On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and  Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another choice is Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 is a of a different stripe. Published by Orbital Intelligence LLC following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is not a collection of random articles, scenarios, monsters, treasures, and so on, but a slim booklet dedicated to just the one event—‘The Drop’, and its outcome—the ‘Terror of the Stratofiend’.

At some point in the past, portals and warp gates opened all over the Earth and began spilling forth giant aliens from beyond the stars at the same time as aliens revealed themselves on Earth itself. A mixture of tentacles, lasers, and chainsaws, they tower over humanity, wreaking havoc with mankind and themselves, followed by humans from the stars, who spoke the same language, but were ready to fight the aliens… Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 contains four new Classes, two new Patrons—the equivalent of gods in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, armour, equipment, weapons, and more.

The four Classes are Human Sat-Caster, Half-Stratosfiend Street Whisperer, Stratosfiend Delver, and Stratosfiend Magistrate Gladiatrix. The Human Sat-Caster serves as the eyes and ears of call Orbital Intelligences, able to connect to rogue space stations and weapons satellites to call down hellfire from the skies. Wearing armour of all kinds and armed with the best laser weaponry they can find, they are essentially spellcasters who forge an ‘uplink’ with their Patron who may or may not be in orbit and who really need to maintain line-of-sight with the skies. Created via genetic engineering or unthinkable congress, the Half-Stratosfiend Street Whisperer is half-Human, half-Stratofiend, a tentacled Human despised by both sides, a ‘godkiller’ bound to slay a Patron, who with his volatile genetics, constantly mutates and evolves. As they evolve, their tentacle attacks get stronger and although primarily a stealth-based Class, may also acquire spells through their mutations. The Stratosfiend Delver is one of the terrifying races from beyond the stars, towering bipedal humanoids with combat-capable tentacles protruding from their spines who foster cults around them and who have psionically capable brains which enable them to cast spell-like effects. Lastly, the Stratosfiend Magistrate Gladiatrix are combat monsters, towering even over other Stratosfiends, killing machines whose psionic allure draws their victims in to be slaughtered.  

‘Weapons’ lists traditional weapons like daggers and two-handed swords are joined by modern firearms, such as rifles and shotguns. The warping effect of ‘The Drop’ sometimes leaves its mark upon such weapons, with twenty such effects listed under ‘Upgrades’. So a found weapon might be ‘Homing’, enabling two attack rolls to be made for an attack and the best used or ‘Acidic’, reducing a target’s Armour Class with every hit. ‘Armour’ runs the gamut from the ‘Explorer Exo-Suit’ which is slow and heavy, but is sealed against airborne contaminants and provides a bonus to skill checks and spell casting, to the ‘Twitching Carapace’, which offers increased Armour Class bonus and worse check penalties with every hit to the wearer and if the wearer takes damage when it provides the most protection, can hatch and attack the wearer! The silliest is Beach Gear, which offers less than no protection, but ensures you always hot, oiled, and beach ready, baby…! New items of gear under ‘Equipment’ include parasites, hormonal cocktails, and scanning equipment. For example, the ‘Stealth Organism’ is a living parasite which binds with its owner and uses a combination of pheromones and adrenal boosts to enable the owner to blend with shadows. The organism dies if the owner takes damage. There are downsides to using some of the new equipment. So whilst the ‘Micro-Evolution Syringe’ adds a one-time major boost to the user’s next action, its use—and subsequent use—can corrupt the user.

Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 lists just the one spell. This is Polyphemean Rage, which fires a plasma beam from the user’s single giant eye. This can manifest as the caster’s blinking a million times, the eye glows as particles are sucked into it, the caster winks air around the target begins to boil, or the caster’s eye temporarily turns into a charred gemstone. Like all spells for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, it comes with a full table of its effects plus nasty results should the spell misfire or corrupt.

The first of two Patrons in the fanzine is ‘Sky-Lasher the Everlasting, Trident of the Sun’. Whether appearing as a sentient defence satellite or a a bat-winged flaming demon, it is always solar-panelled and supported by bombers, fighter craft, drones, and zealots, ready to bring its adherents the illumination and cleansing fire of the sun. The other is ‘Terror-Eater, the Earthmother’, who resides in the depths of the Earth and who may be the Earth or simply wearing its skin. She will help her worshippers as long as they feed her… Which mostly consists of her sending tentacles up through the Earth, even if that means destroying everything nearby. Both include tables for effects when the Patron is invoked, gifts or taints, and Patron spells. Lastly, the ‘Bestiary’ details Children of Earth tied to the Terror-Eater, the Earthmother and Children of Space tied to the Sky-Lasher the Everlasting, Trident of the Sun, all seven creatures being suitably weird.

Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 is very nicely presented. It is clean and tidy with some decent artwork, though the artwork is of an adult nature in places. It is also full of ideas and rich possibilities, but the problem with Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 is what to do with it. As written, it is designed for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, so what the Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 does. As written, it is designed for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and if Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 to a Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game campaign it really is going to upset the proverbial apple cart, changing the campaign’s direction and even its genre with the addition of technology as well as the weirdness of the Stratosfiends. So in some ways, Terror of the Stratosfiend is more applicable for a Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic campaign which already has many of the elements found in Terror of the Stratosfiend #1. Another issue is that Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 does not offer options for playing the Humans who came in the wake of ‘The Drop’. Hopefully Terror of the Stratosfiend #2 will cover these as well as developing more of the post-Drop world…

Terror of the Stratosfiend #1 is weird and wacky and fantastic! Its contents will radically change the nature of a campaign world, but how far will have to wait for future issues.

I was SUPPOSED to be working on some FASA Star Trek characters.  So I was going through my character folders trying to find some of my old characters for Decipher Trek.  I didn't find them.  I DID find characters for my very, very first Generation HEX characters.  Namely Taryn aka "Teen Witch" and Brianna who had a lot of names, but one of them was "Witch Fire."

Imagine my surprise when it finally dawned on me that there was a DC character named Witch Fire AND my complete surprise when I found out Marvel also had a Witch Fire!

I pulled her out, went over her stats and thought it would be great to update her to Mutants & Masterminds 3.0 from version 2.

I also looked over the DC Witchfire and the Marvel Witchfire for some ideas.

DC, Rebecca Carstairs
Fandom: Rebecca Carstairs (New Earth)
Fandom: Rebecca Carstairs (Prime Earth)
ComicVine: Witchfire
Comic Book Realm: Witchfire aka Rebecca Carstairs
Notes

DC Earth-27 Project, Rebecca Carstairs
PhilChoArt: Rebecca Carstairs (Earth 27)
Rebecca Carstairs (Earth 27)
DeviantArt Sheets, Page 1 and Page 2.

Marvel, Ananym
Wikipedia: Witchfire
Fandom: Ananym (Earth 616)
ComicVine: Witchfire


All three characters (Marvel, DC, and Mine) had several similarities.
- All three are redheads
- All three had fire powers in addition to magic
- All had strange, magical parentage.

So instead of trying to do one or the other (and I am partial to the DC version), I'll present my own with some add-ons from the other two.
Here she is!

Witchfire aka Brianna O'Kelly
PL 8
Strength 3, Stamina 1, Agility 3, Dexterity 1, Fighting 1, Intellect 2, Awareness 1, Presence 1

Advantages
Attractive 2, Languages 1, Well-informed

Skills
Acrobatics 1 (+4), Athletics 2 (+5), Close Combat: Fire Aura: Damage 4 1 (+2), Insight 1 (+2), Perception 2 (+3), Persuasion 3 (+4), Ranged Combat: Fire Blast: Damage 8 2 (+3), Sleight of Hand 1 (+2)

Powers
Alternate Form (Fire) (Activation: Standard Action)
   Damage: Damage 1 (DC 16)
   Flight: Flight 3 (Speed: 16 miles/hour, 250 feet/round)
   Immunity: Immunity 0
   Insubstantial: Insubstantial 3 (Energy)
   Teleport: Teleport 1 (60 feet in a move action, carrying 50 lbs.; Medium: Energy Medium)
Dazzle: Cumulative Affliction 1 (1st degree: Impaired, 2nd degree: Disabled, 3rd degree: Unaware, Resisted by: Fortitude, DC 11; Cumulative, Increased Range: ranged; Limited: Sight)
Enhanced Ability: Enhanced Agility 3 (+3 AGL)
Enhanced Ability: Enhanced Strength 3 (+3 STR)
Fire Aura: Damage 4 (DC 19; Reaction 3: reaction)
Fire Blast: Damage 8 (DC 23; Increased Range: ranged)
Magic: Burst Area Line Area Damage 8 (DC 23; Burst Area: 30 feet radius sphere, DC 18, Line Area: 5 feet wide by 30 feet long, DC 18)

Offense
Initiative +3
Damage: Damage 1, +1 (DC 16)
Dazzle: Cumulative Affliction 1, +1 (DC Fort 11)
Fire Aura: Damage 4, +2 (DC 19)
Fire Blast: Damage 8, +3 (DC 23)
Grab, +1 (DC Spec 13)
Magic: Burst Area Line Area Damage 8 (DC 23)
Throw, +1 (DC 18)
Unarmed, +1 (DC 18)

Complications
Fame (well known under real name)
Motivation: Thrills

Languages
English, Irish Gaelic

Defense
Dodge 3, Parry 2, Fortitude 2, Toughness 1, Will 3

Power Points
Abilities 14 + Powers 91 + Advantages 4 + Skills 7 (13 ranks) + Defenses 4 = 120


Not bad.  She is PL 8 since that is where I set all my M&M3 Generation HEX.
I might have to do some more.

