A champion of esoteric Art – Stephen Romano of the Stephen Romano Gallery will be curator in residence at MONSTER BRAINS, five days of exciting material everyday! May 3 - 8 2020!

Exhibit / April 30, 2020

Object Name: The Gods from Outer Space
Maker and Year: Magnet/Methuen, 1978-1982
Object Type: Comic Books
Image Source: Komiksy Online, exhibit author’s copies
Description:  (Richard McKenna)

In the summer of 1980, a 9-year-old child was made privy to startling revelations regarding the origins of the human race. Namely, that in the distant past, a scientific expedition had ventured from its homeworld of Delos to what was then known as the Blue Planet for the purpose of making genetic changes to the genomes of one species of that planet’s inhabitants in order to speed up the development of intelligent life—and that this spurring on of intelligence was a galaxy-wide tradition that had been going on for millennia, as advanced species tinkered with the biology of less-evolved species in an ongoing chain of giving each other a leg up the evolutionary ladder. The child also learned that the figure of Satan was actually a memory distorted by its passage down through the generations of a rogue Delosian named Satham who, along with his helper Azazel, had rebelled against the edicts of the mission, and that the cherubim with flaming sword set to make sure Adam and Eve didn’t try and sneak back into the garden of Eden was actually a Delosian spacecraft known as a “sonde” firing its thrusters.

The medium through which these awesome facts were divulged was not some august tome but four slim volumes of remaindered comic books retailing at the low, low price of 80 pence for the lot, the site of their communication no solemn temple but a cash&carry outside Doncaster, and that 9-year-old child was—surprise!—me.

Its Polish title also containing the accuracy-improving addendum of “According to von Däniken,” The Gods from Outer Space, as it was called in Britain, was an eight-part (though only the four I bought that day were available in the UK, the eighth volume published many years later) comic that took as its point of departure Erich von Däniken’s silly “theories”—read “pervy racist fiction”—about extraterrestrials having influenced humanity’s development in the distant past, the basis of which Carl Sagan identified as being “that our ancestors were dummies.” In 1977, with von Däniken mania still thriving, Alfred Górny of Polish publishing house Sport i Turystyka—Sport and Tourism—made an agreement with Econ Verlag,  the publishers of the German edition of Chariots of the Gods?, to create a series of comics based around von Däniken’s crackpot concepts. Polish journalist and Auschwitz survivor Arnold Mostowicz was brought in as writer, and when Grzegorz Rosiński, the artist originally intended to realize the comic, was snaffled by French comic Tintin, he suggested his fellow pupil at art school and Polish comics veteran Bogusław Polch as the man for the job. Górny, Mostowicz, and Polch spent the next four years detailing the adventures of the expedition to the Blue Planet.

The leader of the expedition and the protagonist of the series is the only Delosian woman we meet, but confusingly—despite the sexism implicit in having literally only one speaking female character (though she is later joined by a clone of herself)—Ais (as she is called in the British version) is pretty much the equal of all the male characters put together: quick-witted, bold, intelligent, beautiful, not above laser-blasting a few bad guys and dedicated to the values of the mission but ready to rebel when necessary against the eugenicist dictates of the “Great Brain,” the emotionlessly logical super-intellect that dictates Delosian decisions.

From the moment they set up their first base in the Andes where they (natch) build the Nazca Lines as a landing strip, Ais’s expedition is plagued by setbacks, from rebellious Delosians and Robocop-ed reptiles to insectoid aliens who plan to strip Earth of its natural resources. The plot spans centuries and goes on to include Atlantis, the Pyramids, the Tower of Babel, Hindu gods, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Flood, the crossing of the Red Sea, the Nephilim, crystal skulls, the Book of Ezekiel, and the chariot of Yahweh, as well as the aforementioned Ur-Beelzebub—the dastardly Satham, and his army of mutants and robots. The story is an enjoyably confusing nonsense minestrone, but the story is entirely secondary to what makes The Gods from Outer Space so compelling: page after page of Polch’s lyrically beautiful artwork. His sure, clean line and mastery of shade and form create a credible and coherent visual world with its own technologies and aesthetics that in its way is as intense and visionary as the images generated by Jack Kirby’s infatuation with ancient astronauts. Polch died at the beginning of 2020, but the work he leaves behind him—which also includes the wonderful Funky Koval—ensure him a place in comic book history.

