July continues like passing a softball-sized kidney stone, and we’re still at least two to three weeks before the first Halloween decorations start showing up in stores. In the interim, the Triffid Ranch can fill in for that lapse, complete … Continue reading →

The Earth Above is a scenario for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game, the roleplaying game of blue collar Science Fiction Horror inspired by films such as Outland, Dark Star, Silent Running, and Event Horizon, as well as Alien and Aliens. Published by Fey Light, it is a short, two or three at most session scenario for a crew of Player Characters who either have their own starship or are travelling aboard one. It comes with a set-up, a setting, a threat (and possibly more), half-a dozen NPCs, two location maps, and of course, several tables to help the Warden run the scenario. It also comes with numerous reasons why the Player Characters might get involved. The primary reason is the ship that they are aboard is low on fuel and the nearest source is the world of Cormeia-9 or ‘Cor-9’. However, the world is under lockdown and there are emergency procedures in effect, so getting to refuel their takes on an extra challenge. Other reasons for their getting involved might be that they are colonists under lockdown; a team sent by a corporation to extract samples of the reason for the lockdown, an invasive alien species known as the Pestilence; a team of troubleshooters sent by the colony’s operating corporation in order to get it up and running again; and others. The result is an easy scenario to set up and drop into a campaign or run as a one shot.

The Earth Above runs to sixteen pages and is very neatly organised. So one double spread covers the background and reasons for the Player Characters getting involved, whilst the next describes the world and gives an overview of the facilities on world. This includes a note pointing out that the planet’s rotation is so short it disrupts a sleeper’s circadian rhythms, so adding to his stress, which is nice environmental effect of increasing a Player Character’s Stress. The next two describe the facilities and the mine in detail, the latter accorded a fully three-dimensional map, which adds a lot of detail and feel, but is still quite simple. Between them, the scenario’s six principal NPCs are given, including where they might be found, what they want, and what they have. Since the scenario is mainly set-up, these six can play a role no matter how the Player Characters get involved, whether it is simply to get fuel, get the mines up and running, or survive as colonists themselves. The last couple of pages are devoted to stats for various NPCs and creatures. Of the creatures, there are four types given and together they all have a very Xenomorph-like feel, a la Alien, Aliens, or even Alien 3. However, they are not exactly that, and in a one-shot, it is perfectly fine to have a creature not dissimilar appear as the threat. And anyway, those films are part of the inspiration for the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game anyway. Rounding out the scenario are tables of things to be found in the hablocks, supplies, mercenary loadoats, and so on. All useful, as is the advice, which is kept to the point given lack of space, for the Warden to help her run the scenario.

Physically, The Earth Above is well presented, the artwork good, and the layout clean and tidy. All of which is packaged into a slim, but sturdy little booklet.

The Earth Above is a small, but smartly packaged scenario. In truth, its plot and set-up are draw from familiar inspirations, but they are adroitly handled with multiple different set-ups that work with the scenario and the familiarity should lend itself to some classic Sci-Fi horror moments. Easy to prepare and easy to run, The Earth Above is there for when the MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror Roleplaying Game, the roleplaying game of blue collar Science Fiction Horror Warden wants to serve up some unfussy, unpretentious Sci-Fi horror that is easy to buy into because everyone knows the tropes.

Lâminas & Feitiços or Blades & Spells is a minimalist fantasy roleplaying game from South America. In fact, Blades & Spells is another Bronze Age, Swords & Sorcery minimalist fantasy roleplaying game done in pamphlet form from Brazil. In actuality, Blades & Spells is a series of pamphlets, building from the core rules pamphlet to add optional rules, character archetypes, spells, a setting and its gods, and more, giving it the feel of a ‘plug and play’ toolkit. The Storyteller and her players can play using just the core rules, but beyond that, they are free to choose the pamphlets they want to use and just game with those, ignoring the others. So what is Blades & Spells? It describes itself as “…[A] simple, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG game where the Storyteller challenges the Player and not the character sheet.” It is written to pay homage to the classic Sword & Sorcery literature, uses the Basic Universal System—or ‘B.U.S.’—a simple set of mechanics using two six-sided dice, and in play is intended to challenge the player and his decisions rather than have the player rely upon what is written upon his character sheet. Which, being a minimalist roleplaying game, is not much. So although it eschews what the designer describes as the ‘classic restrictions’ of Class, Race, and Level, and it is very much not a Retroclone, there is no denying that Blades & Spells leans into the Old School Renaissance sensibilities.

Blades & Spells: An agile, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG provides the core rules to the roleplaying game. They are a simple, straightforward set of mechanics, emphasising a deadly world of adventure in which the heroes wield both weapons and magic. Beyond the core rules, Blades & Spells is fully supported with a series of optional pamphlets which expand upon its basics and turn it into a fully rounded roleplaying game. All together these might be seen as  the equivalent of a ‘Blades & Spells Companion’, although they just as easily could be combined into the one publication.

Blades & Spells: Beasts & Monsters follows the pamphlet format of the core rules and presents a set of twenty-one potential threats and hazards that the Player Characters might face. All have a name, a Challenge Rating, some Hit Points, details of its main characteristics, the latter amounting to no more than a sentence of two, thus giving no more than a thumbnail description of the monster. They include Shedu and Lamassu; the Akhazu, an evil creature which spreads plagues and can only be destroyed when whomever summoned it is killed; the Nommos, the humanoid amphibious ‘fishmen’, complete with tails, scales, and gills who hate the light and who indirectly built and rule the city-state of Nippur; and the Aqrabu, fiercely territorial, cave-dwelling humanoid scorpions created to fight a war between two gods in the distant past. Non-monsters are not ignored and Bandits, Cultists, Pirates, and Sorcerers are included as well. As with Blades & Spells itself, the entries in this pamphlet are inspired by Mesopotamian myths and other Bronze Age mythologies.
Blades & Spells: Characters Archetypes/Compendium of Magic does two things. First, it expands upon each Player Character’s Focus. This is his occupation or something that he is good at, either Fighter, Mystic, Intellectual, Support, or Specialist. The supplement divides some twenty-nine archetypes into these five categories with a simple thumbnail description. So for the Fighter, there is the Brute, the Exotic, and the Spearman; for the Mystic, the Warlock and the Beastmaster; for the Intellectual, the Actor and the Merchant; for the Support, the Artisan and the Musician; and the Specialist, the Deceived and the Pirate. These are again kept short and simple, but suggest some ideas as to what a Player Character is and what he can do, each one, just like the Focus, providing Advantage or Disadvantage, depending on the situation.
The second thing that Blades & Spells: Characters Archetypes/Compendium of Magic does is provide spells for the roleplaying game. Although every Player Character in Blades & Spells is capable of casting spells, the mechanics are objective orientated, but kept freeform. This supplement details some twenty-nine new spells which the Player Characters or NPCs can cast, whether they are doing so as arcane magic or divine magic. Some of these are nicely inventive, such as ‘Viper Venom’, which fills the caster’s mouth with water and after concentrating for a few moments, he can spit it out as a corrosive liquid or a toxic gas; ‘Dead Memory’ allows the caster to see through the eyes of the dead and so learn their secrets they kept in life and the fate that befell them; and ‘Thirty Coins’, an area spell which forces anyone who lies within its effects to vomit thirty pieces of silver that then disappear…

Blades & Spells: Optional Rules expands upon the rules presented in the core Blades & Spells: An agile, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG. They are all optional. They add in turn, rules to create non-Human characters, perhaps pushing Blades & Spells away from its Swords & Sorcery roots, but they give the species two positive physical traits and one negative physical trait. In addition, a Player Character of that species must still have a defect as per usual in addition to the species’ negative physical trait. Tables for ‘Wild Terrain’ cover the weather and ground types, plus random events, whilst the rules for poison are brutally nasty (options are given for less lethal effects as alternatives.) These are followed by rules for drunkenness too, and then insanity. Here a Player Character has ten Sanity Points, which are lost in moments of stress and terror. Once they are reduced to zero, a roll is made on the Insanity table. These rules and their effects are underwritten as not all of the results have a time length and there is no guidance as to what happens afterwards, such as how Sanity Points might be recovered. For the main part, the new rules in Blades & Spells: Optional Rules do what they suggest and cover aspects of play without adding too much in the way of extra complications. The disappointing element here are the rules for insanity, but the Storyteller can adjust as necessary to make them work and fit her setting.

