The 1st Pufflumi Musketeers allowed me to accompany them on a long hike North of the Snootstream near Vinalville.  The autumnal weather was delightful as the cheery troops swung in a loping stride towards the Vindsoc fort.  The smoke of cigarettes and happy banter of our well fed fellows was a charming contretemps to the leafy snap of the air and the neighs of the Officer's horses.

       Major Melon of the Musketeers was jovial, and  only needed a bit of prodding to find the proper road by the antiquated garrison map.  I'm left in no doubt that the professionalism of our officers is well fitted to the task of holding the Oppressorbad border. 

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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There is a balance to find between knowing enough to be able to fight evil, versus not knowing enough and having it kill your or send you mad or knowing too much and having it send you mad, and worse have you betray society. This is the dilemma at the heart of heart of the Impossible Chamber, a secret society that knows just enough to know that what it knows is probably not enough and yet knowing more will compromise its mission. The tomes that it has had access to go back millennia, perhaps even more, but it is likely that its origins are only a few hundreds of years old. In more recent times, it may be connected to the Luminary Brotherhood of St. Joan which was established in Paris in the wake of the Affair of the Poisons that beset the city in the late seventeenth century. The Impossible Chamber was founded a few short years after the dissolving of the Luminary Brotherhood, just prior to the French Revolution. It managed to survive the turbulence of the years following the revolution and was even funded by Napoleon Bonaparte before his defeat at Waterloo and exile to St. Helena. By then, chapters had been established in both England and the United States of America. To its agents it provides the means to inform them of what they need to know to face the true horror of the universe and the means to fight it. Of course, it is never enough, despite the agents being the best informed and the best equipped to do so.
The Impossible Chamber is a supplement for Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England which presents the Impossible Chamber as an organisation and benefactor for its Agents. It details its history and gives a timeline as well as descriptions of its organisation, some of its facilities—from Paris to Ohio, the arms and equipment it gives its agents, how it communicates, and how its upper echelons decide what its members investigate. Several campaign set-ups are suggested, perhaps with one Investigator an agent of the Impossible Chamber or all of them. Either way, an agent needs to have the Mythos skill and may even know a spell. In an age when conspiracies are rife—or at least appear to be, it is of paramount importance that an agent keep his membership of the Impossible Chamber a secret lest he lose Reputation, though the Impossible Chamber can help an agent gain Reputation too. That said, the Impossible Chamber is egalitarian in that it recruits from all levels of society to ensure it has access to all strata. Several Mythos artefacts that the Impossible Chamber holds in its library are detailed, like the Balthazar Pistols, which fire bullets capable of affecting things that ordinarily cannot be harmed by the unnatural, but which also have a high chance of killing their wielder and Lady Ostend’s Parrot, a seemingly ancient Greek automaton capable of speaking in several languages, including ones unknown to most scholars. This is alongside numerous Mythos tomes and several new spells.
A ‘Agents of the Impossible Chamber Experience Package’ enables a player to create an Impossible Chamber. He automatically gains five points of Cthulhu Mythos knowledge, loses Sanity for it, has encountered one Mythos creature at least once and is thus partly inured to its appearance, is suffering from a phobia or mania consequently, and has reduced Reputation, Sanity, and or Power as well. If the players do not want to create their own Agents, then six pre-generated Agents are provided, although their mechanical details do need to be checked.
For the Keeper there is a handful of adventure seeds, each with multiple options that the Keeper can develop. These are set in Scotland and the United States as well as across Europe and ate back roughly fifty or so years. ‘The Catch Me Who Can Affair’ is a complete scenario involving the Impossible Chamber and which can be played using the earlier pre-generated Agents. It is set in London in 1808 and intended to be played by two to three players, though more may be added. The inventor and steam engineer Richard Trevithick opened his Steam Circus in Bloomsbury, in the St. Giles district of London in July of 1808, but within months it closed and reopened twice. Now it has closed a third time and the Impossible Chamber suspects that something strange is the cause. The Investigators quickly discover from the foul smell and the coffin being removed that someone ‘died’ at the venue, whereas the previous causes had been subsidence under the circular track layout. Research in the library of St. Giles-in-the-Fields reveals some of the history of the district, that it was once a site of regular executions before they were moved to Tyburn. As the investigation progress, it becomes clear that someone other the Impossible Chamber is interested in what has happened at the Steam Circus and the corpse removed from deep underneath it. The final scenes will take the Agents deep into the Rookery of Seven Dials, potentially chased in and perhaps beyond… The scenario is nicely detailed and there is a slightly grimy, seedy fell to it.
Physically, The Impossible Chamber is well presented. The artwork is decent as is the cartography. It does need an edit in places.The Impossible Chamber is a combination sourcebook and scenario that shifts how Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England is played. In Regency Cthulhu, the Investigators are as much concerned with their Reputation as they investigating and thwarting the forces of the Mythos. As evidenced in the scenario, ‘The Catch Me Who Can Affair’, The Impossible Chamber moves the play back to a more traditional style of play—Call of Cthulhu rather than Regency Cthulhu—with less of an emphasis upon Reputation because the Agents are not actually as involved with the Bon Ton as they typically are with Regency Cthulhu scenarios. Without that emphasis, The Impossible Chamber is easier to run using standard Call of Cthulhu, while the organisation, the Impossible Chamber, lends itself to a campaign set-up where the Agents are more mobile and less concerned with their immediate neighbourhood.

 I have mentioned it here many times, but Greek Mythology was my gateway to Dungeons & Dragons. I just finished watching The Blood of Zeus, formerly known as Gods & Heroes. It was great and I loved the 1st and 2nd seasons, much of the 3rd. I just didn't like how it ended. Though one of the things I loved was the Titans.  They reminded me of the Gargantua I had created back in 2013, and it was cool to see a similar idea animated.

While there were many great examples I could use as specific Gargantua, it was the depictions of the Titans and Tartarus that I really enjoyed. It did get me thinking about my Thanatonic Titans, most recently from The Left Hand Path.

In my Left Hand Path my Demonic classifications include the inhabitants prisoners of Tartarus are the Tartarians aka the Demondands and their lords the Titans.

I didn't detail the Thanatonic Titans, but they are pretty much the Greek Titans and the Norse Giants mixed together. One of my favorites was Typhon.

Typhon (Tartarian)
The Chthonic Titan, Father of Monsters

Armor Class: –5 [24]
Hit Dice: 24+24 (132 hp average)
Move: 180’ (60’), fly 120’ (40’)
To Hit AC 0: 6 [+13]
Attacks: 2 claws (2d12+6), bite (6d6) or breath (see below)
Special: Fire/poison breath, storm control, magic resistance 75%, spell-like abilities, telepathy 300’, see below
No. Appearing: 1 (Unique)
Saving Throws: Fighter 24
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: Hx2, I, N
Alignment: Chaotic (Chaotic Evil)
XP: 25,000

Genius intelligence

Typhon is a colossal, serpentine titan with a hundred dragon-heads writhing about his shoulders, each belching storms, fire, or venom. His vast wings blot out the sun, and his voice shakes the earth like thunder. Taller than any titan or storm giant, Typhon is said to have once challenged the very gods for dominion over creation, only to be chained in the deepest abyss of Tartarus. From there, he still thrashes in hatred, spawning demodands (the Tartarians) as extensions of his rage.

Typhon relishes combat and throws himself in with bloody, violent abandon. He attacks with claws and a bite but also horrible magical attacks.

Breath Weapon. Once every 3 rounds, Typhon can unleash one of two breath attacks:

• Fire: 100’ long cone, 60’ wide at end, 20d10 fire damage (save vs. dragon breath for half).
• Poison Gas: 50’ radius cloud, 12d10 poison damage (save vs. dragon breath for half).

Storm Control. At will, Typhon can summon hurricane winds, torrential rain, or lightning storms in a 2-mile radius. Within the storm, visibility drops to 10’, ranged weapons are useless, and creatures must save vs. Spells or be blown prone.

Spell-like Abilities (3/day each, as 24th-level caster): Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Call Lightning, Control Weather, Earthquake, Dispel Magic.

Typhon also has formidable defenses. 

• Magic Resistance: 75%, as demons.
• Weapons: Only artifacts or +3 or better weapons can harm Typhon.
• Aura of Dread: Any mortal within 120’ must save vs. Spells or flee in terror for 2d6 rounds.

Typhon is unique. He cannot be permanently slain -if reduced to 0 hp, his form dissolves into storm clouds and writhing serpents, reforming in Tartarus within 1d100 years. He is the father of countless monsters, including demodands, chimeras, and hydras. Some sages whisper that earthquakes and great volcanic eruptions mark the struggles of Typhon beneath the earth, forever trying to break his bonds.

Encountering Typhon on the mortal plane is a sign of great calamity or anger of the gods. 

Typhon and the Demodands

When Typhon roamed the mortal world, he was the father of monsters with his mate Echidna. When Typhon was imprisoned, Echidna was dead. Typhon set out to create a new set of offspring to destroy those who had imprisoned him and killed his mate. These new monsters were the demodands.

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, The Companions of Arthur is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon. It enables creators to sell their own original content for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition. This can be original scenarios, background material, alternate Arthurian settings, and more, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Pendragon Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Pendragon campaigns.

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What is the Nature of the Quest?The Strange Oak is a short encounter for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition.

It is a full colour, six page, 4.28 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy, though it does need a slight edit.
Where is the Quest Set?The Strange Oak is a scenario for Pendragon, Sixth Edition. It can be set in any year and is easily added to any rural or forest location.
Who should go on this Quest?
Any type Player-knight can go on this quest. The encounter is not recommended for a solo Player-knight as the situation could kill him.
What does the Quest require?
The Love and Labours of Sir Cauline requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition Core Rulebook and the Pendragon: Gamemaster’s Handbook.

Where will the Quest take the Knights?
In The Strange Oak, the Player-knights come across an odd a situation. A great tree standing in the woods around which exudes an area of calm suggesting that it is a suitable place to camp. Yet there are no sounds of wildlife around and what look at first to be a profusion of stones upon the ground turn out to be bones, some of them animals and some of them clearly men, and by then, it is possibly too late. The tree has the Player-knight (or Player-knights) in its influence.
The Strange Oak presents a simple situation. Can the Player-knights deal with a benign threat before they fall prey to its influence? What is happening here is that the Player-knights have encountered a fae tree and if they stray too close, there is the chance they will fall asleep and not awaken, starving to death in their slumber, and their flesh feeding the tree. A young boy will warn the Player-knights as to the danger as he has already lost his family (what happens to the now orphan is left to the Player-knights to decide.)

The situation as written is an endurance test for the Player-knights until either they chop or burn the tree down. Encountering and destroying the tree will earn the Player-knights Glory.

However, The Strange Tree offers a number of encounters to flavour the whole affair. This includes a ghost for a supernatural element, a starving wolf-pack for a combat sequence, and even a magical encounter with a pupil of Nimue, the Lady of the Lake, who will issue further warnings. Ideally, the Game Master should one or two of these to add a little more detail to the encounter.
Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?The Strange Oak is a serviceable encounter easily added to any campaign. It can played through in a single session, very likely much less.

Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd starts by committing a cardinal sin. It does not tell the reader what it is. It is clearly a roleplaying game and it does at least tell the reader that, but there is no explanation of what the players and their characters do in Mythic Bastionland. There is no explanation of what sets this apart from any other roleplaying game in its genre. Instead, it leaps straight into setting up a game and creating characters and more. Without this context, Mythic Bastionland leaves the reader and the Referee with more work to understand what the roleplaying game is and what it is trying to do. Now there is some commentary at the rear of book which through a combination of examples of play and commentary upon them does provide some of the context that Mythic Bastionland is missing at the very beginning of its book and throughout the presentation of the rules. Yet this comes in the ‘Oddpocrypha’, almost one-hundred-and-seventy pages after the end of the rules presentation, and since there is no introduction to the roleplaying game to tell the reader that it is there and what it does, there is every possibility that the reader is going to be mystified as what he has in hands and the Referee daunted at the prospect of running Mythic Bastionland.

And yet, check online, such as the DriveThruRPG page for Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd and clear and simple explanations as to what this roleplaying game is and what it is trying to do, can be easily found and understood. The fact that such an explanation—or something similar to it—is not given in Mythic Bastionland is both mystifying and profoundly unhelpful.