While still fairly dodgy, what with logic-driven technocrats imposing their “mission” on a bunch of unsuspecting primates, The Gods from Outer Space‘s interventionist ethics are perhaps closer to those of 2001: A Space Odyssey than to von Däniken’s reactionary gobbledegook. Despite its links to his deeply ambiguous schtick, though, The Gods from Outer Space was also a handy primer for young minds re: the idea that humanity’s myths and legends might in reality be nothing more than the misunderstandings and misrememberings of events or inventions long past, and that even the god we sang hymns to in school assembly every morning, even the idea of “good” and “evil” themselves as discrete and mysterious forces instead of the results of circumstance, history, and environment, might all just be a load of bollocks we’d made up over the millennia because it was easier than actually trying to understand things. Is it possible that, in its way, The Gods from Outer Space hinted at some burgeoning awareness that the historical narratives foisted on us by the establishment were perhaps not totally trustworthy? That the missing element was aliens meddling with our DNA might be pushing it a bit, but maybe there was a kernel of healthy skepticism in this particular take on von Däniken’s delirium—though as we’ve witnessed in recent years, skepticism without actual knowledge can easily metastasize into something as unhealthy and dangerous as unquestioning belief.

It might seem a stretch to accept now that there was a time when many adults believed—with varying degrees of conviction—in the cosmic theories of a Swiss hotelier with criminal convictions for fraud, as well as the Bermuda Triangle and Bigfoot. But this paranormalia was absolutely a part of the texture of everyday life. Though given that forty years later we are living in a world increasingly defined by the bellicose beliefs of reactionary fantasists willing to believe in anything that will provide them with the solipsistic buzz of victimhood, it’s not really so hard to credit the hold these strange ideas exerted over the collective imagination. In comparison, maybe The Gods from Outer Space‘s contention that our ancestors got made clever by aliens doesn’t seem so bad.

Once again evil witches gather to celebrate Walpurgis Night and good witches celebrate Beltane.

And once again the Warlocks join the festivities.

The Warlock for Old-School Essentials



Mine is the Power!

Power. Humans have always sought it.
Clerics pray for it. Wizards study for it.

Warlocks take it.

Introducing the Warlock class for your Old-School RPGs.

- Four new warlock pacts: Chaos, Cosmic, Death, and Dragon.
- 78 Warlock spells including Cantrips
- 13 new spells for clerics, druids, illusionists, and magic-users each.
- 55 Warlock Invocations, the ultimate expression of their power!
- Magic items and warlock patrons.

Fully compatible with Old-School Essentials and other Basic-Era Games.
Fully compatible with other witch and warlock books from The Other Side.

Requires Old-School Essential Core Rules.

Cover Art by Conner Meek.  Some interior art by Jeff Dee.

POD version on the way.

This book is 100% compatible with The Craft of the Wise: The Pagan Witch Tradition also for Old-School Essentials. In fact it is written so warlocks can use witch spells (up to 5th level) and witches can use warlock spells.   The two groups of classes are also natural antagonists for each other.

This book is also 95%(*) compatible with The Warlock for Swords & Wizardry. 
Both warlock books feature pacts, invocations, spells, and lodges.  There is some minor overlap (invocations like Arcane Blast, some spells) but otherwise, each book adds to the other.  Expand the warlocks spell list and invocations.

