gonzales’s similarly biography-focused essay on Octavia Butler avoids any real critical engagement with her work’s themes. Her mentors within the genre are listed, which is useful as part of the collection’s overall portrayal of radical SF as a community relying on particular institutions (New Worlds magazine, the Women’s Press) and central figures (in Butler’s case, the author and writing teacher Harlan Ellison). No effort is made, though, to place Butler in dialogue with larger movements, from Afrofuturism to Afro-pessimism; there’s no real exploration of her work’s vision of the body’s metamorphoses, her portrayals of youth and inheritance, her prose style — the texture of her work dissolves and she’s left as a generic Black Woman Pioneer.

Dangerous Visions, as its understanding of “radical” SF emerges, suggests unexpected links between authors: Mamatas’s essay on the gonzo Catholicism of R.A. Lafferty finds a home beside Iain McIntyre’s homage to the anti-imperialist mysticism of William Bloom, whose Himalayan action-adventure hero Qhe is a “cosmic [James] Bond.” A late essay by Donna Glee Williams contrasts the visions of anarchism in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. These two novels suggest possible syntheses between old and new. They both offer metaphysics and political reasoning, while still being recognizably “radical”: both take place in criminalized communities and depict alternatives to the liberal state.

The anthology opens by noting that the radicalism of its authors didn’t vanish, but disseminated itself throughout mainstream SF, suggesting a longing for some synthesis; some recognition of the poignant beauty of human reason and the quest for knowledge, alongside a taut awareness of reason’s propensity to serve violence; some hope for new communal forms of life, new mysticisms in the face of new apocalypses.

Eve Tushnet is the author of two novels, Amends and Punishment: A Love Story, as well as the nonfiction Gay and Catholic: Accepting My Sexuality, Finding Community, Living My Faith. She lives in Washington, DC and writes and speaks on topics ranging from medieval covenants of friendship to underrated vampire films. Her hobbies include sin, confession, and ecstasy.

Joseph Bloch at BRW games is really the model of how you should run a Kickstarter.  When I look at a Kickstarter I want to know that the person running it has experience.  The Kickstarter for Book of Lost Lore & Book of Lost Beasts was back in July. We were promised the books in March of 2022.  I believe I got mine in late September or early October. Was there padding? Maybe, but I don't care. Getting books just a couple of months after pledging is still pretty good.  Not to mention this has been true for the other five I have backed from Joseph/BRW.

Plus I also like to see that the person running the knows what to expect. So I look to see how many they have backed.  If it is a low number, or worse, zero, then I stay away. That is not the case with BRW Games.  

That is all great and everything, but does the book hold up to all this excitement?  Let's find out.

Adventures Dark & Deep Book of Lost Beasts

This is one of two books that were part of BRW's Summer 2021 Kickstarter and the one I was looking forward to the most.  The reasons should be obvious to anyone who has read my reviews over the years; I love monster books and consider the 1st Edition Monster Manual to be one of the greatest RPG books ever written.  Sure there are better-written ones, but few that have had the impact of this one. 

For this review, I am considering the Hardcover I received as a Kickstarter backer and the PDF from DriveThruRPG.  BRW does their print fulfillment via DriveThru, so I conveniently have my PDFs where I expect them and I know what sort of product I am getting in terms of Print on Demand.

The book itself is 132 page (about 128 of pure content), full-color cover and black and white interior art.  The layout and art is a tribute to the "2nd covers" of the AD&D 1st Edition line. So it looks nice with your original books and other OSR books designed the same way. 

Adventures Dark & Deep Book of Lost Beasts is a collection of 205 monsters for the AD&D 1st Edition RPG.  The book feels familiar (in more than one way) and can easily be added to your AD&D game.  The monsters are alphabetically listed. At the start of the book, there are some details about playing Monster spell casters (Witch-doctors or Shamans) as well as some other minor rule changes/alterations.  These chiefly involve whether a monster has psionics or not, and how an undead creature is turned.

Additionally, there is more detail on the monster's treasure. While a Treasure Type is given it is asl broken down between Treasure Value and Magical Treasure.  Monsters all get a Morale bonus listed to indicate if they will flee combat.

In the Preface, Bloch gives us a bit of history on his Adventures Dark and Deep RPG.  While this book carries that heading, it does not use the Adventures Dark and Deep RPG rules except as noted above. IT uses the tried and true AD&D 1st Ed system.  Also it is noted that many of these monsters presented here already appeared in his Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary, which I reviewed here.   The Bestiary is 450+ pages and has monsters from the SRD plus more in the Adventures Dark and Deep RPG format.  So you could convert them back to AD&D 1st Ed if you wanted.  But this current book, the Book of Lost Beasts, has the new monsters from the Bestiary plus a few more already converted.

The brings up a good question.  Should I buy this book? 
I am going to say yes, but here are some caveats. If you have the Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary AND you are comfortable enough converting then maybe you don't need this.  If you play AD&D and want more monsters then you should get this.  If you don't have the Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary and like monsters then you should get this.  If you are like me and just love monsters and already have the Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary then you should get this.  I hope to make these points a little better below, but do keep in mind that some people have seen these monsters before.

That is just one of the ways this book feels familiar.  The other way really lives up to its name of the Book of Lost Beasts.   This book feels like Bloch took the Monster Manuals I and II (and to a lesser degree the Fiend Folio) and set out with the goal of "What monsters are missing?" and got to it.  For example, the Quasi-Elementals are more filled out.

Another great example of providing us with "what was missing" AND giving us something new are the ranks of nobility of the Dao, Djinn, Effrti, Madrid, and Rakasha. While these creatures are found in the Monster Manuals and expanded on in the ADD Bestiary, they get a longer and more detailed treatment here. 

After the 205 or so monsters there are appendices on Treasure Types and a random Creature for the Lower Planes generator. These were very popular in the pages of Dragon Magazine if you recall. 

The PDF is currently $9.95 which is a good price for a PDF of a monster book, and $24.95 for the hardcover.

One minor point, the book was not released under the OGL.  Doesn't matter for play or use only if you wanted to reuse a monster in an adventure.  Though given the use I have seen of the OGL over the last 20+ years this is also likely not an issue. 

If you are looking for a new monster book for use in your AD&D 1st Edition games then I can highly recommend this one.  Plus it will look great sitting next to all your other AD&D 1st books.

 

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

—oOo—

What is it?
Ehnval Tallspear presents an NPC and his entourage, and trinkets for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a twenty-four page, full colour, 2.49 MB PDF.
The layout is clean and tidy, and its illustrations good.

Where is it set?
Ehnval Tallspear is nominally set in and along the edge of the Astrola Forest in northern Esrolia, but the NPC and his entourage can be encountered almost anywhere the Game Master decides.

Who do you play?
No specific character types are required to encounter Ehnval Tallspear. Worshippers of Odalya may have an interesting encounter with one of his companions though and anyone who destroys parts of the forest it is his sacred duty to protect will find him a fierce enemy. A worhsipper of Chalana Arroy or another healing deity will be presented with an interesting challenge in one of the adventure seeds.

What do you need?
Ehnval Tallspear requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the Glorantha Bestiary, and The Red Book of Magic.
What do you get?
The second volume of ‘Monster of the Month’ presents not monsters in the sense of creatures and spirits and gods that was the feature of the first volume. Instead, it focuses upon Rune Masters, those who have achieved affinity with their Runes and gained great magics, mastered skills, and accrued allies—corporeal and spiritual. They are powerful, influential, and potentially important in the Hero Wars to come that herald the end of the age and beginning of another. They can be allies, they can be enemies, and whether ally or enemy, some of them can still be monsters.
The Ehnval Tallspear entry is Ehnval Tallspear, which describes a Wood Lord of Aldrya whose duty is to protect Derstrovil Grove and the Old Woods as both Speaker to Foreignersand Defender of the Grove. He is surprisingly outgoing for an Aldryami and has had dealings with humans, both as a fierce protector of, and an envoy from the forest. Ultimately his motives may seem alien to humans, but he is outwardly cheerful, even extroverted in most of his dealings when visiting beyond the treeline.
In addition to presenting the stats, history, and personality of the Wood Lord, the supplement suggests how he might be used as a friend or an enemy, also detailing his tactic should he become the latter. Both options are supported by an adventure seed each. In the first, he leaves the forest desperate to find a worshipper of Chalana Arroy or another healing deity who can help with a strange blight which has beset the forest that Aldryami has been unable to heal, whilst in the second, he begins a series of unprovoked strikes against the farms and communities abutting the forest. Can the adventurers determine the cause?
Ehnval Tallspear also details a number of interesting items. These start with a number of Elvish trinkets which can add flavour and detail to dealings with the Aldryami, and can either be used as gifts or items for trade. They include Arstolan honey and its flavours and effects (for example, black honey has little flavour, but greatly enhances fruit pies and sends anyone who knows a sorcery spell who eats such pies, to sleep), grown woodwork, Luck-Sprigs, and more. The secrets of the Icola Seed and Living Copper are also revealed. When thrown and the Accelerate Growth Rune spell is cast on an Icola Seed, it rapidly grows into vines that coil around and ensnare a target, whilst Living Copper is grown in Aldryami Dryad groves and when ultimately harvested—growing a branch can take centuries—can be enchanted and coldworked into various objects, including weapons. Ehnval Tallspear himself wields a spear of living copper.
Ehnval Tallspear’s entourage is also fully detailed. Andovar the Watcher is another Elf, but Green where Ehnval Tallspear is Brown, an Initiate of Yelmalio whose duty is to protect the grove during Dark and Storm Seams when the Wood Lord hibernates, whilst the most fun are  incredibly ancient Runner, and Borulgus, an Elf-Friend and talking bear who enjoys stalking hunters and then startling them when he speaks! An encounter with him should be interesting for any Initiate of Odayla. Rounding out the supplement of course, are the full stats and sheets for the four NPCs, plus generic Elf bodyguards.
Is it worth your time?Yes—Ehnval Tallspear presents a potentially interesting ally or enemy, plus supporting cast, should the Game Master want to include Aldryami in her campaign or her campaign is specifically set in Esrolia (although the supplement can be set elsewhere).No—Ehnval Tallspear presents a potentially interesting ally or enemy, plus supporting cast, should the Game Master want to include Aldryami in her campaign or her campaign is specifically set in Esrolia, but it definitely adheres to ‘Your Glorantha May Vary’. So it may not be in line with how the Game Master views the Aldryami—or indeed, even Chaosium, Inc.Maybe—Ehnval Tallspear presents a potentially interesting ally or enemy, but the Game Master may simply not want to involve the Aldryami in her campaign, or even take her campaign to Esrolia.

Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil is a supplement for use with both Leagues of Cthulhu, the supplement of Lovecraftian horror for use with Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age! and its expansion, Leagues of Gothic Horror. Published by Triple Ace Games, it expands greatly upon the information and details of the Cthulhu Mythos given in the previous supplements. It describes new bloodline Talents and Leagues, a wide array of rituals, tomes, locations, and dread horrors, expanded advice for the Game Master running a Leagues of Cthulhu campaign, and more. In fact, that more is a detailed exploration of the mystical Dreamlands, including rules for dreamers and altering the landscape of the Dreamlands, rituals and tomes unique to that fabled land, a complete gazetteer, and a bestiary of its notable human and inhuman denizens. This is a first for Leagues of Cthulhu, but in effect, the section on the Dreamlands is a supplement all of its very own. Literally, because its chapter numbering starts anew! In addition, what few stats there are for use with the Ubiquity system are easy to interpret and adapt to the system of the Game Master’s choice, whether that is Cthulhu by Gaslight for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, Trail of Cthulhu, or Victoriana.
In the main, the Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil is for the Game Master, but there are a handful of elements for the player too. These include the new Hobby Skill, which can include things like Cartography, Fossil Collecting, or Numismatics, and new Bloodlines and new Leagues. The new Bloodlines include LeBlanc, which provides political Contacts, and Northam, which provides Status, as well as dire effects detailed later in the book. The new Leagues include the Elder Club whose members possess sufficient status to keep the truth of the Mythos from society at large and the Elder Race Society, which holds that Human history is far longer than is normally accepted. Various Mythos languages are discussed, such as Aklo and Yithian, and there is a list of Manias to have the Globetrotters suffer, and glorious new Flaws like Blabber Mouth, Fainter, and Screamer!
The content for the Game Master begins with ‘Magic & Manuscripts’ and provides several new Rituals. With Drain Life a caster can inflict lethal damage upon a target to heal his nonlethal wounds (or downgrade a lethal wound to the nonlethal); with Mark of Madness he can inflict Sanity loss upon a victim; and even gain protection against the fell beasts which hunt down along the angles with Sign of Tindalos. The forty or so Eldritch Books—or Mythos Tomes—are all new and are nicely detailed such that the Game Master can draw inspiration from and further, ties into further content elsewhere in the supplement. For example, The Assassin’s Creed: An Expose of the True Hashshashin is a diary of conversations between a crusader and a fellow prisoner about the true nature of the Old Man of the Mountain and details the links between both the fabled and feared assassins. It is not a little tongue in cheek, but does tie into the extensive entry on the Templars, the possible nature of the order’s actual treasure, and the description of what they do in the modern day of the Purple Decade given in the lengthy ‘Gods, Monsters, & Cultists’ chapter. As you would expect, each Eldritch Book description includes its language, author, date of publication, Complexity, Horror, and Mythos values, and contents in terms of spells. This is accompanied by a decent description as to the origins and history of the volume, plus what it actually describes. For example, The Serpent Through History is in English, was written by Sir Reginald Grosvenor and published in 1818, has Complexity 2, Horror 2, and Mythos 1, and contains the spells Commune Yig, Summon Child of Yig, and Summon Serpent Men. It is an examination of snake cults throughout history, including the Voodoo loa Damballa, cults in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Rome, and Mesoamerica, plus numerous snake spirits known to American Indians and the nagas known in Indo-China. Grosvenor makes it clear that the presence of so many snake cults is no coincidence, that they are linked to an ancient race of serpent people and that behind it is a universal cult—or at least a cult which set the pattern for those to come—dedicated to an entity that he names as Father of Serpents.
The Eldritch Relics are given a similar treatment, such as Aladdin’s Lamp, which unlike the late addition to the Arabian Nights tells, was discovered in Iram of the Pillars and does not contain a genie. Instead, greatly enhances—almost automatically—the user’s ability to summon a Flying Polyp! Woe betide any daring Globetrotter who decides to give it a rub in case of three wishes… One or two of the items here are not new, such as Liao, which when injected grants the user the capacity to understand the mathematics of traveling through time if not the means, plus items such as the Fungi Brain Cylinder and the Gnoph-Keh Horn Dagger. Or rather, they are not necessarily new to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying, but new to Leagues of Cthulhu. Which still leaves a lot which is new to both.
The trend of the mix of the new to Leagues of Cthulhu, but not new to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying continues with the gazetteer. Thus as it guides us around the five main continents—and beyond, it takes us to such well-known places as the original Dunwich, Kingsport, Ponape, and Roanoke Colony, along with innumerable lesser-known locales. All are quite lengthy descriptions, especially the counties of Somerset and Cumbria in the United Kingdom, which is no surprise that they have been previously explored in the supplements Avalon – The County of Somerset and Leagues of Cthulhu: Guide to Cumbria and thus in more detail. The principality of Wales receives some attention too, whether it is the dark history of Anglesey—also known as Yns Dywyll or the ‘Dark isle’, the sparse are of the Cambrian Mountains identified as the ‘Desert of Wales’, or St. Brides Bay with its sea-caves with tunnels which are said to run deep under the sea, bulbous-eyed, wattle-necked inhabitants, and the ancient, inscribed menhir that it is said the locals dance and cavort around. What this highlights is that Call of Cthullhu—or at least Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying—deserves its own supplement devoted to Wales. This section is a good start though. Further, all of these locations are accompanied by an adventure seed that the Game Master can develop.
Perhaps the longest chapter in Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil is devoted to ‘Gods, Monsters, and Cultists’, a collection of new creatures and entities of the Mythos, such as the Beast of K’n-Yan and Courtier of Azathoth, alongside the old like the Serpent Man and the Tcho-Tcho, all joined by the Giant Albino Penguin. However, these are minor additions in the face of the nineteen cults described in the book, all of them accompanied with write-ups of two NPCs, one a typical NPC cultist, one a named member. For example, the Order of the Fisher-God is a quasi-Christian cult which began as a secret society on the Society Islands before adopting Christian beliefs, whose practice of child sacrifice led it to be driven from the islands and forced to adapt in distant lands. Members seek ascent to a higher plane, which includes transformation to forms better suited to life under the sea, and so their cultists preach those parts of the Bible involving the sea. Thus, the sample NPC, Pastor Andrew, is a popular figure and preacher along the docks. Also included is a discussion of Scaninavian cults as they relate to Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, and Shub-Niggaurath. Here perhaps Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil may diverge from how some Keepers view the Mythos, whether they necessarily equate certain entities of the Mythos with real world gods—Azathoth as Odin for example, or even Nyarlathotep as Loki (although actually, that would not be wholly inappropriate). Of course, such an interpretation is up to the Keeper to include or ignore, and it is only one of multiple cults presented in the supplement. Other cults include a new take upon the Thuggee—complete with an entertaining nod to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the aforementioned Templars, and The Universal Hive, a bee cult with some decidedly fungal infestations… Rounding out the chapter are descriptions of various notables from Lovecraft’s stories, many of them, like John Raymond Legrasse, appearing in earlier incarnations than their appearances later in the fiction. All useful should the Game Master want them in her Leagues of Cthulhu set in the 1890s.
In addition, boxes throughout Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil add further detail and flavour. This includes trapped tomes and self-activating spells, the exact meaning of Nephren-Ka’s name, the nature of genies in the Mythos—Flying Polyps or Fungi from Yuggoth?, and Sherlock Holmes and the Mythos. This provides some of Holmes’ cases which might be developed into Mythos mysteries, rather than suggesting how the great detective might become involved in confronting the Mythos.
Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil sort of ends at this point, yet there is more in the volume. ‘The Realms of Morpheus: The Dreamlands’ starts the numbering of the chapters again and presents a four-chapter exploration of the Dreamlands for Leagues of Cthulhu. As well as suggesting the stories which the Game Master should read as inspiration, it provides new Globetrotter options, details the means of entering the realm of sleep, and gives a gazetteer that covers the places, peoples, and monsters of the Dreamlands. It includes the Dreamlands Lore skill, the Adept Dreamer Talent and the Dreamlands Persona Talent—the latter enabling a player to create a second character specific to the Dreamlands, and Leagues such as the Feline Club whose members might just follow the cats into the Dreamlands and the Morpheus Club, whose members learn to shape dreams. Archetypes like the Addicted Artist, Friend to Cats, and Seeker of Justice provide ready-to-play Globetrotters (or NPCs if necessary), whilst the gazetteer takes the reader from the entryway that is the Cavern of Flame and the magnificent port of Celephaïs to the Plateau of Leng and the port of Dylath-Leen with its thin basalt towers and berths to the much feared, black-sailed galleys whose crews are never seen. Gods include Bast and Nodens, the creatures Ghasts, Ghouls, and Gugs, and of course, Zoogs, and the NPCs, Kuranes, mysterious king of Celephaïs, and both Nasht and Kaman-Thah, guardians of the Cavern of Flame. 
‘The Realms of Morpheus: The Dreamlands’ does feel out of place in Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil. Not just the fact of the separate numbering, but really an abrupt and unexpected switch in subject matter. This is not to say that the material is neither good nor informative—it is. More so at the time of publication when there is limited information available for the Dreamlands for Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying, whether for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition or other roleplaying games. So then it may perhaps be seen as an unexpected bonus, but still, at almost a third of the length of the Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil, ‘The Realms of Morpheus: The Dreamlands’ does feel as if it should have been a Leagues of Cthulhu: The Dreamlands supplement of its very own (perhaps with the addition of an adventure or two).
Physically, Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil is well written and presented, although there are few illustrations to break up the text, so it is fairly dense. It does lack an index—for both parts—and so that density is not ameliorated.
Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil contains a huge amount of lore and ideas, along with cults and monsters and items of the even weirder science found in Leagues of Cthulhu, adventure seeds, NPCs, and more. It could be argued that this one volume is the equivalent of both The Keeper’s Companion vol. 1 and The Keeper’s Companion vol. 2, such is the richness of its content. Even discounting ‘The Realms of Morpheus: The Dreamlands’—which is a bonus, Leagues of Cthulhu: Codicil is a cornucopia of Cthulhoid content, containing a wealth of material for Leagues of Cthulhu that will provide the Game Master of any roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror with support and ideas until almost the stars come right...

