Original Roleplaying Concepts
Battletech rule variant: HAND HELD WEAPONS.
During the Star League period battlemechs were much more sophisticated, but the Succession Wars has seen a collapse of industry and technology. This is a given, of course, and can be seen in many areas of daily life as well as on the battlefield. One specific instance in the devolution of weapons technology is in the field of hand-held weapons. In the early years of mech design, one of the key features leading to the adoption and acceptance of the battlemech as a weapons platform was it's adaptability, and weapons were no exception. Early mech weapons were styled after the infantry fire arms of the period, being self contained, but with power and data couples built into the handles, individual weapons were easily used by a variety of mechs, and an individual mech could easily tailor itself to mission needs simply by picking out the appropriate laser, autocannon, or missile launcher exactly as it's infantryman counterpart did.
The Periphery wars however, showed up two key deficiencies of the concept, though they were little regarded at the time. The first was mechanical, hand held weapons were hardened with armor and built of durable materials, but final piece weight limited the amount of protective measures that could be packed into them leading to easy damage or jamming in true combat field conditions. Not critical during Star League days as repair and replacement was cheap and easy, in the centuries since the widespread destruction of production facilities and critical component manufactures has made “throw away” weapons impractically expensive. (Missile technology and munitions quality in the intervening centuries reflects this trend also...guidance that once made missile attacks deadly has been lost, and “missiles” today are more accurately compared to primitive ordnance rockets. This led manufacturers to “build in” weapons onto the frame of the 'mech itself where greater use could be made of armor and redundancy measures making for tougher, more durable battle weapons at the cost of flexibility.
This ties in with the second drawback of hand held weapons, what was once practical; the ability to let go of a mech's primary fighting guns. Even light damage or physical attacks on the arm or hand of a 'mech could lead to accidentally ejecting (dropping) the heavy hand carried weapon, making it available to be turned on it's owner just by picking it up. Dropping also became the cause of many weapon failures (jams). Worse still, Mechwarriors in a tight spot might choose to loose the weapon intentionally to increase speed, especially true when forces were experiencing reverses and 'Mech Units chose to flee the field. By the Second Succession War the great house militaries had passed orders requiring 'mechs to fix their weapons permanently, and the surviving manufacturers refitted and retooled production mechs to eliminate or permanently fasten hand held weaponry. Hand held weapons do still exist however, in limited numbers. Many come from ancient Star League caches, and a tiny number of copies come from minor factories throughout the inner sphere.
Rules;
The table below lists weapons that are available in Hand-Carried Format, as well as their important statistics.
To carry and use a hand-held weapon a mech must have a hand and all hand and arm actuators present. Damage to actuators heavily impacts weapon use; hand actuator damage give a -4 to hit and taking a hit on one requires a piloting skill roll at -2 to maintain hold of the weapon. Arm actuator damage gives a -3 to hit and taking a arm actuator hit requires a pilot skill roll at -1 to maintain hold of the weapon. Shoulder actuator damage adds a -2 to hit, and taking Shoulder Actuator damage requires a pilot skill roll to maintain hold of the weapon.
All penalties for actuator damage are cumulative, so a mech whose hand and upper arm actuator are hit would have a -7 to hit, making most shots impossible.
Carrying a hand held weapon penalizes running speed and jumping by one.
Jumping while carrying a hand held weapon requires a pilot skill roll to avoid dropping it on landing. Failure means the weapon is dropped in the landing hex.
Hand Held weapons have a reliability rating. When a hand-held is dropped this number or lower must be rolled for the weapon to remain functional. Failure means the weapon was damaged/jammed and is subject to the same repair rules as normal weapons of it's type.
Most Hand held weapons have a limited number of shots, the table shows how many shots are carried in the weapons magazine. When these are exhausted the magazine must be replaced before the weapon can be fired again. Magazines (also called “clips”) can be loaded by techs in the same way as they reload normal Battletech weaponry. Clips can be carried externally on a battlemech hanging from exterior hard points. Clips may be changed by a mech only if it has two fully functioning hands.
The location of a clip must be noted, and a clip is potentially hit when that location takes a hit. When a clip location is hit roll a pilot skill roll, failure indicates the clip has exploded and the clip's worth of damage is applied to the location in question. Energy weapons do not have magazines and rely on power feeds built into the 'mechs hand, these feeds fail if the weapon fails it's saving throw, and the weapon can only be repaired as per a weapon critical hit, further having an energy weapon knocked out of the hand will lead to a “blowback”, automatically giving one critical hit to that arm and doing 2 points of internal structure damage.
* Treat as a bi-pod weapon, Mech must be prone to fire.
td p { margin-bottom: 0in } p { margin-bottom: 0.08in }
Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.
—oOo—
What is it?
In 2020, King Arthur Pendragon is thirty-five years old and in that time it has seen five editions, the last of which–apart from some minor updates, appeared in 2008. In that time, the award-winning King Arthur Pendragon—still the preeminent roleplaying game that explores Arthurian legend, has not received a quick-start, a means of introducing the setting, the mechanics, and the style of play. That changes with The Adventure of the Great Hunt, the quick-start designed to introduce Pendragon, Sixth Edition released to observe the third anniversary of its designer’s—the late Greg Stafford—passing. As with any good quick-start, it is designed to introduce and explain the core rules, provide a scenario which can be played in a single session, and the pre-generated characters necessary to play. The new version of Pendragon is intended as Greg Stafford’s ‘ultimate’ edition and whilst the style and play of the game remains the same, there are a number of modifications to the rules—as evidenced in The Adventure of the Great Hunt.For anyone coming to The Adventure of the Great Hunt via King Arthur Pendragon, rest assured that the fundamentals have not changed. Players take the role of knights seeking Glory and honour during the reign of Arthur, King of the Britons; a knight will primarily be defined by his physical attributes—there is no equivalent of the Intelligence stat in Pendragon; a knight’s personality will be defined by thirteen pairs of opposed Traits, such as Chaste and Lustful, Just and Arbitrary, and Valorous and Cowardly, which can guide his decisions, help him pass (or fail) a moral test, influence others, and so on; a knight may be swayed by his Passions, such Love (Family) and Hate (Saxons); and the mechanics still involve the rolling of a twenty-sided die.
The rules to The Adventure of the Great Hunt and thus the basics of Pendragon, Sixth Edition—whether coming to Pendragon for the first time or having played previous versions of King Arthur Pendragon, are explained with no little efficiency. It covers the core mechanic—rolling under a skill, attribute, trait, or passion, on a twenty-sided die, with the critical success being equal to the exact value of the target, and a natural twenty being a critical failure. It also explains how skills, traits, and passions can be rated above twenty. Traits and Passions of sixteen or more, are of course, something that a Knight is considered to be Famous for, whilst he is Exalted if they are twenty or more. The Adventure of the Great Hunt explains the results when Passions are invoked, typically an Inspired +5 bonus to a skill on a success and an Impassioned +10 bonus on a critical success, but a loss of a point of the Passion on a fumble as well as several days of melancholia—or oven madness, depending upon if the Passion is Famous or Exalted. Mechanically, Passions are a great way of Knight gaining a bonus to his next actions, but they are simply great roleplaying hooks too.
Combat is resolved using opposed rolls against the combatants’ skills, for example sword versus sword or spear versus axe. To make a successful attack, a knight’s player must successively roll under his attack skill and roll better than the opposing knight’s player. It is possible for both players to make successful rolls, in which case the player with the lower result has achieved a partial success and although his knight does not inflict damage, he can use his shield or weapon to help block damage from the incoming attack. The combat system allows for dropped or broken weapons on a Fumble, for a Knight to be knocked down if the base damage—before armour deducts any points—inflicted in greater than his Size attribute, and Major Wounds to be suffered if the damage inflicted after armour stops it is greater than a Knight’s Constitution. Understandably, given the historical period in which Pendragon, Sixth Edition is set, Major Wounds are difficult to recover from. So woe betide any Knight who suffers a critical strike in combat—the base damage for most weapons is four six-sided dice, and critical strikes add another four six-sided dice!