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. As popular in the Old School Renaissance as the genre is, not all fanzines are devoted to fantasy.

Gamma Zine carries the subtitle, ‘A Fanzine supporting early post-apocalyptic, science-fantasy RPGs – specifically First Edition Gamma World by TSR.’ This then, is a fanzine dedicated to the very first post-apocalyptic roleplaying game, Gamma World, First Edition, published by TSR, Inc. in 1978. Gamma Zine #1 was published in April, 2019, following a successful Kickstarter campaign as part of Zine Quest 1 . Published by ThrowiGames!, it comes as a black and white booklet, packed with content, including adventures, equipment, monsters, and more.

The more begins with a short interview with James M. Ward, the designer of both Gamma World and its predecessor, Metamorphosis Alpha. Just a page long it gives a little history and background to the game, hopefully the author will return to ask the designer more questions. Then it is on to the gaming content, beginning with ‘New Horrors from the Wasteland’, four new creatures and species to add to your post-apocalyptic setting. They include the Spindling, a cross between a snake and a spider which scurries and bites; the Unipede, a slug-like thing with a tooth horn which is capable piercing the hard rock and metal it likes to consume—including the player characters’ equipment and armour, so akin to the Rust Monster then; and the Shuggnagarath is a bat-winged tentacled thing which flies the across the Wasteland in search of skulls to crack open and brain matter to feed upon. Lastly, the Moleman is a new intelligent species, which hoards and uses the ancient technologies it scavenges from burrowing into lost bunkers. So a perfect source of technological whatnots and gewgaws, as foes coming after the player characters’ best gear.

Gamma World is a game without character Classes. Gamma Zine #1 rectifies that with a ‘Class Option for First Edition Gamma World’. This is the Artificer, for which a character needs an Intelligence of 15, at least two beneficial mutations, such as Dual Brain and Molecular Understanding, which grants him a bonus to both find and understand technology. Although it states that members of the Class prefer to build their own technology, this is not explored in the write-up. Notably though, the Class does gain extra Experience Points for finding and identifying technology, but none for combat. This is followed by three new items in ‘Artifacts of the Ancients’, the Type-III E-Fist—powered brass knuckles, the Pulse Grenade, and the KnifE, a vibrodagger. All three are nicely detailed and come with decent illustrations.

‘Adventure #1 – MuTech Test Facility’ is the first of three adventures in Gamma Zine #1 which details a secret pre-war research base in the Appalachian hills. Designed for two to four characters, it is a chance for them to delve into some of the events leading up to the war. The facility is essentially a mini-dungeon, all robots and electrical traps, nicely detailed and ready to add to a campaign. 

‘Adventure #2 – The Hand’ is again dungeon-like, but makes use of the Molemen detailed earlier in the fanzine, so is stuffed with technology for the player characters to find. Designed for three to six player characters, it has a more organic feel than ‘Adventure #1 – MuTech Test Facility’. Not just because it is occupied by Molemen, but also because of its shape. All of its rooms and chambers are inside the concrete stone hand of a giant statue, which gives it a weirdly natural feel despite it being an artificial environment. The complex is also lived in and there are NPCs here which may attempt to interact with the player characters. This is an easier encounter to add to a game and much like a certain statue in Planet of the Apes serves to enforce the post-apocalyptic nature of the world the player characters are in. ‘Adventure #3 – Dark Knights’ is the scenario with the most background and so the easiest to tie into the background of the Gamma World post-apocalyptic future. Knights of Genetic Purity squads have been scouring the region in search of mutants to exterminate and one squad has reopened a coal mine near the village of Gallax. Designed for three to five characters, this is a small complex, but one occupied by an armed opponent. So this is much more of a combat adventure, but one supported by a stronger motive for the player characters to get involved in comparison to the previous two scenarios.

The other continues with ‘The Hunted, Chapter One’, a short piece of fiction which recounts a violent encounter between the protagonist and some motorcycle-riding bandits. There is a desperate tone to it as she scrabbles to defend herself with few resources to hand. It is nicely written and ends on a good cliffhanger, but the introduction could have been better handled. It is followed by a new set of ‘Artifact Use (Solution) Flowcharts’,  seven simplified flow charts to help speed up play when a player character has to items to work out what they are and what they do. This includes items of varying complexity and types of doors. These are quick and easy and work well with the earlier Artificer ‘Class Option for First Edition Gamma World’.

Physically, Gamma Zine #1 is neat and tidy. It is not only decently written, but illustrated with good art throughout and each of the scenarios is accompanied by excellent maps.


As support for Gamma World, First Edition, there is a lot to like about Gamma Zine #1 and fans of the old roleplaying will certainly appreciate the new content. For newer post-apocalyptic roleplaying games, the content in Gamma Zine #1 is perhaps drier in tone, certainly later editions of Gamma World or its thematic descendant, Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. This does not mean that it cannot be used with those roleplaying games—in fact, it would be very easy to add to them—but the Game Master should be aware that it is not quite as weird or as wacky. Overall, Gamma Zine #1 is both a good first issue and a good fanzine—hopefully, Gamma Zine #2 will be as good.

At this point in the ongoing Dallas County lockdown, people are starting to get a little emphatic about wanting to get out, but be careful what you wish for…

skarabeus:

dA link to Iriz
Coffee? :D

Done with watercolours and a few other things (liquid mask, black liner) for Araenor

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another choice is Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

Published by Straycouches Press, Crawl! is one such fanzine dedicated to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Since Crawl! No. 1 was published in March, 2012 has not only provided ongoing support for the roleplaying game, but also been kept in print by Goodman Games. Now because of online printing sources like Lulu.com, it is no longer as difficult to keep fanzines from going out of print, so it is not that much of a surprise that issues of Crawl! remain in print. It is though, pleasing to see a publisher like Goodman Games support fan efforts like this fanzine by keeping them in print and selling them directly.

Where Crawl! No. 1 was a mixed bag, Crawl! #2 is surprisingly focused, as announced by the issue’s subtitle—‘The Loot Issue!’. Published in June, 2012, what the issue does is explore the role of treasure in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, highlighting the fact that treasure is a relative rarity in comparison to Dungeons & Dragons and other retroclones—its fantasy world lacks the piles of gold and hoards of magical items and gewgaws found in other fantasy roleplaying games. In the first article, ‘Loot!’ the editor builds a means of determining treasure types from one simple table—the ‘Random Loot by Monster Type’ table. This breaks down the treasure finds by monster type, so ‘Humanoids with Weapons’, ‘Dragons’, ‘Demons’, Un-dead’, and ‘Other Monsters’. What a character finds—the roll modified by his Luck bonus—actually does not vary all that wildly, so handfuls of coins, a few gems, and so on, though a character is more likely to find cursed items with the Un-dead. Further tables expand upon the one table, one in particular adding ‘Items of Note’. These are not necessarily magical, but whether charms, bottles, scrolls, books, and the like, they are valuable, at least to someone. Magical items can be found, but they are rare—really rare in comparison to Dungeons & Dragons—and they are anything other then generic. So no mere +1 swords…

Instead, the fanzine offers ‘Lucky Items’. These are items which not only have a Luck bonus or a ‘magical’ effect, they also have a story. They can also be created during a play, such as when a warrior uses a weapon for the first time and it inflicts a critical wound or a wizard carves a staff from a branch of tree that the wizard witnessed being struck by lightning. Now the Luck bonus or ‘magical’ effect may not always work and it can degrade and even be lost over time, but idea is that over time, instead of a player character discovering yet another shield +2 or Dagger +1, he will come to favour certain weapons or items of equipment, and perhaps they might grow with him as the story and legend of his doings are told, becoming Lucky, and ultimately, Legendary as looked at in ‘Legendary Items’. (Though this does not stop him from discovering the Dagger +1.)