Blades & Spells: An agile, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG is a simple, straightforward set of mechanics, but whilst that means that it is easy to play, it also means that it is easy to expand and add optional rules and extras to. Which is what these three supplements do. Not always effectively in places, but others, such as the Blades & Spells: Characters Archetypes/Compendium of Magic and Blades & Spells: Beasts & Monsters add a lot in terms of flavour and feel, but without without adding a lot of complications. Consequently, they are worth adding to have the options for both play and whatever setting the Storyteller wants to create.
So that really is it to . Or at least the core rules. It fits on two sides of a single sheet of paper. It is cleanly laid out, although it does need an edit in places to account for the translation from Portuguese to English. It has a decent piece of artwork on the front. It is also perfectly playable barring a couple of issues. One is that it does leave the Storyteller to wonder what sort of complications a failure of a dice roll might add to the plot and it does not state what the difficulty number is for hitting a Player Character in combat.

Blades & Spells but there are numerous optional pamphlets which expand upon its core rules and turn Blades & Spells into a fully rounded roleplaying game rather than just a core set of mechanics. Nevertheless, Blades & Spells: An agile, objective and dynamic minimalist RPG is a solid, serviceable, easy to learn and play, minimalist roleplaying game.

So…what about this weather, huh? The first half of 2022 was more than a bit of a tribulation: even with everything happening this year, the end of that first half still counted as the best year the Triffid Ranch had … Continue reading →

Often, very often, the NPCs I will put into a game or adventure will be drawn from either someone I know or a previous character of mine.  St. Johan Werper in the Guidebook to the Duchy of Valnwall Special Edition is/was my first ever D&D character. Nearly every non-player character in my Night Worlds "Generation HEX" and "Ordinary World" in NIGHT SHIFT were characters in my long-running Chill/Buffy/Ghosts of Albion games.  The Editor in "Weirdly World News" in the Night Companion was based on the director for the play "The Front Page" I was in several lifetimes ago. 

But who is  Admiral Celeste Vorcolio of Six of Cups?

The folk hero of Garnet in Aldis, in the World of Aldea, is not based on any real person nor character of my past.

Since I was modeling the City of Garnet after my childhood memories of Alton, Illinois I took it a step further and thought about the stories I was reading then. While the Tall Tales of Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill wouldn't really be appropriate for what I wanted, there was another one.  I remembered reading, the stories of a giant sailor named Stormalong. 

After reading mythology, I followed up with the American equivalent, the Tall Tale. While I liked the tales of Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan it was A. B. Stormalong that would actually feel like an adventure.  Pecos Bill was essentially a drunk cowboy soon to be upstaged in his antics by his younger, dumb brother "Florida Man." Paul Bunyan was a giant, but all he ever did was cut down trees. Stormalong, well he fought the Kraken! The idea that he boarded a ship and signed his name "Stormalong, A.B.," which would go on to mean "able-bodied sailor," stuck with me decades later.

I knew I wanted an admiral in the Aldean Navy.  I knew I wanted Garnet to be the heart of that Navy. So someone from Garnet needed to be the one that made the Navy into what it is today. 

I started with the idea of Stormalong, someone young and ready for adventure, jumping onto a ship and doing whatever they needed to do to be on that ship and rise up through the ranks.  The idea jelled for me when I thought about Star Trek The Next Generation.  Gene Rodenberry had described the characters of Picard, Riker, and Wesley Crusher as all being different parts of Horatio Hornblower.  Though originally "Wesley Crusher" was going to be "Leslie Crusher." Which gave me the idea of instead of Horatio Hornblower, why not Honor Harrington? 

If her adult form was Honor, then who was she as a (very) precocious child?  I mean, like annoyingly precocious. I saw her jumping on the ship and announcing to the crew that she was "Vorcolio, A.B. the greatest sailor in the world! And you will all be taking orders from me soon!"  Who from my readings would fit this mold? Easy. Pipi Longstalking.  Very soon a picture began to emerge.

Celeste, at age 12 runs away from home and jumps onto a ship to be a sailor. The laws at the time said she had to be 16 to join up, but she lied (her first lesson) to get on board.  She quickly proved that while she was a lot of talk, she was also willing to work hard. She took any and every job on the ship no matter how menial or difficult. She would whistle to herself and tell the crew that she wanted to know how to do everything on a ship so she could be a good captain.  When it was discovered that she lied about her age they were already too far out at sea.  The punishment for this was 10 lashes (it was a while back) she admitted she had lied and submitted herself to her punishment. All her other crewmates moved by her work and her willingness to stick to the rules, offered themselves up instead. In the end, the Captian agreed to not give her the lashes until a later date, but she had to learn the job of every crewman on the ship and be able to do it as good as they could.  She remained on that ship for years and when the time came to give her her punishment the Captain instead made her his first officer claiming that would be punishment enough.

She would later go on to have adventures of her own, find her Rhy-fen companion Jarry the Dolphin,  enroll in the Naval Academy where she would butt heads against other officers, fight giant sea monsters and pirates, battle with other Navies, and generally lived her life on the deck of on ship or another.

I don't know how she died.  I don't know when she started a family. I am inclined to say that in her later years she adopted a child and raised them as her own. I think that like many sailors, before and after, her only true love was the sea. 

There are no character stats for Celeste. When you get to Garnet she will have been dead a hundred years, unless you believe the talk of old sailors and they say she is still on the deck of her ship, The Stormalong, sailing the clouds of the storms.  If you listen close you can hear her shouting orders to her crew and laughing at the thunder and lightning.

Green Ronin currently is taking pre-orders for print of Six of Cups.  Order now and get $5 off AND for just $5 more (so retail price) you also get the PDF right now!  That is a hell of a deal.

https://greenroninstore.com/collections/blue-rose/products/blue-rose-six-of-cups

I have been waiting a bit to share this one with you all.  I have an adventure in the newest Blue Rose RPG book, Six of Cups!

Yes, that is my name at the bottom. 

I am quite excited about this really. There are a lot of great adventures here from a lot of great authors/designers.  Working with Green Ronin was a joy really. I am honored to have been able to contribute even just a small part to the World of Aldea.

My adventure, appropriately named "Witching Weather" deals with the birth of five children all of who have some sort of magical power and the forces of darkness that are closing in around them.

In addition to the adventure, I was given the privilege to add a bit more detail to the City of Garnet. 

I have seen the world of Blue Rose described as "fantasy Seatle" which may or may not be true, but Garnet as I have written it is "Fantasy Alton, IL."  Alton is a blue-collar riverside town with some great history, some unexpectedly good restaurants, and the shadow of the Piasa Bird everywhere you go.  Vyon Bloodwing, one of the adversaries of the adventure, is my homage to the Piasa Bird.  

So grab this book. It has my adventure in it and a bunch of other great adventures and guides to lesser-traveled places in Aldea.  When you are walking along the "Riverwalk" or "Restaurant Row" in Garnet please don't forget to raise your drink, be it a hearty stout or an equally strong tea, to both the Sovereign and the famous Admiral Celeste Vorcolio. Both the pride and joy of Garnet.  

It has not only been a while (nearly a year) since I last talked about the Basic Bestiary, it has been a while since I have actually worked on it.  That is too bad really because while I have been sitting on my thumbs and doing whatever the hell else I have been doing others (at least three I can think of) have gotten their monster books out or into Kickstarter. And there is a lot of overlap in monsters here.  