As well as healing, mounted combat, and so on, the last thing that The Adventure of the Great Hunt covers is the squire who a Knight is responsible for training in arms, courtesy, and the other skills necessary to bear the title of knight. In return, the squire is a servant for his Knight and may conduct certain actions in combat, such as rendering First Aid, and bringing a new weapon or a fresh horse should a Knight need them.
The scenario in the quick-start is ‘The Adventure of the Great Hunt’. Set during the Conquest Period of Arthur’s reign, it can be played in one long session or two shorter ones, and is suitable to be run as a one-shot or as part of a campaign. If part of a campaign, the Player-Knights will gain Experience Checks for critical successes, as well as Glory for their actions. If run as a one-shot, the Player-Knights will simply gain Glory, and the Knight who gains the most Glory over the course of the adventure will be the one best remembered in the tales told about its events in the winter months to come.
As the title suggests, ‘The Adventure of the Great Hunt’ involves a great deal of hunting—of creatures great and small, Courtesy, Orate, travel, one of their unmarried sisters, and logistics! The scenario comes with a built-in time limit and it is entirely possible for the players to scupper their Knights’ efforts if they are too inefficient in terms of where they decide to travel to. It begins with the Player-knights as guests at the hunting lodge of Sir Servause le Breuse, a veteran knight and renowned hunter, when suddenly their discussions are interrupted by the arrival of Sir Ector, the foster-father of King Arthur Pendragon! He seeks the aid of Sir Servause le Breuse in either slaying or driving off a fearsome dragon which is ravaging some of his holdings in Norgales (North Wales). There is the chance here that one or more of the Player-knights will valorously, if not prudently, decide to rush off and attempt to slay the dragon himself—or help Sir Ector do so. Fortunately, for more Player-Knights, their host has a plan, and this forms the meat of the scenario.
The plan requires the sweet perfume that is the belch of the panther!
Ordinarily, every other beast in Christendom—and likely beyond, finds this scent to be attractive and fragrant, but not the dragon. To such a fearsome creature, it is a stench, a small so strong it will drive the beast into a torpor, or even deep into the earth. To gain such an eruction, the Player-Knights not only have to acquire a Panther, but also such beasts whose special qualities are so efficacious to a Panther’s digestion that it will emit the richest and most pleasing of belches, and so have the greatest effect upon the dragon! So begins the great hunt!
‘The Adventure of the Great Hunt’ will see the Player-Knights travel back and forth across England to the various locations where Sir Servause le Breuse suggests the desired beasts may be found. Many times, this will see the Player-Knights pursuing various beasts, such as cranes in the fens of Anglia or stags in the nearby forest, on day-long hunts using the given hunting and pursuit rules. However, not every creature can be obtained with as simple a task as a hunt, and the Player-knights have opportunities too to persuade the great and the good of the land to lend them their aid and their beasts. There is even a hunt which will not involve the Player-Knights at all! Ultimately—and if they are in time, the Player-Knights will have assembled their menagerie, driven it Norgales, fed the panther, satisfied its appetite, and have eruct the sweetest of belches imaginable!
Of course, this is all up against the time limit and the Player-Knights may not necessarily have acquired sufficient beasts and not fed them to the panther in time—and so, there is the chance that they will fail. There is also the chance that Sir Ector may not wait around long enough for them to arrive and ride out in one last valorous attempt to drive off the dragon from his lands… So as much as the Player-knights to be successful in obtaining the necessary animals, they really do need to effectively manage their time.
In addition to the stats for the NPCs and various beasts, The Adventure of the Great Hunt comes with six pre-generated Player-Knights. They include an adventuring knight, a champion knight, a courtier knight, a hardy knight, a hunter knight, and a religious knight. The hunter knight will be the most obviously useful, but all of the knights will have a chance to shine in the adventure. The adventure includes a map showing the locations of where the various creatures may be found and the travel distances between each location. The Game Master will not only want to provide the sample Player-Knights for her players, but also some tokens to track the Player-Knights and their various quarries on the many hunts they have to undertake, and probably a calendar to track how many days the Player-Knights have spent on their tasks so far and how many they have left.
As well appointed as The Adventure of the Great Hunt is, there are one or two issues with it. It would have been nice if the pre-generated Player-Knights had been given a single sheet each and perhaps an explanation as to what makes them stand out. That would have been useful for players new to Pendragon rather than just Pendragon, Sixth Edition. Also a list of names, both male and female as the Knights can be ‘Sirs’ and ‘Dames’, would have been useful for ease of play—especially if The Adventure of the Great Hunt is run as a convention adventure, for not only do the players have to name their Knights, they also have to name their squires. Another issue is with the map. It is not obvious where the Player-Knights start. Reading through The Adventure of the Great Hunt, it becomes clear that it is the site of the stag hunt, but it is not clear from the text.
Physically, The Adventure of the Great Hunt is well presented. It is neat and tidy, and easy to read. The illustrations are suitably medieval in style and the monkish marginalia adds to the PDF’s illuminated style.
As has been stated before, King Arthur Pendragon is Greg Stafford’s masterpiece, design classic, a master class in using mechanics to both model its Arthurian genre and to encourage its players to roleplay its knightly character types, in a setting that was a labour of love upon the part of the author. The Adventure of the Great Hunt is a great introduction to knightly adventuring in the time of King Arthur, efficiently explaining the rules and key mechanics before presenting the players and their Knights with a grand challenge, and constantly testing them throughout using a variety of skills, traits, and passions.
The Symbaroum Game Master’s Guide is a supplement for Symbaroum, the near-Dark Ages fantasy roleplaying game from Swedish publisher, Free League Publishing, distributed in English by Modiphius Entertainment. The supplement does two things. First, it collects and collates material from previous titles for the Symbaroum roleplaying line, but not only that, builds upon them. The titles include the Advanced Player’s Guide and Monster Codex, as well as Thistle Hold – Wrath Of The Warden, Karvosti – The Witch Hammer, and Yndaros – The Darkest Star. Second, it builds on and expands on this content as well as adding new content of its own. This has a number of consequences. First, in replicating content from previous titles, there is a sense of redundancy to it, more so if the Game Master already has those supplements. Second though, in collating the content, it brings it all together in one place for easy reference, and that does mean it is useful. More so, of course, if the Game Master lacks one or more of the earlier volumes it draws fromIntended as the capstone to the core books for Symbaroum, the Game Master’s Guide essentially explores the adventures, challenges, and rewards to be had in the setting, giving advice and practical suggestions that the Game Master can bring to her game. It is divided into three sections, each of which is further divided into chapters. The first section, ‘The Adventure’ essentially covers the design and creation of game worlds, chronicles, and landscapes—the latter better known as scenarios or adventures. It begins with the primary building blocks such as theme—most obviously Symbaroum’s ‘struggle between civilisation and nature’, stories, and tone, before adding secondary building blocks such as history, nature, cultures, population, and more. It guides the Game Master through the process, and then it does the same for chronicles—better known as campaigns, from establishing a chronicle’s theme and the importance of the first adventure through the course of the chronicle to its climax. Adventure landscapes are treated in the same fashion. The opening chapters of the Game Master’s Guide narrow their focus again and again, going from an overview down to individual scenarios, throughout referencing various scenarios for Symbaroum, as well as the Crown of Thorns campaign begun with Thistle Hold – Wrath Of The Warden.
However, these opening chapters are not overly engaging, particularly early on when examining the base building blocks. The references, especially to roleplaying games from Free League Publishing for other than Symbaroum feel somewhat superfluous and the chapters feel overwritten. This is not to say that the advice is poor, but the writing becomes more engaging and to the point when subject being covered is more specific, for example, when discussing the concept of Troupe Play in Symbaroum, in which the players take the roles of more than one character, suggesting the roles that the players might take in particular organisations. Thus, for a Barbarian village, the first set of Player Characters would be the chieftain’s council, the second his guard warriors, and the third, common villagers. ‘Adventures for Heroes’ gives advice on presenting scenarios and encounters for experienced Player Characters, not just adjusting the enemy’s numbers, but also adapting the enemy’s tactics and altering the terrain. It also suggests weaknesses against particular character types, not necessarily to defeat them, but rather to present such characters with challenges. So for the giant berserker with a two-handed weapon, the Game Master might counter with ranged enemies, monsters which bind or hinder movement, and enemies using mystical powers.