(The Texas Triffid Ranch Occasional Newsletter and Feedlot Clearance Sale is a regular Email newsletter, with archives available on the main TTR site at least a month after first publication. To receive the latest newsletters, please subscribe.) Originally published on April 14, 2020. … Continue reading →

Exhibit / April 28, 2020

Object Name: Brought To Light: Shadowplay—The Secret Team and Flashpoint—the La Penca Bombing
Publisher and Year: Eclipse Books, 1989
Object Type: Graphic novel
Image Source: Archive.org (Shadowplay—The Secret Team and Flashpoint—The La Penca Bombing)
Description (Michael Grasso):

In 1989, at the very end of the Cold War, a group of four prominent mainstream and alternative comic book writers and artists created a double volume graphic novel exposing the rampant injustices, assassinations, and terrorism facilitated by the CIA and its creatures worldwide, ostensibly to fight global communism in the years following World War II. This pair of books, sold under the shared title Brought To Light, came courtesy of one of the only justice movements since the Church Committee to successfully take on the American deep state and confront the CIA’s historical criminal behavior.

Founded in 1979 as an outgrowth of its founders’ work to achieve justice for presumed-murdered nuclear worker and union activist Karen Silkwood, the Christic Institute took as its inspiration the Christian mystic/philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and his concept of a “christic” cosmic energy that he penned a mere month before his death. Danny Sheehan (a lawyer who had been involved in the Pentagon Papers case), Sara Nelson (a former television journalist and labor secretary for the National Organization for Women), and the Reverend William J. Davis (a Jesuit priest who would go on to spend most of the early 1980s in Latin America observing the crimes of reactionary regimes from Pinochet’s in Chile to the Contras in Nicaragua) founded the Christic Institute to provide legal and investigative aid to resist right-wing terrorism and corporate malfeasance across the globe. In the early 1980s, Christic would go on to bring a lawsuit against the Nazi and Ku Klux Klan terrorists in Greensboro, North Carolina who murdered four left-wing protestors in November 1979, including as defendants in the lawsuit federal law enforcement officials and the many Nazi collaborators within local law enforcement who allowed (and even encouraged) the Klan violence to take place.

As the Reagan years unfolded and a resurgent CIA found its footing again interfering on the global stage (especially in Central America), Christic found itself at the center of the case that would paradoxically lead to both its greatest publicity and the Institute’s eventual downfall and dissolution. In 1984, at the height of the Nicaraguan civil war between the revolutionary Sandinista government and the Reagan CIA-backed right-wing Contra rebels, a hastily-arranged press conference was put together to allow a disillusioned Contra official named Edén Pastora to speak to the press. For months, CIA officials had allegedly been tracking Pastora, a former Sandinista who had gone over to the Contras and now found himself at odds with the Contras’ alliances with foreign forces in the form of both the CIA and drug traffickers from South America. A purported “photojournalist” named Per Anker Hansen (believed by some to be CIA-allied Libyan agent Amac Galil) attended the Pastora press conference at a remote guerilla camp at La Penca on the border with Costa Rica, suspiciously guarding a package with “photographic equipment” that was actually full of C-4 explosives. Hansen/Galil left the building and allegedly detonated the package remotely. Three journalists and four guerillas died in the resulting explosion, and 21 were injured.

In the months following the bombing, American journalist Tony Avirgan (who was injured in the La Penca bombing) and his wife Martha Honey engaged in their own investigation, finding the CIA’s fingerprints all over this assassination attempt on Pastora (who survived the bombing with injuries and ended up eventually reconciling with Daniel Ortega’s Sandinistas). In 1986, as the Iran-Contra affair was in full swing, the Christic Institute filed a RICO suit in federal court against Oliver North and several other members of “the secret team” responsible for dirty tricks, weapons smuggling, and targeted assassinations in Central America throughout the 1980s. Christic ended up losing the case, its 501(c)(3) status, and its very existence thanks to “frivolous lawsuit” penalties levied by a Nixon-appointed judge whom Sheehan would find was associated with both Meyer Lansky’s Miami National Bank, a center for CIA-Mafia funding throughout the ’60s and ’70s, and the CIA itself as a “CIA [trained] attorney.”