All together, these three articles form a trilogy, one that nicely builds upon its subject matter without the reader necessarily noticing until the end. Although the mechanics for Lucky items are slightly more complex than that might be found in standard Dungeons & Dragons, they make such items fickle—rather than unreliable—and thus more fun. Overall, this trilogy is good alternative to the rules given for Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, adding depth, but also highlighting the differences between it and Dungeons & Dragons. 

This difference is further highlighted in the fourth article. ‘OSR Conversions: Treasure!’ As this series of articles details, there is a great deal of difference between how Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the Old School Renaissance handles treasure. This details how the Judge can take an adventure for another retroclone and adapt its treasure element to Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. So this extends the utility of the previous trilogy in enabling a Judge to run more scenarios without losing the flavour of Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

Jon Marr of purplesorcerer.com provides the first of several articles by other authors in the second issue of the fanzine. This is ‘Honest Orkoff!’, a personality from his Sunken Cities campaign, a generally trustworthy merchant of Mustertown who if he is not interested in making a purchase from you, then can put you in touch with someone who will be interested. Just three are described in a lovely line of patter from the merchant, each really being a little vignette or encounter that the Judge can develop and bring into her game. Colin Chapman offers new rules for both shields and helmets with ‘Shattered Shields’ and ‘Helmet Law!’. The former suggests that shields can be shattered in a single blow in order to offset damage that might otherwise greatly injure a character, whilst the latter details how a helmet can do the same, but if used in that fashion there might be unintended consequences (as detailed on the accompanying table). Much of this will be familiar from any number of retroclones from the past few years or so, but to be fair, these rules would have been nice additions for a more brutal style of game in 2012 and they still are in 2020.

Lastly, Colin Chapman takes the reader shopping. In ‘Helmets & New Shields’, he adds new rules and new types of armour, such as bucklers which can be used with ranged weapons and as weapons and the check penalty to all actions whilst wearing various types of helmets. In ‘Killin’ Time!’ he lists several new weapons, such as Bullwhip and Maul, and the rules for using them, along with notes and suggestions as to which Classes from the  Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game can use them. ‘Be Prepared!’ covers food and lodging, tools, miscellaneous items, and more—even prosthetic items!

Physically, Crawl! #2 is surprising. The layout is clean and tidy, uncluttered and easy to read. The artwork is good too. Overall and though it is a fanzine, there is a feel of professionalism in terms of how Crawl! #2 is presented. If Crawl! No. 1 was a good first issue, then Crawl! #2 is better. The presentation is cleaner, tidier, and easier to read, making the content more accessible. That content itself is useful, helping to develop a Judge’s Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game campaign in terms of how she handles treasure and how treasure can be made important to the player characters, and then making combat more bruising and battering with the rules for shields and helmets. 

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another choice is Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

Published by Straycouches Press, Crawl! is one such fanzine dedicated to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Since Crawl! No. 1 was published in March, 2012 has not only provided ongoing support for the roleplaying game, but also been kept in print by Goodman Games. Now because of online printing sources like Lulu.com, it is no longer as difficult to keep fanzines from going out of print, so it is not that much of a surprise that issues of Crawl! remain in print. It is though, pleasing to see a publisher like Goodman Games support fan efforts like this fanzine by keeping them in print and selling them directly.

Where Crawl! No. 1 was a mixed bag, Crawl! #2 is surprisingly focused, as announced by the issue’s subtitle—‘The Loot Issue!’. Published in June, 2012, what the issue does is explore the role of treasure in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, highlighting the fact that treasure is a relative rarity in comparison to Dungeons & Dragons and other retroclones—its fantasy world lacks the piles of gold and hoards of magical items and gewgaws found in other fantasy roleplaying games. In the first article, ‘Loot!’ the editor builds a means of determining treasure types from one simple table—the ‘Random Loot by Monster Type’ table. This breaks down the treasure finds by monster type, so ‘Humanoids with Weapons’, ‘Dragons’, ‘Demons’, Un-dead’, and ‘Other Monsters’. What a character finds—the roll modified by his Luck bonus—actually does not vary all that wildly, so handfuls of coins, a few gems, and so on, though a character is more likely to find cursed items with the Un-dead. Further tables expand upon the one table, one in particular adding ‘Items of Note’. These are not necessarily magical, but whether charms, bottles, scrolls, books, and the like, they are valuable, at least to someone. Magical items can be found, but they are rare—really rare in comparison to Dungeons & Dragons—and they are anything other then generic. So no mere +1 swords…

Instead, the fanzine offers ‘Lucky Items’. These are items which not only have a Luck bonus or a ‘magical’ effect, they also have a story. They can also be created during a play, such as when a warrior uses a weapon for the first time and it inflicts a critical wound or a wizard carves a staff from a branch of tree that the wizard witnessed being struck by lightning. Now the Luck bonus or ‘magical’ effect may not always work and it can degrade and even be lost over time, but idea is that over time, instead of a player character discovering yet another shield +2 or Dagger +1, he will come to favour certain weapons or items of equipment, and perhaps they might grow with him as the story and legend of his doings are told, becoming Lucky, and ultimately, Legendary as looked at in ‘Legendary Items’. (Though this does not stop him from discovering the Dagger +1.)

All together, these three articles form a trilogy, one that nicely builds upon its subject matter without the reader necessarily noticing until the end. Although the mechanics for Lucky items are slightly more complex than that might be found in standard Dungeons & Dragons, they make such items fickle—rather than unreliable—and thus more fun. Overall, this trilogy is good alternative to the rules given for Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, adding depth, but also highlighting the differences between it and Dungeons & Dragons. 

This difference is further highlighted in the fourth article. ‘OSR Conversions: Treasure!’ As this series of articles details, there is a great deal of difference between how Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the Old School Renaissance handles treasure. This details how the Judge can take an adventure for another retroclone and adapt its treasure element to Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. So this extends the utility of the previous trilogy in enabling a Judge to run more scenarios without losing the flavour of Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

Jon Marr of purplesorcerer.com provides the first of several articles by other authors in the second issue of the fanzine. This is ‘Honest Orkoff!’, a personality from his Sunken Cities campaign, a generally trustworthy merchant of Mustertown who if he is not interested in making a purchase from you, then can put you in touch with someone who will be interested. Just three are described in a lovely line of patter from the merchant, each really being a little vignette or encounter that the Judge can develop and bring into her game. Colin Chapman offers new rules for both shields and helmets with ‘Shattered Shields’ and ‘Helmet Law!’. The former suggests that shields can be shattered in a single blow in order to offset damage that might otherwise greatly injure a character, whilst the latter details how a helmet can do the same, but if used in that fashion there might be unintended consequences (as detailed on the accompanying table). Much of this will be familiar from any number of retroclones from the past few years or so, but to be fair, these rules would have been nice additions for a more brutal style of game in 2012 and they still are in 2020.

Lastly, Colin Chapman takes the reader shopping. In ‘Helmets & New Shields’, he adds new rules and new types of armour, such as bucklers which can be used with ranged weapons and as weapons and the check penalty to all actions whilst wearing various types of helmets. In ‘Killin’ Time!’ he lists several new weapons, such as Bullwhip and Maul, and the rules for using them, along with notes and suggestions as to which Classes from the  Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game can use them. ‘Be Prepared!’ covers food and lodging, tools, miscellaneous items, and more—even prosthetic items!


Physically, Crawl! #2 is surprising. The layout is clean and tidy, uncluttered and easy to read. The artwork is good too. Overall and though it is a fanzine, there is a feel of professionalism in terms of how Crawl! #2 is presented. If Crawl! No. 1 was a good first issue, then Crawl! #2 is better. The presentation is cleaner, tidier, and easier to read, making the content more accessible. That content itself is useful, helping to develop a Judge’s Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game campaign in terms of how she handles treasure and how treasure can be made important to the player characters, and then making combat more bruising and battering with the rules for shields and helmets. 

Been spending some quality time with Calidar this week.  Why? because there is a complete lack of flying cities and skyships in my games.  Plus Bruce Heard is a great writer going way back to the TSR days.  Back when I was in college my money was tight.  Ok I was spending it on alcohol. But the point is that I was not buying a lot of D&D books.  What I DID buy were book by Bruce Heard and anything he did for Mystara.

So these new books (and my Professor's salary) are a welcome addition to my life.
Let's get into it.