More specific to the setting is ‘Under, Above, and Beyond’ which explore the realms beyond Ambria and Davokar—the Underworld, the Yonderworld, and the Spirit World. It covers what might be found in each as well as encounter tables, adventure suggestions, and more. None of this is intended to be definitive, but more a guide for the Game Master for the few occasions when her Player Characters have to visit or traverse such realms. Again, more specific, ‘Goal Oriented Roleplaying’ presents objectives that the Player Characters might want to achieve, such as a conquest or staging an expedition, and examines each through five phases, the problems and challenges that they might face. Here the Game Master’s Guide most obviously draws from, and builds on, content from Thistle Hold – Wrath of the Warden and the Symbaroum Monster Codex, so is much more a case of developing content further along with the straight reprint and presenting it in the one location.
The practicality of the second section, ‘Challenges’, means that the focus in the Game Master’s Guide strengthens further. ‘Advanced Traps’ is useful for adding to the tombs and treasure vaults know to be located in the Davokar Forest and comes with some rather nice illustrations reminiscent of Grimtooth’s Traps, whilst ‘Pitched Battle’ enables the Player Characters to take to the battlefield, whether as combatants or commanders. It is an abstract system which calculates battle odds via the ratio between attackers and defenders, adjusting for factor such as resistance levels and battle location, to determine the outcome and casualties suffered. It also allows for random events, such as waking amongst the dead or being saved by allies, whilst an adjacent article provides a good examination of the nature of Ambrian Wars. This covers the Great War, the invasion of Ambria, and the battles of Karo’s Fen, as well as discussing the tactics used by the Dark Lords, the Ambrians, and the Barbarian clans. However, what the ‘Pitched Battle’ rules lack are an example or two, not an issue with the ‘Managing a Domain’, which puts the Player Characters in charge of a small fiefdom, from a fortified farm to a small market town. It includes events and improvements which can occur over the course of a year, as well as ways to protect the domain should it come under attack.
Equally as well supported by examples are the rules for ‘Social Challenges’, which cover Player Character scheming as well as tracking the relationships between them and Symbaroum’s various factions. However, the Player Characters’ favour with any one of the factions will wax and wane, so it is not merely a case of doing a deed or conducting a task to gain a faction’s support, but doing more deeds and conducting further tasks to maintain that support.
Travelling through and exploring the Davokar forest comes under the spotlight in first ‘Expeditions in Davokar’, followed by ‘Exploring Ruins’. These are perhaps the most familiar chapters, covering content previously presented in Symbar – Mother of Darkness. ‘Expeditions in Davokar’ covers the dangers and travails of moving through the forest—planning, misfortunes, companions, treasures to be found, reasons to delve underneath the canopy, and more. ‘Exploring Ruins’ provides a set of tables for the Game Master to create various that might be found in the forest. The penultimate chapter in the section, ‘Ceremonies’, expanded from The Darkest Star, covers powerful rituals the casting of which comes with significant corruption and side effects, and which are outlawed by the Ambrians. Numerous examples are given, but for the most part, these remain the province of NPCs and likely events which the Player Characters will either have to investigate, prevent, or interrupt. Lastly, ‘Legendary Creatures’ draws on the Monster Codex to present legendary, climatic challenges for the Player Characters, such as Sakofal the Slaughterer, legendary dragon, recently awoken and emaciated, and very, very hungry…
The third section, ‘Rewards’, is the last and shortest, consisting of two chapters. The first, ‘Enhanced Rewards’ covers everything from thalers to artefacts as rewards, but there are some non-traditional options too, including ‘burdens as rewards’. The idea being that the Player Characters will have faced great, probably stressful challenges and dangers, and the likelihood is that they will come away hurt in body or mind, if not both. This is an interesting way of developing a Player Character, plus the ‘burden’ grants both roleplaying opportunities and Experience Points! The second, ‘Great Artifacts’ gives almost unique devices of a magical nature, such as Bunefor’s Death Mask, which enables the wearer to find gaps in an enemy’s armour as well emit a piercing scream under certain circumstances or Desdemorgos’ Iscohedron, a device which protects the user against environmental corruption, but which also allows the user to draw corruption and use it as an attack! Each of the artefacts comes an adventure hook ready to develop.
Physically, the Game Master’s Guide is up to the standard you would expect of the Symbaroum line. It needs a tighter edit perhaps in the earlier chapters, but is otherwise well written and the artwork is up to the usual standard.
As much as the Game Master’s Guide reprints content from previous titles, it also expands upon them and it collates them, all in one handy reference tome. In doing so, it supports whatever type of campaign set in Symbaroum the Game Master is running, whether that is the Crown of Thorns or one of her own devising, with advice on set-up and theme, handling traps and ruins, Player Character goals and rewards, and really, quite a lot more. It goes further though, in offering ideas and suggestions for running campaigns in Symbaroum other than that presented in the Crown of Thorns campaign. The chapter on troupe play lends itself to roleplaying and adventure opportunities aplenty, as does managing a domain, so that a campaign could be location-based rather than travelling hither and thither.
However, as good as much of the content in the Game Master’s Guide is, it is difficult to describe as a must-have title—and less so if the Game Master already has many of the other supplements and titles for Symbroum. As much as the content has been expanded upon, it is simply a case of being less useful if the Game Master already has it. On the other hand, it does collate as well as expand that content and that means that it is useful reference tome to have alongside the core rulebook instead of having to leaf through numerous supplements. So for the Game Master new to Symbaroum, the Game Master’s Guide is a worthy purchase, but for the veteran Symbaroum Game Master, the Game Master’s Guide is worth considering before making the purchase.
Sinking the Stercorarius: The Salty Funnel Level 0 Adventure is a ‘Character Funnel’ for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and thus features one of the feature elements of both Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. The set-up for this requires each player to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their chosen Class.The adventure is the first to use the publisher’s ‘Multi-Adventure-Theme System’. What this does is present different themes or ways in which the set-up for adventure can be played. In the case of Sinking the Stercorarius, these themes explain why the Player Characters are aboard the ship when she springs a leak. Four are given. They are in turn, prisoners, rushed through a trial, found guilty, and now bound for the gaol on the island of Prison Rock; as slaves in the hold; as pompous members of the elite aboard a jolly cruise; or as day-trippers getting an ‘Authentic Pirate Experience’. To support the first three of these set-ups, but not the fourth as for that, the Player Characters could be of any background, Sinking the Stercorarius includes three Occupation tables. One for Prisoners, one for Slaves, and one for the Elite.
Whichever of the themes—singly or combined, which is also discussed as an option—the set-up for Sinking the Stercorarius finds the Player Characters aboard the ship as it springs a leak and begins to sink. The Player Characters must find their way out of their confinement and fight their way onto the deck, and then just as quickly, off the ship before they are dragged into the depths by the undertow! As this happens, the water swirls around the Player Characters, something tentacular moves between them, attacking some, grabbing others, and dragging them away. When the Player Characters find themselves in the freezing seas, they spot a strangely isolated, conical island of black rock within swimming or rowing distance.
What the Player Characters find atop the cone is a crater, at the heart of which is a strange metal tower-like structure, bent, even crumpled. Equally as strange are the armoured and betentacled, two-armed and four-armed figures moving stiffly about the crater and the structure. Can the Player Characters find out what the structure is and who the figures are—and perhaps find a way of the island?
Designed to be played between one and two sessions, Sinking the Stercorarius is decently supported. Besides the Occupation tables, it comes with maps of both the Stercorarius and the strange structure, details of three new weapons, five alien and aquatic monsters, plus handouts. There is also some decent staging advice for the Judge as well as playtest notes throughout which make for an enjoyable read.
Physically, Sinking the Stercorarius is reasonably well presented. The new artwork is decent, as are the maps, although those of the strange structure on the island are really too small to be used with any ease. It is a pity that the two pages left ‘intentionally blank’ could not have been put to better use. The scenario could have done with another edit as well.