While the La Penca bombing case was in full swing, the Christic Institute collaborated with indie comics scribe and political activist Joyce Brabner—who had attended one of Sheehan’s lectures and been inspired by his work—on a comic book retelling of the La Penca/Pastora case. Avirgan and Honey dictated the details of their investigation to Brabner, and she and comic artist Thomas Yeates put together an illustrated version of the La Penca bombing. It was published on indie comic imprint Eclipse (home of the Iran-Contra trading card set) and paired with a second comic detailing the CIA’s overall Cold War activities by writer Alan Moore and artist Bill Sienkiewicz. Yeates’s art style evokes war and adventure comics of an earlier era, much along the same lines as his future work on venerable newspaper serials like Prince Valiant, Zorro, and Tarzan, to simultaneously effectively convey and subvert the web of CIA intrigue that converged in that camp on the Costa Rica border.

Moore and Sienkiewicz’s Shadowplay—The Secret Team offers a broader history of the CIA’s interference and a much more hallucinatory visual and narrative experience. The comic centers on an avatar of the CIA and American imperialism in the form of a maniacal, drunken bald eagle who “represent[s] the Company,” the common sobriquet for the CIA, and who explains American intelligence interference abroad in terms of the brutality and murder necessary to protect American (business) interests. “I like to think I’m sellin’ folks a dream,” the eagle says, before accepting the fact that he’s responsible for “swimming pools full of blood” to keep that American dream—the international machinery of commerce—moving. Moore explores early Cold War CIA interference in elections from Italy to Iran to Guatemala before delving deeply into the Mafia- and corporate-aided CIA programs of assassination, illegal invasions, narcotics trafficking, and mass murder from Cuba to Southeast Asia to the Middle East, ending with an explanation on how the heirs to these earlier Cold Warriors were behind the Reagan era’s affairs in Central America and Iran.

Where Brabner and Yeates rely on the specific chilling details of the events leading up to the La Penca bombing op to illustrate the danger of the CIA’s activities, Moore and Sienkiewicz’s work evokes larger, more mythic themes, conveying the danger of the “American way of life” for much of the rest of the world. They subvert all-American symbols like the Statue of Liberty (crowned in rifles and carrying a giant dollar sign in the place of her tablet), baseball (CIA “trading cards” featuring Mafia don Santo Trafficante and Cuban exiles), and Pepsi (implicated in the manufacture and refinement of CIA heroin in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War). Sienkiewicz, by 1989 an established comic artist whose avant-garde, impressionistic style had given new life to Marvel titles like The New Mutants, and who had worked well within the political and mystical intrigues of limited series like Frank Miller’s Elektra: Assassin (1986-1987), here channels not only his own dazzling impressionistic style but the freaked-out hallucinatory caricatures of Hunter S. Thompson illustrator Ralph Steadman. Alan Moore’s own political stances on American imperialism and fascism had, of course, found full expression in his own pair of 1980s opuses, Watchmen (1986-1987) and V For Vendetta (1982-1989).

The two Brought to Light volumes stand as a final testament to both the Christic Institute’s vital work and as a signpost for the end of the Cold War, a time when nearly all the secrets of the CIA’s outrageous Cold War activities had become well-known—not thanks to America’s mainstream newspapers and television media, but because of independent, politically-engaged voices working diligently in underground media to strip the veils away from the rot and endemic corruption at the center of the nation’s politics.

Well. The books are off to the printers and we will start sending out copies to our Kickstarter backers.

But if you missed our big Kickstarter last fall I have some good news. We are now taking preorders of Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars.

The shipping date for the hardcovers from the Printer is June 10, and we will then be sending copies out to the Kickstarter backers. After that, we will fulfill all pre-orders.

Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars

Pre-orders of the Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars rpg are OPEN! Grab a hardcover/PDF bundle and get your PDF right away! https://elflair.com/nightshift.html 


Get your pre-order in here: https://www.elflair.com/nightshift.html

If you want to "try before you buy" there are the Quick Start rules here.

I plan on having a lot of fun with this over the Summer.

Let’s try this again. Both due to confusion with the date of the official State of Texas executive order allowing pickup and delivery for non-essential businesses, and confusion between the executive order and the current Dallas County shelter-in-place order, last … Continue reading →

Been wanting to do this beastie for a while!



The Hodag

In the wilds of Wisconsin there lives, or rather lived, the fiercest to ever run on stubby little legs.  The Hodag.  This monster has a wide face full of razor-sharp fangs. Its head is topped with a pair of horns and spikes running down it's back.  It's four legs are short (and it has no knees) and also end in razor-tipped claws.  It is fierce, vicious, and mean-spirited.

The hodag is seven feet long and about two-and-half feet tall. It is almost supernaturally strong, but are not fast runners.  They have to sleep leaning against a tree since it has no knees and their own spikes would impale them if they were to lie down. Because of this, they can't be surprised. This also might explain why they are so cranky.

Hodags are believed to have died out due to a lack of their primary food source, pure white bulldogs.

Hodag (NightShift)
No. Appearing: 1
AC: 4
Move: 30ft.
Hit Dice: 6
Special: 4 attacks (2 claws, bite, 1 tail spike), can't be surprised
XP VALUE: 150


Hodag (Old-School Essentials)
Armor Class 4 [16]
Hit Dice 6 (27 hp)
Attacks [2 × claw (1d6), 1 × bite (2d6)] or 1 × tail spike (1d6) or 2 x horn gore (1d4+1)
THAC0 14 [+5]
Movement Rate 90' (30')
Saves D10 W11 P12 B13 S14 (6)
Morale 11
Alignment Chaotic
XP for Defeating 500
Number Appearing 1 (1)
Treasure Type None

• Horns. The hodag can rush an opponent to attack.  The horns are sharp and cause piercing damage.
• Nasty Mood. Hodags are always in a foul mood. They can't be charmed nor subdued. They always attack.
• Tooth and nail. The preferred attack of a hodag. Razor-sharp claws and fangs.

Hodag (shadow creature) (Blue Rose)

Abilities (Focuses)
3 Accuracy (Claws)
1 Communication
3 Constitution
2 Dexterity (Stealth)
1 Fighting (Fangs)
-1 Intelligence
2 Perception (Smell)
3 Strength
2 Willpower

Speed 16
Health 40
Defense 14
Armor Rating 0

Weapon Attack Roll Damage
Claws +3 1d6+1
Fangs +2 1d6+2
Horns +1 1d6

Special Qualities
Favored Stunts: Defensive Stance, Lightning Attack

Threat: Moderate


Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars

Pre-sales of the Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars rpg are OPEN! Grab a hardcover/PDF bundle and get your PDF right away! https://elflair.com/nightshift.html 

I had a Monstrous Monday planned for today but in the process of going through my monsters to make sure I hadn't already done it (spoiler: I hadn't, expect to see a Hodag soon!) I began to notice a couple of things.

1. I have been doing Monstrous Mondays for a while now.
2. I have a ton of monsters.

I went back through all my data and found I have done 230 monsters for my witch books.  About 80 for Monstrous Mondays and another 75 or so in just A to Z posts.

Counting for duplicates and overlaps that gives me over 300 monsters.

That's more than the Monster Manual had.

It got me thinking. Would a new monster book be fun to do?



Well, the answer is yes, it would be fun. I have enough monsters for sure.  They all have a general "theme" of witches, demons, undead, and the occult.  So that is something.