Game Mechanics for the World of Calidar
12 pages. PDF and Softcover format. Full-color covers, color, and black & white interior. PWYW

Ok, this book is punching WAY above its weight in terms of value to page count. There are some obvious benefits, that I'll talk about and one or two not-so-obvious that also make this a must-have.  I'll get to those as well.  Let's start with the explicit value.
This book is designed to allow any GM or player to use the Calidar shorthand stats I have talked about all week and then convert them to any game system.
The game mechanics used are detailed first. By doing this Calidar is free to depict stats in any way that works best for the world and not necessarily the game system.  There is an obvious "D&D-bias" here but that is fine really, and expected.
Inbetween the text is the numbers conversion chart.  Ranked by percentages the numbers are grouped by ranges you can convert say Level to a Calidar %.  So let's say your game goes from 1 to 14 (like say B/X or OSE) then you can convert a Calidar character statblock using this.  Or maybe 1 to 30 (D&D4) or 1 to 20 (most D&D).  Spend some time with this chart and the translations begin to happen easily.
The game mechanics continue and include a "Philosophy" stat which is a stand in for Alignment. AND it might actually be a better alignment system.  Now I have never had any issues with Alignment myself.  Maybe because I spent so much time with things like the MMPI and other tests that I naturally gave alignment more subtle gradations.  Actually, I think it was more chemistry come to think of it. Take the "alignment chart" in the old PHB or D&DG and think of an electron cloud where a character can move up or down in the shells.
There is also a map of Calidar and the Great Caldera and some brief descriptions of the lands.
Now what else do you get?  Well this conversion table is fantastic for conversions to all sorts of games. Not just D&D based ones.  Yes, the math is not difficult, actually, it is pretty easy.  But I teach math all damn day. I like having something like this.
Secondly, I want to get back to the new Philosophy system.  It works GREAT in CA2 How to Train Your Wizard. It would be great for someone that doesn't like the Law-Chaos, Good-Evil axes.
So grab this. Throw a couple of bucks at Bruce and have fun!

PG2 A Players' Guide to Caldwen
20 pages. PDF and Softcover format. Full-color covers, color, and black & white interior. $2.99

This covers the basics of the Magiocracy of Caldwen. The various Provinces are covered briefly and other aspects of the land.  We get the calendar with months and some astrology.
There is a new race, the Shatim, which are like Tieflings, humans with demonic heritage. These have their own Caldwenian spin on them. 
We also get a Mage Knight class. They are an armored knight that can cast spells. Using the Game Mechanics for the World of Calidar book you can convert them to your game system of choice.
We get overviews on the various cults in Caldwen and their locations, or at least where the majority are located. Appropriate for a land where magic is the real religion.
Currency, tourism and a brief map are all included.
A good resource for players and a needed one for the Game Masters.
It really sets the flavor of what you can expect in the Caldwen mini-setting. "Mini setting" is actually underselling it a bit to be honest. There is so much in the Caldwen books that you forget it was just a piece of the entire Calidar world setting.

I have the softcover books, but these really benefit from being printed out (bad on the color ink though) so I can put them in a binder to lay flat.  Especially when it comes to referencing the maps, which are a highlight of these books.

I can't wait to see where my vacation in Calidar takes me next.

Next up in the Calidar: On the Wings of Darkness series is sourcebook/adventure for novice necromancers.  So you know I am excited!

CA2 How to Train Your Wizard
PDF 70 Pages, full-color covers, color, and black & white interior art.
This book requires Calidar On Wings of Darkness and A Players' Guide to Caldwen, but it can also be played without those to a lesser degree.  That is, it can be adapted to any game or setting, but I think it looses a bit of the original charm.
This adventure and supplement focuses on the College of Necromancy and assumes novice characters of about 12 years old.  There are guidelines for rolling up novice characters as well as six pre-gen characters you can name and drop into the game.
Given the characters are novices this is a PERFECT introduction game for new, younger players. This is "Harry Potter meets Scooby-Doo (but more like Magicians)." You have young adventures, a mystery and the ghosts are real.

For the background, you get a collection of teachers that will interact with the students, and there is already a built-in rivalry in the school; the White vs. Black Necromancers.  Or Law and Chaos for us old-school types.  The characters are also given homework that can earn them "insight" to be used in the game.  Students can also get "brownie points" from their official Brownie Protector, Bronwen!  These are for good roleplaying that would not necessarily result in Experience Points.
I am just mad I didn't think of this first.

The clues the students/characters can find while working through our plot and subplots.  The adventure is designed NOT to be a railroad. In fact, care is given knowing the characters, being young, will likely go all over the place.

The adventure starts in the classroom (! YEAH, no "you meet in a Tavern/Bar/Inn!) and moves out from there.  The College is very detailed with maps and descriptions of the rooms. There are plenty of NPCs to encounter and combat is NOT expected at every turn.  Clever spellcasting is rewarded, as is finishing homework.

I want to point out here that the maps in this product are a work of art.  Really.


The levels are detailed well and clues to the murder of a student, Odel Talron.

This adventure can be run to support the murder investigation, or as a means to test the new young necromancers, or even just to play out the rivalry between the White and Black factions.  Or all the above.

For my money, I would run it first as an introduction to the College, maybe play up the rivalry a bit, and then hit the characters with the murder in the next session.

The bottom line there is a LOT you can do with this and the ideas are not limited to those above.
It comes in softcover, but for my uses, I grabbed the PDF and printed it out one side per page so I have room to write my own notes.

According to Bruce Heard, there will be Labyrinth Lord and OSRIC compatible conversion guides for this coming soon.

I hope we can see other guides like this for the other Colleges.

Return to the Würstreich with the newest game from GOBLINKO! DUNGEON BREAKOUT is a heavily flavored, tile placement party game, set in the same world and populated by the same weird characters and creatures as DUNGEON DEGENERATES: Hand of Doom. With easy-to-learn rules and fast game play action, DUNGEON BREAKOUT will be a hit with any crowd!

You’re trapped in the dungeon below Brüttleburg, but there is a chance for escape! Make your way through the maze-like corridors, collecting loot and battling monsters, and find the exit first to win! Watch out though, in addition to lurking monsters, there could be a jailor around the next corner, or one of your opponents trying to stop you!

Check out the kickstarter here! Only seven days left!

I have been meaning to spend some quality time in Calidar lately. If you have been reading this blog for a while you know that I am a fan of the work of former TSR writer and editor, Bruce Heard.  A few years back he began producing some system-neutral books for his World of Calidar.  A world situated around the Great Caldera and the planets in the same solar system.  If you recall Bruce's work on Mystara and in particular his "Voyages of the Princess Ark", then you can see how this is a logical progression of similar ideas.

I have reviewed other Calidar books in the past, in particular Calidar, In Stranger Skies and Calidar, Beyond the Skies.  I figure this is a good week to cover some of the other books. 
Bruce himself has been discussing his books and how they all work together on his own blog, so you can read that there.

Today I want to start with one of my favorites Calidar projects.  Calidar On Wings of Darkness.


CAL2 Calidar On Wings of Darkness
134 pages, Hardcover, Softcover, and PDF. Full-color covers. Color and black & white art interior.
For this review, I am considering the PDF and softcover versions I received via the Kickstarter.

The book is broken up into the following chapters/sections.

A Mage's Conundrum: This is the fiction piece that sets the stage for what readers (and players) can encounter in Caldwen, this country of Mages and Demons.

History of Caldwen:  This chapter covers the time-line of Caldwen and the moon of Munaan where magic comes from.  We learn of early dealing with demons and the start of the mages. Presented in timeline format we are given over 7000 years of history to the present day of the campaign.

Lay of the Land: In this chapter, we are treated to some full-color maps which are always a strong feature of all the Calidar books. Here, of course, we are focused on the Magiocracy of Caldwen.  Now it is natural to make comparisons between Caldwen and Bruce's other magiocracy, the Principalities of Glantri. Yes there are some similarities, but there are plenty of differences too.  The main difference comes from the geography of the land, and the sea.  Caldwen is a coastal country with over two-thirds of its borders coasts.  In some ways I get a solids 7th Sea vibe here and this feels more Age of Sail than it does the dark ages. I have to admit that while D&D is firmly on my mind as the system of choice for this, I can help read it over and think that Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade would also be a REALLY good fit for this.


We get a two-page, detailed map with legend. Again, great cartography from Thorfin Tait.
The nine Provinces (with one Dominion) follow after this in "Gazeteer-like" formats.  We get details on each province and local maps.   The area of the whole country is huge and boasts over 10 million inhabitants.  Just looking at the maps gives me plenty of ideas!

Intrigues of the Magi: This chapter covers the politics of a country that is a magiocracy, a meritocracy, and a dascalocracy. Or one that is ruled by meritorious teaching mages.
This chapter also covers the social structure for these wizards and how the various Provinces interact as part of the central government. Though the central government might be overstating it since much power lies in the rulers of the Provinces.  We see some of the few stat blocks here and they are given in the Calidar shorthand stats. They can be translated into your game of choice using the Game Mechanics for the World of Calidar book (which is PWYW).