Frankly, I could not be happier!

I love monster books. I have said this here a thousand times. And more monster books are always welcome. I'll spend some time with these other books later this week.

But I still want to get my own book out.

I am NOT going to do a Kickstarter for it. Nothing against it, but I don't want want to go there yet. So that means the art will be what I can buy when I can buy it with money from my other books. So that means it will be a bit longer.

I also believe that my monster book will be a value add to all the other monster books out there.  There are a lot of great monsters and monster books out there. Mine will be influenced by what I have read and played over the last decades. 

Also, instead of saying mine is "Labyrinth Lord" or "Swords & Wizardry" compatible or even the very popular "Old-School Essentials" compatible, I am sticking with my own "Basic-Era Compatible."  That might end up costing me some sales or promotions, but my stat block here is not something that is pure for any one system. In truth, I could very well put "Advanced-Era Compatible" on these books as well since I am designing the stat block to cover both systems, even if the style esthetic is going to be Basic-era.  I talked a bit about this in my "Detailing a 'Universal' Stat-block" post and that is where I want to go today.  All based on the question "how many miles per hour is that?"

Movement

One of the things that always tripped me up moving from Holmes Basic to Moldvay Basic and then to AD&D was movement rates.  Let's go back to my universal stat block breakdown and look at the movement rates for the Orc.

Holmes: 90 feet
Moldvay: 120' (40')
Mentzer/BECMI/RC: 120' (40')
AD&D 1st ed: 9"
AD&D 2nd ed: 9 (12)
D&D 3: 30 feet (6 squares)
D&D 4: 6 (8 while charging)
D&D 5: 30 feet

These speeds all are "per round" though what a round is can differ.  Holmes' speed is more in line with AD&D. D&D 3 to 5 are all the same despite different notation.

In my Basic Bestiary I note it like this:

Movement: 120' (40') [12"]  

With "AD&D" notation in the brackets. Note that my orcs then look faster. Rounds in Basic are 10 seconds and rounds in AD&D/D&D3-5 are all 6 seconds.  This means that my 120' movement rate orc in Basic has a different "Real-time" speed in AD&D.  My converted orc moves at 12" and not the 9" listed.  Is this a problem?  Actually, no. I don't feel that it is.

According to the Labyrinth Lord RPG book, 120' is the exploring speed per turn and 40' is the combat speed per round and 120' is the full running speed per round. So my question. How fast is this in MPH?

120' per round is 120 feet per 10 seconds or 720 per minute or 43,200 per hour or 8.18 repeating.  I opt to make the miles an easier 5400* feet to get 8 miles per hour.  So an orc can run full-on at 8 miles per hour. 
(*5400 is divisible by 2 and 3 so it gives me better numbers to work with.)

This brings up an interesting notion.  How fast can a particular monster move?

I looked at my entry for Archangel and see they fly at 360', which translates into 24 MPH. Not very fast from our point of view, but fast when compared to a mundane horse.  Maybe they have a Haste at-will spell and can fly at 48 MPH?  If it is a "Greater Haste" say at x3 then 72 MPH feels a little more respectable. Fantasy creatures don't always translate well into the real world.

Ideas like this have been helping drive my design philosophy.  When working on a monster I often ask "how do they relate to the PCs?" or "what sort of situations will this monster be in with the PCs?" since the Player Characters are the focus of all adventures.  Now I do also ask "How does this monster relate to Normal Humans?" and this has shifted my view on many creatures, in particular the undead.  There are consequences to both of these.

On the PC-centric side, we get the Succubus/Whispering Demon issue I mentioned a while back when I covered the BECMI Immortal Rules.  To quote:

A Succubus in AD&D is a 6+6 HD creature (average hp 33), her physical attacks are not great, but her kiss drains 2 life energy levels. In BECMI a Whispering Demon has 15* HD and 70 hp! Oh and her AC is -6.

A 6 HD creature is more than enough of a challenge for normal humans, it is also a pretty good (and scary) challenge for low-level characters. But a 15 HD succubus? That is a challenge for many!  But I do notice that in nearly every movie or tale about a succubus the demon is defeated in the end.

6 HD is what you get when you aim for Normal Humans.  15 HD is what you get when you aim for PCs.

The Basic Bestiaries will take on the point of view of Normal Humans for the most part. So my succubi (I have a couple) will be more along the lines of 6 HD.  My Archangels however will likely be flying at 72 MPH.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Dream HousePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Evan Perlman

Setting: Jazz Age BostonProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Thirty-one page, 4.30 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A spiritual successor to The HauntingPlot Hook: Helping an old friend reveals horrible secrets
Plot Support: Staging advice, two floor plans, three handouts, six pre-generated Investigators, eight NPCs, one Mythos monster, and one Mythos tome. Production Values: Decent.
Pros# One night one-shot# Enclosed space, focused scenario# Creepy sense of déjà vu# Fun for the Keeper to run# Literally a spiritual sequel to The Haunting# Potential sequel down another trouser leg of time# Potential to play around with multiple protagonists# Can be run with player-created or pre-generated Investigators# Good with two Investigators as its is with five
# Failure is not the end...
Cons# Another sequel to The Haunting?# Failure is not the end...# The déjà vu requires careful handling
Conclusion# Literally a spiritual sequel to The Haunting with a creepy and claustrophobic sense of déjà vu that is cleverly designed and thought out.

Several hundred years from now, mankind has spread far out into the Solar System. Tensions between the Martian Congressional Republic, based on the greatly terraformed planet of Mars, and the United Nations of an Earth restored through the use of the same terraforming technology, have almost driven the Solar System to war. Ultimately what prevented conflict was the Martian government sharing details of the Epstein Drive, a new technology which would open up the frontier in the asteroid belt and the outer planets beyond. Like every frontier before it, prospectors raced out in search of new resources—metals to support industries across the Solar System and water to support the new and growing habitats and settlements—with colonists behind them. A growing sense of resentment at their exploitation would see the Belters set up the Outer Planets Alliance protect their interests, though the Earth-Mars Coalition would brand them terrorists. The discovery of a strange molecular technology on Phoebe, a moon of Saturn, would lead to radical changes across the Solar System. The Protogen Corporation, the corporation assigned by the Martian Congressional Republic to study it, branded it the Protomolecule and conducted experiments which would kill millions and ultimately threaten the Earth. Fortunately, there were some who could direct the threat away from the Earth and towards Venus, where it would radically transform the planet beyond all understanding.

This is the setting for The Expanse, the series of Science Fiction novels by James S.A. Corey, and the television series of the same name. It is also the setting for The Expanse Roleplaying Game, published by Green Ronin Publishing. The novels and the television series run to nine books and six seasons respectively, so The Expanse Roleplaying Game is set between the events of Leviathan Wakes and Caliban’s War, the first and second novels. The Player Characters can explore the setting of The Expanse, perhaps with their own spaceship, get involved with the conspiracies and politics of the setting between governments and corporations, and more.

The Expanse Roleplaying Game uses what has become known as the ‘AGE’ or ‘Adventure Game Engine’ was first seen 2010 in Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5, the adaptation of Dragon Age: Origins, the computer game from Bioware. It has since been developed into the Dragon Age Roleplaying Game as well as the more generic Fantasy AGE Basic Rulebook and a more contemporary and futuristic setting with Modern AGE Basic Rulebook. This is the basis for The Expanse Roleplaying Game. It comes with rules for creating Player Characters, including enough focuses, talents, and specialisations to take the Player Characters from First to Twentieth Level, handling fast-paced action built around action, combat, exploration, and social stunts, spaceships and spaceship combat, background setting, advice for the Game Master, plus more... That more includes a new short story, ‘The Last Flight of the Cassandra’, by James S. A. Corey, stats for the cast of the novels, a beginning scenario, and advice when to set a campaign.