- source

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

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Yaquinto Publications was a publisher of board games—in particular war games—and roleplaying games between 1979 and 1983. Its most successful was The Ironclads, which simulated combat between the first armoured ships, or ironclads, during the American Civil War and won the Charles S. Roberts Award for ‘Best Initial Release of 1979’. It also published a number of roleplaying games such as Man, Myth & Magic and Timeship—both now published by Precis Intermedia. However, perhaps the publisher’s most interesting innovation was its packaging design for a line of board games known as the ‘Album Games’. Essentially, titles in this series were packaged in what were double-LP record albums. The game board would be presented on the inside cover, and where the record or records were sleeved were stored the rules, counters, and other components for the game. In later entries in the series, a spacer was used which made each Album game an inch or so thick. This made the game less like a record sleeve (each Album game carried a disclaimer on the cover stating it was a game only and that no phonograph record was to be found inside) and the spacer could be used for storage. Over the course of twenty-titles, the Album series covered fantasy, Science Fiction, historical wargames, and family games, including a game based on then extremely popular soap opera, Dallas.

Published in 1981, Attack of the Mutants! is a two-player board which depicts the last moments of Humanity following the Big Melt-Down of 1993. In the Science Building at Central State Tech, kindly old Professor Applewhite, assisted by his daughter and research assistant, the wholesome, clean-scrubbed Penny, has discovered Dynamic Ultimate Place and is about to open a gate to another, safer world. This is only just in time, for outside the building, clamouring to get in is horde (or four) of multi-armed/bodied/headed and/or tentacular mutants, all intent on smashing their way in, taking their revenge on mankind’s last survivors, and if not that, capturing the bright, but eligible marriage Penny! As the absentminded old professor races to activate the device, doors have been locked, barricades put up, Kamigawa 4697J Janibots armed with appliers, saws, files, and laser welders have been posted as guards, and the surviving members of the ROTC—including Leon ‘Buck’ Bukaw, who just happens to be Penny’s recently found, first love, stand ready to take the fight to the mutants as they smash down one door after another and spill into the next room or corridor, getting ever closer to the Tech Room and the means of mankind’s survival!

What you get with Attack of the Mutants! is a three-part board, twenty-five by twelve inches in size. One side depicts the main play area of the Science Building with its various corridors and rooms—including a summoning circle! On the other side is the Combat Display and the game’s various tables, whilst in between them in the crease of the packaging is a turn tracker. The game requires two six-sided dice, one per player, which do not come with it, but are easy to find. The game comes with over a hundred, small but on thick card, counters. On the Human side, these consist of the eight survivors and twenty-four Janibots, whilst the more than fifty Mutants consist of the Mutant Leaders (black), Radioactive Mutants (red), and ‘normal’ Mutants (green). There are also counters to indicate broken doors, barricades, and turn order. All of the Human and Mutant counters have a number on them to indicate their combat strength. This is either four or five for the Humans and three for the Janibots, whilst each of the Mutants has two combat values—one against Humans (which is either three or four) and one against the Janibots (two or three).

The Humans are all illustrated with their respective faces, whilst the Mutants and the Janibots are done as single colour silhouettes. Notably all of the characters—whether Human or Mutant—are named. So the Humans include Joey Cabelli and Percy Fitzwalter as well as Penny and her father. The Mutants include Amos, Ozzy, Rusty, Bud, Bodine, Hoss, and others. This adds an element of individuality to the game and in play can lead to some storytelling and table talk as the game proceeds and the players come to identify more and more with their counters and their characters. For the Human player, this is helped by the thumbnail descriptions given in the Designer Notes.

Set-up is simple enough. The Human player sets up first, placing Professor Applewhite and Penny—the two Techs—in the Tech Room, then stationing the other Humans and the Janibots throughout the Science Building. He also places a number of barricades which are impassable by the Mutants. These can be placed anywhere on the board, so their placement will vary from game to game. The Mutant player then places his forces around the four sides of the Science Building, making sure that there is one Mutant Leader on each side.

A turn consists of six phases. In the first two phases, the Mutants move and attack. This will also mean that they have to smash down doors, requiring a die roll, the more Mutants involved, the greater the chance of success. If there are Mutants on both sides of a door, they can open it. Once a door has been smashed, the Mutants can freely back and forth through the doorway. In the second two phases, the Humans move and attack. Humans do not have to smash down doors, even if they are members of the ROTC. Movement for either side is one space only and Janibots cannot move unless accompanying a Human.

Combat, in both the Mutant Combat Phase and the Human Combat Phase is handled on the Combat Display on the other half of the board. In groups of five against five, the Humans and Mutants face off against each other, their respective players rolling a die simultaneously, trying roll equal to, or less then, their respective Combat Values. If they do, their opponent is eliminated. Although the Humans and Mutant Leaders have higher chances of defeating their opponents, lucky rolls can lead to both sides killing each other! Combat continues until one side defeats the other in a location, and involves a lot of dice rolls and thus a lot of luck.

The final phase is the ‘Glow and Go’ phase. For each red or Radioactive Mutants in play, the Mutant player rolls a single die. If a six is rolled, the Radioactive Mutant succumbs to the effects of his radiation sickness and dies. His counter is removed from the game.

Play continues until the end of turn ten. To win a decisive victory, the Human player must have one Tech and three Human Guards in the Tech Room at the end of the game. If he has at least two Humans—Guards or Techs in the Tech Room, it is a Marginal Victory. Similarly, to win a decisive victory, the Mutant player must one Mutant Leader and three other Mutants in the Tech Room at the end of the game. If he has at least two Mutants, of any type—Leader, Radioactive, or Ordinary, it is a Marginal Victory. Anything else is a draw.

In addition to the basic rules, Attack of the Mutants! includes options for adjusting the balance between the Humans and the Mutants, facing Overwhelming odds, Humans and Mutants running away because of the latter, and adding hidden movement. This hidden movement is done on a separate and reduced game board, repeated in black and white rather than colour, and on the reverse of that is an alternate scenario where the Mutants have come from another world and are escaping into ours via the newly opened gate. Can the world be saved from this invasion from a doomed world? The sheet also includes some developer’s notes which provide more background about the Science Building and the Humans defending it.

