Returning to the Room #9 entrance, two other entrances are only visible when coming from this direction. The first is on the right.

The dwarven rune above the entryway proclaims this is the "Libary of the Dead."

There are several rune tablets here detailing the history of the clan and their wars with the Vampire Queen.  Only the first two wars are discussed here; they lost the third war.

There is 50,000 xp worth of knowledge here if the party had several days to read it all. They can't move the tablets out due to their weight. 

 It's Halloween, and of course, I am always looking to add more spooky games to my collection. If they are witch-themed, then all the better.  Today, I am reviewing the Last Sabbath RPG.  I featured the Kickstarter last year and received my books this past summer.  It is a gorgeous piece of work, but is it a good RPG? Let's find out.

Last Sabbath RPG

Design by Atropo Kelevra and Valentino Sergi. Art and illustrations by Loputyn (Jessica Cioffi). The game was based on Loputyn's artistic vision. Paperback, saddle stitched book. Black & white (with red foil covers). 48 pages.

This is the English translation of the original Italian RPG. 

Last Sabbath is a Masterless, Journalling RPG for 1 to 7 players. Masterless in that no one player is the game master and journalling since the players will write down what their characters (all witches) will do in each scene.

Now, I am not overly familiar with playing Journalling RPGs, but I know what they are in concept. 

In this game, the players all play new witches who have gathered together in a Coven. Why? Well, that is what everyone will find out together. I say up yo seven people since that seems to work well with the structure of the game, but 4 might be more wieldy. It can also be done as a solo RPG experience.

The game offers many aids to move the players (and the characters) along. If this is the Coven's first time playing or this is a solo effort, then the authors suggest using the Scene Prompts instead of the divination techniques. That is a good idea, but the divination techniques add a bit of randomness to the game that I quite like.  So, at this point, what is required of the players are these rules, notebooks to journal in, a d6, and maybe some divination tools. More on those later. While a fancy journal would be a nice touch here, a regular notebook is also good. Since you will be sacrificing memories here as part of game play it is somewhat cathartic to write them down and then tear out the page.

The game setting is whatever you want it to be. That and the nature of the witches involved are entirely up to the players. 

Safety tools are recommended because this game encourages you to push the boundaries. It is all part of the idea that magic is both a gift and a curse. Bad things are going to happen to your character. 

Game Play

The game is divided into Seven Scenes. The Call, Initiation, Danger, Investigation, Revelation, Threat, and Epilogue.  Each scene is then divided into 3, 5, or 7 turns (players' choice). When all players have done their Turn, you move on to the next one.

At the end of every scene, one of the Records (what the player wrote down) becomes a Memory. Memories can be sacrificed for Power to fuel their magic. But removing the wrong memory can cause a witch to forget why she is part of the coven. 

Turns are covered with some examples of a 3-round game plane for a Scene. 

Guidelines for play follow. Witches can ask one question of a fellow witch once per turn or answer a question on their turn. If a Power is used, then the affected witch must respond to that power on their turn. 

Power

Without magic, the characters are just people sitting in a circle. And while that would be a fine game, not one I would review here. Power is what makes witches witches.  Power comes in the forms of a Charm, Spell, or an Incantation, each with great effects and greater costs. Some incantations, for example, can cost the witch her life. So yeah, power comes at a cost. Some examples of powers are given, including origin and types. But the details are left to the players to figure out. 

Divination 

This just gives us a brief idea on how they are to be used. Details are given later with the various types of divination tools.

The Scenes

Half-way through the book we reach the Scenes, or how the game progresses. Anything can happen in a scene including the death of a witch. Players should not worry about that since they can introduce a new witch in the next scene.   Each scene is given some guidelines in the form of leading questions and some prompts. For example, for Scene 1: The Call, one of the prompts is "A call for help is heard in your mind" (paraphrasing). Witches can choose or they can roll a d6. 

All the scenes are handled in similar fashions, with Scene 7: Epilogue as the adventure conclusion. 

Divination Tools

This section covers various divination tools which are broken down by tool with examples for each scene. These include Tarot, Rune stones, Mikado, and Tea Leaves.

Tarot is likely going to be the goto, but there is a certain charm to the Tea Leaves, especially if you have plenty of tea on hand while playing.

Last Sabbath - Grimoire

by Atropo Kelevra and Valentino Sergi. Black & white art with red. 36 pages.

This is a Kickstarter add on for the Last Sabbath RPG. It has additional thematic prompts for the LAst Sabbath RPG. At first I was curious why it was not added to main RPG. But reading through I see why, the prompts are great but should be used sparingly since they could force the game into a direction not set by the players. They are perfect when the players might want some advice on what to do nest, or even for a second play through.

The art of this book is not from Loputyn, though it is good in its own right.

Thoughts on this Game

My experience with games like this are a little limited. But this looks like fun and would work great in the hands of the right group. I see this as a good way to spend a rainy afternoon with some like mind friends over pots of hot tea. Save the Dr. Pepper and Doritos for D&D night. This is for orange zest scones and black tea. 

If you are the type that wants really crunchy rules, then I would say this not the game for you. But I recommend you at least check out something like it. 

Thoughts on the Art

The art is striking, evocative and perfect for the feel of this game. This is expected since the game grew out of the artistic vision of Loputyn (Jessica Cioffi). The art might be considered risqué to American audiences, but for European ones, I am sure this is just slightly above comic book fare. 

Use as a Session 0

Back when I first talked about this game, I mentioned it as a possible Session 0 for my War of the Witch Queens. I am more convinced about that than ever. 

In fact, I can see this game being interspersed with War of the Witch Queens adventures. Since the overall arc of that campaign is to discover who murdered the High Queen of Witches. 

Tea with the Witch Queens by Brian Brinlee

I have some major NPCs (all posted with stats) that enter into the tale/campaign. For my play test of this I took them and put them all through a couple of scenes of this game to figure out what their motivations will be. It was quite fun, to be honest.

I can also see it working as a Session 0 for a NIGHT SHIFT game consisting mostly of witches. 

While I have the Smith-Waite Tarot deck pictured above, the perfect deck for this will be released next month: the Loputyn Oracle. It is published by Llewellyn Publications, pretty much THE publisher for all things mystical and witchy. Though it only has 32 cards, it should be fine for this game to be sure.

There is a lot of things I can use this game for, and I am looking forward to trying them all.  Now. time to put the kettle on.

Links

Where to buy

• Italian and English versions
• Studio 2 Publishing

Creative Team

• Atropo Kelevra, Instagram, Xitter
  
• Valentino Sergi, Xitter
• Loputyn
• Website
• Facebook
• Xitter
• Instagram
• Shockdom
• Amazon

 A hidden door in this tomb leads to a less ornate tomb with seven sarcophagi. 

These tombs belong to the other members of the Dwarven Coven. Per tradition, there are Eight Xothia per coven, and they are interred separately from the rest of the clan. 

If these tombs are disturbed they will cause the witches inside to rise and attack. There are seven (7) Zombie witches.  Unlike their high-priestess these witches died when the Vampire Queen attacked, thus the make-shift appearance of this tomb.

Tonight is Slasher movies. I used to enjoy these more as a kid than I do now. Dumb people in horror movies making dumb mistakes. BUT I did find one to fit the bill and I had been looking forward to seeing it anyway.  Yup tonight is Wrath of Becky.

Wrath of Becky (2023)

Look. If you hurt or take someone's dog, make sure their name isn't John Wick or Becky. Because they will fuck you up.

Becky (Lulu Wilson, who was SO good in this) is back. She has bounced around foster homes and has been in and out of the system for three years now.  When not running away or hitchhiking, she is in the woods training. Running, exercising, throwing knives, and sometimes falling into her own pit traps. She is living with Elena Cahn (Denise Burse), who treats her with respect, doesn't ask her about her past, and does laugh when Becky falls into her pit traps.

While working as a waitress, Becky overhears a bunch of misogynistic incel types going on about women. Becky, who has progressively more violent fantasies, spills a hot coffee on one of them.

The trouble is they follow her home and attack her. Becky is about to fight them when she gets her dog, Diego, to attack. But one of them knocks Diego out. Elena shows up with a shotgun, but lead douchebag Anthony kills her instead. They knock out Becky and take her dog. 

When Becky wakes up, Elena is dead, and Diego is gone. She buries Elena and goes hunting for the douchebags. She had heard them talking about how they were meeting up with the leader of the "Noble Men" (think Proud Boys here) and she has a name, Darryl. After a false start she finds them and overhears Darryl talking about a flash drive with all members of the Noble Men on it.  They are planning to start an insurrection and kill a local Congresswoman.  

She rings the bell and leaves a phone. Darryl, learning what happened, sends Anothny out to deal with her.  Becky manages to subdue him and shove a grenade into his mouth. When Darryl opens the door it blows Anothny's head off.  She shoots another with a crossbow and in frustration, Darryl shoots and kills one of the guys that took her dog while the other escapes.

There is some back-and-forth with Darryl and Becky exchanging quips and violence. Eventually we learn that the first Darryl she found was this Darryl's mother AND the founder of the Noble Men.

Becky manages to kill son Darryl in a series of bear traps, and Darryl mother by throwing a knife and embedding it in her brain.  She is brutal.

As an epilog we see Becky in an office. Long story short she is going to be the youngest recruit of the CIA because she single-handedly brought down the largest growing domestic terrorist organization in the country.

This was a very satisfying sequel to Becky. If they do another one then might I suggest "Beck: The Search for Diego."

Lulu Wilson is great. She pulls of the sweet teen when she needs to, angry sullen teen, and bat-shit crazy blood-lust monster.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2023
Viewed: 28
First Time Views: 18

Helga is likely one of the Goddesses I have thought about the most. She is the goddess of witches, ghosts, and magic. She is the syncretized goddess of Hecate of the Greek/Roman myths and the Norse Hel and Heiðr, and the Germanic Frau Holt/Holda. This also ties her closely to Mother Goose and Grimm fairy tales.  

Additionally, I have been using her as a character in my Wasted Lands games. This has allowed me to build her up from the ground up; Hecate and Hel are just her "backstory."  So, part of this write-up will be based on the myths and legends and all the rules I have for them AND some in-game ideas I have had.