A Player Character in The Expanse Roleplaying Game is defined by his Abilities, Focuses, and Talents. There are nine Abilities—Accuracy, Communication, Constitution, Dexterity, Fighting, Intelligence, Perception, Strength, and Willpower. Each attribute is rated between -2 and 4, with 1 being the average, and each can have a Focus, an area of expertise such as Accuracy (Gunnery), Communication (Leadership), Intelligence (Technology), or Willpower (Courage). A Focus provides a bonus to associated skill rolls and, in some cases, access to a particular area of knowledge. A Talent represents an area of natural aptitude or special training, and is rated either Novice, Expert, or Master. For example, at Novice level, the Pilot Talent, the Player Character is quick to start a vehicle and make appropriate tests as minor actions; at Expert level, he gains a bonus to all rolls involving speed; and at Master level, the character’s player can reroll failed rolls, bit must keep the second roll, plus as long as the vehicle is moving, it receives a bonus to its defence. As a Player Character goes up in Level, he can acquire Specialisations, such as Ace or Executive, which grant further bonuses and benefits. A character also has a Background, Social Class, and Profession, plus a Drive, Resources and Equipment, Health, Defence, Toughness, and Speed, and Goals, Ties, and Relationships.

To create a character, a player rolls three six-sided dice for each Ability—assigning them in order, but can swap two. He then rolls his origins and native gravity, which is either a Belter, an Earther, or a Martian. After that, he rolls for Social Class and an associated Background and Profession. A Background provides an Ability bonus, a choice of a Focus, and a choice of a Talent, plus randomly determined Focus or Talent, whilst a Profession provides a pair of Focuses and a pair Talents to choose from, plus a resources score and starting Fortune. The player selects a Drive, such as Achiever or Networker, which grants another pair of Talents to choose from as well as an improvement to a Relationship, a Reputation, or Resources. The process itself is fairly quick and results in a reasonably detailed character. Alternatively, and with the permission of the Game Master, a player can pick these options rather than roll for them. This is a good choice if the players need to decide what their characters are and what they do as a team or a crew, for example, that of a spaceship as in the novels.
One stats missing from a Player Character is that of health or Hit Points. Instead he has Fortune Points. These serve two primary functions. First, they can be expended to alter the value of a die (which costs more for the Drama die), and second, they work as the equivalent of Hit Points. In effect, their use sort of reflects the Player Character’s luck being used up or running out.
Our sample Player Character is Jadamantha Holland, who grew up in a klade of indentured labourers and crafters out in the belt. Renowned for her outspoken attitude she was elected its negotiator after she complained at the poor deals being bargained for their labour with the corporation they were indentured to. She stuck to her guns and got a better deal, year on year, and then for other klades as she fomented a drive for them to unionise. She was successful, but the corporations would ultimately rig the elections and ensure she did not win. Consequently she hates the corporations and supports the Outer Planets Alliance, often moving from location to location, negotiating workers’ rights. When that does not work out she is an invertebrate gambler and often she can turn her hand to most things. Her often obstinate views on authority get her into trouble. 
Jadamantha Holland
Background: Belter
Social Class: Lower Class (Labourer)
Occupation: Negotiator
Level: 1

Accuracy 0
Communication 3 (Bargaining, Gambling)
Constitution 1
Dexterity 2 (Crafting, Free-fall)
Fighting 0
Intelligence 2
Perception 2
Strength 1
Willpower 3

Defence 12 Toughness 11 Speed 12 Fortune 15
Talents: Carousing (Novice) Improvisation (Novice), Oratory (Novice)Drive: Rebel
Resources: 2

Mechanically, the AGE System and thus The Expanse Roleplaying Game, is simple enough. If a Player Character wants to undertake an action, his player rolls three six-sided dice and totals the result to beat the difficulty of the test, ranging from eleven or Average to twenty-one or Nigh Impossible. To this total, the player can add an appropriate Ability, and if it applies, an appropriate Focus, which adds two to the roll. For example, a group of Outer Planets Alliance terrorists have been tracked to a belter station in the belt and the Earth-Mars Coalition is preparing a Marine Corps strike team. The Player Characters could sneak onto the station to find out what is happening there or they could negotiate with the Marine Corps strike team commander to wait before she sends her team in. The former would involve a player rolling the three six-sided dice, applying the Player Character’s Dexterity Ability, and if the Player Character has it, the Stealth Focus. The other option would be to roll the three six-sided dice, apply the Player Character’s Communication Ability, and if the Player Character has it, the Bargaining Focus.
However, where the AGE System gets fun and where the Player Characters have a chance to shine, is in the rolling of the Drama die and the generation of Stunt Points. When a player rolls the three six-sided dice for an action, one of the dice is of a different colour. This is the Drama die. Whenever doubles are rolled on any of the dice—including the Drama die—and the result of the test is successful, the roll generates Stunt Points. The number of Stunt Points is determined by the result of the Drama die. For example, if a player rolls five, six, and five on the Drama die, then five Stunt Points are generated on the Drama die. What a player gets to spend these Stunt Points on depends on the action being undertaken. In 2010, with the release of 2010 in Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5, the only options were for combat actions and the casting of spells, but subsequent releases for Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying expanded the range of options on which Stunt Points can be spent to include movement, exploration, and social situations. This has been carried over into Modern AGE and The Expanse Roleplaying Game and expanded and expanded.
So, what can stunts do? For example, for one Stunt Point, a player might select ‘Whatever’s Handy’ and grab the nearest improvised weapon, which though clumsy and possibly fragile, it will do; for five Stunt Points, select ‘Spray and Pray’, which applies an attack to everyone in a five metre radius, though they all get a Defence bonus; and for each three Stunt Points spent, ‘Hull Breach’ reduces the target vehicle’s Hull rating by a point. In an Investigation, ‘Flashback’ costs a single Stunt Point and reminds the Player Character of something he forgot, whilst in a social situation, ‘From the Heart’ costs four Stunt Points and enables the Player Character to express wholeheartedly a belief such that it temporarily grants a Willpower Focus and a bonus to the roll to use it.For example, Jadamantha Holland gets herself captured by the Marine Corps strike team readying itself to attack the belter station where the commander suspects there are some Outer Planets Alliance terrorists. Her loud mouth easily persuades the sergeant to take her before the commander by claiming that she has information about what is on the station. Jadamantha wants to persuade the commander to wait and let her colleagues find out what is happening on the station before the marines go in all guns blazing. Brought before the commander, Jadmantha tells her that she should not go in yet and that if she does, she sill have another Fred Johnson situation on her hands and there’s her career gone. The Game Master sets the base Test Difficulty at Hard or fifteen because the marine commander is determined to send her team in. Jadamantha’s Reputation as an Outer Planets Alliance sympathiser counts against her and so increases the Test Difficulty to seventeen or Formidable. Her player will roll the dice, add Jadmantha’s Communication Ability and +2 for the Bargaining Focus. In addition, Jadamantha’s player gives an impassioned speech warning about the danger of another Fred Johnson affair. This grants another +2 bonus. So altogether, the player is adding a total of seven to the roll. Jadmantha’s player rolls five, three, and then five on the Drama die. This means that she has succeeded and her player has five Stunt points to spend. Her player first chooses ‘Let’s make deal’, which enables Jadmantha’s words to benefit another person present, who now owes her a favour, if only begrudgingly. This is the marine sergeant, who is now concerned that his commander is going in hot. This costs three Stunt points and Jadmantha has successfully persuaded the commander to stay her hand.
Another use for the Drama die is to determine how well a Player Character does, so the higher the roll on the Drama die in a test, the less time a task takes or the better the quality of the task achieved. The main use though, is as a means of generating Stunt Points, and whilst Stunt Points and Stunts are the heart of the action in The Expanse Roleplaying Game, there are a lot of them to choose from. Now they are broken down into categories, and that does limit what a player can choose from. However, upon initial play, a player is not only going to be faced with an abundance of choice, but in making that choice can slow play down. In combat that is a real problem because it is meant to be exciting and dynamic. Ultimately, this should lessen as players get used to the system and find out what Stunts work best with their characters, and as they get used to these choices, which is when they will find that the array of Stunts available do reflect aspects of the setting and story of The Expanse.
In addition to covering action, combat, exploration, and social scenes, The Expanse Roleplaying Game covers rules for handling resources (money), reputation, technology and equipment, and more. There is a solid guide to the latter and what is clear is that beyond the Epstein Drive for spaceships, technology is not overly advanced. Beyond that, the highest piece of technology listed is power armour, which is rarely to be found in possession of the Player Characters. In covering lifestyle, communications, food, and more, The Expanse Roleplaying Game begins to impart a feel of the future it depicts. Some players may be disappointed by the treatment of the technology in terms of weaponry, the differences of which are determined by various Qualities and Flaws. Mechanically this is effective, but it does feel flavourless in terms of the setting.
In comparison, The Expanse Roleplaying Game goes into some details about how space travel and spaceships work in its future. This includes a discussion of motion, mass, spin, and velocity, all of it surprisingly technical. This is not built into the rules though, which means that a calculator and an understanding of mathematics is not required to play the roleplaying game or handle a spaceship. Instead, it supports the roleplaying game and setting as a hard Science Fiction setting, rather one of just pushing the button and the ship goes., and should instead be used to flavour and inform the narrative in play. Various types of spaceships are detailed from a lowly shuttle all the way up to large freighters and battleships. These are all relatively simply defined with Hull points, crew size and competence, sensors, weapons, and Qualities and Flaws, if any. They are illustrated, but no deck plans, at least for the types of spaceships the Player Characters would have access to, which again is disappointing as that again would have imparted a stronger feel for the setting. (That said, Ships of the Expanse does include those deck plans as well as other information.) In general, whether or not the Player Characters own or have a spaceship will be down to the type of campaign being played or the narrative.
Spaceship combat builds on the core mechanics and has a fluid feel to it. Primarily, it adds another table of Command Stunts for the captain to choose from if he rolls well at the beginning of each round. This can flavour and influence the course of the action from round to round, so that ‘Guidance’, which costs one or more Stunt Points, gives bonus points to assign to combat tests throughout the round, or ‘Set-up’, which costs four Stunt Points and is used to maneuver an opposing ship into a hazard, whether that is into the range of a weapon with a shorter range, a debris field, or even an asteroid. Reflecting the harder feel of its Science Fiction, the spaceships do not have shields, damage being done directly to the hull, and weapons are all kinetic, whether that is Point Defence Cannons, rail guns, or torpedoes. The rules for spaceship combat are supported by a good example of play—the best in the book.