Behind the Curtains: Deals with the various non-mage guilds that also keep Caldwen moving. They are a mixed lot and would work well in any game.  I would tend to use them more as background or NPCs, not so much as guilds for PCs to join.

A Cast of Many: The NPCs of note in Caldwen. Again stats are presented in the Calidar stats but easily converted to any game.  Mentally I found myself inserting Pathfinder and D&D5 stats where needed and with a little more thought could see Mage: TSC stats as well.
This section is also heavily hypertexted.  So if someone else's name appears in an NPC entry you can click it to go to their entry. The same is true for titles, colleges and other items.
Some stand out like Kryovata the Icy, a gnome sorceress and leader of the Protectors.

Master & Servant: Caldwen has a fair number of demons running around. These are bound demons and under the control (in theory) of a mage. This chapter covers demons, their ownership and the pacts created. Also, the demonic Black Market is discussed.  Like the previous chapter, this has notable demons detailed.

Beasties in the Dark: The monster section of some of Caldwen's more interesting creatures. Detailed in the same stat system as the rest of the book.

At the Heart of Magic:  Ah. Now here is the meat of the book.  This covers Caldwen's schools of magic and how their benefits, tuition, philosophies, diplomas, and campus rivalries influence the fabric of the entire magiocracy.  The magic schools are treated as colleges and have a similar feel to the American and British collegiate system.    We also learn of two of the sports played, Dracoderby which is like a dragon polo and Pugminton.  Magic use in game is expected.
Each college is detailed and which town and Province their seat is in.  The colleges are Abjuration, Alteration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Illusion, Invocation, Necromancy, and Grand Wizardry.
Circles of Wizardy are given, roughly levels of academic attainment.  First (Undergrad) to Fourth (Doctorate).  Like all good colleges, there is also outplacement and career counseling.  Sure you want to be a Ruler?  Maybe the Path of Adventurers is a better choice for someone with your grades?

Secrets of the Cabals: What's a wizard's life without Secret Cabals?  Not a life at all!  Here we learn of the various cabals that cover the "Wizard's Guild" of most other settings.  The cabals cover Alchemy, Demonology, Dracology, Elementalism, Necromancy, and Skymastery, with their attendant tests, abilities and philosophies.

Blood of the World Soul: This covers the raw magical force, Mana, that makes Caldwen so special. If you are familiar with ley lines or the Radiance from Glantri then you have an idea here. It also details the order assigned to protect this mana.

Sky City of Arcanial: Now this is the stuff I love.  Floating cities are something I just never get enough of, to be honest.  Arcanial is the home of the High Wizard Chancellor's palace, the ministries, embassies, the Great Library, and the College of Grand Wizardry. Plus all the private dwellings of the Caldwen's Rich and Famous.  And you need flying gondolas to get up to it! How cool is that?
There are wonderful, full-color maps of the city and plenty of details.  This is the sort of thing I keep coming back to Calidar for.  I mean really. If your fantasy game does not have a floating city in it are you even playing fantasy?

The entire book is bookmarked and hyperlinked (PDF version only obviously) and a treat to flip through.  There are so many ideas packed into this book I am unsure where I would start.

There is a lot packed into these 134 pages and there is a lot more that could have been said, but Heard wisely leaves that for you to do.

Adapting to any game is easy, though there is a strong AD&D 2nd Ed or BECMI D&D vibe here.  Maybe that is just me though since I have been liberally mixing my Mystara with Calidar for a while now.  Long, long time readers might recall that in my games there was a revolution in my Glantri and now it is a Theocracy.  Caldwen allows me to have my cake and eat it too.  I can keep "my" Glantri as is complete with the it's French Revolution-style revolt, AND still have a cool country of mages, wizards and a magic school.

I am serious. A Caldwen + Mage The Sorcerers Crusade game would be a lot of fun.

I'll look in to this more when I cover the next Caldwen (Bruce's "Series Two") book, CA2 How to Train Your Wizard.

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

—oOo—


What is it?
Humakt, Raven, and Wolf is a short scenario for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha involving a Heroquest to obtain help in searching for something.

It is a fifteen page, full colour, 6.50 MB PDF.

Humakt, Raven, and Wolf is well presented,  decently written, and sparsely illustrated with solid artwork. It needs a slight edit in places.

Where is it set?
On the Heroplane.

It is suggested that if the Game Master wants to run Humakt, Raven, and Wolf as part of the scenarios that form the campaign in and around Apple Lane found in the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack, that she run it as part of the scenario, ‘Dragon of Thunder Hills’.

Who do you play?
The player characters should ideally be heroes of Sartar. One the player characters really should be a Humakti.

What do you need?
Humakt, Raven, and Wolf requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. If being run as part of the Colymar campaign, the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack will be required. 

What do you get?
Humakt, Raven, and Wolf is a short, simple Heroquest which ideally should take no longer than a session to play, although it does involve a lot of combat and that can take time. Based on the myth of how Humakt found a way to track down the dead following the theft of his sword by his brother Orlanth, by enacting the heroquest the player characters will not only enforce the strength of the myth, but gain help in finding what they are searching for. (If run as part of the scenario, ‘Dragon of Thunder Hills’, this will be the location of the dream dragon Yerezum Storn.)

Humakt, Raven, and Wolf gives simple rules for getting the player characters onto the Heroplane and takes them through the six stations or steps of the Heroquest. The majority of these do involve combat and the Game Master will need to take care that she does overwhelm the Humakti player character and his colleagues with two many opponents before the final encounter. One requirement of the heroquest is that the Humakti test his love of his family, but that immediately raised the question what to do if the Humakti lacks the Passion of Love (Family). Fortunately, the author provides a solution.

Is it worth your time?
Yes. Humakt, Raven, and Wolf presents a short scenario in which the Game Master can pull her players and their characters into of one of Glorantha’s many myths, especially if one of them is a Humakti warrior. It is a particularly good to run as part of the scenario, ‘Dragon of Thunder Hills’, but may be run at any time the player characters need help in looking for something—a person, a thing, information, and so on. 
No. Either because you do not have a Humakti amongst your player characters or because running Humakt, Raven, and Wolf as part of the scenario, ‘Dragon of Thunder Hills’ is just overly specific in terms of time and place.
Maybe. Humakt, Raven, and Wolf is short and relatively easy to slip into a campaign, but really only works if one of the player characters is a Humakti.

Back in my AD&D days, a pseudo-dragon was the familiar of choice for any of my wizard characters.  They seem to be less desired in the post-3e years which is too bad since they are much more interesting than other types.

Pseudo Dragons
Pseudo dragons are a variety of dragons related to both dragons and wyverns, and some claim other stranger admixtures.  They are small, intelligent creatures, capable of speech and casting spells.


Three types of pseudo dragons are detailed below.

Dragons gain hp per age category.

Age Level Hit Points Age Category 1 1-2 Very young 2 3-4 Young 3 5-6 Sub-adult 4 7-8 Young adult 5 9-10 Adult 6 11-12 Old 7 13-14 Very old 8 15-16 Ancient
Pseudo Dragons
Small, wyvern-like dragon with a scorpion's stinger on his tail.
Armor Class 2
Hit Dice 2 (hp see above)
Attacks 1 bite (1d3), Poison sting, and Spell use
THAC0 18 (+2)
Movement Rate 60' (20'), Flying: 240' (80')
Saves D12 W13 P14 B15 S16 (2)
Morale 10
Alignment Neutral (good)
XP for Defeating 35
Number Appearing 1
Treasure Type L (x10)

• Bite. The pseudo dragon can bite with its dragon-like jaws. 
• Tail-sting. A pseudo dragon can sting with its tail.  Save vs. poison or fall into a coma-like state for 1d6+1 days.
• Chameleon ability. Can hide in normal surroundings with 80% chance.
• Spell-like ability. Can cast spells as a 2nd level Magic-user.

Faerie Dragons
A small dragon with butterfly wings and a wide mischievous grin. Offshoots of the pseudo dragon found in lands of the faerie and other fey creatures.
Armor Class 5
Hit Dice 5 (hp see above)
Attacks 1 bite (1d3), Breath weapon, and Spell use
THAC0 15 (+5)
Movement Rate 60' (20'), Flying: 240' (80')
Saves SV D10 W11 P12 B13 S14 (5)
Morale 12
Alignment Neutral (good)
XP for Defeating 300
Number Appearing 1
Treasure Type J, K, L

• Bite. The faerie dragon can bite with its dragon-like jaws. 
• Breath Weapon. A 2' cloud. Save vs. Breath Weapon or be affected by a sleep spell.
• Invisibility at will.
• Spell-like ability. Cast spells as a 5th level Magic-user.