Helga

Helga is interesting one for me since her genesis really predates this project during a time I was working on creating new gods and goddesses for my home campaign. Some of that creation continues on in this project. In particular they formed my ideas on Großvater & Großmutter (originally Ouranus and Gaia in my home campaign). Helga though remains largely intact from that time since she was always a mix of Hecate, Hel, and a bit of Ereshkigal. She was a dark Goddess of Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts. I have even kept her name intact.

As this project grew I pulled in more details from previous work I had done, namely writings about Frau Holle and other, older myths that fit under the umbrella of "The Crone" archetype.  Helga is very much the Crone, but she can appear at any age.

HELGA (Goddess of Magic, Ghosts, and Witches )
Intermediate Goddess

ARMOR CLASS: 1/-3
MOVE: 18" / 24"
HIT POINTS: 288
NO. OF ATTACKS: 2
DAMAGE/ATTACK: via Spell
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Death Touch
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Aura of Darkness
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Special

SIZE: M (5' 6")
ALIGNMENT: Neutral (Evil)
WORSHIPER'S ALIGN: Any (those who use magic, witches, undead)
SYMBOL: 
PLANE: Hölle

CLERIC/DRUID: 20th level in each
FIGHTER: Nil
MAGIC-USER/ILLUSIONIST: 20th level in each
THIEF/ASSASSIN: Nil
MONK/BARD: Nil
WITCH/WARLOCK: 20th level Witch
PSIONIC ABILITY: II
S: 10 I: 22 W: 24 D: 18 C: 18 CH: 20

Helga is the Witch Goddess, the Ghost Queen, and the Crone of the Trinity.  She knows all secrets since they are whispered to her by the dead.  Thus she knows all the secrets of magic. She is the guardian of the crossroads and the gates of Hölle, where the dead reside. 

Helga will often appear as an older woman wearing simple robes of black. Her face is often hidden in shadow so that only part of it can be seen; her mouth or eyes. During the winter months, she will be seen wearing a crown of dried branches and leaves. 

As the goddess of magic and witches, she knows every spell since they are whispered to her by the dead. She can cast two spells per round as she chooses. She casts as a 20th-level spellcaster. She can also command undead to do her bidding as if she were a 20th-level cleric. She can speak to the dead at will.

Helga is the mistress of magic, therefore she is immune to the effects of any spell of third-level or lower. This includes any area of effect spells.  For spells of fourth-level and greater, she has a saving-throwing bonus of +3.  She is also surrounded by an aura of darkness that obscures her features and provides protection. When active, she gains a +4 to saving throws and a +4 bonus to AC. This is in addition to her normal saves. 

Animal: Hounds
Rainment: (Head) circlet of dead leaves and branches (Body) Simple garments of black. Robes of black
Color(s): Black
Holy Days: Samhain, Winter Equinox, Beltane
Sacrifices: Animal sacrifice at the Equinoxes. Animals are burned to ash.
Place of Worship: Graveyards and Crossroads.
Her faithful hound is Heuler, the Guardian of the Gates of the Dead.

Heuler

Heuler ("Howler") is the syncretized guardian of the Underworld ("Hölle"). He combines elements of Cerebus, Hell Hounds, and the various wolves of the Norse/Germanic mythology, in particular Garm.

HEULER
FREQUENCY: Unique
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 2
MOVE: 24" 
HIT DICE: 22+88 (187 hp)
% IN LAIR: 100%
TREASURE TYPE: Nil
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1 bite, 2 claws
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 4d10 + Poison/Disease, 1d8+4, 1d8+4
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Howl
SPECIAL DEFENSES: +3 or better weapon to hit
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard
INTELLIGENCE: Average
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Evil
SIZE: L (18' at shoulder)
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil

Heuler is a monstrous wolf-hound hybrid monster that stands 18' tall. His fur is soot black, his eyes burn with hellfire, and his jaws drip with poison. He is tasked with making sure none enter Hölle that do not belong, and none leave once they are inside.

He attacks with his massive jaws biting with 4-40 hp worth of damage. Each bite carries a rotting disease similar to mummy rot. Victims must save vs. Poison or contract this rotting disease. It is treated the same as Mummy Rot. He can also attack with his massive claws for 5-12 hp worth of damage each.

Three times per day, Heuler may howl to summon the dead to aid him. After he howls he will be joined by 3d12 wights who will fight whoever the beast is fighting. These wights will fight till destroyed.

If Heuler is killed then one of his pups will be elevated to the position of the new Guardian of the Gate. 

A Reminder Note About Translations

I have had a few comments from people saying my translations are "off."  While that is true, it is also on purpose. I am not looking for a perfect translation into modern German here. I am looking for something that common folk might have called these (See Rule #2) AND something I would have written in 1985-6 when my only resource was my High School German textbook and dictionaries (See Rule #3). So yeah, there are proper ways to translate these, but that is not what I want to do here.

Links

• One Man's God Special: Syncretism Part 3, the Roman-Norse Pantheon
• The Monsters
• My overview and rules for these postings
• Dökkálfar and Ljósálfar
• Alp
• Die Hüne
• Jötunar
• Hautveränderer
• The Gods
• Unser Vater, Father of the Gods
• Sisters of the Dawn, Liebhaberin and Ôstara
• The Mother Goddesses Herde Oberin, Mutter Natur, and Großmutter
• The Divine Twins
• Hüne Vater, Großvater, and Großmutter
• Ides, Demi-Goddess of Protection and War

This is another post for my RPG Blog Carnival Horrors, Gods, and Monsters.

 There is a secret door near the tomb of Ferner Morgenstjernen.  This leads down a flight of stairs. 

This is another Morgenstjernen tomb. This tomb belongs to Hilde Morgenstjernen, the Xothia or Dwarven Witch of the clan.

Her Book of Shadows is carved into the walls of her tomb. A magic-user can spend time here copying the text. There are: 

• 1d8+3 first-level spells 
• 1d8+1 second-level spells
• 1d8 third-level spells
• 1d6+1 fourth-level spells
• 1d6 fifth-level spells
• 1d4+1 sixth-level spells
• 1d4 seventh-level spells
• 1d4 eight-level spells.

 These are worth 100 xp each per level.

There are no other treasures here.

I talked about this one a bit back when I reviewed Near Dark.  I have to admit that this is the movie I first thought of when I saw that Best Soundtrack was a category.

Lost Boys (1987)

Ok. So I did do this one back in 2014. A lot, if not all, of what I said then still hold true. The movie holds well. Yeah there is some fast and loose play with the rules of vampirism here, but honestly it is still a great film.

Let's talk about that soundtrack.

There are so many great hits here. Many are covers, but for some reason it works fine. 

We have Roger Daltrey of the Who singing Elton John's "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me," and for the longest time, I preferred this version. I was on a big Who kick then.

INXS practically made this one of their unofficial albums and I think added to their success of Kick, also out in 1987. Their song  "Good Times" was a cover of a 1960s song. 

The big covers were Echo and the Bunnymen's cover of The Door's "People are Strange," which gave the Doors some newfound fans in my generation (yes, we knew about them before). And the big one, Tim Capello's cover of The Call's "I Still Beleive."  Tim Capello is still out there touring, too, and I guess he is like one of the chillest guys ever. 

The original songs include the "title song" "Lost in the Shadows (The Lost Boys)" by Lou Gramm, and the real title song, "Cry Little Sister (Theme from The Lost Boys)" by Gerard McMann.  

I have a lot of really fond memories of this album that coincide with my freshman year in college.  It is the soundtrack I'd put to write vampire material. Kinda wish I still had some of that stuff. It might not have been (it wasn't, I am sure), but for nostalgia value.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2023
Viewed: 27
First Time Views: 17

The Romans, Norse, and ancient Germanic peoples all had many monsters that haunted their fears and tales. But they all at least one monster in common, and that was the werewolf.

The first recorded werewolves in a recognizable form in myth and legend go back to the Greeks and Romans. One could argue that the go back even further, but Greek and roman are fine for this project. Indeed we get the word "Lycanthrope" from the Romans. In particular from Ovid in his Metamorphoses and his tale of King Lycaon.  The Norse and Germanic people gave us the berserker, or berserkr, meaning "Bear Shirt." These were a class of warriors that could turn into bears or had the ferocity of bears in battle.

Tales of humans turning into animals are as old as humans and animals. Many shamanistic practices are based on this. For today's monster then I am looking for less of a syncretism and more of a synthesis.

In Norse and Germanic myths, the Werewolf is known as the "werwolf" not much difference there. But in Roman myth such creatures were known as "skin changers" or "skin turners."  Translate that back to German and we have today's monster, the Hautveränderer.

HAUTVERÄNDERER
FREQUENCY: Very Rare
NO. APPEARING: 1
ARMOR CLASS: 4
MOVE: 24" 
HIT DICE: 7+1 (32 hp)
% IN LAIR: 10%
TREASURE TYPE: B + Special
NO. OF ATTACKS: 2 Claws, 1 bite
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1d4/1d4/1d6
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Bloodlust, Rend (2d8)
SPECIAL DEFENSES: +1 or better weapon to hit
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard
INTELLIGENCE: Average
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Evil
SIZE: M (6')
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil

Hautveränderer are human fighters, most often Berserkers (qv Monster Manual, p.67), who can assume the form of a large wolf or bear. They do this by using a special skin of the animal they wish to transform into. The hautveränderer's skin must be of an animal they killed and then prepared by a shaman. They don the skin, which must be touching their flesh to transform. 

They attack with two claws and a bite. Any natural 20 roll on their claw attacks will result in a rending attack, 2d8 instead of 1d4. If successful, they can make two rend attacks per round. 

Hautveränderer live for battle and are subject to bloodlust once they have made a successful attack. They must make a saving throw vs. Paralysis, if they succeed, then they continue as before. If they fail, then they succumb to the blood lust and attack everything, friend or foe, until none are alive. They are allowed a new save at the start of their next attack. Success means their lust has ended. While in blood lust, they attack at +2 to hit.

Their magical hide also offers some magical protection, so only +1 or better weapons can pierce it.

If killed, there is a 10% chance that their hide survived the attack enough to be reused. Any character seeking to reuse the hide must seek out a shaman to bind it to its new owner. While killing a hautveränderer is typically a good enough reason to have this skin, some shamans might not look favorably on the one who did the killing if they were from the same clan.