The guide to the future depicted by The Expanse, essentially the background to the setting, does not appear until over halfway through the book. This covers the history of setting all the way up to the first two novels, as well as background on Earth, Mars, the Belt, and the Outers beyond that. It also includes full details and stats of the main members of the cast—Chrisjen Avasarala, James Holden, and more. This would allow the players to take them as characters if they wanted to. Perhaps fans of the television series and the novels may be underwhelmed by the lack of background, but The Expanse Roleplaying Game is not intended to be the  definitive sourcebook for either. Overall, it is a good solid introduction to, and overview of, the setting.
The Game Master is really only given one more mechanic. To aid her handle and increase tension, she is given Churn. Reset at the beginning of each adventure, this ticks up and is tracked whenever a player rolls a six on the Drama die, spends more than four Stunt Points, a player spends Fortune, or the Player Characters overcome an encounter or hazard. When the thresholds are exceeded at ten, twenty, and then thirty points, the Game Master checks for a ‘Churn Over’ which can result in a minor, major, or epic setback or turn of events which in some way impedes the Player Characters. Other than this, the section for the Game Master is dedicated to solid, well written advice on running the game and adjudicating the rules, plus creating adventures, GM styles, and knowing your players—the latter particularly well done. It also includes adversaries, both mundane and outré, potential rewards for the Player Characters, and a discussion of the themes to be found in The Expanse and how to use them in the game. It suggests several campaign or series frameworks, including freelancers, military, political, rebellions, Protomolecule, and other series. It even discusses how to run Parallel series with two or more groups and a series exploring the setting of The Expanse beyond the story depicted in the fiction. All come with plot hooks and there are some concepts for taking beyond the canon too. It even plots out Leviathan Wakes, the first novel, as a plot arc.
Lastly, ‘To Sleep, Perchance To Dream’ is an introductory scenario which a Game Master can run as a one-shot or beginning of a campaign. In the Player Characters are hired by the Mormons on Tycho Station to investigate the disappearance of two scientists. The plot of the scenario is not connected to that of the novels, so it has the feel of there being other things going on other than the threat posed by the Protomolecule. The scenario will bring them into contact with one of the major characters of the setting, but only tangentially, which is a nice touch for fans of the series. Plus as written it should all end with a cinematic climax.
Physically, The Expanse Roleplaying Game is cleanly presented, illustrated throughout in full colour, the artwork nicely depicting the future of The Expanse, as well as its various characters. In places, it is perhaps slightly too busy in terms of its layout, sometimes making it less than an easy read. However, it is well written and an engaging read, especially the background and the advice for the Game Master on running a game and choosing a series framework.
From its inception in 2009 with Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5 to the publication of The Expanse Roleplaying Game in 2019, the AGE System has evolved from an elegant and easy way to handle cinematic fantasy into something which is both complex and comprehensive. It still retains its core elegance, but it is no longer as easy, having more choices and more crunch. This is unavoidable though, given the hard Science Fiction of The Expanse setting, and to be fair, The Expanse Roleplaying Game explains and handles it very well. The core elegance of the AGE System means that the Player Characters can get to do exciting, even cinematic action and interaction, in what is a hard Science Fiction setting, and so have a chance to shine. The Expanse Roleplaying Game is an impressive adaptation of the start of The Expanse setting, one which fans of hard Science Fiction roleplaying will enjoy as much as fans of The Expanse.

Okay. Remember back in 2017 and that weird thing when colouring books were popular once again. Not just for children, but for adults. Walk into any bookshop and you could find a colouring book on any subject or for any intellectual property you care to name, from the Harry Potter Colouring Book, the Vogue Colouring Book, and The Kew Gardens Exotic Plants Colouring Book to the Lonely Planet Ultimate Travelist Colouring Book, the Day of the Dead Colouring Book, and the Escape to Shakespeare’s World: A Colouring Book Adventure. I gave them as presents, but in all honesty, I had and have no interest in colouring books. Except that Chaosium, Inc. published a colouring book, one inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft. It being from Chaosium, Inc. and it being inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft piqued my interest enough to want to review it, but the main reason to do so was to see if I could review an actual colouring book. Well, I could, and the result was a review of Call of Cthulhu – The Coloring Book: 28 Eldritch Scenes of Lovecraftian for you to Color. However, it turns out it was not the only Lovecraft-inspired colouring book.

The latest is Color the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft. Published by Mythos Monsters, it is the second colouring book by artist Jacob Walker, following on from the earlier The Colouring Book Out of Space: A Lovecraft inspired adult coloring book. It collects some twenty-five illustrations, in turn portraying some of the classics of Lovecraft’s works and others. This includes Cthulhu, Dagon, Nyarlathotep, The King in Yellow, and more, as well as places such as R’lyeh, the Dreamlands, the Mountains of Madness and beyond. These are all presented on single sheets which are perforated for easy removal and can be coloured in using pencils, inks, or marker pens, depending upon the colourer’s choice.