Physically, Attack of the Mutants! is decently done. The cover of the album is brilliantly gaudy pastiche of the schlocky Sci-Fi horror ‘B’ movies and cheap paperbacks the game is inspired by, and the game board is clear and simple to see and play on. However, it does get a little cramped with all of the counters in play and then the constant movement of them from the main board to the Combat display and back again needs to be done carefully so as not to shift counters already there. It is accompanied by Robert Crumb-like cartoon illustrations that capture the horror and the desperation of the setting. The counters are also bright and easy to read, but the rules booklet and the developer’s notes are plain and unillustrated. However, they are easy to read and understand.

In addition, Yaquinto Publications published a second version of Attack of the Mutants! This was a simplified version that came as a two-page cardboard folder and was designed as an introductory version, intended to, “…[I]ntroduce people to the general concept of Adventure Gaming.” This was packaged with orders from the publisher and was also available via Game Workshop mail order in the early nineteen eighties. This version would have been many a player’s first introduction to the concept of Album Games, and may well have spurred them to purchase a full copy of Attack of the Mutants!, and potentially, other titles in the line.

Attack of the Mutants! is a two-player wargame, a tower defence style game long before there were such things. It is intended as an introductory level game, easy to learn, and providing a decent degree of playability and challenge, but little in terms of the type of simulation which might be found in a more traditional type of wargame. It is also designed to be fun for players new to the hobby and for those who have some experience of it. The introductory level means basic movement and combat, the latter involving a lot of dice rolls, but the results can often be wild and chaotic, which would fit the game’s theme. It also means that there is little in the way of tactics or planning as the two opposing sides clash again and again, although if he can, the Human player might want to target the Mutant Leaders as that would prevent a decisive victory for the Mutant player. Conversely, the Mutant player just needs to kill Humans, and if he can get to the Tech Room, kill one Tech to prevent a decisive victory for the Human player. All of which not only makes it sound bad, but also makes it sound bad because it is an old design. Nothing could be further from the truth, because forty years on and Attack of the Mutants! is easily comparable with a game like Zombies!!!, and if you were comparing the two, Attack of the Mutants! is more focused, has a shorter playing time, and is self-contained. Remake Attack of the Mutants! today as Attack of the Zombies! and would anyone raise an eyebrow?

Attack of the Mutants! is simple in its design, but it is intended to be an introductory board game. It is also chaotic, but that fits the theme of the last few Humans holding off the hordes of Mutants, making a last desperate stand with a Janibot by their side or scrambling to get back to the Tech Room and through the gate just in time to escape. As the game progresses and the Humans and Mutants fight, their stories can emerge in play and they become just a bit more than counters with names on, all helping us to engage with the theme of Attack of the Mutants! And what a gloriously cheesy theme that is—rampaging Mutants, stalwart heroes with jaws made of granite, a heroine ready to scream at the right moment, and mankind’s last stand!

Attack of the Mutants! not only succeeds as a fun way to introduce people to the general concept of adventure gaming, but as a very light, highly thematic game full of glorious clichés and fifties ‘B’-movie bravado. Ameritrash it might be, but by god, it’s American Ameritrash!

Image sources include David Whitman and Wikipedia.

If you’re in a need for green, the last open house of autumn is coming up on Saturday, from noon until 5:00 pm. Better get scooting, though: this will be the last open house until the Nightmare Weekends Before Christmas … Continue reading →

Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.

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For Free RPG Day 2021, Modiphius Entertainment released not one, but three titles, two for existing roleplaying games, one for a forthcoming title. The one for the forthcoming roleplaying game is the Achtung! Cthulhu Quick-Start (reviewed here) for Achtung! Cthulhu. The first for the existing roleplaying game is the Star Trek: Adventures Quick-Start (reviewed here), an introduction to Star Trek Adventures, whilst the second is Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide for Dune: Adventures in the Imperium. As with other quick-starts, it provides an explanation of the rules, a complete adventure, and six ready-to-play Player Characters. All of which comes in a full colour in the sandy shades of Arrakis punctuated by the colours of the sample Player Characters.

A Player Character in Dune: Adventures in the Imperium is defined by Skills, Focuses, Drives, Traits, Complications, and Assets. The five Skills are Battle, Communicate, Discipline, Move, and Understand, whilst the five Drives are Duty, Faith, Justice, Power, and Truth—both of which are rated between four and eight. Focuses represent skill specialisations, such as Deductive Reasoning for Understand or Dirty Fighting for Battle. Traits can be Talents, which make a test possible or make it harder or easier depending upon its nature. So the Bene Gesserit Talent of Hyperawareness grants a Bene Gesserit Sister the ability to ask two questions rather than one when spending Momentum to Obtain Information, whereas the Bold Talent can be selected by anyone and when used with the Battle skill, the player can additional twenty-sided dice by generating Threat for the Game Master to use, the player can reroll one of the dice in the pool. Assets include equipment, contacts, and so on, for example, a personal shield or someone in a criminal gang on Arrakis. Although the six ready-to-play Player Characters in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide have Statements attached to their Drives, the explanation for these and how they work is saved for the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium core rules. Lastly, each Player Character begins play with a point of Determination, which can be spent to ensure that one die rolled for an action is considered to be a one and thus a critical result.

Dune: Adventures in the Imperium employs the 2d20 System first used in the publisher’s Mutant Chronicles: Techno Fantasy Roleplaying Game and Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of , and since developed into the publisher’s house system. To undertake an action, a character’s player rolls two twenty-sided dice, aiming to have both roll under the total of a Skill and a Drive. Each roll under this total counts as a success, an average task requiring two successes. Rolls of one count as two successes and if a character has an appropriate Focus, rolls under the value of the Skill also count as two successes.

In the main, because a typical difficulty will only be a Target Number of one, players will find themselves rolling excess Successes which becomes Momentum. This is a resource shared between all of the players which can be spent to create an Opportunity and so add more dice to a roll—typically needed because more than two successes are required to succeed, to create an advantage in a situation or remove a complication, create a problem for the opposition, and to obtain information. It is a finite ever-decreasing resource, so the players need to roll well and keep generating it, especially if they want to save for the big scene or climatic battle in an adventure.

Now where the players generate Momentum to spend on their characters, the Game Master has Threat which can be spent on similar things for the NPCs as well as to trigger their special abilities. She begins each session with a pool of Threat, but can gain more through various circumstances. These include a player purchasing extra dice to roll on a test, a player rolling a natural twenty and so adding two Threat (instead of the usual Complication), the situation itself being threatening, or NPCs rolling well and generating Momentum and so adding that to Threat pool. In return, the Gamemaster can spend it on minor inconveniences, complications, and serious complications to inflict upon the player characters, as well as triggering NPC special abilities, having NPCs seize the initiative, and bringing the environment dramatically into play.

Combat uses the same mechanics, but offers more options in terms of what Momentum can be spent on. This includes creating a Trait or an Asset, either of which can then be brought into the combat, and keeping the initiative—initiative works by alternating between the player characters and the NPCs and keeping it allows two player characters to act before an NPC does. Where Dune: Adventures in the Imperium differs from other 2d20 System roleplaying games is the lack of Challenge dice, and instead of inflicting damage directly via the loss of Hit Points, combatants are trying to defeat each through the removal of Assets and attempting to create—cumulatively—Successes equal to or greater than the Quality of the task or the opponent. Minor NPCs or situations are easily overcome, but difficult situations and major NPCs will be more challenging to defeat and will require extended tests.

The system is intended to cover the various types of situations which can occur in a story in Dune: Adventures in the Imperium. So, individual duels, skirmishes and open battles, espionage, and social intrigue. However, this is not well explained in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide—or at least not well explained enough for somebody who has not roleplayed to grasp with any great ease. Anyone with more experience will see that the iteration of the 2d20 System presented here has shifted into more of a narrative, storytelling style of play, where the aim is not necessarily to kill an opponent, but defeat them, and thus make that adjustment. Anyone with that experience may have more difficulty doing so, and an example or two of how the combat system works would have not gone amiss.

Overall, the iteration of the 2d20 System in theDune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide and Dune: Adventures in the Imperium lies at the simpler and easier end of its implementation. It is not as simple as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars: Adventures on the Dying World of Barsoom , but is roughly on a par with Star Trek Adventures.

‘Wormsign’ is the given scenario in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide. It can be run using the same cast as the core rules—they are given as the pre-generated Player Characters here in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide—or with those of the players’ own creation using the core rules. This means that it can be run as a sequel to the scenario core rules or as a standalone or beginning scenario. The Player Characters—a Mentat, a Criminal, a Servant (Spy), Bene Gesserit Novice, Swordmaster Apprentice, and Reformed Spice Smuggler—are all intended to be in service with one of the houses. The default is House Atreides, but it could be another house awarded a spicemining contract if the campaign involves one of the players’ and Game Master’s creation. It should not be House Harkonnen, or an affiliated house.