So, what then is Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd? Mythic Bastionland is an Arthurian roleplaying game inspired by British folklore, Arthurian legends, and more modern interpretations of both. This includes Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant comic strip, the films Excalibur and The Green Knight, the roleplaying game Pendragon, and the computer game, Elden Ring. It is published by BastionLand Press following a successful Kickstarter campaign and as its title suggests, it is a roleplaying game set sometime in the past of Into the Odd, an Old School Renaissance adjacent microclone of Dickensian horror and industrialisation. This also means that it is also set in the past of Electric Bastionland: Deeper into the Odd, the roleplaying game of incomparable debt and failed careers amidst a very modern and almost incomprehensible city. Mythic Bastionland even suggests ways in which Player Characters from one roleplaying game can go to another as well as several ways in which they are connected, all of which are true, and it even hints that it may not actually be in the past either…

In Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd, the players take the role of Knights, each different and knighted by a different Seer, seeking Glory, exploring a Realm, and confronting Myths, all having sworn the same oath—‘Seek The Myths, Honour The Seers, Protect The Realm’. Theirs is a world of brutal and bloody medievalism, but by gaining Glory, whether through the resolution of Myths, public duelling or jousting, entering tournaments, and fighting battles that history will remember, they will prove themselves worthy of rank, first of taking a seat in Council or at Court, next of ruling a Holding, and then of ruling a Seat of Power. Ultimately, as a Knight-Radiant, a Knight will prove himself worthy of undertaking the final task, fulfilling the City Quest. This will likely bring a campaign to an end as the Knights confront and deal with a series of omens.

A Knight is very simply detailed. He has a type and a rank, three Virtues, Guard, some property, an Ability, and a Passion. The three Virtues are Vigour, Clarity, and Spirit and they range in between in value between seven and eighteen initially, but can never go above nineteen. Guard is a Knight’s ability to avoid Wounds, whilst property is what a Knight owns, an Ability is a talent unique to the Knight, and the Passion is his means of restoring his Spirit. Both Virtues and Guard are rolled for as standard for all knights, but the property, Ability, and Passion are all defined by what type of Knight he is. This can be chosen or rolled for from amongst the seventy-two knightly types that Mythic Bastionland gives. The process is quick and easy.

Sir Wedell
Type: The Salt Knight
Rank: Knight-Errant
Glory 0

VIRTUES
Vigour 12 Clarity 11 Spirit 10
Guard 4

Property: Spined mace (d8 hefty), javelin (d6), coraline mail (A1), Everflask (contains an endless supply of fresh water), Scaled steed (VIG 12, CLA 8, SPI 5, 3GD), dagger (d6), torches, rope, dry rations, camping gear
Ability: Inspire Ire
Passion: Mettle
Knighted by: The Bright Seer

Mechanically, Mythic Bastionland is simple, though more complex than either Into the Odd or Electric Bastionland. To have his Knight undertake an action, a player rolls a Save against the appropriate Virtue. Beyond that, combat adds some complexity. In a turn, a Knight can move and attack—in that strict order, and instead of rolling to attack, a player rolls the damage his Knight will inflict. Combatants can attack the same target and their players roll their dice together. The highest die result counts, while the remaining dice that have rolled four or higher, can be discarded to perform Gambits. These start with ‘Bolster’ to increase the damage inflicted by one, but also enable a combatant to move after the attack, repel a foe, stop a foe from moving, trap an opponent’s shield, dismount a foe, and so on. There are greater Gambits for rolling eight or more. All Knights have access to Feats—‘Smite’, ‘Focus’, and ‘Deny’, which they can use in combat. ‘Smite’ adds an extra, larger die to the combat roll; ‘Focus’ lets a Knight use a Gambit without sacrificing a die; and ‘Deny’ blocks or rebuffs the attack before it lands. All require a Save against a Virtue lest the Knight become fatigued.

Armour worn and shields carried will reduce incoming damage, whilst the ‘Deny’ Feat will enable a Knight to avoid damage all together. A Knight’s Guard is reduced first, and as long it is one or more, a Knight can evade attacks. If his Guard reduced to exactly zero, the Knight gains a scar, but if the damage exceeds a Knight’s Guard, it is deducted from his Vigour and he is Wounded. If a Knight’s Vigour is reduced by half, he is mortally wounded and will die in the hour, but can easily and quickly be given first aid to prevent this. If a Knight’s Vigour is reduced to zero, he is dead. The other Virtues can suffer similar damage, often from Scars, but whilst some are debilitating, other Scars can also increase a Knight’s Guard. The rules for combat also cover unarmed combat, ranged combat, and mounted combat, as well as duels, jousts, shieldwalls, and spearwalls. They scale up quickly to include running warbands, the use of artillery, and handling sieges.

Combat in Mythic Bastionland is thus brutal. However, Knights do have the advantage of having the initiative in combat—unless surprised—and they and their players have the time to plan accordingly. Tactical use of Feats and Gambits will keep a Company of Knights alive longer than if they simply charge into combat.

For the Referee, beyond the basic rules, there is simple guidance on how to set up the game and its scope—how many sessions everyone wants the game to last, goods and trade, descriptions of the people and the realms, and setting up a Realm. This involves creating and populating a hex map, typically a twelve-by-twelve grid, that will mostly consist of wilderness. To this is added four Holdings—castles, walled towns, fortresses, or towers, held by Knights or influential Vassals of the King—one of which is the Realm’s Seat of Power, and six Myth Hexes, each one clearly affected by the presence of their Myth. The details of the various hexes, excluding the Myth Hexes, can be generated using the ‘Spark’ or prompt tables presented later in the book.

In terms of advice, Mythic Bastionland emphasises the ‘Primacy of Action’, that past actions and their consequences supersede content generated by prompts of the Spark Tables (and the bottom of almost all of the pages in the book) and the rules, ensuring that the players and their Knights have enough information to act, and using a simple procedure to determine the outcome of any action. There are also guidelines for improvisation, using prompts, handling luck, and how to end a session. The latter is important because every session should end with a discussion of what the players and their Knights want to do next. This can be to pick up where the current session has ended, but the players can also decide to end the Season or the Age, allowing for months or years to pass or even enough time for a Knight to mature from a young Knight or a mature Knight to become an old knight. There are numerous activities that the Knights can undertake in between—effectively off camera—but the passing of an age forces a player to reroll his Knight’s Virtues and accept the new result, even if lower. The result of which might be that a Knight has learned from his experiences and matured, or he could have been wounded and suffered a debilitating injury or entered his dotage. Further rules cover travel, exploration, and ultimately, dominion and authority. In the case of dominion and authority, a Knight comes to rule a Holding—or even a Seat of Power. At either level, what Knight will be trying to do is maintain and improve his Holding, deal with crises from within his realm, and see to his succession, and also crises from beyond his realm should a Knight hold a Seat of Power. This though is more for long term play than short term play.

All of which runs to sixteen pages. In other words, the rules to Mythic Bastionland are concisely presented in sixteen pages for everything! Which begs the question what exactly does the rest of Mythic Bastionland consist of given that that rules take up three-fortieths of the book? Over two thirds of the book is dedicated to two things. One is the Knights and one is the Myths, equally divided, for a grand total of seventy-two entries each. The Knights are what the players choose from, or ideally, roll for, and they include The True Knight, The Trail Knight, The Story Knight, The Rune Knight, The Mask Knight, and The Silk Knight, and every single one of them is different and interesting and will present a different way of playing a Knight.

The Myths are what the Referee uses to populate the Realm. They include The Wurm, The Tower, The Spider, The Toad, The Hole, and The Rock, and every single one of them will present the players and their Knights with a different challenge. Each is simply presented with simple description, a set of omens that trigger as the Knights discover more signs of the Myth, a set of NPCs, and a table of random details that the Referee can use to detail parts of the Myth. For example, ‘The Wall’ is described as “Cutting through the land, a wonder two storms tall Guarding from invasion, or built to cage us all”. Its Omens begin with, “Crumbling outpost. A band of labourers sharing a meal on their way to begin work repairing the Wall. They think Knights are being sent to stop them.” and will escalate to, “Two giant magpies, stealing shiny things. They nest in the trees that root among the Wall’s oldest stones.” The cast includes stats for Wall Wardens, Brin, Catrona, and Elish, a Wall Knight, the giant magpies, and empowered refugees.

So how then, is Mythic Bastionland actually played and what do the Knights do? Quite simply, they explore the wilderness map that the Referee has created, looking for signs of Myths. When they have found them, the Knights will look for the source, root it out, and resolve it. There is no set way to resolve any of these Myths. Ultimately, whether or not a Myth is resolved comes down to whether or not it remains a threat to the Realm. The typical six Myths of a Realm is enough to support a mini-campaign at least, though more can be added to extend the campaign once one set of six is done, whilst the mix of seventy-two different Knights and seventy-two different Myths means that no two campaigns are going to be alike because whilst the Myths provide the adventures to play, they also give and flavour to a Realm. Once the Referee has set up her Realm, Mythic Bastionland is very definitely designed to be played from the page with a minimum of preparation.

The last part of Mythic Bastionland is devoted to the ‘Oddpocrypha’. This consists of thirty pages of examples of ‘Play’ and ‘Thoughts’ upon those examples of play. From ‘Start & Scope’, ‘Character Creation’, and ‘Teaching the Rules’ to ‘Council & Court’, ‘Crises’, and ‘Delving into Tomorrow’, the ‘Oddpocrypha’ explores and examines numerous examples of the rules and their ramifications. In many ways, actually providing much of the context that the rules section at the start of the book lacks. Consequently, it is a lot easier to read, but there is dichotomy to the writing. Essentially, the ‘Play’ examples are written in one tone and the ‘Thoughts’ on the examples are written in another. So, what you have is the author writing the examples of ‘Play’ and then commenting upon them as if he had not written them in the ‘Thoughts’. It is weird. That said, the examples of ‘Play’ really do help the reader and potential Referee understand the rules and how the game is intended to be played and the thoughts‘Thoughts’ do explore what the designer thinks of his game.

Physically,Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd is a stunning looking book with every Myth and Knight fully illustrated, meaning that there is a profusion of artwork in the very big middle of the book. The tones are primarily earthy greens and oranges with splashes of red, blue, and purple and the whole look of the Knights and Myths section is as if Mythic Bastionland was not a roleplaying game, but a deck of Tarot cards. The layout of the book is tight in places and bar the ‘Oddpocrypha’ at the back of the book, the writing is very concise, the aim being to fit all of the rules for each aspect of the roleplaying game onto a single page each.

It is debateable how Arthurian a roleplaying game Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd is. There is no doubt that it is inspired by Arthurian legend and it certainly lists numerous Arthurian inspirations. In play though, the Knights are not engaging in the Arthurian legend and they are not going on quests such as the Quest of the White Hart or the Quest for the Holy Grail. Instead, they are going on their own quests, perhaps hunting down ‘The Wyvern’ or delving into ‘The Forest’ in search of a lost, but beloved Seer, only to discover darker, primordial secrets. The Knights are questing knights, ultimately if they prove to be glorious enough worthy to undertake the ‘Quest of the City’, but they quest more for their Realm than a mythical figure such as King Arthur and theirs is a world that is more one of bloody brutalism rather than one of romance and chivalry.

Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd is not an introductory roleplaying game. The rules are too concisely written, there is a lack of context to the roleplaying game, and play relies a great deal on improvisation, whether that is working from the prompts from the ‘Spark Tables’ or working the Myths and the Knights’ reactions to those Myths into the world of the Realm. However, armed with some context and Mythic Bastionland begins to hint at its possibilities with simple, clear rules that emphasise the brutality of the world that the Knights live in, before charging the reader and the Referee down with its gloriously fantastical Knights and Myths that demand their stories to be told. Mythic Bastionland – Before Into the Odd is the film Jabberwocky with a seventies Prog Rock soundtrack, built not so much on rules light mechanics, but rules intense mechanics.

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

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Technically Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3 is not a magazine. It collects some of the downloadable content made available for Cyberpunk RED, the fourth edition of R. Talsorian Games, Inc.’s Cyberpunk roleplaying game. So, its origins are not those of a magazine, but between 1990 and 1992, Prometheus Press published six issues of the magazine, Interface, which provided support for both Cyberpunk 2013 and Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. It this mantle that Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 1, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 2, and future issues is picking up in providing support for the current edition of the roleplaying game. As a consequence of the issue collecting previously available downloadable content, there is a lot in the issue that is both immediately useful and can be prepared for play with relative ease. There is also some that is not, and may not make it into a Game Master’s campaign.

Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3—as with the previous issue—is by James Hutt and/or J Gray and starts on a hard note, or rather, on a ‘hardened’ note. In the previous issue, two connected articles—‘Hardened Mooks: break glass in case of powergaming’ and ‘Hardened Lieutenants: break glass in case of powergaming’, provided tougher versions of the standard threats, mooks, and lieutenants. With ‘Hardened Mini Bosses’ the series with increased stats for Mini-Bosses in the core rulebook, including ‘Hardened Arasaka Assassin’, ‘Hardened Militech Veteran’, and ‘Hardened Pyro’. This is a mix of the old and the new, so should keep the Player Characters on their toes. Plus, they come with a little commentary on how to best use them.
If ‘Hardened Mini Bosses’ gives the Player Characters someone to fight, then ‘Digital Dating in the Dark Future’ gives them someone to love—and then, since almost nobody lives happily ever after, someone to fight. Romantic entanglements have always been part of Cyberpunk through its ‘Lifepath’ system of Player Character generation, and Cyberpunk RED is no different. However, what about now, because those relationships are likely to have been in the past and may be long over? To let a Player Character go dating now, the article gives a ‘Datepath’ system which enables the Game Master to determine how the match describes themselves in their dating profile, where the date will take place and what the significance of that location is—for example, if in the Watson Development, the date might have a connection with SovOil, what the date activity will be, how the date goes, and what the after date review will be. This can be rolled as is or played out, and if the latter, it means that a player gets a chance to roleplay another aspect of his character and explore another side of the game that is not necessarily all guns and combat. This is a fun addition if the playing group wants to expand the lives of their characters and would work every well for one-on-one sessions between a single player and the Game Master.
‘Salvaging Night City: A New Downtime Activity’ also gives the Player Characters more to do when away from typical adventures or missions. Although this is primarily for the Tech character type, but any character could engage in this, exploring Night City’s Hot Zone, Combat Zones, and scrapyards, not just for scrap to sell, but items to repair and use and sell. The article also goes through the possible dangers that a scavenger might face, including pollution, radiation, rival scavengers and gangs, unsafe structures, and more. This is an article that can be used to generate, with a bit of effort upon the part of the Game Master, encounters and even scenarios. Plus, like ‘Digital Dating in the Dark Future’, this activity works well for one-on-one sessions between a single player and the Game Master and also for sessions where there are only a very few Player Characters.
Cyberpunk RED is a roleplaying game that focuses on a lot of gear—equipment, weapons, cyberwear, and cyberware—and its use in play, and if there was a criticism of Cyberpunk RED, it was that it was genericised and therefore not interesting. Issues of Interface have been changing that with names and describes a wide variety of items, and Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3 is no different. ‘Woodchipper’s Garage: Weapons That go Boom!’ is an interview with a Nomad who purchases weapons scavenged by Nomads in the Badlands and brought into Night City to fulfil the demand for the weapons that deliver a bang! This includes rocket launchers to suit all budgets and attitudes to safety standards, flare guns, flamethrowers, and odd weapons like an air cannon and harpoon launcher! ‘Midnight with the Upload: New Cyberdecks and Hardware’ provides a wide range of decks and new items of hardware, each with own benefits and effects. For example, the ‘Raven Microcyb Phoenix’ is an expensive deck that has six slots to install either Programs or Hardware and protects any programs the Netrunner uses, restoring any that were destroyed during a run, when the Netrunner jacks out. ‘Must Have Cyberware Deals’ details the new chrome that might be purchased from Mr. A-MAAAZE at Dock 13 in sunny South Night City. Want to keep that figure trim or low on rations, install an ‘Appetite Controller’, whilst ‘Lead’s Turn-On-Show-Off Nails’ is the perfect set of programmable, lighted fingernails, and if that shoe does not fit, then the ‘PerfectFit Cyberfoot’ adjusts perfectly (and if the user wants to run in heels, then these are even more perfect!). There is a certain superficiality to these entries, being as they are mostly fashion cyberware. All three of these articles come with no little flavour too. ‘Woodchipper’s Garage: Weapons That go Boom!’ is the most straightforward, primarily focusing on how the weapons that Woodchipper sells are got hold of in the interview, whilst the ‘Midnight with the Upload: New Cyberdecks and Hardware’ gives lots of commentary and feedback that suggests a certain lack of humanity with interacting with the seller and perhaps that they might be a cultist of some kind or a Netwatch Agent. Lastly, ‘Must Have Cyberware Deals’ is all about the slick sales pitch from Mr. A-MAAAZE.
‘Collecting the Random: Ideas, Thoughts, and Lists from the CP:R CREW’ is the second longest article in Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3. It is a collection of new rules, such as complementary skill checks, and ideas that how Cyberpunk RED is played, fortunately without the need for any mechanical changes. Roles are a big focus for the article. It suggests ideas for reskinning them, like turning the Netrunner into the Thief or the Exec into the Mobster, all with simple adjustment of the flavour of the mechanics rather actually than changing the Roles. Multiclassing ideas suggest ways in which each of the Roles works with the other nine Roles. For example, the Rockerboy/Media becomes an Influencer, the Netrunner/Fixer the Information Broker, and the Lawman/Media the Psychic Detective. There are some great ideas here that again shift how a Role is played. Campaign ideas making the Player Characters ‘Guerilla Gardeners’, ‘Librarians’, and ‘Food Truck War’ participants and come with some very simple mission ideas. All of these set-ups require no little development, but they all change the focus of a campaign from a more standard set-up. ‘Cyberpunk RED Fashion’ suggests styes such as ‘Bag Lady Chic’(!) and ‘Asia Pop’. This is mostly flavour, of course, as are the article’s final ‘Twenty Random Kibble Flavors’—fizzy kibble anyone? This is just a plethora of fun ideas that a playing group can pick and choose from.
Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3 takes an odd, even cynical turn with ‘Elflines Online the TCG: Battle for the Elflands’. Previous issues of Interface RED have explored the number virtual game world in Night City, ‘Elflines Online’. Effectively a game world within a game world, ‘Elflines Online is a hobby that a Player Character or NPC can play during his downtime, but it can become something that the players can roleplay their characters playing in the world of Cyberpunk RED, a fantasy roleplaying game in the cyberpunk roleplaying game. ‘Elflines Online the TCG: Battle for the Elflands’ does not expand to any great degree, but rather introduces a trading card game that the Player Characters can play offline and some of the cards will provide bonuses and benefits in the online game. Full rules are included so that the players can play it too, though using an ordinary deck of playing cards. Accompanying the article is a commentary that highlights the disappointment of some ‘Elflines Online’ players when ‘Elflines Online the TCG: Battle for the Elflands’ was launched and since. There is a brilliant cynicism to the whole exercise that feels as if it mirrors certain MMORPGs in the real world.
‘Spinning Your Wheels: A New Way to Ride the Edge’ adds an old technology to the streets of Night City and updates it. This is the bicycle, whose reintroduction is presented in an interview with the head of Yang’s Wheels, the city’s leading manufacturer of bicycles, skateboards, and inline skates. Their introduction brings a cheaper form of transport to both the city and Cyberpunk RED. Of course, they are cheaper to buy then a car, more manoeuvrable, and take up less space. They are all muscle-powered, so require the use of the user’s Athletics skill rather than Drive and, of course, they can be upgraded. Fit cycle armour or a gun mount to the handlebars, or even an enclosure to turn it into a trike. The article also details the type of tricks that can be performed on a bicycle, skateboard, or inline skate.
‘The 12 Days of Cybermas: A Cyberpunk RED Holiday Sequel’ returns with a Christmas carol suitable for the ‘Time of the Red’ and twelve classic pieces of cyberware from days of Cyberpunk past. Want to tear your enemies apart, then install the ChainRip, the original cyberweapon of mass destruction in your cyberarm or look really cool with one cyberoptic, then the Kiroshi MonoVision installs your cybereye in a single band. Whilst the stats update the descriptions, the illustrations feel intentionally dated.
The last and longest article in the issue is ‘Going Metal: full body conversions in Cyberpunk RED’. The article moves on from the fears from cyberpsychosis due to full body conversions to suggest that there is a culture all of its own around full body conversions. This does not stop the opening between someone who has undergone full body conversion to somebody who is about to from being just a little bit creepy. It is followed by complete guide to undergoing a full body conversion in game terms and keep as much Humanity possible, up to a maximum of fifty. Some thirteen standard full body conversions are detailed, like the ‘Cybermatrix Inc. Copernicus’ for work in space, the ‘Dynalar Brimstone’ fireproofed for fighting fire, the ‘Militech Dragoon Revised War Platform’ updated from the full body conversion so successful in 4th Corporate War, and even if the ‘Raven Microcybernetics Gemini’ if you do not want to look like a cyborg! Added to this are numerous pieces of cyberware and gear, which break down the numerous items that go into the design and construction of the earlier full body conversions. The full body conversions come with commentary from the interviewer at the start of the article. There are lots of options here, good for NPCs as well as the Player Characters who want to take a radical step and have the EuroBucks to spend! The article brings Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3 to a close with big fully borged options.
Physically, Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3 is cleanly, tidily laid out. The artwork is decent too and everything is easy to read.

Although much of it was originally available for free, with the publication of Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3 it is nice to have it in print. All of it is useful in some ways, though ‘Elflines Online the TCG: Battle for the Elflands’ is very much less useful then the other content. Together, ‘Digital Dating in the Dark Future’ and ‘Salvaging Night City: A New Downtime Activity’ really do bring greater roleplaying opportunities to the play of Cyberpunk RED, whilst ‘Collecting the Random: Ideas, Thoughts, and Lists from the CP:R CREW’ brims with interesting ideas for both the player and the Game Master. Everything else is tech and cybergear-based, adding numerous options and greater choice to the world of Night City and beyond. Interface RED: A Collection for Cyberpunk RED Enthusiasts Volume 3 is the best issue to date and there is something for every Cyberpunk RED campaign in its pages.

You are not dead, but you could be. You hover somewhere between life and death, unable to take the bony grasp of the Grim Reaper and take the next step to the beyond. Perturbed at this state of affairs, it is possible that this has happened before for instead of leaving you, Death gives you a job. A job as well as your night job. A job you will do after your night job. Every night you perform on the stage, playing cool, cool tunes in set after set at the jazz club, and then, when the last of the audience has gone and the lights are up, you find a scrap of paper at the bottom of the tips jar. On it is a name. The name of someone who died at the wrong time and without permission. A name and a death that you have until sunrise to investigate to determine the cause and what happened. You are an agent of the Department of Unauthorized Deaths and in the dark of the night you become a sleuth for the supernatural, using Death-given spectral abilities to slip into the darkest of shadows, seeking the souls of the wrongly departed and bring harmony to them. To aid you in your investigations, the Department of Unauthorized Deaths grants certain supernatural gifts, each of which calls upon different notes in your repertoire, including being able to talk to with the spirits, passing through walls, and even glimpse echoes of the past or the future. Yet rely too much upon such Blue Notes and you may be pulled too close to death…

This is the set-up for Midnight Melodies, a solo roleplaying and journaling game in which you play a jazz pianist recruited by the Grim Reaper. It is inspired by Pixar’s Soul and DC Comic’s John Constantine, but this is a roleplaying game which could be inspired by series such as Tru Calling, Dead Like Me, and Johnny Staccato. It is published by Critical Kit Ltd, best known for Be Like A Crow – A Solo RPG and to play the game, a player requires a six-sided die, a twelve-sided die, a journal or notebook, a cool jazz playlist (the book suggests Ambient Soundscapes – Private Eye Moods: Smooth Film Noir Jazz Mix), and a piano. The latter can be an online piano and Midnight Melodies does not require the player to be able to play said piano.

A Player Character in Midnight Melodies has a name, a set of six Actions, unique Talents, and a Blue Note reserve. There are five Actions—Talk, Move, Force, Handle, and Discern—two of which Dominant, meaning that the Player Character is good at them, and one Diminished, which means he struggles with it. Creating a character is fast simple, rolling for a name and deciding which Actions are Dominant and which one is Diminished.

Skylar ‘Mist’ Monroe
Talk+ Move Force– Handle Discern+
Blue Notes 6

Mechanically, Midnight Melodies is simple. The player selects the appropriate Action, rolls a six-sided die, and adds one if the Action is Dominant and deducts one if it is Diminished. The result varies from one and ‘No, and…’ to six and ‘Yes, and…’, with ‘No, but…’ and ‘Yes, but…’ in between. These are clear simple prompts for the player intended to help him interpret and then write about the results of his character’s actions. Each of the Talents in Midnight Melodies is tied to a particular Action and their use involves a standard roll. One element not explored is what happens if the Player Character employs too many of his Blue Notes, which does undermine the threat at the heart of every investigation.

The actual play of Midnight Melodies is about conducting investigations. The Player Characters has an extra gift that will help him when it comes to investigating deaths. Each death leaves a series of Tones that the Player Character can hear and will help him find out what has happened. Each death consists of nine Tones divided into three Chords. Collect all nine Tones and give the Reaper the three Chords before sunrise and the night’s investigation is done. The victim is initially known by his or her name and occupation, but will also later be revealed to have had a secret too. The Tones set a pattern for an investigation and in turn reveal the victim’s identity, the death scene, the first clue, an unexpected twist, signs of the supernatural, hints of something stranger, the discovery of the entity responsible, what their motive was, and an insight into the death.