After the classic quote from The Call of Cthulhu, begins with a depiction of the most iconic of Lovecraft’s creations, Cthulhu himself. In ‘Resurrection in R’lyeh’, he pulls himself up out of the sea under the waxing crescent of the moon, amidst the tops of the non-Euclidian spires of the city below. It is not the only depiction of Cthulhu, the other, ‘The Call of Cthulhu’, a close-up of the great god. Numerous gods are illustrated, such as ‘Yig, Father of Serpents’ and ‘Ithaqua Hunting’, whilst in ‘The Crawling Chaos’ he appears in Ancient Egypt, perhaps as the Dark Pharoah, perhaps as The Crawling Chaos itself. Of the various species, an Elder Thing perches atop an obelisk, ‘The Mi-Go of Yuggoth’ appears from nowhere, and a horde of unnamed Deep Ones swarming forth as ‘Dagon Lord of the Deep’ looms… There is often a cosmically comic sensibility too, such as in ‘Alhazred’s Book, The Neccronomicon’, where the scholar is being assailed by tentacles that thrust up from the very book he is studying, or another scholar attempts to ‘Dispel the Horror’. In general, Human involvement is limited to the poor unfortunates facing the ‘Shoggoth from the Void’ or a Ghoul poses as ‘Pickman’s Model’.

The style of Jacob Walker’s artwork here is clear and open with clean lines and plenty of space. There is however, a familiarity to many of the poses, the Mythos often to be found atop something and looming forth out of the picture towards the viewer. This is the case whether it is the batrachian inhabitants with ‘The Innsmouth Look’ looking out at the viewer, the ‘Grave Eating Ghoul’ pulling itself from the graveyard, or the ‘Byakhee Sentinel’.

In terms of inspiration, Color the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft draws from Lovecraft’s and others’ fiction to focus upon the gods, the races, the monsters, and more. Barring the aforementioned ‘Pickman’s Model’, there are few if any scenes inspired by or depicted in the fiction. This is very much a monsters of the Mythos colouring book rather than a broader Mythos colouring book. Which is as intended, but it does mean that Color the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft is less useful as a source of inspiration for the Keeper of Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, or as a means to illustrate something in Call of Cthulhu—both advantages held by Chaosium, Inc.’s Call of Cthulhu – The Coloring Book: 28 Eldritch Scenes of Lovecraftian for you to Color. To be fair, Color the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft was not created with either feature drawn in, but any Keeper of Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition expecting them will be disappointed. Of the two, Call of Cthulhu – The Coloring Book: 28 Eldritch Scenes of Lovecraftian for you to Color is definitely the more interesting and has more to say.

Ultimately, that leaves the point of Color the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft—the artwork. Clean and simple, every illustration awaits the one thing we are used to seeing in other depictions of the Mythos, and that is colour. The unfussy style of artwork means that this is easy to apply, whether you are a long-time devotee of the Cthulhu Mythos or a three-year-old being introduced to non-Euclidean artwork in readiness for preschool, whether you want to work subtle changes of colour or bold swathes. Color the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft is then simply okay. The illustrations are decent, and whilst the combination of Cosmic Horror and colouring book is still undeniably weird, it is still just okay.

What marks Tome of Terror: Transylvania—as well as the rest of The StoryMaster’s Tales series—as being different is that it a solo adventure book best played by more than one player and that each and every scene in its story contains a QR code. Scan this and click on the link and the reader will automatically be taken to the narration for the location, which provides a description, some possible actions, and some suitably ominous music. It certainly ups the atmosphere as the stalwart heroes set out to investigate tales of vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and other monsters in the lands of Transylvania and the castle itself. It consists of some fifty locations, comes with four pre-generated Investigators, a means for a player to create his own, maps—some blanks so that the adventures can be played again, a list of potential rewards, and its own neat twist on the dice on the page flipping mechanic. Tome of Terror: Transylvania is inspired by the classics of the genre such as Dracula and Frankenstein, as well as the Hammer Horror films, and so takes place sometime in the nineteenth century.

Published by StoryMaster’s Tales, Tome of Terror: Transylvania is intended to be played by between one and five players—preferably the latter—aged seven and over. Given its subject matter and the text-heavy format, with younger players, more mature players will be required to play alongside them, perhaps with an adult as StoryMaster. Thus, Tome of Terror: Transylvania can be played as a family game.
An Investigator in Tome of Terror: Transylvania has a Name, Occupation—either Author, Explorer, Priest, and Professor, and several attributes. These include Fighting Skill, Supernatural Insight, Fortune, Study Level, Reflex, Health, and LEU. Of these, LEU is a currency which can be spent during the Investigators’ enquires; Reflex is his dexterity; Study Level is his concentration and curiosity; Fortune his luck; Supernatural Sight his capacity to see and face the forces of the unnatural. Alternatively, a player can create his own. If he does so, he sets his Health at ten and Fortune at four, and then divides ten points between Fighting Skill, Supernatural Insight, Study Level, and Reflex. LEU is also randomly determined. He is also free to decide upon his Investigator’s Occupation rather than adhere to those of the given four. These four include a priest drawn to investigate the supernatural, an authoress in search of authentic background for her next novel, a professor in search of an old student—one Victor Frankenstein, and an explorer in search of the strange, the exotic, and adventure.
Mechanically, Tome of Terror: Transylvania uses a four-sided die and a six-sided die. It does not use a simple type of roll, varying depending upon the situation. Sometimes a player will be asked to roll equal to or under a given attribute on a six-sided die. Combat though, requires a player to roll a six-sided die and add his Fighting Skill, the aim to roll higher than the opposing roll made by the StoryMaster. Whomever loses the roll also loses a point of Health and if the latter is reduced to zero, the combatant is dead. Weapons add to a combatant’s Fighting Skill. When fighting against supernatural creatures, a player adds his Investigator’s Fighting Skill and Supernatural Insight to get his attack total. Group attacks, whether by the Investigators co-operating together or the Investigators and their companions, are done with everyone taking it in turns to attack. Lastly, if the Investigators want to flee a fight, then they can do so, but will lose a point of Health in the process. At other times, a four-sided die is rolled to determine a random outcome and Fortune can be gained and lost throughout the story. So simple enough, but not immediately obvious or easy to grasp, although it is clear that the author is trying to make Tome of Terror: Transylvania easy to run.
Alternatively, an eight-sided die and a ten-sided die can be used instead of the four-sided die and the six-sided die if the players want to make Tome of Terror: Transylvania more challenging. If the players lack dice, a player can instead flick through the pages with his thumb and when he stops at a page, the numbers on the dice immediately above where his thumb is on the page, those are his die results. There are seven combinations of four-sided dice and six-sided dice on each and every page, which provides numerous combinations and plenty of random results.

So how does Tome of Terror: Transylvania play? Although it can be played solo, it is really designed to be played by five participants, one of whom takes the role of the StoryMaster. Essentially then, he takes the role of the Game Master. The other players take the role of the Investigators. Then everyone picks a Tale from the four included in the book. These are ‘Horror of the Vampire’, ‘Mark of the Werewolf’, ‘Curse of Frankenstein’, and ‘Spirits of the Dead’. Each of these presents the players and their Investigators with an objective and a reward, and after this is read out, the story proper begins at the Tavern. Each of the fifty entries in Tome of Terror: Transylvania is several pages long, varying in length between two and six pages. Each has its own illustration, introduction in bold (which matches that of its narration) and then four options. For example, “Ask for something to drink”, “See what there is to eat”, “Talk to a local”, and “Search the tavern”. Each of the four entries is then greatly expanded depending upon what the Investigators are attempting to do. The players are free to choose which options they want, though no more than two options chosen per encounter. The combination of this and the multiple tales means that the Tome of Terror: Transylvania can be played more than once.
Of course, Tome of Terror: Transylvania is intended to be dramatic, and the author actually performs many of these tales as the StoryMaster. The StoryMaster in Tome of Terror: Transylvania is encouraged to make the ending of each tale as dramatic as possible, to put on a performance, and to be fair, a certain degree of performance is required, since there is a lot of text to go through and present.
Physically, Tome of Terror: Transylvania starts poorly, but gets better. The initial explanation and set-up, and the explanation of rules, could all be more clearly presented for ease of play. However, once the tale starts, the writing improves as the author is clearly enjoying himself. The artwork and the maps are all good, and like the writing, the layout of the various entries is far better than that of the first part of the book.
Mechanically, Tome of Terror: Transylvania is simple, but as simple as the rules are, they are also messy and could have been more consistent. Put that aside, they are simple enough to use and they are simple to impart to players not used to roleplaying. Where Tome of Terror: Transylvania shines is in the tales themselves and the exploration of Transylvania and the revelation of its horrors. Unlike other solo adventure books, Tome of Terror: Transylvania really deserves a participating audience and a Storymaster who can ham it up!