Hell Drake
A small dragon with wings surrounded in flames.
Armor Class 4
Hit Dice 3 (hp see above)
Attacks 1 bite (1d4), Breath weapon, and Spell use
THAC0 16 (+4)
Movement Rate 60' (20'), Flying: 240' (80')
Saves SV D10 W11 P12 B13 S14 (4)
Morale 10
Alignment Chaotic
XP for Defeating 250
Number Appearing 1
Treasure Type J, K, L

• Bite. The hell drake can bite with its dragon-like jaws. 
• Breath Weapon. A 2' cone of flame. Save vs. Breath Weapon.
• Spell-like ability. Cast spells as a 4th level Magic-user.

Pseudo Dragons as Familiars
Witches, warlocks and magic-users can have a pseudo dragon as familiars.  Pseudo dragons can communicate telepathically with their master. They also can communicate with all types of dragon creatures.  So the master gains the ability to speak, read and write draconic, the language of dragons.
They gain a +2 to all saves vs. Dragon Breath (but not non-draconic breath weapons).
Additionally the familiar gives the master the ability to cast 2 first-level magic-user spells and 1 second-level magic-user spell.

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


—oOo—
What is it?
Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead is a short supplement which presents undead Ducks and their consequences for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a nine page, full colour, 4.86 MB PDF.

Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead is well presented and decently written.

Where is it set?
In and around the Upland Marsh in Sartar.

Who do you play?
Adventurers of all types would work with Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead, but Humakti character would be an appropriate choice. A good Duck would leap—just not very high—to strike back at the nefarious plans of the Necromancer of the Upland  Marsh.

What do you need?
Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead requires both RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and RuneQuest – Glorantha Bestiary. Both the  supplement, Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, and the magazine, Wyrms Footnotes #15, may be of use for their further background to the Upland Marsh.

What do you get?
Behind its cartoonish cover, Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead gives an introduction to the Upland Marsh, a scenario seed and associated NPC, and three undead creatures, all of an anatine un-nature.

The introduction examines the relationship that the Ducks—or durulz—have with the Upland Marsh and the unspoken truce they have with the Delecti the Necromancer. It also provides rules the environmental effects of fighting in the marsh which will be important should the Game Master develop the scenario seed in Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead. This has the newly declared Sword of Humakt, Orlaventus Great-Bill, putting the call out for adventurers to join him on an excursion into the marsh. He wants to locate and destroy those members of his family who were killed by the undead whilst the Ducks were taking refuge in the marsh as a result of the Lunar Duck Hunts and who have themselves raised from the dead. For the adventurers he makes promises about finding legendary treasure. Unfortunately, this hook for the player characters is undeveloped, leaving the Game Master to come up with ideas herself. At the very least, one or two suggestions would have been helpful.

The main focus of Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead though, is on presenting undead Ducks. This includes both the Duck Zombie, which unlike most undead, has the advantage of being already adapted to the terrain, and the Duck Skeleton. Lastly, the Duck Goliath is literally a ‘Frankenduck’s Monster’ of a creature, stitched together from the body parts of various, typically ill-suited creatures, but always with the head of a Duck. Facing a Duck Goliath would be a suitable encounter for the given scenario seed—or make for a bizarre encounter anywhere in or near the Upland Marsh.

Again Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead falls into the category of ‘Your Glorantha May Vary’ and is a very specific—geographically specific—addition. Ultimately, Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead is of limited use, but if a Game Master wanted to use it, it is a pity that the scenario seed was not quite as developed to help the Game Master a little more.

Is it worth your time?
Yes. If you are running a campaign or adventure set in Sartar and are planning for your adventurers to venture anywhere in or near the Upland Marsh, then Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead is worth your time and interest. The Duck puns are just a bonus.
No. If your campaign or adventure is not set in Sartar and will not going anywhere near the Upland Marsh, or Ducks do not play a role in your campaign, then then Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead is unlikely to be of interest to you. The Duck puns may also be off-putting. 
Maybe. A devout Humakti warrior would travel far to strike at the unwholesome undead of the Upland Marsh and who knows what such a warrior would encounter when he got there, let alone what he might have been sent to retrieve? Yes, Monster of the Month #3: Night of the Quacking Dead is very specific in terms of its geography, but a Game Master could develop reasons for the player characters to travel as far as the Upland Marsh. The Duck puns are just silly and you should be fine with that.

Sometime back in the mists of the Late Cretaceous, the plan was to host a special gallery open house in April that took advantage of blooming season. With one known exception, carnivorous plants bloom like any other angiosperm, with the … Continue reading →

The locals refer to the days before the Well as “The Belonging,” when the veil between worlds was weak and people were better than they were afterwards. Not that they knew much other than that: those who asked too many … Continue reading →

The seas rise. The forests spread. Crops fail. Wars continue without reason. The dead walk the land. Peasants suffer taxes, plague, and worse. There is no hope. All is despair. The world is dying, reduced to a handful of lands amidst the Endless Sea. The prophecies of the Two-Headed Basilisks are coming true. In the great cathedral to the god Nechrubel in the city of Galgenbeck in the land of Tveland, the arch-priestess Josilfa heeds the prophecies whilst the inquisition of Two-Headed Basilisks hunts down the apostates and heretics who would commit of the ultimate of taking their lives rather than meeting the apocalypse with eyes wide open. Before Galgenback lies Graven-Tosk, an ancient cemetery ringed by a tangled, spreading forest at the heart of which stands the gothic black Palace of the Shadow King, from whose crumbling halls the Shadow King’s sons—and only sons—go out to wander the cemetery ruins to trick passing travellers and those who would delve into the grave, all to further enhance the misery of men. To the east is Grift, located on a peninsula separated from the rest of the lands by the bottomless Múr over which span three giant bridges. Múr once ensured that the city-state was a bastion of hope and light from the plague-ridden, war-torn lands on the other side of the bridges, but now the rock upon which Grit stands cracks and nightly spawns monsters, the bridges shriek and scream, and King Sigfúm heeds the prophecies of the Two-Headed Basilisks and prepares to march his peoples over the cliffs and into the seas. In the west lie two kingdoms. In north-western Kergüs, Blood-Countess Anthelia cries out for colour and warmth from her white stone castle in the black glass city of Alliáns, yet in her ice-wracked lands, everything the fragile countess touches, looks upon, and breathes upon is drained of colour. To the south-west, the paranoid, corpulent, and crazy King Fathmu IX obsesses over the prophecies of the Two-Headed Basilisks even as he viciously raids and taxes his peasantry to ensure his seat, the city of Schleswig, maintains its gaudy opulence. Between them all is the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead, its crypts rumoured to be home to one of the Basilisks, its soil said to be lethal, its air roiling with deadly despair…

This is the world of Mörk Borg, meaning ‘Dark Fortress’, a Dark Ages, a Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance retroclone designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing following a successful Kickstarter campaign. It is a doom-laden, death metal driven, dark fantasy roleplaying game set in a grim-dark world of despair in which the last remnants of mankind with the will to act work themselves up to perhaps plunder the crypts and graves of those fortunate enough to have left this land or even stand up against the forthcoming apocalypse. It is rules light, with minimal, player-facing mechanics, in fact so light, it can be played with or without Classes. The rulebook comes with everything necessary to play—rules, setting, a bestiary, a guide to magic, and a short, bloody dungeon.

Yet make no mistake, what grabs you from the start about Mörk Borg is its look. Behind its striking, even shockingly yellow cover with its subtly reverse-embossed illustration of a skeletal warrior, the hardcover consists of vibrant swathes of pink and yellow which contrast sharply with the stark blocks of heavy black on white and heavy white on black. A jumble of fonts—gothic fonts being the mainstay—flood its pages and the whole book has the look and tone of one thing—the heavy metal fanzine. This is not amateurish though, more artfully designed—especially with the silver and gold foil pages—and nor is it all solid tone colours though, full illustrations being quite subtly worked to further enhance the sense of despair and menace, such the fully painted image of the human heart placed behind the text which explains Hit Points. Overall, the layout and look of Mörk Borg is brutal and stark, in your face and constantly remind you of the doom that hangs over the world. 

Once you open the book, you are straight into the game. There is no explanation as to what a roleplaying game is and what roleplaying is. And that is fine. Mörk Borg is not a roleplaying game for anyone new to the hobby. It does carry a warning though, that it is really not suitable for anyone under the age if sixteen. Which is probably true.

Mechanically, Mörk Borg starts with the end of the world. The Game Master can roll for what Miseries befall the world, predicted in a series of psalms from The Calendar of Nechrubel – The Nameless Scriptures. So, it might be “Behold the Endless Sea, where Leviathan causes waves to be as mountains.” or “As at the beginning, so at the end, all manner of fly and wasp shall fill the air.” The seventh Misery will herald the actual end of the world, but how far away that is can be determined by the Game Master enabling her to set the rough length of her Mörk Borg campaign.