They are not true lycanthropes, so they cannot pass on their curse, nor are they affected by the moon's phases.

--

Links

• One Man's God Special: Syncretism Part 3, the Roman-Norse Pantheon
• The Monsters
• My overview and rules for these postings
• Dökkálfar and Ljósálfar
• Alp
• Die Hüne
• Jötunar
• The Gods
• Unser Vater, Father of the Gods
• Sisters of the Dawn, Liebhaberin and Ôstara
• The Mother Goddesses Herde Oberin, Mutter Natur, and Großmutter
• The Divine Twins
• Hüne Vater, Großvater, and Großmutter
• Ides, Demi-Goddess of Protection and War

This is another post for my RPG Blog Carnival Horrors, Gods, and Monsters.

 This tomb belongs to Siln Morgenstjernen. 

This tomb belongs to Siln, who according to her marker was the chief alchemist of the clan. This tomb appears to have been broken into at some point in the past. There is a secret alcove under the sarcophagus but it is empty.

A rash of strange businesses broken into and odd thefts leads the monstrous investigators in the city of Spireholm to a startling revelation. Under the very streets of the city, indeed under the very cellars and sewer tunnels of the city under those streets, there are tunnels that lead deep into the unknown. Is the rattish nature of the miscreants discovered in the initial investigation a sign that some villain dwells far below like a subterranean Doctor Moreau, sending his rodent servants to the surface for reasons that only he can divulge? Or is there something else in the tunnels and caverns to be found far below the city? This is the set-up for SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone, a companion campaign to SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm, which itself is a campaign and setting a supplement for Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. Published by Parable Games, Shiver is a generic horror roleplaying game, designed to do a variety of subgenres, from modern slasher and cosmic horror to zombie outbreaks and Hammer Horror melodramas, using easy to build Player Characters archetypes and the Doom Clock as a device to ratchet up tension and push the story to a horrifying climax combined with its own dice mechanics. It is great for one-shots, especially ones inspired by horror films. If SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm showcased how it was possible to run and play SHIVER as a proper campaign, then SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone expands and continues that.
SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone does two things. First it introduces the new world below the city of Spireholm and its inhabitants and second it presents a campaign that involves both. It can be used in a number of different ways. One is a straight sequel to the campaign given in SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm. Another is as a secondary plot, essentially a ‘B plot’, that can be run alongside or interwoven with the campaign in SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm. And lastly, it can be used as an alternate plot that can be run whenever a player is unable to play the main campaign. This gives it some flexibility, although the ideal means of use is as the ‘B plot’ so that all of the players and their characters can participate. Another option is for the players to take the roles of members of the rattish race at the heart of SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone, although that does mean that many of the mysteries at the heart of the setting and the campaign will have to be revealed to them.

Inspired by works of fiction such as Neverwhere by Nail Gaiman and Weaveworld by Clive Barker, as well as a whole festival of films, SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm takes the players and their characters into the Dregs, home to Scoriath, the kingdom of the Scorians. They are rat folk, twisted into intelligence by the alchemical wastes poured into the sewers and finding a home in the ruins of an ancient sunken settlement. Ruled over by the authoritarian Rat King, Rongeur Halftail, the Scorians are large, but still smaller than Humans, and have tough tails and a strong sense of smell. There is resistance to the Rat King’s rule, and the Delvers, who search for resources far below Scoriath, are divided as to whether they should explore Topside, even though the king has forbidden it. Meanwhile, the Church of the 7 Tails worships the rats’ time as four-leggers, whilst it should be no surprise that Scorians hold alchemy in high regard given their origins. Several Scorian Backgrounds are given for Scorian Player Characters, including Gutters who guard the city; Sneakers are spies and thieves; Alchemists specialises in poisons, concoctions, and bombs; Tail-Tellers are itinerant storytellers; Pale Seers are all but blind, yet have the gift of the foresight; Swarm Wardens can psionically control rat swarms; and Scurriers do all of the physical work in Scoriath. Besides possibly playing Scorians, the options for Player Characters include watch officers, urchins, concerned citizens, private citizens, reporters, monster hunters, and more. The inclusion of the Scorian Backgrounds also facilitates the easy replacement of Player Characters should one somehow die in the course of events of the campaign.
As a campaign, SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone is shorter than SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm, consisting of seven parts rather than ten. Its chapters follow the same format though. Each is bookended by ‘What the Director Knows’ at the beginning and at the finish, ‘Doom Events’ which are triggered on the Doom Chapter for the chapter. In addition, the campaign supplement adds ‘Doom Tolls’ alongside ‘Doom Events’. These interact with the ‘Doom Calendar’, essentially events that affect the wider world around the Player Characters. Then, between the start and the end is the meat of each scenario, which varies from one chapter to the next, but will always include key clues and story text, the the key clues given as floating clues that the Game Master can place in the particular chapter where appropriate. In between the chapters are a series of interludes. These expand upon the overview of the Dregs as a setting, such as the background history of Rongeur Halftail, more information about the Church of the 7 Tails, Scorian terminology, and so on. These are not necessarily gameable content, but add detail to the setting.
SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone begins with the investigation. This leads the Player Characters into the foulness of the city sewers before descending into the tunnels below. Here the Scorians have set up a ‘Mantrap Maze’ to prevent anyone from Topside from trying to get into Rongeur Halftail’s realm. The maze though, is a bit of a problem. It consists of fifteen encounters, not quite linear, but playing through it will definitely feel like it. Although these encounters are inventive and some of them are fun, such as having a giant trashball chase the Player Characters a la Raiders of the Lost Ark and a trap that fills with water as they try to find a way to solve a rat-themed puzzle. Of course, the Game Master need not use all of the encounters here and she could easily save some for a later visit to Scoriath, suggesting perhaps that the Scorians are shifting rooms and traps around their ‘Mantrap Maze’ each time that there is an incursion from Topside?
By the time the Player Characters reach Dregstone, they will have gained the first of many allies they will be able to befriend and recruit in the course of the campaign. She is a human who has long been trapped in the Dregs and long been searching for her sister, and she will be able to put the Player Characters in touch with the Resistance. This sets off the main plot of the campaign, as first the Player Characters have to sneak around the city, poorly disguised as Scorians, undertake a task for the Resistance to gain the trust of its members. This is the first of the campaign’s big set pieces, the disruption of a public execution, the Player Characters having to set up a rescue of several Resistance members being sent to the gallows. This will lead to their arrest, being brought before Rongeur Halftail himself and sentenced to life incarceration in Pipehold Prison. Here the authors get to play with all of the clichés of prison life—as seen on the big and small screen—as the Player Characters are forced to other prisoners for the amusement of the guards, deal with a variety of different prison personalities, and of course, make preparations for, and then carry out a grand escape! All with the strangeness of dealing with anthropomorphic rats rather than human prisoners.
The last part of the campaign sends the Player Characters scurrying below the Dregs, into dark tunnels and into regions where the delvers fear to tread. Here, the Player Characters will discover that the Scorians are not the only anthropomorphic species to have been affected by the alchemical runoff from Topside—and that species has an even worse reputation for being dirty vermin! One minor scene here feels like a cross between Beetlejuice and Dune, set on a great alchemical salt flat, but ultimately the Player Characters will discover the source of the mutations in the subterranean world, a secret that will upend the society of Dregstone, and a very knowing nod to The Fellowship of the Ring. Surprisingly, the interlude ending this discovery does actually have some gameable content, all in readiness with the final showdown with Rongeur Halftail. This is a big battle which brings the campaign to a conclusion, although there are a few options given to help the Game Master play various concluding scenes to the campaign.
Physically, SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone is presented in a rich array of colours and with plenty of cartoonishly rattish artwork. The campaign does need an edit here and there, and one or two more maps, such as of Dregstone would have been useful too.
SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone is a better campaign than sourcebook. In fact, as a sourcebook for the Dregs, it presents enough information for the Game Master to run the campaign, but not really quite enough to develop her own content beyond that and in mostly confining it to the interludes, not in a fashion that makes it easy to use. That said, as a campaign, SHIVER Gothic: Disciples of Dregstone is fun, especially if you have a penchant for puns—especially rattish puns—and want a grand cinematic delve into an anthropomorphic world of adventure and mystery for your SHIVER Gothic: Secrets of Spireholm campaign.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: A Drop of Nelson’s BloodPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: SR Sellens

Setting: The Admiralty, 1815Product: Scenario for In Strange Seas: Horror in the Royal Navy for Regency Cthulhu and Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England
What You Get: Fifty-two page, 24.42 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, but with half the attendees and celebrating the life of Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte. Plot Hook: A dinner at the Admiralty turns deadly in celebration of the life of Nelson
Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, eight NPCs, seven handouts, two floorplans, one Mythos tome, one Mythos spell, one unnatural creature, and a sea shanty.Production Values: Excellent
Pros# More a scenario for Regency Cthulhu than In Strange Seas# One-session, locked room dinner party murder mystery# Decent pre-generated Investigators# Very well presented NPCs# Could be run as a LARP# Good handouts# Phasmophobia# Hemophobia# Phonophobia
Cons# Sea shanties# Needs a slight edit# More a scenario for Regency Cthulhu than In Strange Seas

Conclusion# Well appointed scenario that can be run with just Regency Cthulhu rather than In Strange Seas# Classic murder mystery dinner party with manners, Mythos, and nautical theme that is absolutely perfect for Trafalgar Day (and other days)

There is a realm that lies between the land and the sea that is neither land nor sea. It is said that this is where the giants died, their blood spilling as a gift that turned the realm into something in between, a land of peat and oil and mud that languorously discharges into the Endless Sea. This is Fattvëlland, the Great Slick, beyond Targ-Dungel and the festering swamps of the Rotlands, and here no flame burns except that which cannot die and burns constant below the peat and the oil and the mud. The Great Wick drinks of the land and gives birth to shunned and raging Wickheads, trimming them before sending unwanted and unloved out into the lands on the other side of Targ-Dungel and the Rotlands. Their purpose unknown to themselves and the Great Wick, no Wickhead has ever returned—or seemed to want to. Until now. This is the set-up for A Waning Light, a scenario for use with Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance retroclone designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing.
A Waning Light is best described as a ‘swamp crawl’ in which the Player Characters are hired by a Wickhead called Lygan, whose wick is growing short and who wishes to return to his point of origin before the God Tree and pluck a new thread and thus wick from it. He promises them riches and a sight which no mortal man has seen before. Adding A Waning Light to an on-going campaign is relatively easy. Its location can be slid onto any coast and in addition, there are suggestions which tie various other scenarios for Mörk Borg to the Great Slick. These are Rotback Sludge, Treasures of the Troll King, and Putrescence Regnant and all three come with helpful notes on how to make the connections. A table of rumours serves as other means to spur the Player Characters to action.