The biggest issues are:

1. Art. Art is not cheap and I would like to have as much as possible.  The biggest cost of the book will be this.

2. System. As of now I have written monsters for Basic-era (at least four different clones), S&W, AD&D, Unisystem, AGE, Ubiquity, and D&D5 with a smattering of others.  What system would be best to use?  AD&D/OSRIC gives me more detail, Basic/LL & S&W gives me the most audience. D&D5 gives me a little of both, but the art requirements are much higher.

3. New content. This is a big one for me really.  Despite the fact that there are over 300 monsters, all of them have appeared in one of my books or blog already. While an individual may find something they have not seen before, anyone who has purchased a book from me will see something they have already seen.

Granted, this is the exact same thing as the Fiend Folio with content from the Fiend Factory and most of the Tome of Horrors books are filled with monsters we have all already seen. In fact there is a group of demons I have taken to calling "The Usual Suspects" because they are in every book of demons there is.  I have even gone as far as to look into commissioning some art with them all in a police lineup.

Even Monsters of Mayhem #1, a book I rather enjoy, is made up completely of monsters from all the adventures from Dark wizard Games.

Obviously, I could do this as a book and sell it anyway. The enjoyment would be for me to have my very own book of monsters.  If other people enjoy it, then fantastic!
BUT that assumes that I either have all the art I need and any I need to buy will be cheap. 
I like my witch books to make a profit (so I can buy more books!) and just breaking even is not a good business strategy.

Under any circumstance, I would HAVE to include new, never before seen monsters.

Now just figure out which ones make the cut and where some gaps might be.

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

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: Return to the Monolith

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michael LaBossiere

Setting: Modern era Hungary

Product: Scenario
What You Get: 1.39 MB fourteen-page, full colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A sequel to the classic ‘The People of the Monolith’ from 1982’s Shadows of Yog-Sothoth.  
Plot Hook: Some mysteries are just too dangerous to research for television.
Plot Development: A record of investigating the strange, plenty of research, Hungary-bound, and stone-cold creepy night scenes.
Plot Support: Six NPCs, two handouts, and a minor Mythos race.

Pros
# Simple set-up
# Great set-up around a documentary mystery series
# Sequel to a minor classic scenario
# Suitable for experienced investigators
# Plenty to research
# Variety of NPCs
# Potential modern campaign set-up

Cons# Linear plot
# Too many NPCs?
# Research overly difficult?
# Plot too similar to ‘The People of the Monolith’
# Investigators are known for investigating the Mythos (or the weird)

Conclusion
# Plot too similar to ‘The People of the Monolith’
# Potential modern campaign set-up
# Decent one-shot or introduction to Lovecrafian investigative roleplaying

In ages past, the many tribes of man live, survive, explore, and fight their way across the great continent of Mu. It is a land of savage beasts, of mysterious caves to be delved into and their fabulous gems to be taken, of barren wastes and arid deserts, steamy jungles and wide grasslands, and of jagged mountains and hidden valleys. There are many tribes scattered across the continent—primitive and civilised, nomadic and settled, in villages of wood and stone, in cities of caves and cities of mud brick houses. It is a land of secrets and threats, whether of the ancient Saurians who have long abandoned Mu, but are rumoured to have retreated into hiding; of cultists, priests, and strange peoples who hold dark rites to gods inimical to mankind; and of mysteries hidden away in lost valleys and caves. Armed and equipped with weapons and tools made of wood, stone, bone, hide, and fur, adepts, bestials, fighters, oracles, sorcerers, and specialists work to ensure the future of their tribe. To make sure it is fed and clothed, to protect it from predators and rival tribes, to ensure that the gods are kept appeased, and to ensure that their stories and their legend will be told in the tribe’s oral history.