Mörk Borg is humancentric, the player characters being the men and women unlucky to be alive in this dark age. A character is defined by four abilities—Agility, Presence, Strength, and Toughness. Of the four, Presence is the odd one out. It is not just used for Charisma checks, but also for perception checks, ranged attacks, and casting spells. The four abilities range in value from -3 to +3, these being equal to ability modifiers found in Dungeons & Dragons and other retroclones. Character generation though depends upon whether you are using the Classes in Mörk Borg. If not, a player rolls for his character’s starting weapon and equipment, and then rolls four six-sided dice and drops the lowest for two abilities and three six-sided dice for the other two.

Kratar
Agility +2 Presence +3 Strength -2 Toughness 0
Hit Points: 6
Armour: No armour
Weapon: Warhammer (d6)
Equipment: 110 sp, waterskin, two days food, backpack, metal file and lockpins, sacred scroll (Grace for a Sinner)

If using character Classes, Mörk Borg offers six. Although optional, they do add flavour to the setting as much as they enhance what a player character can do. Three of the Classes are equivalents of classic Dungeons & Dragons-style Classes, whilst three are particular to Mörk Borg. Fanged Deserter, Gutterborn Scum, and Esoteric Hermit are the equivalent of Fighter, Thief, and Magic-User respectively, whilst the Heretical Priest is an adherent of an unholy faith, the Occult Herbmaster is a mixer of potions and poisons, and the Wretched Royalty is fallen noble. Each Class determines what dice a player rolls for his character’s abilities, armour, equipment, weapons, and origins, and can either be selected by a player or rolled randomly like everything else.

Quillnach
Occult Herbalist
Agility +1 Presence -3 Strength -1 Toughness +1
Hit Points: 6
Omens: d2 (1)
Armour: Furs (-d2 damage, tier 1)
Weapon: Femur (d4)
Equipment: 50 sp, waterskin, four days food, portable laboratory, donkey, silver crucifix, heavy chain (15 ft.), red poison (two doses), Southern Frog Stew (four doses)
Origins: Raised in the old frozen ruins not far from Alliáns

Mechanically, Mörk Borg is simple. A player rolls a twenty-sided die, modifies the result by one of his character’s abilities, and attempts to beat a Difficulty Rating of twelve. The Difficulty Rating may go up or down depending on the situation, but whatever the situation, the player always rolls, even in combat or as Mörk Borg terms it, violence. So, a player will roll for his character to hit in melee using his Strength and his Agility to avoid being hit. Armour is represented by a die value, from -d2 for light armour to -d6 for heavy armour, representing the amount of damage it stops. Medium and heavy armour each add a modifier to any Agility action by the character, including defending himself. This is pleasingly simple and offers a character some tactical choice—just when is it better to avoid taking the blows or avoid taking the damage?

In addition, characters have access to Omens, of which a character typically has one or two a day. They can be used to deal maximum damage on an attack, reroll any die—not just that player’s, lower the damage die rolled against a character, to neutralise a critical success or fumble, or to lower the Difficulty Rating on a test.

Instead of magic, Mörk Borg has scrolls. There are twenty of these and they can either be ‘Unclean’, for example, Foul Psychopomp, which summons zombies or skeletons, or ‘Sacred’, such as Enochian Syntax, which gives a command which must be blindly obeyed. Although any character—of any Class or none—can use a scroll, they cannot be used whilst wearing medium or heavy armour or carrying a two-handed weapon. Once a character has a scroll, he can use it or his other scrolls a random number of times per day, each time requiring a standard Presence test to succeed. Fail and the character will suffer one or two points of damage and is dizzy for an hour, so cannot use any scrolls. A roll of a one is a critical failure and means that the player must roll on the Arcane Catastrophes table, the best results of which can simply kill the character…

Optional tables for the characters add terrible traits, backgrounds or ‘Troubling Tales’, and what Two-Headed Basilisks might demand of them, whilst for the Game Master, there are tables of occult treasures, corpse plunder, bad—and only bad—weather, and more, enabling her to create dungeons and adventures with just a few rolls of the die. A dozen or so monsters are listed, plus ‘Rotblack Sludge or The Shadow King’s Lost Heir’, a short dungeon.

As physically fantastical as Mörk Borg is, the design is not necessarily the easiest to use, although a summary of the mechanics is included inside the back cover and the idea is good. In addition, some of the imagery may not be to everyone’s tastes, it being heavy, oppressive, and often of an occult nature. It is though in keeping with the doom metal genre which inspires the game (and its own soundtrack).

As a Grim Dark roleplaying game, Mörk Borg would work with other content too. It would work perhaps as the last days of the Kingdom of Alberetor from the other Swedish fantasy roleplaying game from Free League Publishing, Symbaroum. Then again, it more easily plugs into various scenarios for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, such as A Single Small Cut or the infamous Death Frost Doom .

The style of Mörk Borg’s look makes it look more complex a roleplaying game than it is. The simplicity of the rules is hidden by the oppressive feel of the graphic design, but this graphic design imposes its Grim Dark, doom laden atmosphere on player and game alike, and is carried over into the mechanics, which support suitably brutal play in a world free of moral certainties and weighed down by a portentous sense of doom as it draws to its end. Mörk Borg is the roleplaying game your mother warned you about during the Moral Panic of the eighties—brutal, in-your-face dread and despair, a low and bloody guitar riff of a game.

The year is 2260 AD. Two years ago, the United Terran Republic and its allies won the Terran Liberation War, forcing the mighty and ancient Reticulan Empire to sue for peace after twenty-five years of uprisings and war. For some one-hundred-and-seventy-five years, Earth and Humanity had been repressively suborned as the Reticulan client state of House Thiragin, the Earth Federal Administration. Humanity was allowed to expand and establish colonies, but in return had to commit auxiliary troops to serve in the wars against House Thiragin’s rival houses in the Reticulan Empire and other alien species, and was subject to both a tight rein on its economy and Reticulan abductions and bio-technological experimentation. The latter not only resulted in the confirmation and development of psionics among humans, but also the creation of Human-Reticulan Hybrids. Besides having a higher likelihood of possessing psionics, Hybrids were favoured by House Thiragin and dominated the Earth Federal Administration government, the loathed Federal Security Apparatus, and the Exalted Order of Fomalhaut, the latter the Earth Federal Administration’s state sanctioned faith. Ultimately, it would be an unexplained mass abduction of children by the Reticulans that would trigger the Terran Revolution and it would be troops who had served with House Thiragin, known as the Returnees’ Circles, who would form the backbone of the Terran forces in the revolution.

As of 2260 AD, the United Terran Republic is a presidential republic attempting to switch from a wartime to peacetime footing; to expand coreward to explore and establish new colonies and make contact with lost ‘black’ colonies established in secret from the Earth Federal Administration; and maintain vigorous defences against Earth’s former master, the Reticulan Empire to rimward. Although there is trade and contact between the United Terran Republic and the Reticulan Empire, the two states are wary of each other and a state of cold war exists between them. The territories of the United Terran Republic and the Reticulan Empire come together in an area known as the Terran Badlands, along with a third interstellar power, the Ciek Confederation. Located within the Terran Badlands are two client states supported and maintained by the United Terran Republic, the Reticulan Technate and the Ssesslessian Harmony. The first of these is governed by the rebel Technocratic Movement, consisting of Reticulans who supported the Terran revolution, whilst the latter was given to the serpentine Ssesslessians as a new homeworld after theirs had been glassed by the Reticulans.

This is the set up for These Stars Are Ours!, a near future setting published by Stellagama Publishing for use with the Cepheus Engine System Reference Document from Samardan Press which details the core rules for a Classic Era Science Fiction 2D6-Based Open Gaming System. If the Third Imperium of Classic Traveller draws upon the Imperial Science Fiction of the 1950s, then These Stars Are Ours! draws upon another sub genre of the same period—UFOlogy and ‘little green men’. Or rather, ‘little grey men’, for the Reticulans are akin to the Greys of UFO lore and their spaceships and starships are saucers. What these point to are the space opera or  pulp sensibilities of the These Stars Are Ours! setting, and these sensibilities continue with the other alien species to be found across known space. These include the Cicek, aggressive and personal glory-obsessed warm-blooded, humanoid reptiles complete with tails; the snakelike Ssesslessians, a theocratic species with a complex pantheon who served the Reticulans as assassins; and the Zhuzzh, pragmatic, opportunistic, and nomadic insectoids who all but worship technology and who are inveterate tinkerers rather than designers and innovators. There are other races to be found across known space, but these are the main ones to be found in the Terran Badlands. Behind them though are the ‘Precursors’, one or more ancient species who disappeared millennia ago following a devastating war leaving behind mysterious ruins, who may have seeded and manipulated species across known space and who may be the forebears of numerous species.