You all know I am a huge music fan AND I am a huge fan of Netflix's Stranger Things.

So in celebration of Season 4 here are some songs great for fighting monsters.

These would be the songs on my playlist 1986 that is for sure. Where would I have been on a Friday in July in 1986? Playing AD&D of course!

We need to start with the biggest comeback hit ever. Kate Bush's (who was already a D&D meme) Running up That Hill.

Seriously, could not have happened to a better person.

I grew up in the 80s. I played AD&D. I listened to metal. So I relate to Eddie Munson. I KNEW Eddie Munson, or at least people that had aspects of him.  I thought his "and that is why we play." line about D&D was going to be his signature line.  

No.

His "Chrissy. This is for you." got me where I live.  If "Running Up That Hill" was the song for Part 1, then "Master of Puppets" owns Part 2.

To quote Dustin, "Dude. Most. Metal. Ever!"

Another song from the time, Journey's Seperate Ways, got a spooky sounding remix.  

This isn't a song about two people drifting apart as much as it is now a song about our heroes all fighting their own personal battles.

It is really difficult to express how much "classic rock" was part of the 80s, especially in middle America. I mean think about what was popular vs. to what you were listening too.  For me 1986 was a combination of The Police (who had promised us new songs in 86), Dire Straits, Peter Gabriel, to Beastie Boys, Run DMC, as well as Pink Floyd, The Who, and Joe Walsh. So seeing a couple of classic rock songs make the series feels right.

Now we have to wait nearly two years until the next and final season. The ending credits left us with none other than the transcendent Siouxsie Sioux and The Banshees' "Spellbound."

It’s the beginning of July, which means three things in Dallas: it’s painfully hot, it’s painfully sunny, and nobody will be able to shut up about it until mid-September. The next Triffid Ranch runs on July 9 from noon until … Continue reading →

Released just in time for Independence Day on July 4th—thanks Asmodee (UK)—2022 Valentine’s Day Module: Love in the Age of Gongfarmers is an adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, the first released specifically for Valentine’s Day. Well, there is always 2023 if a Judge wants to run it on Valentine’s Day… Published by Goodman Games, it is a short, love and romance-themed adventure designed to be played by between four and six Player Characters of Second Level. Originally conceived and performed as ‘The Lost Heart of Valentinus in the Funnel Love” for Spawn of Cyclops Con 2021 with the winners of the ‘Love in the Age of Gongfarmers’ contest, it is mostly a puzzle adventure which will see the Player Characters encounter candy heart puzzles, feral fluffees, and other obstacles. However, given the love and romance theme of the scenario, it should be no surprise that it does touch upon the issue of consent. Although thematically appropriate, it is only a very minor part of the scenario, and the Judge is advised to consider her players’ comfort levels when portraying this in game. Another issue perhaps is that scenario has the potential to be bawdy in tone and when combined with the albeit minor issue of consent, 2022 Valentine’s Day Module: Love in the Age of Gongfarmers is probably best suited for mature players.
2022 Valentine’s Day Module: Love in the Age of Gongfarmers takes place at the Festival of Markhall, the demi-god of courtly love, inspirational messages, and mischief, the town of Terni. The scenario begins with the rather gruesome milking of some giant beavers or ‘gicastors’ for their musk before that musk is used as part of a big game well, ‘kiss-chase’. Thankfully the Player Characters only participate in the latter rather than the former and there are benefits in doing so—although only minor and only whilst they keep the romantic partners they gained during the fertility festival alive. There is potential here for the Judge to create some entertaining personalities that the Player Characters can encounter during this game, and it is perhaps a pity that the adventure does not include any. The scenario proper kicks off when the festival is interrupted. First when the now musk-less gicastors break free and go on the rampage and then wailing coming from, wait for it… the Funnel of Love.

The Funnel of Love is the main adventure site in 2022 Valentine’s Day Module: Love in the Age of Gongfarmers. Its title parodies two things. First, the amusement park ride consisting of a dark, narrow, covered passageway through which small cars or boats are mechanically conveyed, usually frequented by couples for romantic encounters. Second, the classic Character Funnel, one of the features of both the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game—in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. Now obviously, being for Second Level Player Characters, 2022 Valentine’s Day Module: Love in the Age of Gongfarmers is not a Character Funnel, but taking place in tunnel it is linear.

The source of the wailing is a young woman crouching over the body of a young cleric and would be partner. Devoted to a rival god, the young cleric has offended Markhall and so the vengeful deity has not only ripped out the cleric’s heart, but replaced it with a now blood-soaked mechanical bear who must constantly pump the organ to keep him alive! The clues all point to the Funnel of Love and so the Player Characters need to ride the boat through the tunnel, accompanied by both of the distraught lovers—including the clue-bearing heart-pumping bear. Here the love theme swings into high action. There are encounters with love bugs, a lovelorn bard called Ophelia who really wants to be sung to (and the Judge is encouraged to have the players sing rather than their characters), a giant chocolate bunny, and more. All of these encounters are nicely detailed and include staging advice, which is very necessary because for the most part, the encounters are puzzles to be solved. They can be defeated though force of arms, but the non-combat solutions are both far more inventive and fun than merely swinging a sword at the problem. Along the way, the Player Characters will find clues as to the nature of the adventure’s ‘End of Level’ boss and how to more easily defeat him. This includes various types of Cupid’s Arrows, which along with the cherub’s wee bow form the major treasure in 2022 Valentine’s Day Module: Love in the Age of Gongfarmers.

Physically, 2022 Valentine’s Day Module: Love in the Age of Gongfarmers is as decently done as you would expect for a title for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. It is lightly illustrated in a cheesy style and the map fine. It needs a slight edit in places, but is otherwise easy to read.

2022 Valentine’s Day Module: Love in the Age of Gongfarmers is linear in structure, which should be no surprise that the bulk of it takes place in a ‘Funnel of Love’. It also expects both the Judge and her players to buy into a theme that not everyone will necessarily be comfortable with and together with the comedic elements of story and encounters, it means that not everyone will be comfortable with playing 2022 Valentine’s Day Module: Love in the Age of Gongfarmers and it is not necessarily suitable as an addition to a campaign. However, as a fun, love-themed one-shot 2022 Valentine’s Day Module: Love in the Age of Gongfarmers is great for a single session in between other games or campaigns.

I like Podcasts. I can't keep up with all of them out there, but I do enjoy them and you get a different feel from them than you get from say a blog post.

Here is one of my new favorites.

Wobblies & Wizards

Run by Shane Thayer aka Logar the Barbarian. It is an old-school, new-school, and all-around cool geek-based podcast.

If anything he leans more into old-school and the OSR scene, but that is a matter of these are the game he enjoys. You certainly get the vibe here that all games are welcome AND all gamers are welcome.

I was on (should be up soon) and we spent time talking about The Misfits and Black Flag. He has some great OSE content, Satanic Panic, and talks a lot about world-building.