Midnight Melodies suggests three styles of play for any investigation—‘Freeform’, ‘Challenges’, or ‘Story Beats’. Freeform requires the random selection of six motifs for Drive, Descriptor, Role, Action, Mood, and Theme—for example, ‘Embrace’, ‘Rustic’, ‘Spectator’, ‘Risk’, ‘Melancholic’, and ‘Trust’—which then the player is encouraged to riff from to tell the story of the investigation. ‘Challenges’ makes use of the Action mechanics supported by a set of tables, one each for the five Actions, whilst ‘Story Beats’ is tied to the three Chords and the nine Tones, which actually follow the structure of a detective story, whether on television or not. Ultimately, the Player Character will confront a supernatural entity, such as ‘Vlokkriat’, “A patchwork of various materials—stone, cloth, metal, all moving in a sinuous manner.”, with the Trait of “Can drown victims in its embrace; reflects distorted versions of reality.” and Motivation of “Seeks to balance its own ancient debt, where each death offsets a life it once inadvertently saved.” Midnight Melodies is then a roleplaying game of monster hunting and saving the world against the supernatural.

Once how the victim was killed has been discovered and who or what committed the murder is determined and confronted, the Player Character can communicate the information to the Grim Reaper. This can be simple matter of the player writing down in the journal that his character has done it, but Midnight Melodies includes the pass this on through the motif of the Chords and Tones. The player does this by randomly rolling for the investigation’s nine Tones and playing them on a piano (on or offline). It brings each investigation to a discordant, mournful close as the sun seeps over the horizon and perhaps, gives the Player Character some respite in the normality of daylight… Before another jazz set and another name at the bottom of the tip jar.

Physically, Midnight Melodies is decently presented. It is well written, and the artwork is good too, combining a sense of music and noir in its stark tones.

Midnight Melodies is great for the player who wants to write tell stories of investigation and supernatural horror and it provides some great prompts to do that as its Tones sound and Chords play out. However, it really is only set up for single investigations. The continuation of story elements from one investigation to another is very much left to the player to do and there are tables to create story elements except the investigation itself. There is also no resolution to Midnight Melodies beyond the individual investigations, so now way to know if the Player Character will ever be free of his obligation to Department of Unauthorized Deaths? The only way in which Midnight Melodies ends is when the Player Character has dealt with all twelve Entities and that is not satisfying.

Midnight Melodies is a thematic delight, exploring a classic story and roleplaying game set-up in stylish fashion and giving the player scope to tell good stories. Yet the lack of long-term resolution means that Midnight Melodies feels like a cancelled television series.

The world stands on the brink of a turning point. The end of the Third Age of Man nears and the beginning of the Fourth Age of Man looms. In the First Age of Man, man was like unto the gods and ruled as titans upon the earth. Yet the titans were split between those sworn to Law and those sworn to Chaos, and when they clashed, their blood was spilled upon the ground the First Second of Man was brought to an end. From this spilled blood a new, lesser race sprang forth, lesser, yet still giants, given the gift of peerless intellect and ageless beauty, which went forth and erected many great temples in honour of the titans of the First Age of Man, even though they were but a shadow of their former divinity cast upon the wall of creation. Yet even the Ur-Lireans, as they were known, could not withstand the fall of the sands of time and as the waters of the Empyrean Ocean rose, city after city was inundated and washed away, the inhabitants drowned or forced to flee. In the Third Age of Man, the tribes of Ur-Lirea are all but forgotten, the divine spark of humanity that was the gift of the original titans, obscured by emotions, sullied by vice, and caked with the stinking flesh of the fallen. The Ages of Man are regarded by most as heresy, but many say that the temple-city of Stylos is a forgotten remnant of a bygone age, whilst some whisper that the city was home to the last Atlantean tribes of Ur-Lirea. If so, it has slumbered for untold eons, through the icy march back and forth of glaciers, the rise and fall of the seas, and the rise of man in the Third Age of Man.

If the Ages of Man are regarded as heresy and the legends of the temple-city of Stylos as no more than myth, what is in no doubt, lost Stylos has awakened from its deathless sleep and its hordes have arisen to sweep down on civilisation. A wizened crone babbles about the army of beautiful giants that swept through her village, she the only survivor; a gigantic statue stands at the city gate, white marble with its eyes aflame and announcing that the end of days have come and that the city will be razed on the new moon; and clerics and wizards cry out the terrible omens as lightning crashes down, on the spires of the city’s temple, strange stars appear in the sky and vanish again, sacrificial bulls are cut open only to discover pools of black bile in the place of entrails, and the seventh son of a seventh son is born with the mark of Cadixtat, the Champion of Chaos from the First Age of Man.

This is the set-up for Dungeon Crawl Classics #76: Colossus, Arise!, the ninth scenario to be published by Goodman Games for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. Designed by Harley Stroh, this is a rare scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, one designed for a group of six Eighth Level Player Characters. Most scenarios for line published to date are for low- and mid-Level Player Characters, no more than Sixth Level. So having a scenario for Eighth Level is a rarity. The resulting dungeon is as detailed as you would expect a dungeon for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game to be, but it is also deadly. Not just in terms of the foes that they will face, but also in the traps and puzzles they will face. In places, think S1, Tomb of Horrors, but Dungeon Crawl Classics #76: Colossus, Arise! is no deathtrap dungeon. Yes, there are moments where ‘total-party-kill’ is a possibility, perhaps more so than in other scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, but rather, it is a dungeon designed—in just thirteen locations—to very much challenge the players and their characters.

Inspired by the legend of Atlantis and the occultism of Doctor John Dee and Madame Blavatsky, Dungeon Crawl Classics #76: Colossus, Arise! begins big and gets epic, all in keeping with the high Level of the Player Characters. Very quickly, the Player Characters find themselves at the doors to the Temple of Cadixtat, having sneaked through the ruins of lost Stylos past an army of hundreds of the Sons of the Second Age, ten-foot tall humanoids bound in service to the Daughters of Cadixtat, camped out, ready to sweep away the civilisations of the Third Age. There are some good hooks to get the Player Characters involved and to that point, especially given that by Eighth level, they should have ties to the very civilisation that the Sons of the Second Age wants to destroy to help trigger the beginning of the Fourth Age of Man, and thus reasons to stop this threat. There is scope for the Player Characters to explore the ruins, neatly handled with a roll on an encounter table.

Inside the temple itself there are weird ceremonies, a room with a cage in which human sacrifices are burned to fuel the divinations of prophetess of the Daughters of Cadixtat—and she will even divine the Player Characters’ future once they find her on the lower level, and even a trap worthy of Grimtooth. The lower level takes the Player Characters to the edge of Chaos and potentially even beyond. In the upper level, the Daughters of Cadixtat are transforming men into the Sons of the Second Age, bolstering the army it will unleash on the Third Age of Man, but in the lower level, the cult is incubating the Worm-Men that will help scour away the Fourth Age of Men, and so usher in a new beginning. The lower level actually takes the Player Characters through the four Ages of Man and into some truly epic encounters. Not just the incubation chamber of the Worm-Men, but also a ‘Chapel of Elemental Chaos’ where the very walls are melting upwards into raw elemental chaos—there is, of course, a chance that a Player Character can be drawn into the walls and upwards—and Player Character Wizards will suffer for the Corruptions they have accrued; a very nasty trap that should teach the players and their characters to leave well alone; and an almost final battle to prevent the Daughters of Cadixtat from summoning something from the First Age of Man! Which is, of course, the massive brain from the front cover of the scenario. Along the way the Player Characters have the opportunity to gain a divination and also find some incredible magical items that echo those of Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion. If the Player Characters succeed, they are very well rewarded, especially if they are Lawful. Chaotic Player Characters will also receive a reward, but only if they are very lucky...!

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics #76: Colossus, Arise! is very well presented. The scenario is decently written and the artwork is good, with several pieces that the Judge can show to her players. The Judge is given seven decent handouts that illustrate various locations above and below ground. The cartography is too tight in places and it is not as easy to read the map as it should be.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #76: Colossus, Arise! is a truly epic scenario that will test both the players and their characters the deeper they go into the depths of the Temple of Cadixtat. It calls for careful, considered play, and what that really means is that this scenario is better suited to play towards the end of a campaign, rather than being run as a one-shot. If played as a one-shot, the players are not going to care as much about their characters and so are going to take greater risks rather than if they had invested time and effort into the play of their characters. Dungeon Crawl Classics #76: Colossus, Arise! is a rarity, a scenario that effectively showcases what the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game can do at higher levels.

It is 1870. In Hofwasser Village in Styria, the eastern region of Austria that borders Hungary, a strange affliction has struck many young women, the symptoms mysterious and often fatal. One day they are bright, energetic, and full of life, then the next their skin pales as white as milk and they become lethargic, losing their appetites, and gaining a sensitivity to light such that they dare not venture out of doors. Already one young woman has died from this strange sickness and there are two more girls in the village showing symptoms. What is this dreadful illness which has struck the village? Many of the village’s older residents have begun to recall the folktales of the region they learned as children, of black beasts in the darkness, of forest demons that lure innocents to their doom, worse, of the much-feared Upir, a soulless monster that preys on the blood of its victims. Hofwasser Village is also home to Colonel Daniel Morton, a former British attaché to the Austrian service, who has retired and now lives in the schloss, Karnstein Hall. He too has grown concerned about the illness, fearing that it will come to infect both his teenage daughter, Laura, and the young charge, Carmilla, he is looking after.
If all this sounds familiar, then it probably means that you have read Carmilla, the Victorian-era novella by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Predating Bram Stoker’s Dracula by twenty-five years, this is a classic tale of Gothic romance and vampiric horror with a strong female antagonist, which is now the direct—very direct inspiration for Carmilla, a scenario published by Yeti Spaghetti and Friends. Part of the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line, it is ostensibly written for use with Chill or Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained, the percentile mechanics of the scenario mean that it could easily be adapted to run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and similar roleplaying games.

Carmilla opens with the Player Characters at Karnstein Hall. They are there with Colonel Daniel Morton to assist him in determining the cause of the malady that has beset the young women of Hofwasser and been cause of one death so far. After some tea—there is actually a lot of tea consumption in the scenario as Karnstein Hall is a bastion of the British Empire in ‘Mitteleuropa’—and the first of several listless encounters with Colonel Morten’s daughter and recent charge, Laura and Carmilla, he asks for the Player Characters’ help. The initial investigation takes place in the nearby village at the homes of the affected women, but later there is scope for research in the library at Karnstein Hall, which reveal some oddities that suggest that the mystery lies closer at home. The Player Characters’ suspicions will be confirmed following the funeral of one of the young women in the village and that will lead to a nasty confrontation in the confines of the Karnstein family mausoleum.
The advice for running Carmilla states that, “As an adaptation of a fairly popular story, players should be willing to suspend their knowledge of plot for the sake of playing their characters more accurately (offering Experience Points for roleplaying can help encourage this).” This is either a challenge or a problem depending upon your point of view, due because what the scenario is asking the players is to roleplay characters who do not know what a vampire is and unlike the players, are not steeped in over a century’s worth of vampiric lore. This is in the face of a situation where the players are fully aware that Laura is the victim of a vampire and that vampire is Carmilla. Literally, aware players could end the scenario in fifteen minutes by going to Carmilla’s bedroom, breaking down its door, and kill her. The scenario does not want the players to do that, but wants them to play through the investigation and experience the effects of the vampire’s predation and determine its cause. The scenario also admits that it proceeds in linear fashion and it does, very much keeping the players away from directly investigating either Laura or Carmilla.
As with other scenarios in the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line, Carmilla includes eight pre-generated Player Characters. They are divided between visitors and staff at Karnstein Hall. The staff consist of Madame Raquel Perrodon, governess to Laura Morton; Mademoiselle Beatrix De Lafontaine, the French finishing governess to Laura; and Frau Franziska Pichler, the cook at Karnstein Hall. The visitors include General Gerhard Spielsdorf, a former colleague and new friend of Colonel Morton; Fraulein Johanna Bauer, a young hunter who lives in the nearby woods; Dr. Hans Hartog, a laudanum-addicted medical doctor with an interest in eastern mysticism; Father Augustus Koellerer, the local Catholic priest; and Baron Maximilian Vordenburg, a local noble with a fascination for folklore. Only one of the eight, Mademoiselle Beatrix De Lafontaine, has any Paranormal Abilities and so might give the Player Characters a slight advantage in certain situations.
The scenario is supported with two good maps, one of the village of Hofwasser and the other of the mausoleum where the final confrontation with Carmilla takes place. There is no map of Karnstein Hall, which is slightly disappointing, but its inclusion might have encouraged further exploration of the Morton family home which the scenario would prefer the players not to do. The back cover blurb for the scenario also serves as a handout and there is one handout in the book, which is plain.
Physically, Carmilla is well written and has excellent artwork. The combination of a linear structure and a clear layout means that the scenario is going to be easy to run.
As written, Carmilla is not a challenging scenario to run. As written, Carmilla is going to be a challenging scenario to play. This is because it demands that the players suspend their self-knowledge, locking it away for the length of the scenario, and roleplay characters who have no knowledge of the threat they face and have to learn about it, bit by bit. It does help that ‘Carmilla’ is not a wholly traditional vampire in the style of Dracula and it does help that it is intended to be played in a single session. As an adaptation of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s short story, Carmilla, the scenario is decently done, but as a scenario, Carmilla is making big demands of its players and keeping a straight face because of those demands and not being able to rush off and always investigate where a player might want to, makes it hard work. And this in a scenario designed for casual, one-shot play. If the players are able to do this—or they have not read the original short story, then Carmilla is a serviceable one-shot, easily prepared and run.