Consisting of six scenes, ‘Wormsign’ sees the Player Characters sent out over the Shield Wall on Arrakis into the desert to investigate the activities of a group of spice smugglers. When they discover their operation it is relatively small and the Player Characters have choice as to what to do—destroy it, arrest the smugglers, co-opt them into their house’s own operation, or cultivate them as contacts, but this opportunity does not last long, when the forces of a rival house intervene and attack. Then if that is not challenging enough, ‘Wormsign’ ups the ante with a wormsign and the incoming movement of a worm! The scenario becomes a fight for survival and if the Player Characters do survive and act with any degree of probity, they may come away with further potential allies.

Now this all feels in keeping with a story set on Arrakis, but ‘Wormsign’ manages to be both challenging and unsatisfying… The Player Characters are faced with some fierce choices. Go one way—in fact, go more than one way—and the likelihood is that they will end up dead, and there is little in the way of warnings as the possible actions. In the final scenes, they have the opportunity to interact with Fremen, and only one means of doing so is provided. To the point where no stats are provided for the Fremen and the Game Master is told that they will avoid any kind of physical conflict. In the event that they even fail at this, the Player Characters fail at this, they have another struggle to survive, which the Game Master will need to develop. Ideally, the Player Characters should survive the scenario, make contacts with both the spice smugglers and the Fremen, and get back to Arrakeen. However, this is not all that interesting by itself and very much feels like the middle part of a campaign or the first half of a scenario, as if there is a second part to come.

The Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide is not quite the introduction to Dune: Adventures in the Imperium and roleplaying on Arrakis that it deserves to be. In the hands of an experienced Game Master, there is a reasonable scenario and adventure to be had from the pages of Dune: Adventures in the Imperium Wormsign Quick-start Guide, but for anyone with less experience or who lacks access to the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium full rules, the combination of underwritten—or at least under explained—conflict rules and the underwhelming nature of the scenario means that running the quick-start will be much more of a challenge.

Edited to add:  Here are all the parts to this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
I am ending my week (or so) with Chromatic Dungeons today. It has been a real treat going through this game.  There is a feeling here of the first time I went through the AD&D 1st Ed Player's Handbook in terms of the potential I feel for my games.  There are some really great ideas here I plan to use, either running a CD game or adopting them for my other Old-School games.

Ancestry & Heritage

Along with such products such as Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e from Arcanist Press and the new material in Pathfinder 2e, this is the way all games are going to move towards. I could go into the racist history of why "race" was originally used starting with examples from the Victorian age and moving on to practices in educational and biological "research" but the truth is the people that are least likely to change are also the most likely to ignore all of that. So what's the point.  I don't teach fish to read and I don't try to talk to people who have their minds made up.  I am convinced that we will see this in D&D 5.5/5r and it will soon migrate to other, even old-school, games.

I am likely to give it a try in my OSE-Advanced games. I would likely tweak it a bit more to fit my needs a little better.

No Alignments for Sentient Humanoids

Again, this is a sea-change in many games.  I have no issues with it at all.  I have had good orcs for years, and a lot of mostly neutral ones, and scores of completely evil ones.  Yes, yes, insert Tolkien arguments here...BUT as much as I adore the Professor and his works, he is not my DM.  Neither is Gygax, or Arneson, nor any others.  I get to decide what my world does or does not do.  Goblins are already all over the place in regards to alignment for me, I am even getting to a place where Drow might not all be evil. Yes the vast, vast majority of them are demon-worshiping sadists. But not all of them.  Interestingly enough, the one humanoid I have always seen as Always Evil are Gnolls.  Something the Gnoll Sage line rejects. 

Again there are things going on here that are just on paper that I have been doing (and posting about here) forever.

Which Witch to Use?

This is my blog so I want to talk about which witch I would use with this RPG.  Design-wise Chromatic Dungeons can be used with just about every or any version of D&D or clones thereof.  So by that logic, any of my witch books should work fine.  But some work better than others, to be honest.

Given when my Chromatic Dungeons books came in the mail I also got my new Pumpkin Spice Witch mini with some Candy Corn Dice.   So I have always felt that my Pumpkin Spice Witch book for Advanced Labyrinth Lord would be perfect.

Rule wise the Classical Witch or Amazon Witch is a better choice. But in any case, if you are playing CD then use the XP values in the CD books and the powers from whichever book you choose.

Personally, I like the idea of Fleabag coming into a "Home, Hearth & Heart" and having a conversation with Becky my Pumpkin Spice Witch.  She would offer them a PSL (though I see Fleabag more as an herbal tea drinker) and go on about their fur ("It looks so soft! Do you use conditioner? We have one here that I LOVE, it's on the house! Wait, you are not allergic to lavender are you?") and have a nice conversation about witches in the world.

In true Chromatic Dungeons fashion though I think there should be a coven with a witch from every Tradition I have represented.  So Pumpkin Spice, White, Green, Classical, Amazon, Mara, Aiséiligh, Winter, Faerie, Aquarian, Maleficia, Hedge, and Pagan.  That would be a lot of fun.  Not sure how they would all get along though.  Chromatic coven to be sure.

Now in its fourteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2021, after a little delay due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, took place on Saturday, 16th October. As per usual, it came with an array of new and interesting little releases, which traditionally would have been tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Of course, in 2021, Free RPG Day took place after GenCon despite it also taking place later than its traditional start of August dates, but Reviews from R’lyeh was able to gain access to the titles released on the day due to a friendly local gaming shop and both Keith Mageau and David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3 in together sourcing and providing copies of the Free RPG Day 2020 titles. Reviews from R’lyeh would like to thank all three for their help.

—oOo—
How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber is perhaps the most different—or at least most singular—of the releases for Free RPG Day in 2021. It is not a quick-start or a scenario for a roleplaying game, but a set of instructions booklet on how to build and paint a piece of terrain which can be added to a dungeon and provide space in which the brave heroes can confront its big boss. This is the final chamber in a dungeon, the site for a showdown between the adventurers the villain and his acolytes, filled with treasure, loots, and possibly secrets. Designed and written by Dave Taylor Miniatures, it shows a Game Master—or of course, a Dungeon Master—how to use a combination of using the Gamemaster Dungeons and Caverns Set from The Army Painter and Mantic Games’ Dungeon Treasure Terrain Crate.

Although it is clear that you get a lot in the Gamemaster Dungeons and Caverns Set—lots of XPS Foam with which to build the terrain and the tools to prepare it, including knife, glue, hot wire cutter, and so on—How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber does not show this. There are lots of photographs though, which illustrates the various steps that the author takes in building the scene. This includes preparing it, such as scoring the floor with a one-inch grid to mark out stone flagstones and even adding a little variation to floor by using a metal ruler to press down in the corners of some of the squares. The walls of the chamber look to be more complex to build, but the instructions are clear enough and there is plenty of detail in the photographs. Then how to paint the terrain and the treasure piles and the other treasure pieces are all given a similar treatment.

However, all of this advice and guidance is not quite written from a beginner’s point of view. As much as it says that it introduces the prospective builder to “[S]ome basic building painting approaches – including techniques like washing and drybrushing…” it really does not quite do that. Rather, it explains that the author used them, but does not explain what they are. So it is not quite introductory enough, which means that the reader will need to do a little research beyond the pages of How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber. Fortunately, finding this information out should not be difficult, whether on a website or on YouTube. The prospective builder should be aware that she needs to do so though.

The penultimate two pages are devoted to ideas as to how to use the end result of following the instructions in How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber and bring it into a campaign. There are three hooks suggested. In the first, ‘Lair of the Minotaur’, the brave adventurers must confront Gharus Vilehoof, a canny Minotaur who has been luring adventurers into his lair in the service of his master, Baphomet and keeping their treasure, whilst in the second, ‘The Summoning’, the chamber is home to a great portal that the sorcerer Illikar is attempting to open and so bring his long-banished people back from their exile. This would result in a new era of darkness and so the adventurers must rush to thwart the ritual. The third, ‘Eternal Slumber’, is the longest of the three and sees the adventurers rush into the depths of a former Dwarven stronghold which has been long been occupied by hordes of Goblins and their Fomorian masters. The stronghold has a secret though, the Rune Chamber of Vaul contains the former Dwarven Runelords and their artefacts held in stasis—and the magic behind is weakening. Can the adventurers hold off the Goblin hordes long enough to save the Dwarves from the past?

These hooks get better as you read along. ‘Lair of the Minotaur’ amounts to no more than a room description and encounter rather than a hook, and whilst there is a hook in ‘The Summoning’, it is adequate at best. Fortunately, ‘Eternal Slumber’ makes up for the underwhelming nature of the first and there is plenty here for the prospective Game Master to get her teeth into. In fact, there is a whole dungeon, or rather a former Dwarven stronghold, for her to design to fit this final boss chamber. Perhaps if the illustration at the top of the page containing ‘Lair of the Minotaur’ and ‘The Summoning’ the author would have had more room to give them the development they so need.