Published by Loot the Room, it presents a sludge-ridden region where geysers of oil blot the sky, goblins scavenge on long stilts, baleful balls of light whisper secrets, and tar oozes blend below the oil slicked water ready to strike at the unwary. There are strange henges to be found, their stones cracked by black ivy, a colony of mournful goblins who have turned their backs on their wild and dangerous days, and an ancient dragon, Nithul, her brittle bones turned silver with age and her wings pinned to the mound of silver she sits on by foot-long iron spikes. Her only company is the calcified statue of the knight who was trying to kill her, his sword still held high, and she is half mad with loneliness. These encounters are fantastically forlorn, fitting the sombre, even woeful nature of the land. The heart of the adventure lies in its two dungeons—‘Inside Julud’ and ‘The Sink’.

The first and smaller of the two is ‘Inside Julud’. Located within the skull of a dead giant, this is a mini-dungeon consisting of fourteen locations across two levels, the lower level, either partially or wholly flooded. There is constant movement within the flooded and submerged rooms below, primarily of water and natural gas, and this is decidedly hazardous environment. Unfortunately, there is really very little reason to explore its rooms beyond greed and curiosity and given its nature it may be one that the Player Characters readily avoid all together. Perhaps a rumour or hook or too might have pushed the Player Characters to the location beyond mere chance—and perhaps the Game Master might want to develop one or two herself. Finally, despite being in the head of a giant, ‘Inside Julud’ does not feel like it is.

The second and much longer of the two dungeons is ‘The Sink’. Here the Player Characters may eventually discover the God Tree and Lygan find a way to replace his wick so that his memories need not be lost. A mixture of worked rooms and caverns, it is double the size of the ‘Inside Julud’, full of soot, oily vapours, ancient industrial machinery still covered in thick grease and dirty lubricant, and a dampness that pours in from the swamp above. Despite being a ruin, the cult operating here lends the place a sense of purpose, even if the main NPC here, the leader of the Moth cultists, is underwritten inn terms of motivations and reactions, especially in light of the attention given to the prophetic, Three Flames, the past, present, and future Voice of the Flame, the burning equivalent of the three witches from Macbeth or the Graeae from Greek Mythology. Again, this is something that the Game Master might like to develop herself.

Physically, A Waning Light is not as terse as perhaps other scenarios and dungeons are for Mörk Borg and there is a lot more description than you would normally expect. All locations are marked easily—though not always accurately in some cases—on the map, which appears on each page of the dungeon for easy navigation by the Game Master. The writing is clear and in general, presented in a bolder fashion than other scenarios for Mörk Borg. In places, the Game Master is left to wonder who or what something is until the book explains it.

A Waning Light is in need of a few hooks to get the Player Characters to explore some of the locations in the swamp and the Game Master may also want to develop the motivations of the NPCs further, as well. Fix those and A Waning Light will provide the means to explore the origins of the Wickheads from Mörk Borg, memorably set across a festering, oily sludge of a swamp, full of of mournful and scarred locations and encounters.

The gaming magazine is dead. After all, when was the last time that you were able to purchase a gaming magazine at your nearest newsagent? Games Workshop’s White Dwarf is of course the exception, but it has been over a decade since Dragon appeared in print. However, in more recent times, the hobby has found other means to bring the magazine format to the market. Digitally, of course, but publishers have also created their own in-house titles and sold them direct or through distribution. Another vehicle has been Kickststarter.com, which has allowed amateurs to write, create, fund, and publish titles of their own, much like the fanzines of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest. The resulting titles are not fanzines though, being longer, tackling broader subject matters, and more professional in terms of their layout and design.

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Senet—named for the Ancient Egyptian board game, Senet—is a print magazine about the craft, creativity, and community of board gaming. Bearing the tagline of “Board games are beautiful”, it is about the play and the experience of board games, it is about the creative thoughts and processes which go into each and every board game, and it is about board games as both artistry and art form. Published by Senet Magazine Limited, each issue promises previews of forthcoming, interesting titles, features which explore how and why we play, interviews with those involved in the process of creating a game, and reviews of the latest and most interesting releases.

Senet Issue 6 was published in the winter of 2021. It has thus left behind the social limitations placed upon both it and us by the lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic that Senet Issue 5 was only just beginning to escape. It marks a return to the normality of the first few issues and allows editor Dan Jolin to talk about the pleasures of issue’s content rather than dwelling on the strange world we had existed in throughout much of 2020 and 2021. Even the cover reflects, a pair of anthropomorphised hands, one jumping for joy, the other thrusting a gaming piece at us, rather than the lock and key on the front of Senet Issue 5, which suggested both imprisonment and possible escape. However, with new found freedom, Join does get to belabour a food-board game metaphor, it being one of the themes of the issue. Sadly, the reader has little choice but to indulge him.

As is usual, the issue opens with ‘Behold’, a preview of some of the then-forthcoming board game titles. As expected, ‘Behold’ showcases its previewed titles to intriguing effect, a combination of simple write-ups with artwork and depictions of the board games. The standouts here are Spire’s End: Hildegard, a solo adventure that is the sequel to Spire’s End which displays its brilliant artwork and Forests of Pangaia, which has a real table presence as the patterns of the forest change and grow over hundreds and hundreds of years, the trees depicted by meeples ranging in shape from single cubes for seeds to fully grown trees.

‘Points’, the regular column of readers’ letters, follows, but very much without the focus of Senet Issue 5, which was very much the immediate post-COVID-19 world. Nevertheless, the raise some interesting issues, such as the possible shift to games made available to the customer via ‘Print & Play’ rather than delivery in the normal fashion given the then difficulties faced in shipping and delivery. As yet, there is not a sense of community through the letters column and whether it be developed is another matter. In ‘For Love of the Game’, Tristian Hall continues his designer’s journey towards Gloom of Kilforth. In previous issues he explored how the game became a vehicle for roleplaying and storytelling, used the mechanics to bring the game and its background to life, and marketing options, but in this issue, he examines how to handle feedback and criticism about a game’s design. There is good advice here and ‘For Love of the Game’ nicely tracks the history of game and its development.

Senet follows a standard format of articles and article types. One explores a theme found in board games, its history, and the games that showcase it to best effect, whilst another looks at a particular mechanic. In between there are two interviews, one with a designer, the other with an artist. The mechanical article is on dexterity games with ‘Feats of Agility’ by Matt Thrower, written in almost nominal deterministic fashion. This looks at games such as Jenga and Crokinole, and seems to focus on these to the detriment of others, making the point that their physical nature makes them less like a (board) game and more like a sport. The result is that the article is not really that interesting and it is certainly not helped by the fact that not one of the games is actually illustrated. Instead, the article is illustrated by abstract pieces like that on the front cover, which whilst very nice, do nothing whatsoever to bring either the article or the board games themselves to life. Given that so many of the other articles are decently illustrated, ‘Feats of Agility’ is a disappointingly frustrating piece that fails to showcase the physicality of the games themselves or explore more than a very few titles.

The undoubted highlight of Senet Issue 6 is ‘Full Steam Ahead’. This is the first of two interviews in the issue and is with Alan R. Moon, the famous designer of Ticket to Ride. This covers his early interest in games, his time at Avalon Hill—focusing mainly on the publisher’s family titles, and the genesis of Ticket to Ride came about. The whole interview could have been just about that, but it ranges through a few other titles as well as ‘The gathering of Friends’, the informal industry event he now runs. Notably, it does mention Ticket to Ride Legacy, which is due to be released next week. It is followed by the second interview in the issue, which is with artist Miguel Coimbra, best known for illustrating the mini-civilisation-style 7 Wonders and the fantasy wargame of variable races and powers, Small World. Coimbra talks about he turned his love of other worlds and Magic: the Gathering into becoming a full-time artist before talking about each of the major titles he has provided art for. Not just the aforementioned, but also Sea of Clouds, Mountains of Madness, and Fuji Koro. As in previous interviews with artists, plenty of room is given to showcase his art, including not one, but two pullout spreads! Along with his commentary, this extends the article beyond its eighteen pages, already the longest article in the issue. All of the art is crisply produced, leaving the reader wanting to go look at the games for the art itself, let alone the play.

The issue’s theme article is food with Own Duffy’s ‘Playing with your Food’, which at the very least does not make the error of not actually depicting the games being played. It starts off with quick discussion of an American introductory board game, Candy Land (which actually came out in 1949!), before rushing up to date with an examination of more recent titles, beginning with Sushi Go! It points out the universality of the theme and also how the theme can be used in other ways. For example, Steam Up: A Feast of Dim Sum from Hot Banana Games shows how games can explore the cultural side of food, whilst Consumption: Food & Choices looks at the balance between what we eat and what we do. With the inclusion of both Sushi Go!—inspired by 7 Wonders’ card drafting mechanic and conveyor-belt sushi restaurants—and Steam Up: A Feast of Dim Sum, inspired by dim sum being served on a lazy Susan, the article covers a spectrum of both lighter and more involved titles, both mechanically and culturally, and it also suggests a number of other titles themed along different foods. This includes pizza, chili peppers, salads, cupcakes, and mushrooms. Overall, Duffy serves up an interesting article on a theme which is not as readily recognised as such in the hobby as opposed to typically more mechanical or obvious themes.