Last time I talked about my adventures in Forgotten Realms, which was all about the urban adventures of Waterdeep. This week, I’m going to flip that lens outward, into the wilds, and take a look at a supplement that’s equal parts field guide, lore dump, and DM toolbox: Elminster’s Ecologies (1994).

Now, a small caveat. I don’t own the original boxed set with all its booklets. What I do have is the DriveThruRPG PDF bundle and the print-on-demand softcover, which compiles the whole thing into one thick book. No box, no handouts, but all nine 32-page booklets are there, and honestly, the POD version is probably easier to read anyway since this is written like an in-universe resource.

Another small caveat, one that affected my perspective. I have known about this boxed set for years. But I thought it was a collection of the various Ecology of articles from Dragon Magazine. So if you hear a subtle bit of disappointment in my tone here, that is why. Look that is no fault at all of the product in front of me. It is my fault for not setting my expectations appropriately. It *IS* objectively a good Realms product. Just not the one I thought it was all these years. 

Elminster's Ecologies (2e)

1994. by Rick Swan, Monte Cook, Eric Haddock, Anthony Pryor.

Note: For an "Elminster" themed book, there is no Ed Greenwood in this as far as I can tell. 

Elminster’s Ecologies does something a little unusual for TSR at the time. Instead of another city box or adventure series, this one focuses entirely on environments. The conceit is that Elminster (and his “field correspondents”) are writing in-character about the natural world of the Realms. It’s like Volo’s Guides, but instead of inns and alehouses, you get trees, rivers, beasts, and bogs.

The box contained nine booklets:

Explorer’s Manual. The “master key” of the set, with Elminster’s musings, excerpts from his ongoing natural history of Faerûn, color-coded encounter tables, and the enigmatic “Rules of the Rabbit.”

Cormanthor. The ancient forest, its trees and mystical wildlife, and the rumors that still drift beneath the boughs.

Anauroch. A deep dive into the desert: the shifting sands, the High Ice, the Plain of Standing Stones, even the Underdark beneath it all. Survival, monsters, and lost secrets abound.

Coastal Aquatic Lands – The Sea of Fallen Stars. The largest inland sea in the Realms gets its due, from fish to krakens, with sea stories and notes on the cultures clinging to its shores.

The Cormyrean Marshes. Brother Twick’s journal paints the swamps as treacherous, full of dangerous monsters and stranger rumors.

The Stonelands and the Goblin Marches. Rugged terrain, fading wildlife, the ever-present goblin threat, and a few truly massive beasts.

The Thunder Peaks and the Storm Horns. Two mountain ranges, with their harsh climates, common life, monsters of the peaks, and local legends.

The Great Gray Land of Thar. A bleak, arid region with hard conditions and stranger mysteries—exactly the sort of place Elminster would call “unpleasantly educational.”

The Settled Lands. Farmlands, villages, and the borders of civilization. Here you get a look at the everyday ecologies that brush up against the wilderness.

Each booklet follows a familiar structure: a personal introduction, a survey of the land, detailed notes on monsters and natural life, and then “rumors and legends” that a DM can immediately use as hooks.

What makes this set shine is how it reframes monsters and encounters. You don’t just get “roll d8, 1-2 owlbear.” Instead, you get owlbears in context, how they live, what they eat, how other monsters avoid them, and how a random traveler might actually run into one. A marsh isn’t just a backdrop for lizard men, it’s a dangerous, interconnected ecosystem where the lizard men, the crocodiles, and the giant frogs are all part of the same web.

The encounter tables in the Explorer’s Manual really drive this home. They’re organized by biome and color-coded to match the booklets, making it easy to swap in details wherever your PCs happen to wander.

One thing though. There are no Monstrous Compendium pages. Not only there isn't even a good section to "cut out" and put into my Monstrous Compendium binders. Yes, this has much more to do about me and what I *thought* this product was rather than what it actually is.

The Realms in ’94

The timing of this release is also worth noting. TSR was really leaning into “in-character writing” in the early ’90s: Volo’s Guides, Pages from the Mages, and now Elminster’s Ecologies. Cormyr was getting lots of love, with its own sourcebook, adventures, and now half this box dedicated to its borders and neighbors. The in-character style is fun and gives a lot of Realms flavor. But sometimes the “in-character” voice gets in the way of practical DM info. Still, it is what I want from the Realms; it is what separates it from other fantasy worlds. 

Sinéad, Nida, and Company

And what of my characters in the Realms? Well, Sinéad and Nida are still lingering in Waterdeep, but the pull eastward grows stronger. The road through the Heartlands is long, and as I flip through Elminster’s Ecologies, I can’t help but see it as a ready-made travelogue for their journey.

If they leave the City of Splendors behind, their path east will naturally thread through the Dalelands and into Cormanthor. That’s one of the booklets covered in the Ecologies, and it’s a perfect setting for a side trek. Sinéad, with her pagan background, would be spellbound by the great trees and the old magic of the forest, an echo of her homeland, but deeper and stranger. Nida, more practical, might be the one keeping her eyes on the monsters lurking in those woods.

From there, they could skirt Anauroch. I don’t know if I want them to cross the desert outright, but even brushing its borders could provide some fantastic challenges. The Ecologies gives me survival notes, monsters adapted to the sands, and whispers of the Underdark beneath, just the kind of flavor that could delay their progress, or tempt them off the road with legends of buried secrets.

The Sea of Fallen Stars booklet also feels useful. Even if the party doesn’t cross the sea directly, they’ll certainly pass along its shores. Tales of the Dragonmere or the Dragon Reach could add both color and danger, pirates, sahuagin, or worse. It’s a reminder that not all travel is overland.

And then there are the mountains. The Thunder Peaks and the Storm Horns sit along possible eastward routes, and both regions are detailed here. Jaromir, whom I keep playing less as a “barbarian” and more like a warrior of the Fianna, would feel at home in the high places, testing his strength against mountain predators. I could easily see a ranger path opening up for him here, with the ecology booklets giving me just the right kinds of encounters. The book is fun, and it gives me a lot to think about. While I have said that Fighter with the Barbarian kit is a good choice for him, I might see if I can change him to Ranger. And I need to see if I have a copy of the Complete Ranger's Handbook OR I might cheat and look ahead to see what the Spellbound boxed set has for me. 

Finally, Rhiannon. If she is to embrace her Rashemi witch heritage, then a long journey through these liminal, witch-haunted spaces seems exactly right. The Cormyrean Marshes, with their strange monsters and whispered rumors, would be a fine testing ground for her. She may not yet be home, but the marshes, with their witches’ whispers, could foreshadow what awaits her in Rashemen. More ideas for my Witches' Secret Journey.

So the question remains, will Sinéad and Nida follow Rhiannon and Jaromir eastward? That was always my idea, but Waterdeep’s siren call is strong. And I have so many ideas for Waterdeep.

The Ecologies gives me the scaffolding for either path. If they stay west, they linger in the greatest city of the Sword Coast. If they go east, they’ll wander through forests, deserts, swamps, and mountains that feel alive, thanks to this odd little box set from 1994.

This is their travel guide, their road map, and the background in which the characters grow. 

DriveThruRPG PDF and PoD

The scans of this product are top notch. The PDFs are very clear and very sharp. This translates well into the Print on Demand copy as well. Maybe one of the best I have seen in a while to be honest.

There is a lot of color throughout. It does make me wish I had grabbed this as a boxed set when I had the chance. My opinions of it when from high, to low, back to high now.

Final Thoughts

Elminster’s Ecologies is one of those quirky TSR experiments that I’m glad exists. It’s not essential Realms material, but it makes the wilderness feel alive in a way few supplements ever try to do. If Forgotten Realms Adventures was about the cities, this is about everything in between: the swamps, forests, deserts, mountains, and seas that adventurers must cross to get from one tavern to the next.

This is not a game product you sit down and use in one session. It is a game product you grab in game sessions when the characters are in the right places. It is used throughout your stay in the 2nd Ed Realms. Ok, it can be used in every edition to be honest. Ignore the minor edition-specific material and go with it.

For DMs running wilderness-heavy campaigns, this is a goldmine of ideas. For Realms fans, it’s a snapshot of TSR in the ’90s, trying something a little different. And for me, even just in POD form, it’s another reminder that the Realms isn’t just kings and wizards, it’s owls in the trees, frogs in the marshes, and strange rules about rabbits.

When we talk about the foundations of Dungeons & Dragons, the names that come up most often are the obvious ones: Robert E. Howard, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Jack Vance, among others. But alongside Conan and hobbits stands another set of icons, the roguish duo of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, born from the imagination of Fritz Leiber.

In Appendix N, Leiber's entry is "Leiber, Fritz. 'Fafhrd & Gray Mouser' series; et al." So that leaves me a lot of room to explore his works. 

Leiber’s tales of Lankhmar gave us thieves’ guilds, a decadent city, and sword-and-sorcery camaraderie that would become staples of the game. And a couple of tales where witchcraft plays an important role.

The Snow Women (1970)

Before he became a hero of Lankhmar, Fafhrd was a youth of the cold North, raised among the Snow Women. This community of women was led by Mor, Fafhrd’s mother, who dominates both him and the other men of their tribe through will, manipulation, and a kind of communal witchcraft.

The Snow Women are not cackling hags with bubbling cauldrons; their magic is subtler. It lies in the power of custom, ritual, and fear. Their witchcraft is not just spellwork but social control, and it casts a frost over every relationship in the story. For young Fafhrd, escaping their grip is as much an act of rebellion against sorcery as it is against his mother’s authority.

This tale shows witchcraft not as something learned in a grimoire, but as an inheritance and an atmospher a cold wind that shapes destinies.  In many ways they remind me of tales of Finnish witchcraft. I have a hard time reading about these women and not think of Louhi, the Crone (and Maiden too) of Pohjola. This leads us to Iggwilv, the "spiritual daughter" of Louhi and Mor.

In the Witch’s Tent (1968)

Later, in the story In the Witch’s Tent (collected in "Swords Against Wizardry"), Leiber presents us with another kind of witch. Here, Fafhrd and the Mouser find themselves consulting a prophetess. The scene is thick with atmosphere: the tent filled with smoke, the seeress exhaling her visions like opium haze, the sense that knowledge comes at a cost.

This witch is less about domination and more about liminality. She occupies that familiar role of the oracle, standing at the threshold between worlds. But in true Leiber fashion, she is not a benign guide. Her words are dangerous, her presence uncanny, and the tent itself feels like a trap. The scene could be dropped whole into any RPG session as the archetypal fortune-teller who reveals just enough truth to get the characters into trouble.

Conjure Wife (1943)

If Leiber’s Fafhrd and Mouser stories gave us witches in the context of sword-and-sorcery, it was his first novel, Conjure Wife, that put witchcraft at the center of the narrative.

Or as I have said in the past, “Between Bewitched and Rosemary’s Baby lies Leiber’s Tansy.”

Norman Saylor, a rational-minded professor, discovers that his wife, Tansy, has been secretly practicing protective magic. When he convinces her to stop, he learns the hard way that witchcraft is not merely superstition, and that rival witches have been circling all along.

As I wrote in my earlier review:

Conjure Wife has been held up as sort of a prototype of the modern American Witch tale.  Seemingly normal wives in a small East Coast town married to normal, rational men of science and academia turn out to be powerful witches engaged in a silent secret war of magic.

... They were intelligent (more so than their husbands), clever and some down right evil and all were powerful. By the end of the book, you are left feeling that the men in this tale are really no more than children, a bit dim ones at that.

This is what makes Conjure Wife powerful: the way it sets witchcraft not in ancient forests or ruined temples, but in the kitchens and parlors of mid-century America. The witches here are faculty wives, the battleground is tenure politics, and the weapons are hexes whispered between cocktail parties. It is both psychological horror and social commentary, and it remains one of the most influential witchcraft novels of the 20th century.

It has also been made into three different movies, Weird Woman (1944), Burn, Witch, Burn aka "Night of the Eagle" (1962), and Witches' Brew (1980).

Our Lady of Darkness (1977)

Decades later, Leiber returned to occult horror with Our Lady of Darkness, a novel steeped in the landscapes of San Francisco and the esoteric science of “megapolisomancy,” a fictional occult science that focuses on harnessing the supernatural forces present in large cities. There is even a connection to Clark Aston Smith.

This isn’t a witch story in the conventional sense, but it resonates with the same archetypal power. Its date allows me to make a claim for it as "sliding into home" just barely.

At its heart, Our Lady of Darkness is about the anima, that Jungian figure of the feminine that exists within the male psyche. She is muse and terror, desire and destruction, and in Leiber’s hands, she becomes a literal haunting presence. The Lady of the title is both a psychological construct and a supernatural force, a liminal witch of the soul.