The hooks are followed by descriptions the treasures to be found in the various versions of the final boss-fight chamber. These include the Axe of Gharus, wielded by the Minotaur Gharus Vilehoof, possessed by a demon servant of Baphomet that whispers to its wielder to fulfils its master’s goals and drips blood that infects wounds and the Seven Stones of Cinderac, ioun stones created by an ancient wyrm that contain the secrets of the universe… So a little like Stormbringer in the case of the first and Marvel Universe’s Infinity Stones in the case of the latter, but of course, the Game Master to free to design the items however she wants to fit her game.

Physically, How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber is decently presented with lots of photographs as illustrations. It is perhaps a little underwritten in places, both the instructions and the hooks.

Of all the releases on Free RPG Day 2021, How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber is the least useful—at least in the short term. It will take time for the Game Master to bring any of the contents to the table. Most obviously because she will need to have access to the Gamemaster Dungeons and Caverns Set and the Dungeon Treasure Terrain Crate, and then build the terrain, and then prepare the scenario in which to set the final boss-fight. In comparison, most of the other titles released are quick-starts and scenarios and so can be brought to the much more immediately. And of course, because How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber is designed to make use of the Gamemaster Dungeons and Caverns Set and the Dungeon Treasure Terrain Crate, it is also very much obviously designed to sell both them and other terrain sets. The other releases are similarly designed to do that too, so that is no criticism, but with How to Build a Boss-Fight Final Chamber, it is more obvious.

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Edited to add:  Here are all the parts to this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Heading into the last of my three-part series on Izegrim Creations' Chromatic Dungeons game.  Today I want to review the first 5 issues of their Zine-like publication The Gnoll Sage.  What it adds to Chromatic Dungeons and what you can get out of these even if you are not a Chromatic Dungeons player.

The Gnoll Sage

For this review, I am considering the PDFs from DriveThruRPG as well as the printed, digest-sized, soft-covers I received via Kickstarter.

Each book is 24 or so pages with Issue #5 coming in at 42 pages.  Color covers and black and white interiors. Each one is released under the OGL so a couple of pages go to the license statement.

On the surface, there is a strong influence from Dragon magazine, but not in the way say Gygax magazine tried to do.  The influence here is easily one of someone that had read and grown up on Dragon and wanted to recreate the feeling rather than the actual layout.  It serves The Gnoll Sage (TGS) well.  

The unifying thread through all these issues is the involvement of "Fleabag" the eponymous Gnoll Sage.  Not Phoebe Waller-Bridge (but that would be hilarious) but an intelligent, erudite, be-spectacled, and maybe a bit of a pacifist, Gnoll who presents topics from the issue/zine from their point of view.  I personally rather like it.  It fits well into the idea that no humanoid race in Chromatic Dungeons has a default alignment.  The funny part, for me at any rate, is I have often agreed with this idea on my blog EXCEPT for Gnolls.  Maybe I'll give Fleabag a try anyway.

Each zine has a main feature, usually depicted on the cover, and other details like some magic items, equipment, spells, and so on.  There is a comic section reminiscent of "Dragon Mirth" as well.  There is an editorial in each issue talking about the issue and what might be coming next. 

The material presented in each issue is overtly for the Chromatic Dungeons game, but it is all written in such a way, with extra notes when needed, that it can be used with just about any 80s or 90s versions of *D&D or any clone that emulates them.  In particular, I felt they would be very handy to use with B/X D&D or Old-School Essentials. 

The Gnoll Sage #1

The first issue details the Mrav Covjecka, a group of insectoid/humanoid hybrids that need humanoid blood to nurse their brood. We get an "Ecology of" article as told to us by Fleabag. A monster statblock that can be used by any d20 based game including D&D 5. 

There is also a brief adventure featuring the new monsters.  There is the humor section, some new magic items, some NPCs you can meet, a section of new spells and upcoming topics in future books. 

There is also the OGL statement at the end.

The Gnoll Sage #2

In this second issue we are given the Animist class which is designed to replace classes like "the Witch doctor" or Shaman or even "Spirit Guide."  This is a good thing since the term Animist encapsulates all of these ideas. It is a divine spellcaster in Chromatic Dungeons terms, but can easily be ported over to any other D&D/Clone.  It could also be tweaked and added to D&D 5 if you like.  The class and all it's powers take up 18 of the zine's 28 pages.  I have not played it yet but it looks pretty solid.

The remainder of the book is given over to humor, the look forward, and a copy of the OGL.

The Gnoll Sage #3

The third issue of The Gnoll Sage gives us the ecology of a monster introduced in the Chromatic Dungeons hardcover, the Mushropod. In the Ecology Of article, we get more details from our Gnoll on the Scene, Fleabag as they let us know what they have uncovered about the sentient mushrooms.  Again the stat block reminds me of a 5e one, but everything here lends itself well to use of any 20th century D&D or clone.

There is a very brief adventure featuring these guys, some humor, three new magic items, some new NPCs, and a new spell. We end with the State of the Business note from Waibel where he mentions his Rise of Authur project.  If you follow him at all online now (late Fall 2021) you have seen the characters he has been working on. 

The Gnoll Sage #4

Now here is one I was quite excited for.  This issue introduces us to the Psionist class for Chromatic Dungeons or any other clone.  We start with some fluff with Fleabag and the aftermath of the Mushropod attack from the last issue. Fleabag describes a unique "spellcaster" they had met who what not a spellcaster at all. We then get into the class proper.  Now I am very particular about my psychic and psionic using classes. Even to the point where I have a preferred term (it's "psychic" btw) and I need them to be very different than my spell-using classes. Also if their powers can be built up over time with disciplines, then all the better.  This class satisfies two of those three. The class is flexible to use just about anywhere and easy to introduce. In fact, with the most minor of tweaks, a 5th Edition class can be found here. The psionist can choose one of three disciplines; Psychometabolism, Telekinesis, and Telepathy.  There are powers with each one and they grow as the character levels up. 

We also get an ersatz Mind Flayer in the Mind Eater and some comics.  In the State of the Business, we learn this was the last issue of the original four set, with issue #5 coming as a stretch goal.

The Gnoll Sage #5

This issue is the last of the Kickstarter issues and also the largest so far at 42 pages.  This issue covers the Ecology of the Orc and sets out to challenge our notions, or at least stereotypes of orcs.  This is introduced in the starting fiction with Fleabag challenging the party to think about what sorts of orcs they might be dealing with.  What follows is a very long Ecology Of and details of seven very different Orc clans.  

In the Ecology Of we learn the basic structure of an orc clan including numbers, leadership, and organization.  What follows are descriptions of seven example clans.  They are, briefly: Small Clans are the various orc clans represented in pretty much all other RPGs.  The Iron Shield Clan, a group of orcs more interested in making weapons, and selling them, than using them. Yellow Fang, a group of plains orcs that wear the skins of their enemies as clothing. Chaka Plains orcs are not pacifists per see, but understand the value of life and death and respect it. Meet them peacefully and you will be respected, meet them with violence and they will happily escort you to your next life. There are the sea-faring orc pirates and privateers of the Red Sails, but they only attack the wealthiest of ships.  There are the imperialistic and arrogant orcs of the Baildan Daguulalt (Empire) that combine the best, and worst, characteristics of Imperialisy Britain and the Roman Empire. They are brilliant and utterly convinced of their own superiority, in fact they made the cover.  Finally the orcs of the Silver Glacier might be the most dangerous of all these clans. 

That is a lot! There are still a couple of magic items, some comics, new spells, and some hints about the next issue and a new class The Commander.

Each issue runs for $5.00 for the PDF and $6.00 for the print or print/PDF combination. 

Their digest size makes me think they will fit in well with the newest versions of Old-School Essentials or Swords & Wizardry. So even if you don't play the Chromatic Dungeons game, these are still great resources.

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Today I want to cover the big game in the Chromatic Dungeons line.  I call it the "Advanced" game, but the name on the cover is just Chromatic Dungeons RPG.

Note.  I do want to point out that nowhere in the game nor in any online conversation has Roderic Waibel or Izegrim Creations called these rules "Advanced."  This is just what I am calling them to differentiate them from the Basic Rules.

Again for this review, I am considering the hardcover I got as a Kickstarter Backer and the PDF from DriveThruRPG.

Note 2: I'll make allusions to the Basic game here.  This is only to describe how these rules go above and beyond the basic rules.  At no point in these rules did I see something that had you refer to the Basic rules for more details.  This rulebook is complete on its own.

Chromatic Dungeons RPG

330 pages, hardcover, color cover art, black & white interior art.

If the Basic Game was meant to invoke feelings of the 1981 Moldvay Basic set then this book is clearly influenced by the earlier AD&D 1st Edition core rules. It is a hardcover for starters, larger, and provides more details for playing a CD game.