Now whilst Sinking the Stercorarius is adequately playable, it unfortunately suffers from a number of problems. The most obvious one is the inclusion of the ‘Player Characters as slaves’ theme, which some playing groups are going to find objectionable, especially since they begin play as slaves in the hold of a ship. It should be made clear that the Player Characters are not Africans and that the adventure does not take place in the real world—the authors have in no way been that insensitive. However, the difficult nature of this theme and its set-up could at least have been addressed by the authors and the Judge been given some advice about handling what could be a difficult theme for some. Or at least told to avoid that theme if she knows that her players would find it objectionable and insensitive.
Another problem is that the authors commit the cardinal sin of not explaining what the scenario is about. There is no explanation of the plot anywhere and essentially, the Judge only learns what Sinking the Stercorarius is about and what its plot twist is by reading through the scenario herself. On a first read through at least, it feels as if the authors are pulling the same bait and switch on the Judge as much as they are on the players.
That bait and switch is the fact that Sinking the Stercorarius is not salty, is not nautical, and is definitely not piratical. It might begin on a ship, but since the ship sinks, the only nautical things that the Player Characters get to do is cling to some flotsam, swim to ‘safety’, and possibly row a dinghy. They do not get to sail a ship, they do not meet any pirates, and they do not get to be abused by ‘salty’ language. In fact, the only ‘salty’ language that the Player Characters might be abused by is their own.
What the bait and switch involves is a crash-landed alien spaceship—the strange, metal tower-like structure, bent and crumpled, and this will become immediately obvious as soon as one of the handouts is shown to the players. The majority of the new monsters are aliens and the new weapons are basically, ray guns. In essence then, Sinking the Stercorarius: The Salty Funnel Level 0 Adventure starts at sea, goes to a mysterious island—and completely ignores the possibilities that exploring a mysterious island, especially in what is supposed to be nautical adventure—might provide an adventure with, and presents the Player Characters with a miniature version of S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, the classic Science Fiction adventure for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition.
Sinking the Stercorarius: The Salty Funnel Level 0 Adventure is a ‘Character Funnel’ and undeniably so, but equally undeniable is the fact that Sinking the Stercorarius is not salty. Obviously, it does not taste of salt nor is it preserved with salt (I checked); equally, it is neither down-to-earth or coarse in terms of its language or humour; and nor is tough or aggressive, or angry or resentful in terms of its attitude. Ultimately, without the salt, whether that is in terms of the tone or the nautical theme, Stercorarius: The Salty Funnel Level 0 Adventure is a bland and uninspiring adventure.
Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was a Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...
Name: Cages of Light & Lenses - A Call of Cthulhu adventure of lost film
Harper’s Tale: A Forest Adventure Path for 5e is a campaign for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Funded via Indigogo and published by Saturday Morning Scenarios, it is an adventure path of ten connected scenarios which will take the Player Characters from First Level to Tenth Level and is designed for players as young as ten. This is reflected in the name of publisher—Saturday Morning Scenarios—for the fantasy of Harper’s Tale is very American, being that of Saturday morning cartoons, so light in tone and with elements that are simply cute, such as Sir Cheddar, a magic-wielding Corgi, and Fred, a rainbow-maned, purple Allicorn—both of whom are likely to join or aid the Player Characters, but nevertheless still with elements of peril. However, its fantasy is neither grim nor dark, so it is thus suitable for a younger audience. Some older or more mature players may perhaps find its fantasy too light in tone, but that tone also means that Harper’s Tale is suitable for a family audience.Notably, Harper’s Tale is the final result of a successful fundraiser for Friends of Kids with Cancer. This was because the publisher’s youngest daughter, Harper, was diagnosed with leukaemia. Fortunately, Harper is in remission, and in response to the support that she and her family received during her treatment, she and her father decided to devise a story for a Dungeon & Dragons adventure book, which once she was discharged, was developed into a proper outline. This is because Harper is a gamer and enjoys creating stories. Her father took the outline and together with a team made up of industry luminaries, including Jeff Stevens, Ben McFarland, Brian Suskind, Hannah Rose, Ashley Warren, Kienna Shaw, Bill Barnett, MT Black, Donathin Frye, Anna Landin, Gwendy B, Anna Meyer, Dyson Logos, Jessica Ross, Kobold Press, Petersen Games, and more, has brought it to print.
The campaign begins in the village of Grove. Whether the Player Characters are merely passing through, visiting, or returning home, they discover a farming community devoid of its inhabitants, its animals run amok, its crops in danger of rotting before they are harvested. Eventually they will find two villagers, the sisters Rose and Grace, who can tell them what happened. The other villagers have all fallen asleep and cannot be woken, the sisters caring for them as best they can. Further investigation as the source of the illness points to the activities of outsiders and a previously unknown series of caves underneath Grove. Here, the Player Characters will encounter the first of a number of entertaining NPCs whom the Dungeon Master will undoubtedly enjoy roleplaying. Most obviously, this will be Sir Cheddar, the magic-using Corgi who will join the party on its adventures, but they also include a Goblin hermit, an out-of-his-depth Wizard, and more…
From the caves, the clues lead onto a number of other settlements which also seem to have been beset by strange illnesses and outbreaks of odd behaviour. The highlight of these is the seventh adventure, ‘The problem with Prattle Creek’, where amidst a rash of sickness and bizarre happenings, the town is being visited by Professor Piewright and his travelling medicine show with promises of a cure for that ails the townsfolk. Amidst the oddness, a murder occurs and in the ensuing investigation, the Player Characters will discover further links to the overarching plot. Of course, the ‘Snake Oil Salesman’ nature of the encounter is pure Americana, enforcing the ‘home on the range’ feel of earlier encounters, whilst giving the Dungeon Master a fun NPC to portray in the form of Professor Piewright.
For the most part, the encounters and scenarios in Harper’s Tale are rural or forest-based in nature, barring the larger cave system near the campaign’s start, there is very little in the way of traditional dungeons—and what there are, is not necessarily very interesting. Thankfully, the other encounters make up for it, much of the middle part of the campaign involving the Player Characters’ attempt to gain an audience with Deng, the arch-druid of the forest who might have a cure to the rash of poisonings and illnesses flooding the region—not once, but twice, and then going out to find the necessary ingredients. There is even a touch of the Lovecraftian here as the search for ingredients takes the Player Characters into the forests within the Dreamlands and back again, where they will encounter both Zoogs and Cats of Ulthar. In general, the encounters and scenarios will reward the player and their characters for clever play and roleplaying than the use of brute force, the encounters and scenarios themselves primarily requiring exploration and investigation.
Each of the ten encounters is presented in a similar format. Each gives a synopsis of the adventure, hooks to the adventure if not played as part of the campaign, a description of the locations in the adventure plus any events which will happen, and the conclusion. Each is followed by an appendix containing all of the stats for the scenario’s monsters and NPCs, plus any magic items. In general, they are well organised, and the hooks for running them separately decent enough. However, the scenarios do all work together and even with a coterie of different authors, the publisher has done a good job of keeping the tone and feel generally consistent throughout.
Harper’s Tale comes with eight pre-generated adventurers. They include a Faunkind Fighter, a Lion Paladin, a Tielfling Cleric, a Firbolg Druid, a Panthaka Monk, a Human Barbarian, a Gnome Wizard, and a Halfling Bard. This is a mix of traditional and non-traditional races, some of which may not be necessarily familiar to Dungeon & Dragons players. All eight are presented with a full colour illustration and their character sheets are tidily presented and easy-to-read. However, of the octet, given the campaign’s forest setting, it seems odd that a Ranger is omitted, but more problematically, the campaign includes challenges involving the use of thieves’ tool, and so the inclusion of a Rogue would have been more useful. Perhaps another useful addition for the Dungeon Master would have been some advice on creating the type of Player Characters presented in this set of pre-generated ones, especially as fall outside of the scope of the standard options in Dungeons & Dragons.