This is a theme I’ve explored myself in the character of Larina Nix. Larina, too, is not just a witch but an embodiment of anima at once familiar, archetypal, and unsettling. She represents how the witch figure can exist in both myth and the inner landscape of the imagination.

While Our Lady of Drakness may not have influenced D&D at all, there are a lot of things here you can find in the RPG Kult. Sadly, this book is nowhere near as good as Leiber's other works, especially Conjure Wife. 

Closing Thoughts

When it comes to witches, Leiber made one significant contribution: Conjure Wife. The Snow Women and the prophetess of In the Witch’s Tent add atmosphere to Fafhrd’s world, but they are more color than core. Our Lady of Darkness circles the same archetypal ground from a Jungian angle, but it isn’t witchcraft in the usual sense.

Yet even if these stories didn’t leave much of a mark on D&D, they left a mark on me. Conjure Wife remains one of the best examples of modern witchcraft horror, and its faculty wives locked in a secret magical war still resonate. The others, Mor’s cold grip, the seeress in her smoky tent, and the anima-haunted towers of San Francisco, add layers to Leiber’s legacy and to my own sense of how witches live in story: sometimes social, sometimes symbolic, sometimes spectral, but always there. 

It was Monday, September 11, 2000.

I actually remember it pretty well. I went to my Favorite Local Game Store and I picked up the new Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition. I grabbed the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Creature Collection, the first OGL monster book released. I had to wait a bit longer for the official Monster Manual.

That was 25 years ago this week.

 When D&D 3.0 hit the game stores in 2000, I was ready for it. I had been away from D&D for several years and was eager to get back into it. So, D&D 3.0 was the right game for me at the right time. In truth, there is still a lot I love about D&D 3.x, and significant advances were made in terms of game design and lore.  

This edition was new. So new that, unlike the past editions, this one was not very backward compatible. This was fine since Wizards of the Coast (now dropping the TSR logo) had provided a conversion guide. The books were solid. All full color and the rules had expanded to fix some of the issues of previous versions of D&D. Armor class numbers got larger as the armor got stronger, as opposed to lower numbers being better. Charts for combat were largely eliminated, the number on the sheet was what you had to roll against. Everyone could multiclass, all the species (races) could be any class without restrictions, though some were better at it than others, and everyone had skills. 

But the most amazing thing about 3rd Edition D&D was that, aside from a few protected monsters and names, Wizards of the Coast gave the whole thing away for free! Yes, the books with art cost money. But the rules, just a text dump, were free for everyone to download. It was called the System Reference Document or SRD. It was all the rules so that 3rd-party publishers could produce their own D&D compatible material. With these rules, you could play D&D without the books. There was no art and no "fluff" text, but everything was there.

D&D 3rd edition had an good run from 2000 to about 2008. 

I played it quite a bit to be honest and there is a lot about it I still love. It was the game system I used to teach my kids how to play and one I still enjoy going back to. It is also one of the few editions of D&D I never really played much. I was always a DM. So other than a version of Larina and Johan Werper IV, I don't have a lot of characters for 3e. The only time I ever got to play it was at conventions, mostly Gen Con.

I loved the 3rd Edition's multiclassing and, honestly, I loved Prestige Classes. But things got ridiculous at high levels. Ever try stating up a high level character from scratch? But I would still play it if given the chance. 

So here is to 25 years of D&D 3.0. You were not the perfect game, but your were perfect for me at the time.

 

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?Old Owl Tower is a scenario for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha in which the Player Characters are asked to investigate the source of a horde of mythical creatures which are attacking a village.

It is sequel to The Gate of Dusk and a possible corollary to the scenarios, ‘The Pegasus Plateau’ and ‘Crimson Petals’, from The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories: Seven Ready-to-Play Adventures for RuneQuest.

It is the second part of a series of scenarios which explores the future of the Locaem tribe.

It is a full colour, ninety-one page, 289.29 MB PDF.

The layout is clean and tidy, though a little tight in places, and it is decently illustrated, especially the NPCs.

The cartography is excellent.
Where is it set?Old Owl Tower takes place in Owlstead, the main settlement for the Owl clan, and nearby, but all with the lands belonging to the Locaem tribe.
It is set after the DragonRise in 1625 or early 1626.
Who do you play?
Old Owl Tower does not require any specific character type, but Player Characters who are capable warriors are highly recommended as is a Lankhor Mhy initiate, whilst a Shaman will potentially be overwhelmed. Knowledge of Dark Tongue could be useful.
What do you need?
Old Owl Tower requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary, whilst The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories: Seven Ready-to-Play Adventures for RuneQuest might be useful, but is not required to run the scenario.
What do you get?Old Owl Tower is, initially, a straightforward and even old-fashioned scenario. A village in peril. Monsters attack. The Player Characters are asked to investigate and determine the source of the trouble. Numerous reasons are suggested as to why the Player Characters have come to Owlstead, but the primary one is they are visiting Owlstead as emissaries of the Wind Lord, Farinst of the Richberry Clan, who wishes to become the king of the Locaem Tribe, the previous one having been killed in the Dragonrise, and wants to know if he will have the support of Dringar, chieftain of the Owl Clan. Ideally, the Player Characters will have protected Farinst whilst he underwent a ritual to improve his chances of becoming king as detailed in The Gate of Dusk.
The initial steps in the investigation are quite easy, the monsters having left a trail that the Player Characters can follow. as they proceed along the trail, the landscape begins to change, becoming bright and vibrant, the air fresh and full of strange insects, life itself appearing to bloom in pleasing fashion. However, once the Player Characters reach and enter the ‘Old Owl Tower’ of the title that the dangers truly begin, or at least when they get to the end of the complex below. Between the entrance and the end of the complex below is a series of highly detailed rooms that will interest a Lankhor Mhy Player Characters, but not others. However, exploring does help, even though the characters and the players may not be aware of it.
Ultimately, what the Player Characters will find at the end of the complex is an artefact dating back to the time of the Empire of the Wyrms Friends which allows the user to peer into God Time! Unfortunately, the process is actually two way and the Player Characters are likely to find themselves facing interlopers who have got themselves lost in the present! This encounter is likely to begin with a fight and end with some challenging explanations.
In many ways, the most interesting part of Old Owl Tower is what happens after the situation in the complex has been resolved. A neighbouring clan gave a scholar permission to investigate the complex despite it not actually sitting on their lands. The scholar is aghast at the duplicity of the neighbouring clan, though its chief is unrepentant if confronted. Perhaps it will take the involvement of the ‘new king’ to resolve the matter? As a reward, the Player Characters could also be adopted into the clan, especially if they are willing to remain and guard the complex. This would also strengthen ties to the Owl Clan and the Locaem Tribe as a whole. The scenario provides a surprising number hooks, both long term and short term, which the Game Master could develop to support a campaign based in the lands of the Owl Clan and the complex itself. Ultimately, Old Owl Tower is very much a campaign scenario rather than a standalone affair.
Almost a third of Old Owl Tower is devoted to a lengthy bestiary, including many creatures past ages before time began. The maps are also provided separately.
Old Owl Tower has a solid set-up and an intriguing conclusion, plus a surprisingly thought through and supported aftermath. However, the middle section is not very exciting and it is not going to interest very many characters, let alone their players. If the players can abide the exploration middle part of the scenario, then they will have opportunity aplenty for roleplaying and good storytelling—and more so if they stick around long after the events of the scenario.
Is it worth your time?Yes—Old Owl Tower is a good campaign scenario and sequel to The Gate of Dusk, pulling the Player Characters into the ongoing story of the Locaem Tribe, and that is how it is best used.No—Old Owl Tower is much too tied to the Locaem Tribe and its future, and it really does not start to get interesting until the very end of the scenario and in its aftermath.Maybe—Old Owl Tower is easy to run and its strong ties to the Locaem Tribe could see the Player Characters attempting to forge stronger ties between the Locaem Tribe and their own.

 Small folk have always found a place at the edges of fantasy worlds, halflings and hobbits in their holes, gnomes tinkering in their burrows, kender poking their noses where they don’t belong. The Brindlekin are cut from the same cloth but stitched in different patterns.

The Brindlekin populate my new world of Iriandor. Overtly, this world is for D&D 5e or Daggerheart; a bright new world where I can create something new. Brindlekin come from the question I had of "do we really need gnomes AND halflings?"

Brindlekin

The Brindlekin are little wanderers with fur-tufted ears, wide curious eyes, and a knack for mischief that borders on magical. They’re storytellers, fire-keepers, and uncanny survivors who seem to slip through the cracks of history. Villagers often dismiss them as fairy-touched cousins of halflings or gnomes, but anyone who’s traveled with a Brindlekin knows there’s something more at work, an old magic that lingers in their blood.

Brindlekin delight in new friends, good food, and dangerous dares. They’re the first to strike a bargain with the fae and the last to abandon a doomed quest. Some whisper that they are the children of forgotten gods, sent to keep laughter alive when the world grows dark.

Brindlekin (AD&D 1st Edition)

Frequency: Rare
No. Appearing: 2–20
Armor Class: 6
Move: 9"
Hit Dice: 1+1
% in Lair: 20%
Treasure Type: Individuals J, in lair U, S, T
No. of Attacks: 1
Damage/Attack: By weapon (1–6)
Special Attacks: Mischief (see below)
Special Defenses: +1 to saves vs Spells, +10% to find/remove traps.
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Very to Exceptional
Alignment: Neutral (tend toward Good)
Size: S (3–3½ ft. tall)
Psionic Ability: Nil
Level/XP Value: II/25 + 2/hp

Description: Brindlekin resemble halflings with a wilder cast: brindled fur-patches on their arms and faces, sharp eyes that gleam gold or green, and a tendency to twitch their noses when excited. They live in tight-knit clans but roam widely.

Brindlekin avoid combat when they can, preferring trickery. Once per day, a Brindlekin may use Confusion (single target, 1 round) or Faerie Fire as if cast by a 2nd-level druid.

These folk gather in clans of a dozen families, traveling in painted wagons or settling in hidden glades. Their culture prizes stories, songs, and dares, reckless challenges that often lead them into adventures.

Some scholars believe that Brindlekin are the rare offspring of halflings and gnomes. Other though point to a oft quoted saying among the Brindlekin that they are "children of the earth." Believing that the Brindlekin are the remaining children of long-forgotten gods. 

Brindlekin (D&D 5e)

Small Humanoid (Brindlekin), Neutral (Good)

Armor Class: 13 (leather)
Hit Points: 11 (2d6+4)
Speed: 30 ft.

STR 8 (–1)
DEX 15 (+2)
CON 14 (+2)
INT 11 (+0)
WIS 12 (+1)
CHA 13 (+1)

Skills: Stealth +4, Performance +3
Senses: Darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 11

Languages: Common, Sylvan

Challenge: 1/4 (50 XP)

Mischief Magic (Recharge 5–6). As a bonus action, the Brindlekin casts faerie fire or forces one creature within 30 ft. to make a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw or become confused (as the spell, 1 round).

Nimble Escape. The Brindlekin can take the Disengage or Hide action as a bonus action.

Actions

Short Sword. Melee Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 5 (1d6+2) piercing damage.

Sling. Ranged Weapon Attack: +4 to hit, range 30/120 ft., one target. Hit: 4 (1d4+2) bludgeoning damage.

Description: Brindlekin are curious wanderers, often mistaken for halflings at a glance. They sport brindled fur along their arms and cheeks, and their eyes glitter with mischief.

Brindlekin (Daggerheart Ancestry)

Brindlekin are small folk with wide, bright eyes and patches of brindled fur along their arms, cheeks, or temples. Their ears are fur-tufted, their voices lilting, and their laughter quick to come. Standing about 3 to 3½ feet tall, Brindlekin resemble a mix of human and fae, with a wild spark in their features. Their appearance often hints at animalistic ancestry: a striped lock of hair, whisker-like markings, or a nose that twitches when they’re excited.

Brindlekin are wanderers at heart. They travel in painted wagons or form temporary camps in forests and hidden glades, always eager to share stories, tricks, and dares. Their clans value daring and humor as much as hospitality, and they see risk-taking as a way to court fate. Many outsiders consider them reckless, but the Brindlekin say that courage is just laughter held a little closer to the heart.

They live slightly longer than humans, often reaching 120 years, though most spend their lives chasing trouble and adventure rather than comfort or longevity.

ANCESTRY FEATURES

Mischief Spark. Once per rest, mark a Stress to impose disadvantage on an enemy’s roll within Near range, or grant an ally advantage on a roll within the same range.

Nimble Step. You ignore movement penalties from difficult terrain, and you may always Hide if it is even slightly possible to do so.