The rules are largely in line with and much more compatible with each other than say Basic D&D was to AD&D.  This is one of the biggest reasons I was excited about this particular game.  Back in the day we played D&D and AD&D interchangeably and tried to deal with the rule contradictions the very best we could.  Here those contradictions do not exist except in the way that specific rules override general ones.  Characters are more detailed, as are spells, monsters, and a host of other options, but never in a way they feel contradictory to the Basic Rules.  Characters can move fairly freely between the games. 

Ability Scores are chosen the same way 4d6 and drop the lowest.  Here the general modifiers of the Basic game give way to specific ones for each ability and subscores, ie. to hit and damage adjustment for Strength, number of spells for Intelligence, followers for Charisma, and so on.  Ability Checks are handled in the same fashion.  Scores still cap at 18 for rolls or 20 with bonuses, but the charts go to 25 for the use of exceptional characters and monsters.

Ancestry covers what species you were born into. Dwarves come in Hill, Mountain, and Deep varieties. Elves can be High, Wood, or Deep. Humans and Halflings are back and joined by Gnomes.  A table of alternate Ancestries is also given so you could play Gnolls, Centaurs, Orcs, or Goblins to name but a few.  The system is simple enough that almost any sort of ancestry can be used.    

Heritage, like the Basic game, covers the character's upbringing. This chart is the same as the Basic game, but expanded with more types.  

Character Classes.  This is the first of the really big changes. Where the Basic game has only three basic character types, this one has four major class groups with many sub-classes underneath.  The feeling is that of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea or AD&D 2nd Edition to be honest, with maybe just a touch of 5th Edition D&D.  Each group shares an advancement table for HD calculations and to hit bonus along with a shared Saving Throw table.  All groups share the same single XP per level table as per D&D 3rd through 5th Editions.

The first group is the Divine, which gives us Clerics and Druids. Divine Spellcasters are limited to 7th level spells.  Warriors include the fighter, berserker, ranger, and paladin.  Rogues are the most diverse lot with thieves, assassins, bards, and monks.  Magic-users are arcane spellcasters and they get spells to 9th level.  They include the Wizard and the Sorcerer which is a spell-point-based spell caster. Like the sorcerers of 3rd to 5th edition, they have a bloodline and some examples are detailed.

Multiclassing and Alignment are the same here as the Basic game.  The unified XP chart makes multiclassing easier. Alignment is a three-point system of Law-Neutrality-Chaos. 

Equipment is next. Very similar but expanded over the Basic game. 

Spells is the next largest section of the book and also one of the three that gets the most changes.  Spells are split out into classes with the Divine first (Cleric then Druid) then all the Arcane spells. The spells are all listed out alphabetically.  Included now are staples like Area of Effect, Components, casting time, and saving throws. Each spell also has a school listed. 

How to Play covers the game. This is roughly similar to the Basic Game, but it is expanded.  Saving Throws are now added to the game. They are an interesting remix of Basic/AD&D and D&D3 style saves.  More on traps, diseases, and hirelings are covered here. 

Combat gets its own section.  Here initiative is back to a d20 (not the d10 of the Basic game). 

The Campaign deals with adventures, granting XP and what kinds of monsters can be found where. It ends with a sample play session.

The Bestiary is the last of the three big changes. Not only are all the monsters expanded on, but there are also more of them.  The monsters are still sorted by categories or groups, but now there are more. There are Beasts, Demons, Devils, Dinosaurs, Dragons, Elementals, Fey, Giants, Golems, Humanoids, Lycanthropes, Monstrosities, Oozes, and Undead. The stat blocks are expanded to give average scores for Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma. Special Attacks. Special Defenses and Magic Resistance are all now included. 

As with the Basic game, many monsters do not have an alignment. Or rather their alignment is listed as n/a.  In the case of animals (Beasts and Dinosaurs), it is because they lack intelligence or awareness. Others like humanoids it is because the Game Master can choose what they want.  Notably, all Demons and Devils are Chaotic, Dragons are split between Lawful and Chaotic along the lines you think they are, Elementals are now properly Neutral, and Fey runs the spectrum.  We get the usual suspects here, nothing jumping out at me as new save for the Mi-Go (not new, but not usual) and the mushropod (sorta new, but certainly NOT usual). 

The Treasure section is also expanded. Included new are Sentient Weapons and rarity tables. There is a new section on crafting items including an ingredient listing with measures of rarity. 

We end with appendices of tables, blank character sheets, indexes, and our OGL statement. 

The PDF is fully bookmarked.

Like the Basic books, this book is filled with evocative old-school style art.  Some of it is from various stock art artists the Old-School community knows, but a good deal is original and new art.  Much of it is clearly influenced by 40 years of playing.  The art goes beyond "Euro-centric" D&D art and a variety of ethnicities, genders, and peoples are represented. 

Again like the Basic books this is really directed at and written for people coming into the Old-School RPG scene anew. While there is a lot to enjoy here if you are an old Grog, and the art, in this case, is a particular treat, the audience that will get the most out of this are a generation younger.  If you still have your original D&D books from the 1970s and 80s you will still find enjoyment here. Especially if you are like me and enjoy seeing the design choices of "D&D's Greatest Hits" here.

The book "feels" like AD&D 1st Ed. Or maybe it is a 2nd Edition clone if that game had been produced later.

Because of how it is built it also feels like nearly anything can be used with it from nearly any area of D&D's history.   

Who Should Buy This?

I said this yesterday about the Basic Chromatic Dungeons game, and it is true for this version as well. This game is a great game to introduce new players, new to RPGs or new to Old-School style games, to the ways of playing of the 1980s.  Sure it is not exactly how we did it, but it is a great compromise between Old and New school.  Finally, someone has made a "Basic" game that works great as an introduction to an "Advanced" game and one that works well enough on its own.  Yes, yes there is Old-School Essentials and Labyrinth Lord that have both Basic and Advanced options, but Chromatic Dungeons' Basic game is truly that, an introductory game, "Basic" and "basic" at the same time and it is the perfect introduction to this "Advanced" game. 

If you are like me and grew up on old-school games and now have a family that loves the newest version of the game then this is a good way to introduce them to old-school play.  OR if you are new school player and want to try your hand at some old school play, but want to retain some of the options that make the new games so attractive, then this is a great game for you.   

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I am posting this as part of this month's RPG Blog Carnival on Indie Games hosted by The Rat Hole.

So yes this book wasn’t published by TSR but I decided to read it and include it in this list because it was featured in The Dragon magazine and mainly because it’s considered the first ever D&D novel. This is a long time before the first DragonLance book!

Sometimes D&D books have the accusation levelled at them that you can hear the dice rolling in the background. In this one, that’s not the case. Instead you can literally hear the dice rolling in the foreground because all the main characters have bracelets with dice that occasionally spin whenever there’s something crucial happening.

The plot is so so. Real gamers in our world drawn into the fantasy world yadda yadda.

The main thing is… it’s just kind of boring. It felt very plodding. Even when there were fights it was boring. I guess I just didn’t like the writing style. The descriptions didn’t evoke very strong pictures in my mind.

Of course, the book’s main draw is as a portal into the then unknown world of Greyhawk. We get to visit the Sea of Dust and hear of other places that would later become known to us. There’s one interesting reference to the Temple of the Frog from Blackmoor, funnily enough because the player in the real world (in the novel) has played the scenario.

Ultimately the worst crime is that the story is frustratingly pointless.

I don’t regret reading it but I gave this 2 stars on Goodreads as a warning to anyone else wanting to go on this drab quest.

And don’t get too excited about the prospect of some sort of castle adventure – the damn Quag Keep doesn’t appear till about the last 10 pages! (No, that’s not a spoiler, it’s just making you aware of the false advertising in the title.)

Date Information

A preview was in Dragon 12 (February). It gets a mention in Dragon 15 (June). Copyright date of publication is March 10, 1978, so March it is.

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The craziness that  is October is behind me now, time to settle in and read some books and do some reviews.  I have been planning to do this one now for some time and this feels like the best time for me.

For the next few days I am going to review the new Old-School Game on the block, Chromatic Dungeons from Roderic Waibel and Izegrim Creations.  Waibel ran a very successful Kickstarter for this over the Summer and the physical books and PDFs have been in my hands since the very start of Fall. I am happy to report I am very pleased with what I have received. I interviewed Waibel back when his Kickstarter was live so you can get an idea of the goals of Chromatic Dungeons.   I'll refer back to that to see how well his stated goals were met for me.

Let me begin with noting that that there three distinct reviews I am doing here this week.  The first covers the "Basic Rules" made up of Player's Book and a Monsters & Treasures book.  The "advanced" or full game of Chromatic Dungeons will be tomorrow. Finally a zine-like product, The Gnoll Sage, will be after that.

Chromatic Dungeons, Basic Rules

Basic Rules, Player's Book. 86 pages, soft-cover, color cover art, black & white interior art.
Basic Rules, Monsters & Treasures. 58 pages, soft-cover, color cover art, black & white interior art.