If the earlier ‘Feats of Agility’ failed to showcase agility games, then ‘Unboxed’, Senet’s reviews section leads the way with its first review, which is of Crash Octopus, a flicking game of salvage at sea versus a giant octopus which actually looks fun in the exact same way that Jenga isn’t. This is not the only other game reviewed in the issue—that is the co-operative adventure game, What Next?—with a dexterity element, but the other reviews are a more traditional mix of Euro style games, along with the addition of a review of the solo roleplaying game, Apothecaria. There is a fascinating range of titles being reviewed here, including of Mind MGMT, based on Matt Kindt comic book series about psychic espionage; Streets, a tile-laying game of building and populating modern urban streets which is Senet’s Top Choice for the issue; and Roll Camera!, a thematically packaged co-operative game of movie-making. All of the reviews are well-written, informative, and as expected, give space show off each game and its components.

Rounding out Senet Issue 6 are regular end columns, ‘How to Play’ and ‘Shelf of Shame’. For the former, Dan Thurot pens ‘Flipping the table (and how best to avoid it)’, a look at the phenomenon of getting so frustrated whilst playing a board game that you stand up and flip the board and all of its components over the table and floor. Thankfully I have never done this, but I have walked away from a game in sheer frustration. Working from the concept of the ‘Magic Circle’ where we as players agree to interact using different rules, the author explores how the issue might arise and how to avoid it, primarily checking to if everyone is in the mood to play a particular game or type of game, know your foibles, and if you can, avoid your nemesis. The result is engaging and thoughtful, bringing to the reader’s attention a negative aspect of play, how we can take that play too far, and how to not do so, all without any judgement upon the part of the author, except on himself. For the ‘Shelf of Shame’, Rodney Smith of Watch It Played, selects Andean Abyss, a COIN or ‘counter-insurgency’ wargame set in 1990s Columbia. This nicely tells of how he could not grasp the game’s play upon first exposure, but through a friend and play of another COIN game, Cuba Libre, he was able to understand the concepts and then go back and play Andean Abyss, having to reacquire it, having sold it after the first attempt to understand it.

Physically, Senet Issue 6 is very professionally presented. It looks and feels as good as previous issues of the magazine.

As with previous issues, Senet Issue 6 offers a good mix of articles, interviews, and reviews—almost. To be fair, this reviewer is not a fan of dexterity-based games and thus for the most part, the ‘Feats of Agility’ is not aimed at me. Yet as with the magazine’s similarly mechanically themed articles, I was hoping for other options and ideas which might entice me to look at these games again, and definitely more than just Jenga. Unfortunately, the article failed to do so. Consequently, Senet Issue 6 is the most disappointing issue to date, if only because the standard has been so high otherwise. Now of course, tastes will vary and some may enjoy dexterity games and an article about them, but not this reviewer. ‘Feats of Agility’ could have been better and consequently, Senet Issue 6 could have been as good as the magazine usually is.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Archives of Terror – Call of Cthulhu paranoia horror in 1990 RomaniaPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Christopher Dimitrios

Setting: 1990s RomaniaProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-one page, 24.76 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Archives hide secrets... Secrets mean power and fear...Plot Hook: In the wake of the Christmas Revolution, there is a chance to get into the national archives of the Securitate. What secrets do they hide?Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, three NPCs, three handouts, one floorplan, five Mythos tomes (technically), and two Mythos monsters.Production Values: Decent
Pros# One-shot of heightened feeling of paranoia and post-surveillance# Set at an interesting point in history# Mythos and magic driven by secrets# Could be adjusted to other post-Communist states# Nicely detailed pre-generated Investigators# Scopophobia# Paranoia# Papyrophobia
Cons# Needs a close read to understand how the secrets and magic works# Shares Investigators with Baba Dochia. Could be a sequel? 
Conclusion# Investigators need to know will drive revelations and magic in this paranoia-fuelled delve in state/personal secrets # Supported by well done Investigators

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

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

—oOo—
Name: The Show Must Go OnPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Sandra Catharin

Setting: 1930s AmsterdamProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Fifteen page, 14.00 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Sometimes being traditional really is the safest option. Plot Hook: When the theatre is notoriously superstitious, it’s the last place you want accidents.
Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, three NPCs, and two handouts.Production Values: Plain
Pros# Short, one-session focused investigation in a nicely detailed environment# Easy to adapt to different cities and time periods# Could be associated with the King in Yellow?# Superstition-driven scenario that inflicts the dangerous avant-garde# Nice Keeper background on theatrical superstitions# Theatrophobia# Keriophobia# Eisoptrophobia
Cons# Needs a strong edit# More reactive in the second half
Conclusion# Short, superstition-driven investigation in a theatre# Ultimately... burn the place down.

In an alternate timeline of the Known Universe, House Nagara was awarded the fiefdom of Arrakis and not House Atreides. It thus gained both the right to mine the Spice melange that can only be found on that one world and which powers the Known Universe and the greater enmity of the previous holder of the fiefdom, House Harkonnen. This is a giant ‘What if?’ scenario explored in the massive boxed set, Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune, published by Modiphius Entertainment for use with for Dune – Adventures in the Imperium, the roleplaying game based on the novels by Frank Herbert. Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune also asked several other questions. What if the transfer of power was peaceful rather than necessarily fractious and partially contested as seen between House Atreides and House Harkonnen? What if the reason for this is the fact that House Harkonnen and House Nagara are allies? What if, despite losing control of Arrakis, it was in the best interests of House Harkonnen to help House Nagara gain and keep control of the fiefdom? Of course, despite Agents of Dune actually depicting House Harkonnen in a more sympathetic light, House Harkonnen being House Harkonnen, ultimately the transfer or at least its aftermath will not go as planned for the Player Characters and House Nagara, but ideally, at the end of Agents of Dune, they will be control of the Spice mining on Arrakis and masters, at least for the moment, of their destiny. This is where Masters of Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune begins.

Masters of Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune is a complete campaign for Dune – Adventures in the Imperium. It is a sequel to Agents of Dune which put the Player Characters and House Nagara in charge of the most important substance in the Known Universe and sees them plot, intrigue, entreat, and investigate potential allies and enemies in an ongoing effort to maintain their control of the Spice flow. Fail, and House Nagara will lose wealth, reputation, and honour—at best. At worst, the House might be disposed and broken, its peoples and former holdings the possessions of House Harkonnen. At best, the House will rise in estimation of one or all of the Emperor, the Landsraad, the Bene Gesserit, the Spacing Guild, and the Fremen. There is even the possibility that House Nagara could build enough status, power, and most important of all, allies to challenge the Emperor himself! That though is a possibility only explored in a sidebar in Agents of Dune and would send the campaign off in a very different direction. Although Masters of Dune is written as a sequel to Agents of Dune and thus for use with House Nagara and its pre-generated Player Characters, it need not be. Masters of Dune can be run without a playing group having roleplayed its way through and with a playing group creating a Great House and Player Characters of its own and substituting both for House Nagara and its members. However, to get the most out of Masters of Dune, the group should ideally have played through Agents of Dune, either using House Nagara or one of their own creation. This is not just because of the emotional investment that the players will have in their characters and their characters’ House after playing Agents of Dune, but also because Agents of Dune will prepare them for the plots within plots of the story of v. One lesson learned from Agents of Dune is ‘trust no-one’ and that is going to be true of Masters of Dune also. The other important lessons for a playing group preparing to play Masters of Dune is that the players and their characters need to be proactive, they need to look for motives beyond what is obvious, and they need to look for allies.

Masters of Dune does not need anything more to play than Dune – Adventures in the Imperium. It is even suggested that it could be run using just Dune: Adventures in the Imperium: Wormsign Quick-start Guide, but this is not really recommended given the amount of detail and extra rules needed to help the campaign flow. That said, Sand and Dust: The Arrakis Sourcebook will be useful for extra detail, especially the scenes involving the Fremen.

At the heart of Masters of Dune is a set of Influence Indices. These are Honour, Imperial Support, Landsraad Support, Military Power, Ruthlessness, Spice Production, Wealth, and Sietch Korba Trust. The latter is important in one particular scenario of the campaign, whilst the rest are important throughout. Each Index runs from -5 through 0 to +5. These mix reputation and other factors, and will rise and fall depending upon the actions and decisions of the Player Characters. For example, Wealth might fall because the Player Characters need to purchase a particular item to present to a potential ally and so gain a favour and improve their House’s standing with them. In addition, a sperate chart tracks Spice production over the course of the campaign and there are checkboxes to indicate that the Player Characters have gained the favour of the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. The latter two indicate possession of one-off favours owed by either faction. Either the Player Characters have it, and if they do, once used, they will need to do something else to regain that favour. These Influence Indices need to be tracked throughout the course of the campaign, the current state of Spice Harvesting especially at the end of each chapter of the campaign, so that there is an ongoing need for some bookkeeping throughout Masters of Dune. Not complex bookkeeping by any means, but it is necessary.

The structure of Masters of Dune is not linear. It consists of nine chapters and begin with the first chapter and end with the ninth. In between, the other seven chapters can be played in any order or in some cases, not at all. As newly appointed fief holders of Arrakis, House Nagara and thus the Player Characters have been placed in a position of great trust by the Emperor and to some extent the Landsraad and the Spacing Guild. Yet it is also a precarious position, most notably because House Harkonnen covets the wealth and the position itself and wants the fiefdom back, but also because no other faction truly knows if the Player Characters can ensure that the Spice can flow. So, as well as working to prove that House Nagara can do so, the Player Characters will often find themselves looking for allies. This means visiting other worlds—Geidi Prime in an attempt to parley with House Harkonnen, Kaitain to win the favour of the Emperor or those of the other Great Houses, and even to Wallach IX to court favour with the Bene Gesserit or simply into space itself to deal with the Spacing Guild. These two encounters are interesting in themselves because both the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild are notoriously neutral when it comes to the power politics of the Known Universe. Except, of course, when Spice production is threatened.
Other chapters are more reactive in nature, for example, if the Player Characters have weakened themselves and their House too much, their enemies will attack the House’s facilities on Arrakis, and if successful, could lead to the destruction of House Nagara, or more likely, drive it off Arrakis and out of control of Spice production. It is possible to continue the campaign if this happens, but it becomes all the more challenging for both the players and their characters. If it comes to pass, it will probably signal—or at least hasten—the end of the campaign. Another takes the Player Characters offstage and puts them in direct contact with the Fremen, shrinking the scale of the story down to just one location rather than encompassing the whole of the Known Universe. If it seems to the players that this story—at least on the campaign’s grand scale—is not as relevant, its events and those of the Player Characters do have the potential to influence the course of the campaign and its outcome, although in small ways.