Physically, Harper’s Tale is well presented and has a bright and breezy look to it. The artwork in particular, tends towards more vibrant or pastel colours, which further enhances the tone of the campaign. However, in places, the book needs another edit and could really have done with a campaign overview before diving into the first episode. The background and story to the campaign is simple enough, but the Dungeon Master should not really be discovering the backstory as she reads through the campaign. There are also a couple of issues with the maps. One is that some of them are not quite as well presented as they could have been, another is that the regional map, showing the location for all ten of the campaign’s episodes is decidedly bland. The campaign could also have done with more maps, in particular those of individual buildings and their immediate surrounds, to help the Dungeon Master bring them to life during play.
Harper’s Tale is not perfect, it is underdeveloped in places and slightly unpolished in others, such the Dungeon Master will need to do more preparation than the campaign really needs. Those, however, are issues with the production rather than the core story and its adventures, which are light and accessible, and supported by some entertaining NPCs. Overall, Harper’s Tale is an enjoyably light, straightforward campaign for Dungeons & Dragons well suited for a younger or a family audience.
October 10th marks the second anniversary of Greg Stafford’s passing. To both commemorate that date and celebrate Greg’s contribution to the roleplaying hobby, today’s review from Reviews from R’lyeh is of The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories, the first anthology of scenarios for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.
—oOo—
The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories is an anthology of ready-to-play scenarios for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the roleplaying game set in Greg Stafford’s mystical world of gods, faith, magic, cults, and great heroes that is Glorantha. Published by Chaosium, Inc., it presents three scenarios and source material that will take the Player Characters west of Sartar and into the South Wilds of the Dragonspine Mountains where they will discover ancient ruins and encounter ancient legends, rabid troll spirits, creatures out of the past, dinosaurs and Dragonnewts, Beastmen of every stripe and colour, priests and politicians, and more. It is designed for beginning Player Characters, but can easily be run using more experienced Player Characters, and that includes Player Characters who have played through ‘The Broken Tower’ from the RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha – QuickStart Rules and Adventure and the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack—and that includes the roleplaying game’s signature beginning Player Characters from RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha – QuickStart Rules and RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha core book. This is because the first adventure in the anthology—‘The Smoking Ruins’ begins and ends at Clearwine Fort, which if the players have played through the scenarios from the ‘RuneQuest Gamemaster Adventures’ book from the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack, their characters should have visited and forged links with, and further, the events of The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories take place after those of the scenarios in the ‘RuneQuest Gamemaster Adventures’ book.To play through The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories, the Game Master will need access to RuneQuest – Glorantha Bestiary as it provides more details of the foes and NPCs that the Player Characters are very likely to meet as they adventure through the three scenarios in the anthology. Ideally, the Game Master will want the ‘RuneQuest Gamemaster Adventures’ book from the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack. It is not absolutely necessary to run The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories as the anthology includes background information and the major NPCs from Clearwine Fort described in the ‘RuneQuest Gamemaster Adventures’ book. However, the full information on both is given in the ‘RuneQuest Gamemaster Adventures’ book and will be useful. Access to a copy of King of Sartar will serve as an interesting corollary, but is definitely not required and only the most dedicated of Gloranthaphiles should be concerned about its inclusion.
In terms of the types of adventurers required for The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories, a Shaman will prove more than useful, but again, not essential to its play through. Orlanth and Ernalda worshippers will find much to do in the scenarios—especially in ‘The Smoking Ruins’, and if such Player Characters have played through the scenarios in the ‘RuneQuest Gamemaster Adventures’ book from the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack, then all the better. This is because one of their number is likely to have been appointed Thane of Apple Lane and will have begun forging political links with Queen Leika’s court at Clearwine Fort. Similarly, a priestess of Ernalda or worshipper is likely to have links to the Ernalda temple at Clearwine Fort and at least be aware of its politics. Lastly, one of the Player Characters should have some kind of performance skill, such as Dance, Orate, Play Instrument, or Sing. The likelihood is that one or more of the Player Characters will have some of these skills, so again, a specialist with a high rating in any of these performance skills is not necessary. However, ‘The Smoking Ruins’ will present an opportunity for any Player Character with a good performance skill to shine—and more!
In addition to presenting its three scenarios, The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories presents some background and history of the region where they take place as well as the locations particular to each of the three scenarios. This starts with a gazetteer and history of the South Wilds, but also covers Clearwine Fort, political and religious centre of the Colymar Tribe; the Lost Valley, home to an isolated farming and herding community loyal to the Feather Horse Queen, but also the site of ruined ancient tower out of time and myth; and the Grove of Green Rock, for which the Aldryami have great plans. Each of these locations is accompanied by full descriptions and stats for each of the monsters, creatures, and NPCs to be found there, plus for the Lost valley, there are notes should a player want his character to originate from there. Arguably, the most notable of these locations is The Wild Temple, an eight-kilometre-wide web of megalithic standing stones which dominates the valley it stands in, sacred to both Beast People and the Grazeland Pony Breeders, particularly the former as it is centre of their spirit religion. Here may be encountered a wide array of creatures and peoples, from Centaurs, Satyrs, and Minotaurs to ‘Things No Longer Found in this World’, spirits, and Fox Women. All of them are given full stats, individualising them as you would expect for a RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha supplement.
The main scenario in The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories is the eponymous ‘The Smoking Ruin’, which takes the Player Characters from the political tensions at Clearwine Fort to an ancient ruined settlement high in the Dragonspine Mountains filled with Troll corpses set alight long ago and still burning such that the smoke blights the sky and back again to political tensions at Clearwine Fort. Beginning in Sea Season, 1626, Player Characters are hired by a priestess at the Temple to Ernalda to lead an expedition into the South Wilds where an ancient, sacred artefact might be found. They will need to conduct some research first, but accompanied by a precocious NPC, they must make the trip there and back again in a matter of just weeks. Despite the limited time frame, they are treated to something of a travelogue across the South Wilds before getting to the Smoking Ruins themselves. There are plenty of opportunities here for the Player Characters to meet people, learning something of the region, and lay the foundations for some firm friendships.
The limited time frame means that the Player Characters are unlikely to do more than make a brief exploration of this ancient complex of buildings and temples, for there is a lot more going on here than is presented in the plot of the scenario, ‘The Smoking Ruin’. In fact, so much more, that the location deserves at least more scenarios which will bring the Player Characters back to it to explore and play through the threads the scenarios hints at, but leaves hanging. As to the plot of ‘The Smoking Ruin’, it is both weird and wondrous, both mysterious and magical, and both mythical and epic in its storytelling. The scenario is lengthy and rich in detail, focusing on roleplaying, exploration, and Glorantha as a magical place, rather than on combat, offering multiple sessions of play. Plus, the beginning and the end pull the Player Characters into the politics at Clearwine Fort, also offering opportunities for further roleplaying and if playing the ‘Apple Lane’ series of scenarios, tying them further to the region—or beginning to if The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories is the Player Characters’ first scenario.
Whilst ‘The Smoking Ruin’ is an epic in length, the other two scenarios in The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories are shorter. All three though, share a sense of the epic in their scope. The first of these is ‘Urvantan’s Tower’, which takes place in the Lost Valley described earlier and begins with the Player Characters at the mouth of the valley, having been sent there as observers at the behest of Queen Leika. (This might be a punishment, or it might be an indication of trust, depending upon how Queen Leika regards the Player Characters after the events of ‘The Smoking Ruin’). The captain of the Wardens, essentially the militia for the Lost Valley and its village of True Ford, has come to Clearwine Fort to petition the Queen for help following the Lost Valley’s occupation of the Company of the Manticore, a band of mercenaries in the service of the Lunar Empire.
Like many of the inhabitants of the Lost Valley, the Warden captain had hoped that another denizen of the Lost Valley, the Zzaburi Urvantan, a great sorcerer, might have come to their aid, but he has not left his tower retreat in some seasons. The likelihood is that the Player Characters will be outmatched by Company of the Manticore, so ultimately the sorcerer may be their only hope, as well as that of the Lost Valley’s inhabitants. Thus, they will need to find their way into Urvantan’s Tower—which will probably involve a certain amount of stealth upon the part of the Player Characters, and determine what has happened to him, before hopefully getting to come out and drive the Company of the Manticore out of the valley.