--

I have been sitting on this post for a while. I really want to move these guys over to AD&D, but they cover some of the same roles as my Glade Gnomes (more on them later) and gnomi. Do I need another species of small folk? Well...yes, because they are always fun and make the best sort of adventurers. But is there a niche for them? Maybe they will stay on Iriandor. Maybe even they are linked to that world in subtle and magical ways. 

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Shadows in the TreesPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Jared Tallis

Setting: Modern day AustraliaProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twelve-page, 10.25 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch:  Big cat horror on the Sunshine CoastPlot Hook: Big cat hunt for your YouTube channelPlot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, three handouts, three maps, two NPCs, and two Mythos creatures.Production Values: Good
Pros# First in the ‘Short Cosmic Horror Collection’ series# Short, intense encounter with the monsters you could become# Parallels to Viral# Can be adapted to other settings or time periods with cryptids# Flexible running time up to a single session# Good Keeper advice# Ailurophobia# Diokophobia# Scoleciphobia
Cons# Parallels to Viral# Needs a slight edit# Plain handouts# Pre-generated Investigator motivations could be stronger
Conclusion# Intense encounter with monsters and the Mythos on the Sunshine Coast# Solid advice for the Keeper on how to dial it up or down# Reviews from R’lyeh Recommends

The Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook is the second of the three core books for Pendragon, Sixth Edition, the latest edition of a roleplaying game considered by many to be a classic, and by its designer, Greg Stafford, nothing short of a masterpiece. It is a roleplaying of high adventure, high romance, and high fantasy set deep in the legends and stories of Britain’s golden age, the mythical period when the country had one true king. That king was Arthur Pendragon, his reign the mythical period of honour and chivalry, courtly love and romance, that arose from the unrest following the withdrawal of the Romans, withstood invasions from the Saxons, before falling to evil and the country to the Dark Ages. In the process it inspired great tales of medieval literature and great tales of literature, including the Welsh The Mabinogion, Sir Thomas Malory’s fifteenth century Le Morte D’Arthur, and T.H. White’s The Once and Future King. Pendragon is a roleplaying game in which the Player Characters are knights in service to their liege lord and then to King Arthur himself, managing their manor and serving in his army, but also going on quests and adventures and so dealing with threats and problems that beset the men and women of the land, including their fellow knights, attending court and tourneys and involving themselves in intrigues and romances, and finding a wife and raising a family. Raising a family is important because a knight may adventure for only so long before age catches up with him. Then his eldest son will take up his mantle and inherit his father’s good name and reputation, and not only uphold it, but follow his ideals and make a name for himself, perhaps even more glorious than that of his father. Like his father, he will aspire to take a seat alongside King Arthur and become one of the Knights of the Round Table, to serve alongside the greatest knights in the country. In turn, his son will follow in grandfather’s footsteps and aspire to the ideals of the age, to be a bastion of duty and honour until the kingdom falls. The play of Pendragon is generational, and ultimately, intended to play out over the course of the decades that comprise The Great Pendragon Campaign.

It is not unfair to say to that the Pendragon Core Rulebook does not cover absolutely everything necessary to play Pendragon, Sixth Edition. However, it would be unfair to say that you could not play Pendragon, Sixth Edition using its content and still get a very good feel for how the roleplaying game plays and still have a very enjoyable and exciting roleplaying experience. The Pendragon Core Rulebook is very much as its title suggests, the key title that presents the principles of play and the cornerstones of characters. Further, it is actually possible to run and play Pendragon, Sixth Edition using only the Pendragon Core Rulebook and the Pendragon Starter Set as the latter does include the rules for battles—although in a limited form. Indeed, many of the titles on The Companions of Arthur, the community content programme for Pendragon, Sixth Edition, can be run and played using the Pendragon Core Rulebook and/or the Pendragon Starter Set. Which begs the question, is the Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook really necessary to run and play Pendragon, Sixth Edition? To which the answer is a simple yes, not just because it contains the complete rules for battles, but also because it expands on the rules and setting at the core of the Pendragon Starter Set, as well as the wider stage too. Not far, but far enough and more than ready for the next book.
The Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook begins by establishing and exploring where and when Pendragon, Sixth Edition is primarily set. There is an overview of Logres, the part of Britain where much of the Arthurian canon takes place; a good introduction to the primary source material for the roleplaying game—Le Morte D’Arthur, of course, T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant, the film Excalibur, are all listed as worthy sources, but many others and their merits are discussed too; and there is a framing too of when the roleplaying game is set. A quick guide to the who’s who of the chronicle across its four periods—Boy King, Conquest, Romance, and Grail Quest—previews their full stats presented for many of the leading figures later in the book. Another element which previews later content is the campaign set-up example of the Holding of Underditch Hundred, the primary holding of the—as will be revealed later in the book—surprisingly young Count of Salisbury.
Advice on running the Game Master is solid, focusing in the main on how to use the different aspects of the rules, including characteristics and handling time in the game. The advice on encouraging player contribution and adding courtly play is good, but elsewhere the advice on campaign set-up is a little light, again, feeling as if it is a preview of something to come. Not though of a section later in the book, but rather of a supplement to come. The Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook really comes into its own with the discussion of Arthurian activities, in particular, the first rules addition that is feasting. A Player-knight gains a new stat, ‘Geniality’, representing his nobility in the eyes of his peers and a combination of his Appearance and his Courtly skills, which comes into play when Feasting. A Player-knight’s Glory will influence where he will be sat at the feast, the closer to the high table, the better the bonus to his Geniality, whilst his Appearance will determine how many Feast Event Cards his player will draw. Feast Event Cards work as mini-encounters much like Opportunities in Battles and the solo adventures that a Player-knight might have at the end of the year that will give him the chance to test a Personality Trait. Ultimately, as with other activities in Pendragon, Sixth Edition, the aim is to earn Glory. This is done by keeping a Player-knight’s Geniality as high as possible, but it gives him a chance to shine in a more civilised setting and use his Courtly skills. Of course, it is also a good opportunity for the players to roleplay. Other activities covered include ‘Fine Amour’ or romance, hunting, intoxication, seduction(!) at court and its consequences, tournaments, and visiting foreign courts. Of these, hunting and tournaments are more mechanically involving, but they are no less welcome for it.
If the section on ‘Feasting’ is entertaining, the chapter on religion in Arthur’s Britain is fascinating reading—and should be required reading for player and Game Master alike, since the Player-knights are classified according to both their cultural background and their faith. In turn, the chapter discusses the beliefs, the ethics and how they relate to a Player-knight’s Personality Traits, the worship, history, holy places, festivals, and notable places and figures in turn of Christianity, Paganism, Heathenism, and Wodinism. To these are added the requirements for religious knights of all of these faiths, details such as the differences between the churches of Britain and Rome, a list of Pagan deities, and more. There is a lot of useful information here that the Game Master can bring into play, especially for her players who have religious knights, but also for her NPCs. Plus, the inclusion of Heathenism opens up the possibility of bringing Pictish knights into play!
Previous versions of Pendragon have allowed for Player Characters who are not knights, but this is not the focus of Pendragon, Sixth Edition, and magic very much remains the province of the Game Master and her NPCs. However, magic plays a strong role in the Arthurian chronicle. Like religion, it is divided according to type. So, for Paganism, there is the four talents—Divination, Enchantment, Glamour, and Healing; for Wodinism there are sacrifices, talismans, controlling the weather, and carving runes; Heathensim employs the four Talents of Paganism, but through a shaman rather than a magician; and for Christianity, there are miracles and saints. They are able to perform Miracles like Divine Manifestation, Divine Intervention, and Divine Retribution. In addition to shaman, other magicians include witches, specialising in folk magic, and enchanters and enchantresses which can encompass druids as well as Pagan and Wodinic practitioners. They also include the Ladies of the Lake. More recently, they have been joined by magicians who have learned their magic from books—sorcerers and sorceresses. Covered here too is fairy magic and also protection from such magics. Religious, chivalrous, and romantic knights can all withstand the effects of magic, but this requires adherence to high ideals. Otherwise, a Player-knight has little innate protection against magic, so avoiding it is likely the best defence.
One issue with both religion and magic is that the examination is a preview for the mechanical treatment later in the book, so that the description and the rules for both are not given in their relevant chapter. Rather they are included in the stats and guidelines for their NPC types in the ‘Game Master Characters’ chapter. Mechanically, magic uses the four talents—Divination, Enchantment, Glamour, and Healing—as skills, adding the non-Knightly skill of ‘Clerk’ to represent book learning and accounting, and treats them as skills. Thus, under the ‘Pagan Religious Folk and Magicians’, an ‘Itinerant Bard’ can have ‘Enchantment 12’ for his Magical Talent, enabling him to immobilise a target with a song by making him fall asleep, weep, or laugh, whilst a ‘Druid’ has values in all four Magical Talents and thus be more capable and more flexible in terms of what he can perform. For the ‘Christian Religious Folk and Saints’, they will have values in the three Miracles—Divine Manifestation, Divine Intervention, and Divine Retribution—and again their mechanics are explained here. The rules are the loosest of those presented in the Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook, allowing for more narrative input, whilst avoiding simple, if constant, Game Master fiat.
Perhaps one of the more complex aspects of Pendragon, Sixth Edition is handling battles. Previously presented in a cut-down version in the Pendragon Starter Set, here they are presented in full detail and explanation. The rules cover how to set up a battle and determine the numbers involved, establishing the Player-knights’ conroi (effectively, their cavalry squadron as they will be on horseback), how to fight the battle and face each encounter, through to what might happen after the battle. Oddly only the means of determining victory or defeat during the Boy King Period is given, which limits the utility of the Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook. That said, numerous battlefield foes are detailed as well as a six opportunities, such as ‘Capture the Banner’ and ‘Clash of Champions’. This does feel like too few opportunities, essentially extra encounters in the battle where the Player-knights have an opportunity to shine, but in play they do not actually occur that often.
The earlier ‘Who’s Who’ of Arthurian legend is fully supported with stats and details of several figures, including King Arthur and Lady Guenever, and Merlin, alongside those from Pendragon itself, like Sir Robert, Count of Salisbury. Numerous NPC types are given stats—various types of knights, Saxon warriors, nobles, common folk, and practitioners of magic and miracles. The bestiary is nicely detailed, beginning with ordinary animals, amongst which it includes elephants and lions, but also covering a variety of supernatural creatures. This includes the cockatrice, dragons, unicorns (with details of how to employ the Virgin Ploy to put them at ease), giants, and more. Sidebars list the Dwarfs of Arthurian literature, Arthurian fairy knights and ladies, Arthurian fiends, and Arthurian giants, so that the Game Master can take more direct inspiration when using the accompany game stats. Many of the entries in the bestiary will be familiar from folklore or even other roleplaying games, but what makes the bestiary all the more useful is that every is put in an Arthurian context.
Lastly, the Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook presents two scenarios. These take place in the years 508 and 509, before the events depicted in the Pendragon Starter Set and ‘The Sword Campaign’. They are both set at Sarum Castle and are designed to help set up the campaign and establish Salisbury as the starting point for the campaign and essentially a home for the Player-knights. Except that the Player-knights are not knights at the beginning of the first of these two scenarios, but squires. To that end, Sarum Castle is fully detailed and mapped and the players have the opportunity to roleplay their squires proving themselves worthy of being knights and beginning their life in service to the young Sir Robert. These are both good scenarios, both easily run in a session or two each. Although designed to be played prior to the Pendragon Starter Set, the problem with this set-up is that some groups may already past the point where these scenarios are of use to them, playing through the Pendragon Starter Set and even the campaign scenario, The Grey Knight. That said, if a playing group has not started playing Pendragon Starter Set, then both scenarios are solid additions as prequels.
The Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook comes to a close with appendices which give a detailed guide to Glory awards and a list of suggested reading. The latter is useful for the Game Master wanting further inspiration, especially in the context of the bestiary.
Physically, the Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook is very well presented. The book is also a good read and profusely illustrated. Some of the artwork has a manically cartoonish feel to it in addition to the weirdness of the some of the illuminations.

To be clear, the Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook is a very useful book and one that the Pendragon Game Master is definitely going to want and need. The new rules additions of feasting and tournaments are great, the guide to religion is very good, and the bestiary and the guide to magic are good. And yet… the Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook, as comprehensive as it is, is not and does not feel complete. Rather, it feels incremental, as if building the next part of Pendragon, Sixth Edition in readiness for the next book in the line. This shows in both the omissions and the focus of the Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook. One omission is the absence of the Feast Event Cards for the Feasting rules when the section on Battles has all of its foes and Opportunities given. The Feast Event Cards can be downloaded—and of course, since there are eighty of them, their inclusion would have greatly increased the book’s page count—but their absence is notable.