For this review I am considering the two soft-cover Basic Rules books and PDFs.  

The Basic Rules of Chromatic Dungeons consists of two books a Players Book and a Monsters & Treasures book.  The material for the Game Masters is split between the two books.  Players only need the Player's book, but the GM will need both.  Considering the prices of the books this is not a problem.

The guiding principle for Chromatic Dungeons is to provide an old-school ruleset, say circa 1981, but still have some new school sensibilities.  Because of this it does not make much sense to call Chromatic Dungeons a "retro clone."  It is an old school game yes, but the rules inside are an interesting mix of old and new school mechanics.  I will point these out as I move through the text but to put the major selling point up front, this is the game you are likely to have the most success with when introducing old school play to newer players.  I will detail more (and a few more times) as we progress.

The Basic Rules are designed to introduce new players to the CD game.  It has a lot in common with it's progenitor game, Dungeons & Dragons, in particular the 1981 Moldvay Basic set.  It is written for people that have never played before.  This is still a good thing since one of the goals I believe of this game IS to introduce new players to old-school gaming.  

Basic Rules, Player's Book

We get an Introduction and Forward that helps explain the nature of this game, but also to set the stage for what we will see. The author wants to make it plain up front that this is an inclusive game and that everyone should feel welcome to it.  This includes a brief overview of the game and a brief glosary of game terms to get everyone going.

Character Creation is first with the character concept and the rolling of ability scores.  The method used here is 4d6, drop the lowest and arrange to suit your concept. This strikes a good balance between getting the character you want and old-school randomness. Want 3d6 in order? That game was already written and likely you already have it.  After this you choose your Ancestry (and Heritage), Class and get equipment.  Lets go into some detail here.

XP per Level is covered first. Each class uses the same XP value much like you see in 21st century D&D games (3rd Edition and beyond).  This has a number of advantages of course.  Multi-classing becomes easier and it helps keep level progression fairly even.  Also it helps the intended audience, new gamers, become acclimated faster.  (Editorial aside: I have taught many players whose first experiences were 3e, Pathfinder or 5e and they adapt to differing XP level charts fine; often with an occasional reminder that the thief is higher level because of it. But still this is easier.)

Ability Scores are the standard six we are all familiar with.  Like the Moldvay Basic set the scores run 3-18 with simple modifiers they all share. Note. These mods are slightly different than what you might find in B/X, Labyrinth Lord, or Swords & Wizardry, so make sure you put them on your character sheet and don't go by memory.  A simple ability check system that is compatible with, well, really all sorts of versions of D&D/Clones is presented.

Note in this version of the Chromatic Dragons game there are no "Saving Throws" but rather specialized ability checks.  For example to "save" against some mind affecting magic you need to make a Wisdom check.  This actually works rather well in my mind.

Ancestry and Heritage is the system used to replace the antiquated notions of "Race."  Essentially this is a "Nature and Nurture" idea where Ancestry is your genetic or biologic make up and Heritage is how and under what conditions you were raised.   For ancestry you can choose Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, and Human. Each has details common to members of the same Ancestry. Dwarves are short, live to 300 years or so, and also something called "solid build" which gives them the ability to reduce damage by blunt object by 1 point. Humans get to add 1 point to any ability score, elves don't need to sleep and so on.  Heritages are how you you were raised.  So this helps give players a bit of character creation control to that backstory in their minds.  You choose two heritages and the list can easily expanded.  For example you can be born a halfling and have all the benefits of the halfling ancestry, but maybe you lived in a a Dwarf community, so you have the heritages of "Crafting" and "Subterranean."

This is a great concept and one I would wholesale adopt for all my games in the future. It just works too well for me. But I do have a couple of nitpicks with how it is done here.  First under Ancestry everyone gets a language of their ancestry.  This is something I feel better goes under Heritage.  And there are some heritages that are better suited for ancestry.  For example my Halfling who grew up in the Dwarven community knows how to speak Halfling due to their Ancestry and has Infravision due their "Subterranean" heritage.  I can see "Dark Adapted" working, or even the ability to detect sloping corridors; but infravision feels like something you should be born with and languages are something that are learned later.  Again, a minor nitpick, but one I will adjust when playing.

Character Classes cover the three basic classes; Fighter, Rogues, and Wizard.  Other 3-class games call these Warriors, Rogue (or Expert) and Adept, but the names in the book are more suited to this genre and make translations to the "Advanced" game easier.  Each class get an ability bonus, much like you see in newer games.  So fighters get a +1 bonus to Strength, Constitution, or Dexterity.  This can be easily rationalized as training. Each class also gets a set of abilities.  Note, the Rogue abilities are presented using the same system as all other ability checks.  They get bonuses for particular abilities; same name as the thief abilities of other games.  Each level they gain 6 points to improve their 9 abilities as they choose (reminds me of 2nd Ed AD&D's Rogues).  I do rather like this, yes it is different from the multiple subsystems that was either the curse or the charm of old-school games (depending on your point of view) but it also makes for a speedier game.  Wizards for this game cover wizards, magic-users and clerics.  Another small nitpick, since there is the Advanced game, I would have called this class a Magic-user, and then when the classes are separated out in the Advanced game called the Magic-users Wizards.  But again, this is minor.

Alignment is a basic, or rather Basic, affair of just Law, Neutrality and Chaos. 

Equipment covers everything you can buy.  I remember running some friend through the Keep on the Borderlands years decades ago and they spent the entire adventure shopping in the Keep and trying to get deals.

How to Play covers all the Basic rules starting with movement.  Movement scale is closer to that of newer, 21st century forms on D&D. We also get good coverage on time, vision, stealth and more.  Discussions on what you can do on your turn are detailed.  At this point we have read a little about about combat, but not all of it. That comes up now with initiative.  Here we are using a hybrid of Basic and 2nd Edition inspired initiative sequence.  We also get Morale another Basic/2nd Ed hybrid, but based on a max score of 10 as opposed to 12 (Basic) or 20 (2nd Ed). 

Armor class is Ascending, not Descending.  This is good since it gets rid of the need for attack tables. Characters have an attack bonus and they roll vs. AC. 

Experience Points are pretty much the same as seen in earlier versions of D&D.  A bit on creating adventures is given and a sample adventure is provided.

Wizard Spells follow.  Since there is only one spell casting class, all the spells to 5th level are here.

We end with a blank character sheet, Appendices of tables, sample characters and a combat quick guide.

Basic Rules, Monster & Treasure

This book is primarily for Game Masters.  

The bulk (2/3) of the book is about monsters.  It starts off with what the descriptions of the monsters mean, how to read the stat blocks and so on. The stat block is pretty similar to what is found in *D&D circa 1981, so reading or even adapting to other games is easy.  While XP values are listed Treasure type is not. 

There is a section on special monsters, such as having the abilities of a character type or class. As well as assigning numbers for ability checks for monsters.  Something that will be easier in the "Advanced" version of the game. 

The monsters are grouped by category rather than all alphabetical. The Categories are Beasts, Dinosaurs, Dragons, Elementals, Fey, Fiends, Giants, Humanoids, Lycanthropes, Monstrosities, and Undead. Nearly all the usual suspects are here. 

Some monsters are given the alignment of "n/a."  This is typically true of creatures that are too unintelligent for alignment such as dinosaurs, or humanoids that can be any alignment.  I do think for creatures like beasts, dinosaurs and elementals that "neutral" would have been fine and for humanoids "any" would have worked.  Fiends are all Chaotic and so are most of the Dragons, Giants, and Undead.  

The Treasure section covers not only magical treasures as expected, but gives us an alternate treasure type system based on the monster's HD.  So not dissimilar to 3e or 5e. 

Both Books

Both books are filled with evocative old-school style art.  Some of it from various stock art artists the Old-School community knows, but a good deal is original and new art.  Much of it clearly enfluenced by 40 years of playing.  The art goes beyond "Euro-centric" D&D art and variety of ethnicities, genders and peoples are represented. 

Both books are really directed and written for people coming into the Old-School RPG scene anew. While there is a lot to enjoy here if you are an old Grog, and the art in this case is a particular treat, the audience that will get the most out of this are a generation younger.  If you still have your original D&D books from the 1970s and 80s you will still find enjoyment here. Especially if you are like me and enjoy seeing the design choices of "D&D's Greatest Hits" here.

Both PDFs are fully bookmarked.  Both books are fully OGC.

This game is a great game to introduce new players, new to RPGs or new to Old-School style games, to the ways of playing of the 1980s.  Sure it is not exactly how we did it, but it is a great compromise between Old and New school.  This game is also the perfect introduction to the "Advanced" game of Chromatic Dungeons.  Finally, someone has made a "Basic" game that works great as an introduction to an "Advanced" game and one that works well enough on it's own.  Yes, yes there is Old-School Essentials and Labyrinth Lord that have both Basic and Advanced options, but Chromatic Dungeons' Basic game is truly that, an introductory game, "Basic" and "basic" at the same time.

Tomorrow I'll talk about the full Advanced game.