The scope and scale of Masters of Dune telescopes in and out over the course of the campaign. The Player Characters will find themselves attending a lot of formal events, most frequently dinner parties, but there are audiences with the Emperor and operas to attend, but also targeting criminal gangs on Arrakis and hunting for saboteurs. The Player Characters will find themselves questioned as to their actions and having to justify themselves as well. Just as there are many factions that they cannot trust, there are factions who do not trust them and whose trust they have to earn. For example, the encounter with the Spacing Guild includes a scene which echoes that between the Emperor and the Third Stage Guild Navigator in the David Lynch version of the film from 1984, which then leads to a completely unexpected set-up and means of gaining the Spacing Guild’s favour. For the most, all of the individual chapters are well done, with clear explanations of the situation at the start and possible outcomes at the end. Only the final chapter feels slightly rushed it climaxes in a confrontation between House Nagara, House Harkonnen, and the Emperor. Ultimately, even it does feel as if the authors are taking the Game Master and her players on a grand tour of the Known Universe, Masters of Dune presents a set of plot threads that the Game Master can weave in response to the directions and actions of the players and their characters.
Physically, Masters of Dune is very well presented. The writing is good and it is easy to read and for the Game Master to run. The artwork is also very good. However, the cartography is more relational than representative, showing connections to areas rather than mapping them out, so making them very bland. Worse still is the editing. Too many ‘page XX’ references and in one case, a whole page being printed twice.

As a sequel to Agents of Dune, Masters of Dune is exactly what the Game Master wants. It picks up where Agents of Dune left off, opening up the linear plot of the massive starter set to give greater agency to the players and their characters in interacting with the great and the good of the factions of the Known Universe, whilst still providing the Game Master with numerous means by which those factions can react to the actions of the Player Characters and act accordingly. Agents of Dune takes the Player Characters to places both expected and unexpected, has them face challenges major and minor, and ultimately confirm their place and the place of their House in the Known Universe. Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Masters of Dune is a great sequel to Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune and a campaign worthy of the setting.

Danger Gal Dossier – A Faction and NPC Guide for Cyberpunk Red is not just a ‘A Faction and NPC Guide for Cyberpunk Red’. It is much more than that. Within the ‘Time of the Red’, the future period between the classic Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. and computer game, Cyberpunk 2077, is a collection of data dossiers stolen by Edgerunners from Danger Girl, the foremost, most mediatised cat-girl themed premiere investigation and security NeoCorp working in Night City, actually run by an Arasaka scion! Out of game, it is a collection and short examination of fifteen different factions within the city, details of over one hundred NPCs—complete with stats and biographies, NPC creation guidelines which expand upon those found in Cyberpunk RED, and lastly, the presentation of a scenario involving a new and secret faction. This is a supplement for Cyberpunk RED, published by by R. Talsorian Games, Inc. that can be used in multiple ways. The most obvious is as a simple collection of threats, and perhaps, in the case of some of the gangers included, such as the infamous clown-themed Bozos and the previously Arasaka-backed Tyger Claws, that may be so. But these NPCs have lives and motivations beyond being mere fodder for the guns of the Player Character Edgerunners. They can all be sources of information, they can be sources of employment, and some like Trauma Team, can even be sources of help. Then again, they need not be met when they or the Player Characters are on the clock—they have lives too, and those lives can also start for the Player Characters during character generation. Thus, Danger Gal Dossier is a source of NPCs that can be plugged into a Player Character’s Lifepath during character generation to create ready made relationships, if not potentiation scenario hooks. There is one final use of the various factions in the collection and that is as set of factions with Cyberpunk Red: Combat Zone from Monster Fight Club. This is further strengthened by the members of the Monster Fight Club being included in the book as a faction!
Danger Gal Dossier – A Faction and NPC Guide for Cyberpunk Red is neatly organised. Each faction is given a general description, a description of its base of operations, recent history, resources, and goals. This is done as a single sheet and then is followed up by detailed writeups of several members of the faction, again given a single page each. The NPCs are divided into four broad categories—mook, lieutenant, mini-boss, and boss. Where appropriate, there are links—including page numbers—to other members of faction, strengthening their connections and relationships. Each NPC also includes a good illustration and full set of stats that are easy to read and bring into play. Of course, the stats can be used more than once if the Game Master wants another NPC. All she has to provide another name and some other background. If there is anything missing from the basic guides to each faction it is any discussion of their tactics and how each might react under particular circumstances. The Game Master than will have to develop this herself.
For example, the Bozos, updated here after their activities detailed in Cyberpunk RED Data Pack, are a Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. classic updated to Cyberpunk RED. They are presented as having broken up into multiple circuses, all trying to out-prank each other and all with an almost anarchic approach to motivation. The Hardened Boss detailed is Big Top, who wants to outdo and thinks he has outdone the original gang leader, The Great Bozo, and as well as planning new pranks likes to perform radical surgery with the help of his extra cyberarms fitted with medtech. Blammo is a veteran Boss who likes to use explosives and give often snarky advice—sometimes to Big Top; Jester, a Mini-Boss who was a former acrobat before becoming a kick-murder Bozzo after a big accident; Tomfool is a Hardened Lieutenant who was already bioscuplted as a clown on the underground bloodsport scene before being recruited into the Bozos by Big Top; Cenwit is a Lieutenant with an actual clown heritage and a hatred of the Voodoo Boys; the Dead Ringers are both Lieutenants and also sisters, one all flashy and bling with grenades, the other silent and stealthy; Finale is also a Lieutenant, a former street who got his jaw wired shut, which the Bozzos found funny enough to recruit him and then even funnier when they annoy him to the point his anger kicks in; Burt the Squirt is a Hardened Mook who lost his hair in an industrial accident and is obsessed with acid and uses an acid-squirting gun to inflict baldness on his victims; Dunce is a Mook recruited for the vent which led to the Bozzo civil war and has managed to graduate to full Bozzo; and finally, The Fool is a Mook undergoing initiation and is given the worst equipment, brightest gear, and a bag to wear over his head!  Throughout there are details here and there to suggest that this bunch of Bozos are not one big, happy family, with tensions that perhaps the Player Characters might take advantage of. This though is just one Bozo gang and the Game Master can easily models others on it or use it in conjunction with the Screamsheets in Cyberpunk RED Data Pack if she has not already.
If the Bozos are one of the larger factions, or at least of the factions with the most members detailed in the supplement, Network 54 is the shortest with just three. They include Fiona Hayes, the seemingly ageless investigative reporter; Angle, her bodyguard—or is that bodyguard for himself or network 54; and Stringer, cameraman who happens to know too much. The relationship between the three is even tighter than those for the Bozos, but not always a good one and the revelations given here highlight the data that the Danger Gal neocorp was collecting.
Other factions in the supplement include the Danger Gal Puma Squad, all cat themed; The Digital Divas, a band whose hit Burn It Down got taken up by arsonists everywhere; Maelstrom, a traditional pre-Fourth Corporate War boostergang which survived and had to rebuild; the officers of Precinct #1 of the NCPD, including Gustav, a Custom Security Canine; the Sightseers, a Nomad squad which recently caught the attention of the worst officers of Precinct #1 of the NCPD; whereas Edgerunners is not so much a faction as a collection of individuals. Perhaps the oddest entry here is Generation Red, a YoGang consisting of a mixture of children with mostly absentee parents and orphans seeking to avoid the attention of adults, but able to protect themselves if bothered, including one girl having borrowed her parents’ rocket launcher! Danger Gal is thinking of recruiting them. There are notes here too how to use kids and YoGangs in a Cyberpunk RED campaign, including advice on handling the subject matter with the Game Master’s players.
The initial design aim of Danger Gal Dossier was use only gear, equipment, and cyberware from the core rulebook for Cyberpunk RED. However, this has been achieved! So what the designers have done is include the full details of the equipment in the supplement no matter where it was taken from. This includes Interface RED Volume One and Interface RED Volume Two as well as Micro Chrome. This is a very nice touch, although some might grumble about the reprints. It just the two pages though. The ‘NPC Creation Guidelines’ following this is as useful as you would want it to be.

Lastly, ‘The Incident’ is a Mission Brief which can easily be slotted into a campaign. The Edgerunners are hired to conduct an investigation into a recent break-in and in the process get caught up in the activities of one of the factions detailed in Danger Gal Dossier as well as discovering a whole new one! The Mission Brief makes good use of the contents of the supplement without wasting them and actually ties into the incident that initiates the whole book.

Physically, Danger Gal Dossier is very nicely presented. The book is well written, the artwork good—especially the NPC illustrations, and there is a useful list of the NPCs at the back of the book. There notes too in the sidebar giving links to information in other books. It should also be pointed out that although the NPC write-ups are relatively short, there is a fair bit of detail to them and they contain snippets of background that add to the setting of Night City.

Danger Gal Dossier is such a versatile book. The contents of Danger Gal Dossier are well written and easy to use, whether the Game Master wants to throw a threat at her players and their characters, possible employment, or simply someone to interreact with, it really gives a lot for her to play with. For a Night City campaign, Danger Gal Dossier is not just a versatile book, but a highly useful one. 

NIGHTSTALKERS – A Rules Light Roleplaying Game of Investigation, Horror and Pulp Action is a light roleplaying of Lovecraftian investigative horror as if H.P. Lovecraft had written for the pulp detective magazines rather than the pulp Science Fiction ones. Think Marlowe versus the Mythos, Sam Spade gets scared, and Mike Hammer faces down the horror of the unknown. The Player Characters will not just be detectives, but also police officers, journalists, scholars, or even plain ordinary folk caught up in a situation beyond their understanding. Whatever their background, they not only want to know more, but they also want to make sure that whatever the threat is, put a stop to it so that nobody else can suffer or fall victim to its vile, often inhuman predations and designs. NIGHTSTALKERS – A Rules Light Roleplaying Game of Investigation, Horror and Pulp Action is published by Farsight Games and is designed by the creator of Those Dark Places, the Blue Collar Science Fiction horror roleplaying game from Osprey Games.
A Player Character in NIGHTSTALKERS is simply defined. He has ten Skills. These are Agility, Charisma, Close Combat, Drive, Knowledge, Medicine, Perception, Ranged Combat, Strength, and Subterfuge, and they range in value between two and eleven. In addition, he has Hit Points starting at twelve and then modified by his Strength. In addition, he can have an extra specialist or hobby Skill which lies outside the scope of the standard ten. To create a character, a player simply assigns each of one of the numbers between one and eleven to one of the Skills and decides on a specialist or hobby Skill, if any, a name, and an occupation. Character generation can be done in thirty seconds.