Also missing is detail about Logres and beyond in terms of setting and background, so that ultimately, the only location that is presented in any detail are the lands of Sir Robert, Count of Salisbury. Similarly, there are no details about running an estate and holding land. Together, this supports the focus of the Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook, which whilst supporting long term play with the rules for feasting, tournaments, battles, magic, and the bestiary and guide to religion, concentrates the role of the Player-knights as household knights—ideally in the service of Sir Robert. This, combined with the emphasis on Salisbury as a starting point and the underwhelming advice on campaigns, means that the Game Master wanting to set up her own campaign and not wanting to run the content leading up to The Great Pendragon Campaign is not supported as well as she could have been and that she will have to wait for subsequent books which will support her. And to be clear, if this makes the Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook sound as if it is a disappointing book, then it is very much not. Rather that it provides the Game Master with a lot that will support her campaign whilst leaving a few things for latter supplements.

The Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook is a mandatory purchase for the Game Master, expanding the world of Pendragon both mechanically and culturally in an interesting, informative, and entertaining fashion, whilst also proving a new introduction to the roleplaying game and setting that can lead into the Pendragon Starter Set. Whilst in the long term, it will require expansion with further supplements, there is nothing in the Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook that is anything less than useful and the Game Master should have this to enhance her campaign.

BTS has added a second set of orcs to their Tolkien Children of Hurin line. 

Fairhaven is your typical American small town. Fairhaven is also utterly normal. There are no three-foot-tall bulbous heeded running around in loincloths in the woods near the quartz caves that have closed off since that kid disappeared in the fifties. Alien invaders are not planning to invade the town and replace everyone over eighteen with doppelgangers. The parking lot outside the 7-Eleven on route 67 out of town is not cursed. Fairhaven Mall, the town’s very first enclosed retail centre, is not going to be used as a summing circle for the ancient serpent demon Menevoth, with the very excited members of the town’s Chamber of Commerce definitely not going to use everyone who attends on the opening day at 3 pm as ritual sacrifices. Sherman Glimp, would be comic, prize-winning tap dancer, and owner of GlimpBytes, the most reliable computer repair shop in Fairhaven, did not die in strange circumstances. Swamp Eggs, the latest kids’ craze to hit Fairhaven, sold by local, advanced technology development company, X-Tec, definitely do contain something alive in them, but whatever it is, it is definitely safe (terms and conditions apply). The Fairhaven Aquarium Natural History Annex has definitely not lost the exhibit, ‘Our Cool Ancestor, The Iceman’, and Jed and Edna Hamburger were definitely not attacked by a prehistoric ape-creature with beady yellow eyes says a spokesman for Fairhaven Police Department. Rest assured, Fairhaven Police Department keeps everything normal.

Except, of course, the Rev. Joey Royale, the Station Manager at WHPA-TV13 Fairhaven knows different. He runs the town’s Public Access Television channel and he wants to ensure that the good folk of Fairhaven are kept safe from the weird, strange, horrifying, and unnatural things going on in the town that nobody talks about and the Fairhaven Police Department resolutely deny are happening. Of course, a figure of such ‘good standing’ in the community as Rev. Joey Royale cannot be seen to be involved in such abnormal activities as investigating the outré and the unconventional, but he can of course, call upon the skills, services, and gumption of numerous individuals already exposed to such doings—the hosts of the shows on WHPA-TV13 Fairhaven!

This is the set-up for Weird Heroes of Public Access: The Roleplaying Game, published by Get Haunted Industries. Originally released as a series of fanzines—the Weird Heroes of Public Access: The Roleplaying Game collates the first four and adds further content—this is an investigative roleplaying game into small town weirdness, horror, and mystery set in the eighties. Crptids, UFOs, disappearances, strange deaths, alien invasions, all too advanced technology, cults, monster sightings, psychic powers, and that old homeless guy muttering prophecies under his breath are all fair game. The player take the role of Hosts of programmes on WHPA-TV13 Fairhaven. They have ordinary, even dull day jobs, but once a week—or even nightly, depending upon the needs of the schedule and their popularity—they have their own show on WHPA-TV13 Fairhaven. They might be spiritualists or psychics, fitness fanatics, local talk show hosts, variety show hosts, hosts of special interest shows—whether that is fishing, cooking, religion, and so on, and of course, they might host late night horror movie marathons! They receive instructions from Rev. Joey Royale, kept anonymous via the use of a ventriloquist’s dummy or a Speak & Spell, and then they investigate, keeping sure to avoid the Fairhaven Police Department because WHPA-TV13 Fairhaven definitely does not want that kind of publicity!

A Host in Weird Heroes of Public Access: The Roleplaying Game is simply defined. He has four core skills—Mind, Mouth, Body, and Soul. Every Host begins play with six points of Hope, which represents both his health and his determination. A Host also has a Programming Focus, which will define these skills, connections in the community, some props that he uses on his show, and a safety item which he can use in a fight. The latter cannot be a gun because that brings too much attention to WHPA-TV13 Fairhaven. The Host types include Spirituality, Fitness, Variety, Monster Movies, Local Talk, and Special Interest, which covers anything else that a player can think of. Each provides a bonus to a core skill and most also provide an extra connection and special abilities. For example, a Fitness Host simply receives a big bonus to his Body skill, but a Monster Movies is given a small bonus to his Mind skill, can receive vivid flashes of arcane, occult, and/or scientific knowledge, and can also perform acts of sleight of hand. Lastly, a Host has a Supernatural Ability, like X-ray Vision or Minor Pyromancy.

Host creation is a matter of distributing some points between the core skills, and choosing a Programming Focus, some props, and a supernatural ability. It is a simple process, but it is not as clearly worded as it could have been and an example would have helped.

Host: Frau Blücher
Programming Focus: Special Interest (Cleaning)
Show Name: The Marital Arts Show
Occupation: Small Business Owner (Spick-Und-Span – Murder Scenes a Speciality)

CORE SKILLS
Mind 1 Mouth 2 Body 1 Soul 0
Hope 6

Connection: Aldous Kesey (Deputy Chairman, Fairhaven Chamber of Commerce)
Props: Mop and bucket, bleach, thick rubber gloves
Safety Item: Urn with her mother’s ashes

Mechanically, Weird Heroes of Public Access: The Roleplaying Game is very simple, using a dice pool of six-sided dice. When a player wants his host to undertake an action, he rolls one die plus dice equal to the appropriate core skill. Rolls of five or six are counted as a success and typically, only one success is required for the Host to carry out the action successfully. However, if all ones are rolled on the dice, the Host loses a point of Hope, but if all sixes are rolled, it triggers the Host’s Supernatural Ability temporarily.

Combat is equally as simple and fast. Initiative is a roll of a six-sided die and a successful Body check is required to see if an attacker is successful. Damage is also rolled on a single die. If the result is four or less, the defendant loses one point of Hope, but two points if five or six is rolled. If a Host loses all of his Hope points, he can be stablised and continue investigating with one point, but if not, he suffers Cancellation, or worse, a return to normality!

And that really is it to Weird Heroes of Public Access: The Roleplaying Game. The players can help the Ref—as the Game Master is known—conduct some planning and zoning to create the town of Fairhaven, and there are detailed rules for psionic powers using Zener cards if the Ref wants to use them (though she should probably buy or create her own rather than cutting up the book) and for handling seances, which uses a standard deck of playing cards. Really though, but the rest of Weird Heroes of Public Access: The Roleplaying Game is dedicated to defining the possible weirdness in Fairhaven, and if not defining then alluding to it. This includes scenario outlines such as the appearance of the horse-headed serpent, Sassy, in ‘Return of the Pond Beast’ and exploring ‘The Forgotten Canals of Amontillado’, the tunnels dug under the town to facilitate the bootlegging of its famous fig schnapps during Prohibition. Whilst there are stats for a few creatures and oddities, the Ref is left to define a lot the details of the various descriptions.

In between—and even in—the scenarios, Weird Heroes of Public Access: The Roleplaying Game bombards the reader and the Ref with adverts and classified adverts. ‘Haunted Light Tours’? Call ‘Capt.’ Bob on 555-1366; examine the ‘Outer Space Time Manipulator’, ‘Happy Clown Bombs’, and ‘Ghost-Whispering Mask’ at the Fairhaven Funtime Museum on Fairground Lane; and call Ethel on 555-1947 if looking for ‘Rare Ventriloquist Dummies’, but no flimflammers as these dummies are special! All of these are just a bit off kilter, slightly odd, and could with some effort be developed in an investigation proper.

Physically, Weird Heroes of Public Access: The Roleplaying Game can best be described as scrappy. It is underwritten in places and the layout, designed to look like a cheap community newspaper with everything crammed in alongside the adverts—as much as it evokes the rundown, sometimes seedy nature of its setting—is overwhelming in places. Nothing ever has the time to breath in Weird Heroes of Public Access: The Roleplaying Game and the weirdness is suitably relentless.

Of course, the problem with Weird Heroes of Public Access: The Roleplaying Game is that not everyone is going to be familiar with the concept of public access television and its often high aspiration, low achievement style of broadcasting on a wide of subjects. Whether talk shows, phone-ins, special interest shows, or movie marathons—complete with a host in a horror-themed costume, they provided cheap—in all senses of the word—late night ‘entertainment’ for the insomniac, the shift-worker, and the late-night party-goer who has just got home. Anyone outside of the USA may want to do some research to get a feel of what these shows are like, but Weird Heroes of Public Access: The Roleplaying Game does get the tone across fairly well.
Weird Heroes of Public Access: The Roleplaying Game is underwritten in terms of its mechanics and messily overwritten in terms of its setting, which sounds like a terrible combination, but it does actually work. There is lot of room for improvisation and player input during play and roleplaying a Host who wants to be something more than an ordinary jane or joe and who might have a modicum of talent, but is probably going nowhere except Public Access Television, is actually fun. Weird Heroes of Public Access: The Roleplaying Game is The National Enquirer meets Eureka and Eerie, Indiana, managing to be both creepy and creaky with an extra couple of slices of cheese on top. American cheese, of course.

They Came From The Necropolis is supplement for Forbidden Psalm and Forbidden Psalm: End Times Edition is a miniatures game published by Space Penguin Ink. It is a 28 mm skirmish level miniatures game playable with just five miniatures per warband per player and as a systems-agnostic setting, those miniatures can be from any range and publisher. It is also notable for a number of things. First, its background means that it is compatible with Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. That means that Player Characters from the roleplaying game can be converted for use with Forbidden Psalm and with a bit of effort, content for Forbidden Psalm, could be adapted to Mörk Borg if a more physical, combative game is desired. Or the Game Master and her players want to scale their game up to handle skirmish encounters on a battlefield rather than in the theatre of the mind.

They Came From The Necropolis is a short affair that provides further additions to the dark and dirty world of Forbidden Psalm. The danger of conflict is a constant threat and every incident of conflict is brutal and uncaring, with few surviving such occurrences unscathed. Yet for the right amount of coin there are some that will enter the employ of others. Mercenaries or sellswords, they can join a warband and serve until the task they have been hired for is complete. Their advantage is that they bring their own equipment, but they will jealously guard it as it represents their livelihood, their capacity to go from one job to another. In game terms, what this means is that a mercenary can be hired for 25 gp and will replace a member of a warband at least temporarily. The mercenary does not have to be outfitted, but will not share or drop his own gear.
The supplement describes and gives stats for twelve such mercenaries. Each not only comes with his equipment, but also details of a feat, a flaw, and a special aspect. They include Pigmen, a Duke, a warrior, Knights, a Falconer, the Wounded, an Alchemist, a Zealot, a Bombardist, Necropolis Priests, Village Heroes, and a Knight and Retainer. For example, the Feat for Warrior lets her player roll two dice and take the better result, but the Flaw of never leaving combat, and the Special of granting a bonus to Melee to other members of the warband, whilst the Wounded has the Feat of being hard to kill and takes less damage with each hit, and the Flaw that when he is downed and gets back up, his Toughness increases, and the Special that he is cheap to hire. What is really is that the combination of the Feat, the Flaw, and the Special builds character in each mercenary, adding a little story potential as well as making them different to play. For example, the Village Heroes have the Feat of ‘Defenders of the Innocent’ which gives them a bonus to damage to monsters and a Flaw of being ‘Untrained’ and suffer a penalty to attack rolls, but their Special is that if they kill a monster, they lose the flaw.
The supplement also includes a ready list of names to give the mercenaries and details one monster. This is the Horse Head Knights, which of course, have the head of a horse, are immune to darkness conditions, and are undying. There is a chance that when they are killed, that they will return to life with full Hit Points!
Physically, They Came From The Necropolis is decently presented, with only a hint of the artpunk styling of Mörk Borg. Most of the mercenaries are given a page each which includes their stats and an illustration, which is that of a fully painted miniature (drawn from the Black Crab Miniatures! range). These are very nicely done, the Pigmen having a beady-eyed porcine face, the Wounded limping along on a stick with his right leg capped at the knew, Necropolis Priests possessing a certain creepiness.
They Came From The Necropolis is a solid expansion for Forbidden Psalm. The stats and mercenaries are quick and easy to add to a warband and each one is interesting enough to make play just that little bit different for the single session or battle, they are hired for.