‘Urvantan’s Tower’ is playable in two or three sessions and certainly gives the Game Master an incredibly powerful NPC to roleplay. The danger to avoid in the climax is making the final showdown between the sorcerer and the Company of the Manticore all about the sorcerer, for although he plays a major role, the Player Characters should also. Good advice is given to that end. Now whilst ‘Urvantan’s Tower’ has the structure of a traditional fantasy roleplaying adventure—‘village in peril, mercenary/monstrous threat, mysteriously disappeared wizard who is the only hope’—the scenario gives a very different spin on the set-up. Again, it is tied very much into the background and history of Dragon Pass, which gives the scenario a richness and introduces the players and their characters to more aspects of Glorantha.
Where ‘Urvantan’s Tower’ involved a mixture of stealth, exploration, and combat, the third scenario in The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories is all about combat, well combat and secrecy, but primarily combat! ‘The Grove of Green Rock’ is not designed to be played in a few long sessions, but really played out over the course of a few years. The Player Characters are hired as mercenaries by an Aldryami, but as to their mission, they are sworn to secrecy! In fact, they are hired to help protect a ritual which will strengthen the Aldryami presence in Dragon Pass, but to complete the ritual, the Elves will have to repeat it several times over the next few years, which means that the Player Characters will be hired again and again, each time to protect it from enemies sworn to prevent the return of the Aldryami to the region. Each time the Player Characters will face increasingly more difficult foes, but will receive some aid from their employer and better and better reward! Essentially this is the RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha equivalent of a ‘base defence’ game and the likelihood is if the incidences or ‘waves’ of the ritual defence are played out one after the another, they will lose their impact. Plus, returning to protect the ritual year after year means that each time the Player Characters are more powerful and capable of facing the increasingly tougher foes.
Physically, The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories is a well presented, sturdy, hardback. The artwork is excellent throughout, some of it being repeated from other supplements, and the cartography very clear. However, it needs an edit in a few places and writing could have been clearer too in places, and sometimes the artwork feels as it could have served the scenarios better. It certainly would have been nice to be able to show some illustrations of specific locations in the Smoking Ruins as handouts for example. Another issue is the placement of the maps. Although there is a handy book in The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories, it would have been perhaps useful if the maps of the South Wilds and the Smoking Ruins had been printed inside the front and back covers respectively for easy access. Nevertheless, The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories is another good-looking book for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.
It feels like there has been an age to wait for new scenarios for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, but with the publication of The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories, the wait has definitely been worth it. The three scenarios it contains are all begging to be played and in particular, added to a campaign, because each one has ramifications for campaign play. After ‘The Smoking Ruin’, the Player Characters might improve their standing at Clearwine Fort and of Clearwine Fort itself—or not, they may help forge a friendship and an alliance with the inhabitants of the Lost Valley in ‘Urvantan’s Tower’, and in ‘The Grove of Green Rock’, the Player Characters may help return the Elves to Dragon Pass. They will also reveal more of the history of the Dragon Pass, perhaps even some of its secrets, bringing both to live through play. Yet The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories only details so much, whilst hinting at so much more. There can be no doubt that The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories deserves a sequel, especially one which focuses on the Smoking Ruin itself.
The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories contains interesting setting material and two decent scenarios. The comparative brevity of ‘Urvantan’s Tower’ and ‘The Grove of Green Rock’ and the emphasis on combat in the latter means that they are unlikely to be quite as memorable as the first scenario in the anthology, but do not take that as meaning that either scenario is bad. Far from it. However, in comparison, ‘The Smoking Ruin’ is a fantastical epic, rich in the flavour and detail that Glorantha is so famous for, an impressive epic that draws the Player Characters into it, and it is simply begging for a return visit.
Overall, The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories presents a fantastical trilogy of scenarios for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, opening up some of the wonders and wondrous nature of Glorantha. Hopefully, future scenarios will return to explore the South Wilds in further detail and to as high a quality.
The Coins of Aerovian Continent.
One of my biggest irritations with the D&D system is it’s hideous “gold point” system, that reflects nothing of actual monetary practice in Europe from 400-1600. This makes developing any kind of background economy very difficult, and disrupts and undermines what should be the main story telling features of quasi-medieval fantasy economies. In a game where treasure accumulation is an important measure of character success, having a rational background to the money system is important; after all what separates a serf, from a kulak, from a merchant, from a lord is the same thing that divides 1stlevel characters from 9th level characters; money.
More importantly, it defines the resources that money can command. In the actual middle ages there were a number long term trends; inflation, depreciation, and so on that can be overlooked, but only if you see the long term consistency; Land is wealth, the cost of armor and weapons makes those who have them rare and powerful, trade is dangerous because it requires large investments with huge amounts of risk.
The currencies of the middle ages descend from late Roman times, and they were already economic chaos, various reforms following reform as the Empire bled itself of metal to pay for the armies, bribe barbarians, build churches and fill them with treasures, bribe barbarians, build monasteries and fill them with treasure, bribe barbarians, build city walls, bribe barbarians, and build ships to try and hold the economic and military Roman world together, all while dealing with a manpower drain to monasteries, disease, and war. Over the few final Roman centuries a whole smorgasbord of coins were minted and melted, and reminted, some by towns, some by emperors, some by desperate generals, and what began as a simple system of As and Denier bushed out into a bewildering fecund forest of metal.
D&D reduces this amazing variety to a decimal system and introduces coins in metals that were almost never seen. Platinum was unknown to the middle ages in Europe (when conquistadors first encountered it in South America they tossed it back into the rivers they were panning, hoping it would mature into silver). Copper was never coined, though some bronze coins were molded in the late Roman Empire, and in dark age England. By the year 1000, the usual start date for middle ages, they were effectively gone from European commerce. (except when they weren’t, China and Asia pumped some in from time to time).
Medieval Europe relied on three major kinds of coins descended from Roman models; a large denomination coin, the Shilling , the everyday silver coin that most people would be familiar with called the Penny, and an occasional Gold large denomination coin called an Ecu or Noble. A Few types of Shilling were minted in limited areas of Spain from Electrum..but that was a rarity. Later in the middle ages the richest cities would counter inflation with an even larger coin; The famous Florins and Ducats and Byzants based on imported coin type from the rich east, these coins were needed by spice and cloth merchants to pay for ship loads of goods, and by kings to hire the very large “state” armies of the many 15th century wars. .
All these coins were essentially bullion guaranteed by the issuing authority; often a king, sometimes a town, or a bishop, or a baron even...but effectively interchangeable pence to penny, shilling to sou. Florin to Mark.
That’s pretty much the scene; three kinds of coins ultimately amounting to no more than bouillon guaranteed with the King’s mark. Which was why kings liked them...they could cheat and debase the coin a tad, and it, like the dollar, would still spend as it’s face value since it be reckoned as if it were bouillon. To counter the kings and barons, bankers and merchants would use a touchstone; a bit of slate upon which a coin was rubbed, the lines being compared to the color of known quantities, detecting (hopefully) the cheats.
Real medieval coinage is based on the value of a pound of silver. One pound of Silver divided evenly into 20 portions (or sometimes 22 or 24, this isn’t an exact science here)- the Shilling/Sou/or Roman Soldus… itself divided into 12 silver pennies. The penny was the main coin of European transaction.
There were many other coins, but all based on multiples of one of these two; larger values minted in gold like the Noble (6 shillings), or smaller ones (usually in silver as well) like the haypenny. Notice the 12 and 20 relationship? That's because dividing coins this way is easier. A circle can be bisected easily by eye three times to produce 6 surprisingly precise equal parts, 5 is a much harder division to get right...and people get fussy when you give them “short change”.
D&D coinage is based on a decimal accounting, it’s easier book keeping, but it isn’t right. And it’s bugged me for years. I keeps the system locked into the computer like tyranny of sameness, reducing a perplexing, ambiguous, and colorful riot of names and values into mere “gold points” so bland and uninteresting and patterned that one may as well be playing a video game, and an old one at that.
my desire is to make regions distinct with their own coins so that a breath of wonder and suggestion of depth comes into the game. Also age; hoards of coins that are very old being distinguished from what is current, and that from what was brought from far away...