Urszula Sikorska
Journalist
Agility 8 Charisma 10 Close Combat 6 Drive 6 Knowledge 7 Medicine 3
Perception 11, Ranged Combat 3 Strength 2 Subterfuge 9
Speciality: Writing 6
Hit Points 14
Sanity 0

Mechanically, NIGHTSTALKERS is a simple. To have his character undertake a task, a player selects the most appropriate Skill and adds its vale to the roll of a twelve-sided die. If the result is thirteen or more, then he has succeeded. It is as simple as that. If the Player Character has failed, his player can temporarily spend points from the appropriate Skill on a one-for-one basis to increase the result to equal the target number. Alternatively, the Skill points can come from any number of different Skills, but the player can only do this once per Act. There are no other rules than that for the core mechanic, although the simplicity does leave plenty of scope for the Game Master to add more without overly complicating the core mechanic. Combat is handled as opposed rolls, with the highest roll indicating the winner. Thus, Close Combat versus Close Combat in a fist fight, but Ranged Combat versus Agility if the defendant wants to dodge. A punch does 1d2 plus Strength in damage, a blade 1d4 plus Strength, a pistol 1d6 plus six, and a rifle 1d12 plus six. Most Player Characters will last a punch up, even a knife fight, but once firearms start being used, the best thing a Player Character is to get behind cover as a rifle can kill in a single shot. Rules are also added for vehicles. The only thing missing from the base rules are damage rating for shotguns and submachine guns because they are exactly what a player is going to ask about.

When it comes to conducting investigations, the players will be using their characters’ Perception and Knowledge Skills to uncover clues. Clues are seeded throughout each act, which can number between two and six, with there always being a clue present that will lead the Player Characters onto the next act. If a roll to find the pertinent clue to get the Player Characters is failed, the players have another option. This for all of them to each temporarily spend one point from their highest Skill to gain the lead, otherwise the investigation ends there and then. Skill points expended in this way and to increase the likelihood of succeeding at a task are recovered at the end of an investigation.

Being a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror, NIGHTSTALKERS needs a means of handling the mental stress of encountering the unknown. Sanity is rated on a scale of zero to eighteen. A point is gained for reading a forbidden text, discovering a dead body, or suffering a scare, and two for taking eight more points of damage or seeing something grisly. The Sanity gained from encountering or seeing cosmic monsters is measured by die type. For example, seeing a Deep Thing is two-sided die whilst seeing a Spawn (of the Great Spawn who sleeps awaiting the day when the stars come right), a four-sided die. Gaining Sanity temporarily reduces the effectiveness of all of a Player Character’s Skills; if it rises above twelve, the reduction is longer lasting; and if it reaches eighteen, the Player Character descends in madness. Unless it is permanent, Sanity can be lowered through complete rest.

NIGHTSTALKERS includes some sample cosmic horror monsters—bit no sample forbidden tomes—as well notes on cultists and rules for magic. In essence, reading forbidden tomes inflicts Sanity gain on the reader, but casting magic from such tomes inflicts a permanent Sanity gain on the caster. It also requires a Knowledge Skill test, which still inflicts a permanent, but lesser Sanity gain on the caster if failed.

In terms of setting, NIGHTSTALKERS suggests the Big City, thronging with people and shadows. This can be London or New York or Paris or Cairo. It is lightly drawn in its detail, whilst a table provides twelve hooks for mysteries and a single adventure is included. This is ‘The Thing in the Old Bank’. It is a three-act affair which begins with the discovery of the dead body of a banker under suspicious circumstances. His chest has been cut open and his heart is missing. How did he come to die in such a macabre fashion and who was responsible. Much like the rest of NIGHTSTALKERS, this a quick and dirty adventure that the Game Master can run in a single session that lends itself slightly towards a pulp style rather than a purist one.

Physically, NIGHTSTALKERS – A Rules Light Roleplaying Game of Investigation, Horror and Pulp Action is a tidily laid out with dome decent artwork. It needs a slight in places as well as a reorganisation to make clear how some of the rules connect to each other, such as Skill Point Spends, which comes a page or two after the explanation of Skill rolls.

Much of the setting and world building for a game of NIGHTSTALKERS is going to be down to the Game Master, who will ideally need some experience with Lovecraftian investigative horror roleplaying games to get the very best out of its fairly light rules. Similarly, both Game Master and her players will need some knowledge of the period and the noir genre to bring a sense of setting alive, though that need not be anything more than watching a few period films. That aside, as intended, NIGHTSTALKERS is quick and easy to grasp and get playing as soon as the Game Master has a mystery for the Player Characters to solve. More than the single one included in NIGHTSTALKERS would fully support that. For the Game Master and Player Characters wanting simple, straightforward Lovecraftian investigative horror roleplaying that requires low preparation time, NIGHTSTALKERS – A Rules Light Roleplaying Game of Investigation, Horror and Pulp Action is a quick and dirty option.

Dungeon Crawl Classics 2017 Halloween Module: Shadow Under Devil’s Reef is upfront about its inspiration—H.P. Lovecraft’s short story, ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’. Roleplaying game fantasy is no stranger to the Cthulhu Mythos, the Great Old One and others having appeared in the pages of the first edition of the Deities & Demigods supplement for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition back in 1980. It moved back and forth with Realms of Crawling Chaos for Labyrinth Lord and other retroclones and with adventures like Carrion Hill for Pathfinder, before coming up to date more recently with a supplement and set of campaigns for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition written and published by Sandy Petersen, the designer of Call of Cthulhu no less! This began with Ghoul Island Act 1: Voyage to Farzeen, the first part of a four-part campaign for use with Sandy Petersen’s Cthulhu Mythos. Given that its inspiration has always been ‘Appendix N’ of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, it should be no surprise that Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game has flirted with Cosmic Horror over the years, and equally, it should be no surprise that the author of Dungeon Crawl Classics 2017 Halloween Module: Shadow Under Devil’s Reef is by Jon Hook, who has authored several titles in the publisher’s Age of Cthulhu line.

Dungeon Crawl Classics 2017 Halloween Module: Shadow Under Devil’s Reef is designed to be played by four to six Player Characters of First level, but could easily be run as Character Funnel in which each player takes a quartet of Zero Level Player Characters and hopes to have at least one of them survive the scenario to gain sufficient Experience Points to rise to First Level and gain all the benefits of a Class. The scenario opens in Black Sand Port, a coastal backwater best known for the deadly ring of jagged coral known as Devil’s Reef surrounding the island of Devil’s Horn and which has been the cause of many a shipwreck and many a sailor’s death. In the past few days, the coast, Devil’s Reef, and Devil’s Horn have been wracked with severe thunderstorms and it is these which are believed to have delayed the arrival of The Royal Dawn, a vessel carrying Princess Kaeko of the Golden Sun, daughter of Lord Tkkeh-Luum, the Eternal Emperor of Fu-Lamia. The princess is betrothed to a local prince and the marriage will seal an alliance. Unfortunately, when the crew of The Royal Dawn begin being washed ashore it quickly becomes clear that the vessel, let alone the princess, having been driven onto the hull slashing Devil’s Reef, is never going to arrive. Worse, it quickly becomes clear that the survivors are suffering from something worse than being shipwrecked—something seems to be affecting their minds! Nevertheless, this does not stop the local burgomaster from assembling a party to go and rescue the princess. After all, there will surely be rich rewards for the men who do. The Player Characters also see this as an opportunity to make their fortune and after ‘borrowing’ a longboat and armed with a rumour or two about Devil’s Reef and Devil’s Horn, row out to rescue the princess.
From the start, there are one or two issues with the scenario, primarily to do with the placement of the wreck of The Royal Dawn. This is on the other side of the Devil’s Reef, away from Black Sand Port, which makes the idea of the surviving crew being washed ashore at Black Sand Port incongruous. Ideally, the Player Characters are meant to explore The Royal Dawn, but placing it on the other side of Devil’s Reef away from Black Sand Port means that the Player Characters have to row around the reef to get to it and there is no obvious incentive for them to do so. The Royal Dawn is also the obvious source of treasure for the Player Characters, but their very presence aboard, let alone attempts to plunder the wreck with its broken back will result in the statue of a six-armed, female demon in the bow of the ship animating and casting Animate Dead. The problem is that the Player Characters really do need to get aboard the ship, although they do not know it. What they need to retrieve from the ship it not the treasure, but Princess Kaeko’s pet psi-spider which is bonded with her. However, even once the Player Characters have got past the dead crewman and soldiers animated by the six-armed, female demon statue, they have to deal with a confused psi-spider whose actual attempts at telepathic contact will inflict damage. Which could end badly if the Player Characters think the psi-spider is attacking them… What the Player Characters really need is someone trained as an Animal Trainer.
The reason why the Player Characters need the pet psi-spider is because it can identify Princess Kaeko, for there is another danger inherent to the island and its eldritch occupants and that is that it transforms anyone on its coral shale shores into Deep One Hybrids. In fact, there are no Deep Ones on the island—they are all Hybrids!
Even getting to the island is problem in terms of the narrative. Of course, the Player Characters are going to have to row through Devil’s Reef with its razor-sharp coral, relying on the Thief’s ability to Disable Traps to determine a route. If this—or three Luck rolls—fails, the hull of the longboat takes damage. However, there are no actual stats for the boat! Then, once on the island, what the Player Characters also need is a Wizard who can cast Comprehend Languages or Knock. Several other occupations may also prove useful, whether the Wizard has either of those spells or not. Comprehend Languages or Knock will be useful because there are couple of doors which can only be opened by having their puzzles solved, rather than having a Thief do it. In both cases, the doors have a pair of dials which need to be turned to particular positions for the doors to open. Yet there are no real clues as to what the solutions are to either puzzle and unless the Wizard can cast Comprehend Languages or Knock, the only other option is going through all of the possible combinations and taking damage each time. A solution can be found elsewhere, but even that means suffering the loss of Hit Points.
Behind the first door—located in a coral pillar at the centre of Devil’s Island—is a small dungeon. Here the Player Characters will encounter more Deep One Hybrids, a potentially injured Shoggoth, several Elder Things, and more. All in quick succession. The dungeon, which is actually a laboratory operated by the Elder Things who are conducting an eons’ long experiment, is linear. The Player Characters are forced into it because beyond the entrance is a slide-like passageway. How do they get out if they have no rope? Ultimately, the scenario will end with a confrontation with the Elder Things in their laboratory and the Player Characters will either accidentally kill the Deep Hybrid that was Princess Kaeko, or if they are lucky, rescue her. If they manage the latter, the reward gained turns out to be particularly paltry...
Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics 2017 Halloween Module: Shadow Under Devil’s Reef is impressive. The cover is creepy, the artwork inside excellent, and the maps decently done. However, illustrations of the two doors with their dial locks and traps are completely absent.
As written, Dungeon Crawl Classics 2017 Halloween Module: Shadow Under Devil’s Reef appears to want to nothing more than punish the Player Characters for information they simply lack. The two sets of doors are an exercise in frustration and the inclusion of the psi-spider without any sign that it might be important only seems to reward the most avaricious Player Character willing to fight past the undead crew. Ideally, The Royal Dawn could be shifted to face the post of Black Sand Port, to make it an obvious destination, one of its surviving crew inform the Player Characters about the importance of the princess’ pet psi-spider, or the pet psi-spider’s telepathic cries be heard across the wreck of the ship. Perhaps a scroll of either Comprehend Languages or Knock be found aboard or an illustration of both doors be given. Or at least have the second door rely upon another means of being opened, one that requires a Thief rather than a Wizard? Much of which could be fixed with the inclusion or preparation of suitable pre-generated Player Characters.
Dungeon Crawl Classics 2017 Halloween Module: Shadow Under Devil’s Reef looks like a great adventure with its decent maps and artwork, but it does not live up to either. It needs the input of the Judge to fix its issues and make it something that she might want to play and her players roleplay. Even then, Dungeon Crawl Classics 2017 Halloween Module: Shadow Under Devil’s Reef is a pulpy, eldritch-themed scenario rather than a horror scenario since there is no element of fear written in.