Now despite the strong nods to both pulp and space opera sensibilities with these alien species, These Stars Are Ours! is not really a pulp or even a space opera setting. This is because it still uses the dry, technical mechanics and terminology of the Cepheus Engine System Reference Document—and thus ultimately of Traveller. So it employs Tech Levels, Maneuvre Drives, Jump Drives, Parsecs, Sectors, Subsectors, the Universal World Profile, and so on.  Looking to the sources of inspiration in the book’s appendices and it is clear that the tone and feel is other than Pulp Sci-Fi—so Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, Barry B. Longyear’s Enemy Mine, and Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy; films such as Alien, Outland, and Serenity; television series like Babylon 5, Dark Skies, and Space: Above and Beyond; and computer games including Mass Effect, UFO: Enemy Unknown, and Dead Space. The Science Fiction of These Stars Are Ours! is much drier than straight space opera, but the inclusion of both the film Serenity and the television series Firefly point towards another influence and that is the Western genre. Much like both of those sources, These Stars Are Ours! is set after a devastating war, during a period of reconstruction, much like the years after the American Civil War. 

Now as much as there are similarities between the aftermath of the American Civil War and the aftermath of the Terran Liberation War—or the Terran Rebellion as the Reticulans call it—there are numerous differences too. The most notable difference is that These Stars Are Ours! presents an obvious and very alien enemy in the form of the Reticulans whilst moving the Human-Reticulan relationship into one of a cold war. Yet it retains the sense of distrust and resentment that arises from a period of occupation and civil war, which in the United Terran Republic—and beyond of These Stars Are Ours! is aimed at Reticulan Hybrids—humans genetically modified as embryos with Reticulan dna—who were seen as collaborators.

In terms of background, These Stars Are Ours! is richly packed. Not just with a history of the Terran Liberation War, but also the state of the United Terran Republic and its politics, military and intelligence agencies—notably CRC-32 which provides the military and government with covert Psionic Intelligence (or PSINT) support and its civilian research counterpart, the Psionic Research Institute (or PRI). It also covers the major corporations in the United Terran Republic, along with religion and spirituality, legal system, and various criminal and terrorist groups. It covers the various alien races in similar detail, from the Reticulans of the Reticulan Empire and the separatist Reticulan Technate to the eight-limbed, two metres tall, crustacean-like Klax who serve as security forces for the Reticulans, whilst of course adding details about their various biologies, psychologies, and societies. Where a particular alien species is available to choose as a player character, notes are given on how to play them. 

As well as Humans, These Stars Are Ours! offers the Cicek, Reticulans, Reticulan Hybrids, Ssesslessians, and Zhuzzh as playable races. The main major difference in the setting to the more familiar Traveller is that Psionics are more freely available and that Psionic Strength is added as a seventh attribute. In terms of Careers, These Stars Are Ours! uses those from Cepheus Engine System Reference Document, but adds another twenty on top. Those available to Humans are the most diverse, including Teran Navy and Terran Police as well as Terran Naval Infantry and Teran Marines. For the most part,  the new Careers reflect the past quarter of a century that Humans have spent at war. If a character is a Psion, then he will serve in CRC-32 or the PRI, depending upon his Psionic Strength. Those of the Alien species are not as diverse, apart from the Reticulans, typically presenting one Career per species—essentially much like Basic Dungeons & Dragons did Race as Class. There are Event tables for all of the new Careers and the character rules also allow for cybernetics and cyborgs.

Creating a character in These Stars Are Ours! is the same as Cepheus Engine System Reference Document or Traveller. A player rolls two six-sided dice for his character’s seven attributes and then chooses a Career for him. Over the course of the Career, the player will add skills and other benefits to the character. A character may have an illustrious career, be discharged following an injury, and so on. The process will require a little flipping back and forth between These Stars Are Ours! and Cepheus Engine System Reference Document, especially if a player decides on a career not in These Stars Are Ours! Either way, the process is a lengthy one.

Our sample character was one of the elite of the Earth Federal Administration who was in training to become a politician and administrator before he discovered the extent of Reticulan activities in Terran space and defected. He was tested for psionic capability and recruited by CRC-32 and constantly trained throughout his career. He was on active military campaign in the last years of the Terran Liberation War, but was captured and held captive until the armistice between the United Terran Republic and Reticulan Empire was signed.

Brigadier Jeffry Ennes
Reticulan Hybrid Age 50
Elite-2 (Rank 3: Manager)/CRC-32-6 (Rank 5: Brigadier)
7B5C8B-D
Admin-2, Advocate-3, Carousing-o, Clairvoyance-1, Comms-1, Computer-1, Gun Combat-1, Jack-of-All-Trades-2, Leadership-1, Liaison-0, Linguistics-0, Medicine-1, Melee Combat-0, Reticulan-1, Telepathy-3, Teleportation-3, Vehicle-0, Zero-G-0
History: Political Infighting, Psionic Training, Strange Science, Advancement, Psionic Training, Battle, Captured.
Benefits: Explorer’s Society, CR 30,000, Pension: CR 12,000
Traits: Bad First Impression (humans only), Engineered (TL13), Notable Dexterity, Weak Strength, Psionic.

In terms of technology, These Stars Are Ours! is roughly Technology Level 11, with military equipment and technology being typically Technology Level 11 and Technology Level 12. This means that starships are commonly capable of Jump-2 (travelling two parsecs in a single jump), fine gravitics is being developed, fusion power is freely available, and so on. Reticulan technology is generally higher, most notably shown in its mastery of gravitics and longer Jump ranges. As befitting the setting, their ships are saucers rather than the sleeker, if not streamlined ships deployed by other races. Some six ships—starships and small craft—are detailed and given deck plans, and where necessary civilian and military versions are both given. They include the Reticulan Abductor and Saucers, the Ssesslessian Infiltrator, Zhuzzh Scavenger, Cicek Raider, and Terran Shaka-class Light Military Transport. The latter is the only Terran ship, which is perhaps a little disappointing, but given the post-war state of the United Terran Republic, these ships are commonly available to purchase and are used as by free traders. Plus the fact that it happens to look not unlike the Firefly class is likely to make it a popular choice with the players (if not their characters). 

Some seventy or so worlds of the region Trailing-Rimward to Terra are described as part of the Terran Borderlands. The latter lies at the point where three interstellar powers meet—the Reticulan Empire, the Cicek Confederation, and the United Terran Republic—and contains the two Terran client-states, the Reticulan Technate and the Ssesslessian Harmony. Each of the worlds comes with its own Universal World Profile and a fairly detailed description, though this can vary in length from one to as many as five paragraphs. Along with the accompanying star map, this gives a good-sized area for the player characters to explore and to support that, These Stars Are Ours! comes with a dozen patrons. These range from supporting a colonisation on a ‘jackpot’ planet and transporting a Reticulan diplomat—hopefully her money will be enough to overcome any lingering antipathy towards the Reticulans, to the exploration of a Precursor site and a hunt for a celebrity’s missing yacht. They represent a good mix of adventure types and make good use of the background to the setting. These Stars Are Ours! is rounded out with a pair of appendices, one a bibliography of inspirations, the other various news entries or Terran News Agency Dispatches, which the Game Master could develop into scenarios of her own.

Physically, These Stars Are Ours! is simply and clearly presented and there is a good index. The few illustrations are decent, the star maps clear, and the deckplans good. As much as the content is interesting and engaging, what lets the setting supplement down is the editing. At worst someone has edited the book, at best no one has, and in places, the unpolished writing in These Stars Are Ours! does sometimes make a cringeworthy read.

If there is anything missing from the These Stars Are Ours! setting it is perhaps a few more starships to individualise the setting some more and certainly some personalities. Apart from the president of the United Terran Republic, no individuals are really mentioned, so the history and setting do feel slightly impersonal. There is no advice for the Game Master, but anyway, she should be able to come up with scenarios and campaign ideas from the background material given in These Stars Are Ours!.

Although using mechanics derived from Traveller, the setting of These Stars Are Ours! is very different to that of Traveller. It is not ‘high’ or Imperial Space Opera, but has a harder, rougher edge to it, drawing from a source that is more pulp Sci-Fi in its sensibilities even as the Cepheus mechanics serve to reduce said pulp tendencies. Nevertheless, These Stars Are Ours! draws deeply upon its source material of UFOlogy and ‘Little Green Men’ and infuses them with a frontier, almost Wild West feel to present a very accessible setting in terms of background and size.

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