So, what to do? I’ve tried developing conversion tables, to turn the D&D gold points into reasonable facsimiles of Deniers and Ecus and Solidos and whatnot. That totally failed. It would require rewriting every rule book and treasure table to be functional on the fly. I don’t have the oomph for that. So my new compromise is this; a simple name change table, allowing the complexity of unique coins from different regions without having to engage in crazy conversion tables. Later I'll compose a similar one for the ancient past, and for places farther away...
Kelvin Green hates small villages. He must do. After all, in Fish Fuckers – Or, a Record, Compil’d in Truth, of the Sordid Activities of the People of Innsmouth, Devon, he unleashed aspects of H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’ on a small west Country village with piscine horrors wanting to procreate with the inhabitants of said village, whilst in More Than Meets The Eye: A Short Adventure with Lots of Tentacles, he unleashed a weird, fantasy homage to a certain franchise of films involving giant robots capable of transforming into everyday objects, but with aliens/not-shoggoths rather than robots. Both scenarios are written for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, whereas the third of what has become Kelvin Green’s ‘village vitriol’ trilogy is a systemless scenario. However, despite the scenario being systemless, it is set during the Early Modern Age, between 1625 and 1725—the default period for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, and its tone and playstyle matches that of the Old School Renaissance.The Seed, published by Games Omnivorous, is a system agnostic scenario of fantasy horror which would work with any number of Old School Renaissance retroclones. The most obvious one is Lamentations of the Flame Weird Fantasy Roleplay, another is the publisher’s own 17th Century Minimalist: A Historical Low-Fantasy OSR Rulebook, but with some adjustment it would work with Cthulhu by Gaslight or a darker toned version of Leagues of Gothic Horror for use with Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age! Take it away from its European setting and The Seed would work well with Mörk Borg as they share a similar tone and sensibility. Notably though it adheres to the Manifestus Omnivorous, the ten points of which are:
So yes, The Seed adheres to all ten rules. It is an adventure, it is system agnostic, it takes place on Earth, it has one location, it has the one monster (the others are extensions of it), it includes Osteophagy—the practice of animals, usually herbivores, consuming bones, it involves a voracious eater, the word count is not high—the scenario only runs to twenty-eight pages, and it is presented in two colours—in this case, fluorescent pink and black. Lastly, The Seed does lack good taste. Be warned, just like The Feast on Titanhead before it, this scenario is one of gut churning—in some cases, literally—horror, bodily fluids, and madness.
The setting for The Seed is the village of Midwich. And being the village of Midwich, it has its own cuckoo—a giant alien terraforming bio-machine which sits at the centre of the village and pumps out a fluorescently pink, corrosive—mentally and physically, miasma which rots mind, body, and anything else it envelops. Its aim, or rather it is programmed to transform the planet into a world suitable for colonisation by an alien species from another dimension. Which requires that it is fed, which is why a bunch of misogynist cultists—members of the Final Brotherhood—are feeding whatever organic material they can into the Seed’s greedy maw, whilst phallic-headed alien dogs which ejaculate acid patrol the mist and protect the Seed. Meanwhile, the Storm Society, a semi-secret scientific society has sent agents—inspired by a pair of Marvel Comics’ legendary creators, to investigate the Seed and what it is doing in Midwich. So, at some point, the Player Characters should expect figures in diving suits to loom out of the fluorescently pink gloom…
Which is the point at which the Player Characters turn up. Perhaps they want to find someone in the village, or the Storm Society has sent them to check on its agents already in Midwich, but whatever their reason for being in the village, they find something really weird going on. Of course, to determine what requires penetrating the pink miasma and potentially suffering its deleterious effects, ranging from hair loss and sudden uncontrollable anger to constant vomiting and the sudden, inexplicable attack by a random monster from the Game Master’s preferred Wandering Monster Table. Within the miasma, the Player Characters are free to wander wherever they like, explore as they like, and do as they like, and were it actually not for the effects of the Miasma, then determine what is going on would be relatively easy, as for the most part, the physical threats present in Midwich are not all that challenging.
Physically, The Seed is a vibrantly pink and white booklet with a separate cover, on the inside of which is the map of Midwich. The illustrations are a mix of the weird and the gruesome, whilst the map is large and easy to read. It needs a slight edit in places, but is overall quite a sturdy product, being done on heavy paper and card stock.
Like The Feast on Titanhead before it, The Seed is short and brutal, it being possible to play through the scenario and even survive in a single session. Unlike The Feast on Titanhead, the effect of failure in The Seed is disastrous, but not necessarily apocalyptic, however unless the Player Characters have a strong motive to investigate or a strong sense of altruism, the corrosive effects of the Miasma may be too strong for them, and so may drive them away rom Midwich, keeping them from investigating further. To that end, The Seed is need of some development upon the part of the Game Master to create hooks strong enough to motive the Player Characters, whether she is planning to run it as a one-shot or as part of a campaign.
Much like the earlier More Than Meets The Eye: A Short Adventure with Lots of Tentacles, Kelvin Green serves up another slice of ‘village as victim’ horror, this time weird Science Fiction horror for a profoundly pink encounter. The Seed is literally the seed of a session’s worth of weirdness and horror for the roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice.
Noah Berlatsky / October 8, 2020
John Fawcett’s 2000 Canadian werewolf film Ginger Snaps is usually discussed as a feminine and feminist allegory: “the most complete feminist horror film ever made,” as this site’s K.E. Roberts puts it. There’s no doubt that the linking of the werewolf cycle to menstrual blood, and thus to female adolescence and female stigmatization, demands a feminist reading. Hidden inside the story about women, though—like a dirty secret, never to be spoken—is a story about queerness. The tragedy of Ginger Snaps, in fact, is that patriarchy makes queerness unspeakable and unthinkable. As a result, the film can imagine no future for women in patriarchy other than death.
The movie starts, in fact, with imagining death. The Fitzgerald sisters, Brigitte (Emily Perkins) and Ginger (Katharine Isabelle), live in a dreary, lower-middle-class, mostly white Ontario town, which they hate, and which hates them. Disgusted at the thought of being normal, they swear to each other to die together before they get old. To seal their love affair with death, they create a kind of slide-show horror movie as a school project, with images of Ginger impaled on suburban fences and run down by suburban lawn mowers. The bloody show is successful in nauseating their instructor. It’s also a winking ironic foreshadowing: the sisters are about to experience the horror movie story they long for, and it’s not going to be fun at all.
But beyond that, the film–within-a-film is a camp signal to the viewer that all is not as it appears. Or rather, it’s a signal that all is exactly as it appears. The movie shows the Fitzgerald sisters as they use fake blood and special effects to stage bloody scenes of death, just as the filmmakers of Ginger Snaps stage their dog disembowelments and nightmare janitor eviscerations. The truth of the movie, which you know going in, is that it’s fake. And the thing that is most obviously fake is not the blood and gore, but the pretense that the Fitzgerald sisters are sisters.
Obviously, the actors, Isabelle and Perkins, are not sisters. They look nothing alike. Isabelle as Ginger is a conventionally attractive movie lead, while Perkins as Brigitte is mousy, big-nosed, and human- rather than Hollywood-shaped. You’re supposed to suspend disbelief about their blood ties. And yet, the movie pushes at the edge of that suspension, as if it wants you to notice the artifice. The girls are not twins, but are in the same grade: Brigitte skipped a year, Ginger too casually explains. The boys in the film notice and comment on the fact that the two don’t resemble each other. And in a queasy scene towards the films end, Ginger, more than half-transformed into wolf, leans into Brigitte and husks, “We’re almost not even related any more.”
If sisterhood is a convention, rather than a truth, then the girl’s intense friendship, and indeed their shared room, takes on a different valence. So does their alienation from their peers. The narrative provides no real reason why the Fitzgeralds feel like outsiders, or why they’re hated by their classmates. But if you accept what you’re actually seeing, then the dynamic is obvious. Two girls who really are not sisters are engaged in a passionate, intense, open same-sex relationship. Their peers hate them for it.