Really worth checking out. Give him a listen and follow him on social media.

https://anchor.fm/wobbliesandwizards

https://twitter.com/LogarHailCrom

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A ‘Fantasy Heartbreaker’ is a roleplaying game designed to emulate all that is good in another roleplaying game, but fixing all that is bad in said roleplaying game. Originally the term applied to the number of roleplaying games published in the wake of Dungeons & Dragons which all wanted to be better than Dungeons & Dragons. In DIE Vol. 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker takes the fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons and oh so many other fantasy roleplaying games and breaks both it and our hearts—and the hearts of his protagonists. DIE tells the story of six teenagers who back in the nineties played fantasy roleplaying games and when they were sixteen, on the night of one character’s sixteenth birthday they disappeared. When they returned, there were only five of them and one of them was missing her arm, and none of could talk about what happened. Twenty-five years later and they are adults, coping with adult life and still coping with the trauma of what happened to them in the past when they were missing. Then one of their number—the one on whose sixteenth birthday the roleplaying game session they were playing when they disappeared took place—receives a die on his birthday. A bloodied die. Together they know it can help them search for some answers, and perhaps heal some of their trauma. Yet it means going back to the game they were playing twenty-five years before, revisiting their youths, knowing the terrible truth is that it was never a game, it was real.

DIE Vol. 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker is written by Kieron Gillon, best known for Wicked + The Devine, and published by Image Comics. It is inspired by asking the question, “What happened to the children who were lost in the fantasy world of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon when they got home?” Whilst the cartoon never got to answer that question, Gillon does with DIE Vol. 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker, which takes the basis of stories such as the Chronicles of Narnia, that of children visiting a fantasy world, and updates them via the vehicle of roleplaying games to ask what happens if a world created by children through their consensual roleplaying was one where they were ready to suffer the consequences of their immature actions, even though their characters were adults? What if they had to go back to that world not only to face the traumas of their past experiences, but also the traumas their actions inflicted upon that world? And traumatised they are… Ash because he took his sister, Angela, to the game to keep her happy and did not have to. Angela, who as a Cyberpunk—in a fantasy setting!—gained her powers through faerie gold, and who must constantly find more to buy her powers, all but making her addicted to gold, and who returned to our reality without her cyberarm or her actual arm. Isabelle, able to summon and call upon the power of the gods like some kind of reverse demonologist, always with a price to pay. Matthew, already heartbroken over the loss of his mother, uses the tragedy to become a mighty Grief-Knight, but in reliving memories over and over again, is literally grief-stricken, to the point where it takes Ash as the Dictator to force him to use them. And even as they return to the fantasy world of their creation to try and heal the trauma of the past, they have something to lose—the lives they have led, and the relationships created in years since their return from their original visit. Which would exacerbate the ordeals they have already suffered…

DIE Vol. 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker is horror-fantasy rather than fantasy. It approaches the latter genre and roleplaying from a different angle, subverting both as well as pulling the rug out from under that sense of nostalgia that so many of us have for the roleplaying games and the time spent roleplaying in their youth. Just as the story forces the protagonists to revisit their past and the consequences of their actions, it is asking the reader to do that same, to think about back to their youth. Yet this does not wholly work unless the reader really is a roleplayer, since the language and the nostalgia of DIE Vol. 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker is very much that of roleplaying and even though the language and ideas behind roleplaying have become vastly more prevalent in the last decade, they are not necessarily familiar to every reader—and certainly not necessarily as familiar as Kieron Gillon is with them. This comes through in the dice assigned to protagonists and their roles in the world, explored in more detail in the essays reprinted at the end of DIE Vol. 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker, of the subtle shift in gender identity of the protagonist (something that roleplaying has always possessed scope for), and of subverting the tropes of the genre. The essays are fascinating reads, exploring in turn the author’s own history with roleplaying and how that influences the story of DIE Vol. 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker, how roleplaying design and theory influences the story, and lastly, the design of a roleplaying game based around the story. These are fascinating companion pieces to the story itself and once it is released to the forthcoming roleplaying game from Rowan, Rook, and Decard.

Of couse, DIE Vol. 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker is a comic book and Stephanie Hans’ artwork is simply gorgeous, switching from the dark tones of both the past and the now to the bright, sunlight lands of the fantasy and the often-fiery nature of combat. So much of the sense of loss and trauma and the emotion of the characters is conveyed through her artwork, whilst at the same time depicting the magic and the wonder of the world that the players and their characters in DIE Vol. 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker create. In addition, DIE Vol. 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker includes her alternate issue covers and many of the character designs. Without her artwork, the story is underwritten in places and the speed at which it is told does undermine the intended emotional impact.

DIE Vol. 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker is not a comic book that will be readily accessible to anyone not steeped in roleplaying or roleplaying lore. Yet there is a powerful sense of anguish and regret that any reader will grasp in its story, let alone the sense of nostalgia misplaced. Where they intersect with roleplaying and roleplaying culture is where the story comes alive and even were there not a forthcoming roleplaying book, DIE Vol. 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker is a story that will be enjoyed and appreciated by many in the roleplaying hobby.

Drive-by today. I backed the Call of Cthulhu Kickstarter a while back and received my books in the mail a few days ago.

I am rather pleased with what I got to be honest.

The box is thick and sturdy.

There is enough material here for a life-time of play.

It also works nicely with my leather Anniversary edition from a couple years back.  

The dice that came with the boxed set even match my leather edition.

This works out well for me.  My son is all about Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition. He has a ton of material for that. I get all the pre-6th edition material.  Sure they are still largely compatible, but it makes for a nice cut.  Plus this is the edition I like to play Cthulhu by Gaslight with.

I can't believe it is July already.  I don't have an overall theme for this month except to get to some games I have wanted to try out.  Not sure if those will be reviews, play reports, or characters.  Maybe a little bit of all the above.

Other updates.

Posting might be light here for a bit. My oldest sister Terrie passed away due to an aggressive glioblastoma. She had already lived longer than the doctors had given her.  I am ok (ish) but I feel bad for her kids and her husband tom.  I also feel sad for my dad and my oldest brother Pat. My older brother Mike died about 10 years ago. He, Terrie, and Pat were all closer in age and very close. Now there is just Pat.  Not sure when the service will be.

Brannans Christmas 1979.
Sadly everyone in the top row except for my oldest brother Pat (beard, glasses) are now gone.

I have some projects I really must get done.  My creativity has been in a serious lull and I need to figure out how to get those ideas flowing again.

I have a thing coming up for Halloween I am excited about. I have picked out a lot of "good" horror movies for my October Horror Movie marathon.  I will also participate in Dave Chapman's #RPGaDay for 2022.

Let's see where the month takes us.

As quite a few artists have impressed upon me in the past, there’s “finished” and there’s complete. In the past seven years since signing the original lease on the old space, the Triffid Ranch gallery has never been complete, as … Continue reading →

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Cat’s CradlePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Aaron Sinner, Todd Walden, and Christopher Olson

Setting: Jazz Age BostonProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Fifty-four page, 31.62 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Suffer the little children’s wrathPlot Hook: Nightmares linger in the wake of your descent into the Corbitt house. 
Plot Support: Staging advice and two Keeper aids, twenty-four handouts, four new spells or spell variants, three NPCs, and one Mythos creature.Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Sequel to The Haunting# Deep investigative dive into the backstory to The Haunting
# Advice on making the horror personal# Advice for the Keeper to run Cat’s Cradle with other sequels to The Haunting.# Focused investigative sequel# Creepy, creepy children
Cons# Needs an edit# Scenario does involve children# Better aids for the Keeper than handouts for the players?# Photographic anachronisms?
# Good clue links to locations, but not from locations# Better sequel than standalone scenario

Conclusion# Solid sequel to a classic scenario, The Haunting, which both explores the backstory to the scenario and personalises the consequences of the Investigators’ actions in the Corbitt house.# Creepy, creepy children should leave the Investigators with paedophobia