The gaming magazine is dead. After all, when was the last time that you were able to purchase a gaming magazine at your nearest newsagent? Games Workshop’s White Dwarf is of course the exception, but it has been over a decade since Dragon appeared in print. However, in more recent times, the hobby has found other means to bring the magazine format to the market. Digitally, of course, but publishers have also created their own in-house titles and sold them direct or through distribution. Another vehicle has been Kickststarter.com, which has allowed amateurs to write, create, fund, and publish titles of their own, much like the fanzines of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest. The resulting titles are not fanzines though, being longer, tackling broader subject matters, and more professional in terms of their layout and design.

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The first thing you notice about Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 is the dice. Of course, you are meant to. A set of yellow polyhedral dice with white lettering against the dark background of the cover to Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2? It stands out. After all, what gamer does not like a set of dice? And they are nice dice. They sit on the front of the second issue of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer, a partwork from Hachette Partworks Ltd. A partwork is an ongoing series of magazine-like issues that together form a completed set of a collection or a reference work. In the case of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer, it is designed to introduce the reader to the world and the play of Dungeons & Dragons, specifically, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. With the tag line, ‘Learn – Play – Explore’, over the course of multiple issues the reader will learn about Dungeons & Dragons, how it is played and what options it offers, the worlds it opens up to explore, and support this with content that can be brought to the table and played. Over the course of eighty issues, it will create a complete reference work for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, provide scenarios and adventures that can be played, and support it with dice, miniatures, and more.
Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 does not just come with the dice. There is the second issue of the magazine, there is a very sturdy map of part of Faerün, and of course, there is advertising for the forthcoming issues of the partwork and their bonus content, as well as the advantages of subscribing. If that does not sound quite as much as came with Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1, then you would be correct. The most obvious difference is that the dice with this issue are not official Dungeons & Dragons dice and they do not come in a tin—meaning that players will have to find something else to store them in until either an issue of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer comes with a free dice bag or that fabled ‘dice jail’. At the same time, the price of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 has risen in comparison to the Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1. This though is perfectly normal for the partwork format, the first two issues being cheaper than the third and subsequent issues which will be priced at the full rate. Essentially, the first issue is always priced so as to be very pocket friendly, engage the purchaser, and hopefully encourage him to purchase future issues, exactly as you would expect for a loss leader.

So what of the content in Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2? Although not as attractively—or even at all—packaged as the dice in the premiere issue, the dice are decent and having more dice around the table is always a good thing, whether playing the encounters given in Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer or not. The map depicts the area of the Sword Coast east of the city of Neverwinter. It is excerpted from the map included in the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Measuring twenty-two by thirty inches and marked in five-mile wide hexes, it covers an area from The Crags in the north to the Mere of Dead Men and Kryptgarden Forest in the south, and from Neverwinter on the coast to the Starmetal Hills and the Sword Mountains in the east. It is done in full colour, on very sturdy paper, and is really rather fetching. As with the included encounter in Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2, the map ties in with the original Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set and also the more recent release from Wizards of the Coast, Phandelver and Below – The Shattered Obelisk.
The magazine part of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 is just twenty-four pages in length. Issues contain sections dedicated to the seven gameplay elements—‘Sage Advice’, ‘Character Creation’, ‘The Dungeon Master’, ‘Spellcasting’, ‘Combat’, ‘Encounters’, and ‘Lore’—of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 focuses on just three of these—‘Sage Advice’, ‘Character Creation’, and ‘Lore’, although it does also include an ‘Encounter’ which is exclusive to the partwork. The ‘Sage Advice’ looks at three things and explains how they work. The first is ‘Advantage, Disadvantage, & Inspiration’ which examines the key mechanic introduced to Dungeons & Dragons and the wider hobby back in 2014. A decade on, these are well worn mechanics, tried and tested, whilst Inspiration was the very first roleplaying mechanic introduced to Dungeons & Dragons after being in print for forty years! Advantage and Disadvantage are simple mechanics and easy to grasp and use in play. Here Disadvantage is not quite as well explained as Advantage though. Bardic Inspiration is mentioned too, but its explanation is left for another issue of the partwork to explain. The ‘Rule of Cool’ is discussed and the prospective Dungeon Master is encouraged to employ it.
The second is ‘Resting and Hit Dice’. This covers the concepts of the Long Rest and the Short Rest, before the third, ‘Spellcasting Explained’ covers how spells are cast for both Wizards and Clerics. Spells are broken down into their components and their duration, the differences between Spell Level and Player Character Level are also explained, how Concentration works, and how spells are prepared. Everything is well explained and easy to read.
‘Character Creation’ looks at just two things. The first is Humans as a species in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, including mention of notable Humans such as Elminster and Minsc (plus Boo, his miniature Space Hamster companion), whilst the second is the Rogue Class. This highlights the flexibility of the role, whether as thief or diplomat or investigator, and its reliance on stealth, dextrous action, precision, and in some situations, charm. As well as discussing Rogues in the Forgotten Realms, its companion piece is ‘Rogue Features’. Or rather, ‘Rogue Feature’, for although the Rogue as a Class can do rather a lot, the only feature discussed is the Sneak Attack. It is all solid information, but it highlights one of the downsides of the partwork. This is that only one aspect of a subject is going to be covered in a partwork. In this case, it is the Sneak Attack of the Rogue. The other abilities of the Rogue, even those available at First Level, will have to wait for a future issue.
Penultimately, the ‘Lore’ section proves to the shortest section in Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2. It simply provides a two-page overview of the Forgotten Realms, serving as a straightforward introduction. The last section in the issue of this partwork is an ‘Encounter’ which at six pages long, is the longest section in the issue. ‘Adventure 1 – 2 The Forgotten Vault’ effectively introduces the players and their characters to their first dungeon. Where ‘Adventure 1 – 1 King of the Hill’ from Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 is set in the village of Phandalin, ‘Adventure 1 – 2 The Forgotten Vault’ takes the Player Characters away from it and under the eaves of Neverwinter Wood. They are hired by Daran Eldermath, a Half-Elf adventurer who has retired to Phandalin, to help him relocate a villa he explored and mapped years ago, but which he strangely forgot about. Once there, he wants them to recover a beautiful statue of an elf queen. The villa has long fallen into ruin and been grown over, but the vault is intact, although partially split by an underground river. The adventure comes with a map that the Dungeon Master can use as a handout and consists of just six locations. It is seeded with a trap, there is a physical obstacle in the form of the river, and there a couple of fun monsters. The scenario is short, designed to be played in an hour or two, ideally with the pre-generated Player Characters included with Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1. There is advice—or DM Tips—throughout as well. ‘Adventure 1 – 2 The Forgotten Vault’ is a decent encounter, nicely introduces the concepts of dungeoneering play in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.
Physically, Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 is very well presented, in full colour using the Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition trade dress and lots and lots of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition artwork. So, the production values are high, colourful, and the writing is supported with lots of ‘Top Tip’ sections. The result is that Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 is as physically engaging as the first issue, a nice touch being that even the backing board holding the bagged issue even has Dungeons & Dragons artwork on it where you cannot see it until you pull the bag from the board. However, the glued together spine and disparate nature of the contents highlight how the partwork is designed to be pulled apart and its pages slotted into the binders that will be available for Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer as a whole.

Where Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 was undoubtedly great value for money, Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 does not represent as good value as that first issue did. Which is to be expected. This is how a partwork works. For the prospective Dungeon Master, the encounter, ‘Adventure 1 – 2 The Forgotten Vault’ is a decent enough continuation of ‘Adventure 1 – 1 King of the Hill’ from Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1, especially if added to the Phandelver and Below – The Shattered Obelisk campaign. However it is used, the encounter at least offers a couple of hours’ worth of play. In fact, an experienced Dungeon Master could run both encounters in the space of an evening or afternoon. Overall, Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2 is a good continuation of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1, but not as good as Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1.