In this context, Ginger’s transformation isn’t just a metaphor for female adolescence; it’s a metaphor for queer adolescence, in which increasing evidence of deviation in gender and sexuality must be pushed ever further into the closet. Ginger grows a tail—a penis metaphor, surely—and hair on her chest, even as she gets her period for the first time. She becomes more femme, wearing tight clothes, redoing her hair, flirting with boys. At the same time, she becomes more masculine. She just about sexually assaults Jason (Jesse Moss), a boy she’s making out with, after he asks her who the guy in their relationship is.
The chaotic confusion of gendered presentation and gendered desire could be a metaphor for trans experience, for lesbian experience, for male gay experience. The common through-line is social ostracism, shame, and a need for concealment. Most of the movie is devoted to Brigitte and Ginger’s efforts to keep Ginger’s condition closeted, so that she can pass.
Part of obscuring Ginger’s condition involves hiding it from the film’s viewers. It seems likely that Brigitte and Ginger were made sisters in the script specifically to defuse queer possibilities. The erotic tension between them is expressed through misdirection, and routed especially through relationships with guys. Ginger has unprotected sex with Jason, infecting him. Werewolf Jason later almost assaults Brigitte, who stabs him with a phallic needle to cure him. In a parallel triangle, Brigitte has a possibly more than platonic relationship with local drug dealer Sam (Kris Lemche), who Ginger then tries to sleep with. And most explicitly, Ginger viciously murders a school janitor who she believes has been staring at Brigitte. “I don’t like the way he looks at you!” she hisses. That could be read as the anger of an overprotective sister. But it could also be jealousy.
Brigitte and Ginger’s desires aren’t just hidden from onlookers, diagetic and otherwise. They’re hidden from themselves. When Brigitte first approaches Sam for help with a werewolf cure, she tells him that she’s the one infected, rather than Ginger. That’s an admission as much as a lie; if the curse in the movie is queerness rather than lycanthropy, then it touches both (supposed) sisters. Brigitte, notably, still has not gotten her own period, even though she’s 15. Her femininity is queer too.
Ginger, for her part, says that she has a hunger inside her that she at first mistakes for a desire for (heterosexual) sex. But then she realizes that what she actually wants is “to tear everything to fucking pieces.” We learn what that means in practice when she claws two men to death, and then suggests to Brigitte that the two of them “swap fluids” and go away together. You have to wade through apocalypse, blood, death, and the destruction of all things to get to a place where you can love that girl who is not your sister.
There’s a moment when the movie seems to foresee a plausible happy ending for that love whose name it never speaks. The sisters’ mom, Pam (Mimi Rodgers), discovers that Ginger is killing her way through her classmates. She’s understandably upset, but she doesn’t turn them in. Instead, she reacts the way you’d hope a small town mom would on learning that her kid is queer. She offers to burn down her house and chuck her mediocre husband to support her child.
The filmmakers aren’t as supportive, alas. Brigitte does agree to swap blood with Ginger, making some feeble denials to Sam about how it’s the only way to lure Ginger out to cure her with the good heterosexual injection Sam’s whipped up. But, inevitably, the taste of Brigitte causes Ginger to rage ever more out of control. Brigitte, knife in one hand, injection in the other, tries to save her, but Ginger again chooses the wrong thing to impale herself upon, and expires in the arms of her sister, who can’t be her lover.
“I’m not dying in this room with you!” Brigitte shouts right before the end. It’s a rejection of the teen sisters’ suicide pact, and an embrace of adulthood and possibility. Or, alternately, it’s a stifling acceptance of heteronormativity. “To die” is a standard double entendre, especially when it’s used to refer to what you’re doing in a bedroom. Ginger is beckoning, with bared fangs, to a realm of monstrous difference, where the girls can admit they are unrelated, and still wrestle and thrust and experience release together. Brigitte says no and kills her rather than be consumed by queer desire.
Ginger Snaps is about how patriarchy destroys women. But, as its callous title indicates, the film itself is only ambivalently opposed to that process of destruction. The movie cares about Ginger and Brigitte, but it’s also invested in denying some of the possible ways they might care about each other. In Ginger Snaps, death is better than, and the natural result of, girls loving each other intensely, or too well. Ginger wants to tear down the whole world. Ginger Snaps tears down Ginger instead.
Noah Berlatsky is the author of Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics.
If you name your publishing label "Basic Witch Games" you are going to get my attention. So last night I got a new PDF from a just-as-new company. The PDF is The Muse and the company is Basic Witch Games. Now full disclosure, I knew about this class a while back and gave the author a tiny bit of advice about it and encouraged her to add a bit and publish it.
So ethically I can not provide you all an unbiased review.
Also, the book uses some of my own OGC, so there is another reason.
But I do want to tell you this is a fun class. It's not for every group, but that is true of all classes really, but for the right group this can be a lot of fun.
The Muse is the first in what I hope will be more Basic era content from Basic Witch Games.
The class is something of a tempter or even a seducer. I am immediately reminded of the old Houri Class from White Dwarf.
The class itself is 14 level B/X style class. The cover has a nice visual transition from red to blu to cover the red and blue of the beloved Basic and Expert books. In addition to the spells from my witch classes, there are new spells too. There is also a new magic sword.
Basic Witch Games will be coming out with more material and even a Dark Fantasy / Romantic Fantasy setting. So I am looking forward to seeing what they do.
So check them out. Spend a buck for this.
They can also be found on Twitter at, @BasicWitchGame
Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Arsenic (from the cycle of chemical compositions)
Leo and Hercules, 1918
Fantastic Composition (Vision with masks), 1920
Green Eye Composition, 1918
Composition 1922
The Gravedigger's Monologue
Fight, 1921-22
Creating the World, 1921-22
Satan, 1920
Marysia and Burek in Ceylon, 1920-21
Story, 1922
Capricornus, 1918
"A struggle between nonsensical and indescribable things. A row of chambers turned into an underground circus. Strange beasts appeared in the loges. The crowd was a mixed bag, an audience half-animal, half-human. The loges turned into bathtubs, connected to urinals in the Mexican or Aztec style. A sense at times of two layers of visibility: the images in the depths were chiefly black and white, while the background had putrid red and dirty lemon-yellow diagonal stripes. The majority of the visions had beasts of land and sea and horrible human faces. Giraffes whose necks and heads turned into snakes growing out of their bodies. A ram with a flamingo nose hung with pink guts. Indian cobras slithered out of the ram, then the whole thing crumbled into a mass of snakes." - quote excerpt from the artist describing tripping on peyote, read more here.
"Shortly after Poland was invaded by Germany in September 1939, Witkiewicz escaped with his young lover Czesława to the rural frontier town of Jeziory, in what was then eastern Poland. After hearing the news of the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September 1939, Witkacy committed suicide on 18 September by taking a drug overdose and trying to slit his wrists. He convinced Czesława to attempt suicide with him by consuming Luminal, but she survived. The film Mystification 2010, written and directed by Jacek Koprowicz proposed that Witkiewicz faked his own death and lived secretly in Poland until 1968." - quote from biography on the artist found at Wikipedia.
Another full class today. This time one that is based on the classic Dragon Magazine #5 and #20 witches. The rules for my reviews are here.
D&D Witch Class From David Belmonte
I am, without a doubt, a huge fan of the witches for Dragon Magazine. I have spent hours reading and rereading those articles. I have many witch characters I have made using those rules and spent many, many more hours playing them. So if you say that your class is based on those, you have my attention.
The Witch Class from David Belmonte is a 10 (1 cover, 1 title, 1-page addendum, 7 pages content) page PDF that is Free on DMSGuild. So the price point is already good. It also presents a full witch class.
The pdf is sparce really. There is no art save for the cover art and the artist is not credited.
The witch in this case is a Wisdom spellcaster. (They were Intelligence and Wisdom in Dragon #20).
The powers this witch gets are in line with the witch from Dragon #20. Though the witch in Dragon got a lot more powers, this witch is a little more inline with the D&D 5 rules. There are no subclasses listed even if the obvious choice would have been High and Low Order witches with some different powers.
There are 8 new spells. One of the Spells "Oracle" only works "in obscure woods" whatever that is supposed to mean.
So nice effort, but it falls a little short for me. Though it is tough to argue the price I guess.