This is the set-up for Paleomythic: A Stone and Sorcery Roleplaying Game, a new roleplaying game from a new roleplaying game publisher. This publisher is Osprey Publishing, best known for its military history reference works and within the past few years, for its wargame rules like Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City and board games like the new version of Escape from Colditz. At the end of 2019, Osprey Publishing again branched out and published its first two roleplaying games. These are Paleomythic: A Stone and Sorcery Roleplaying Game and Romance of the Perilous Land: A Roleplaying Game of British Folklore. Of the two, Paleomythic: A Stone and Sorcery Roleplaying Game is the more obviously interesting, as it visits a genre that is rarely given treatment by roleplaying—the Stone Age, or Stone Punk. Paleomythic: A Stone and Sorcery Roleplaying Game is one of grim survival and mythical adventures in the land of Ancient Mu, one which transposes the Swords & Sorcery genre—the fantasy subgenre of sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent adventures in a world with elements of magic and the supernatural—to prehistory and the self-coined ‘Stone & Sorcery’ genre. In fact, Paleomythic: A Stone and Sorcery Roleplaying Game could actually take place before a ‘Stone & Sorcery’ world or after and before our world and history, but either way, the Player Characters are modern humans.

As modern humans in Paleomythic, each Player Character is represented by their Name and Age obviously, plus the Traits, Flaws, and Talents. Traits are natural abilities such as Dextrous or Wilful, Flaws are weaknesses such as Clumsy or Sickly, and Talents represent a character’s experience, skills, and specialist training, for example, Barbarian or Cultist. Each Talent provides a speciality or advantage as well as set of equipment. For example, a Storyteller can orate a story or myth for gain—monetary and otherwise, as well as to alter another person’s memory of an event. The Storyteller starts play with a hide hat, cushion, scarf or feathered cloak, and a pouch of gems. To create a character, a player can simply choose all of these elements or he can roll for them. The more Talents a character has, the fewer Traits he has, plus he can select two extra Traits at a cost of one Flaw each. A character’s initial Traits also point towards his background and appearance.

Our sample character is Solumia, a young woman adopted by her current tribe after being found wandering as a child. Her own tribe was lost under circumstances which she either refuses to talk about or cannot recall. Consequently, there are certain fears and rumours whispered about her, which she fostered as a soothsayer, a doomsayer of things to come. She can be thoughtless when it comes to other people and their possessions, but she rarely sees the worst in others. Despite this, she often seems to be lucky and no one has reason to call her a coward.

Name: Solumia
Age: Young
Background: Faced a terrifying challenge that no others would and won; sole survivor of a calamity
Appearance: Upright stance with a wry smile
Traits: Agile, Brave, Careless, Dextrous, Fortunate, Unassuming, Wilful
Talents: Bestial—Savage (bonus die to resist illness and disease, avoid attacks) Oracle—Soothsayer (Dumbfound target, cause dread, sway crowd), Specialist—Crafter (craft item, repair item)
Gear: tunic, belt, shoes, rushlight, two bags, rope, six pieces of fruit, wood spear, hood, dark linen tunic, black feather cloak, bone knife, fur hat, fire making kit, lamp, oil, pack, flaker, hammerstone, needle

Mechanically, Paleomythic uses dice pools of six-sided dice. The base size of this dice pool is equal to the number of Traits possessed by a character. To have a character to succeed at any task, his player rolls these dice and any result of a six counts as a success. If a character has any relevant Traits, then this adds a further six-sided die to the pool. Talents do add dice, but they do indicate which Trait is appropriate, for example, Charismatic for a Bone Chanter to command a cadaver. Since the Traits are by default determined randomly, this can mean that a character can have a Talent and not have its associated Trait. Conversely, a Flaw deducts a die from the pool. Similarly, the use of an appropriate tool adds a further die to the pool, but this should be rolled separately, or ideally, be a die of a different colour. This is because if a one is rolled on this die, the tool breaks. If a tool breaks, it does not mean that the task has been failed—a Player Character can still roll a six and succeed on the other dice.
So for example, following a raid by a rival tribe, Solumia has joined her fellow tribesmen in chasing after the raiders. At one point, this means crossing over a ravine. Fortunately, there is a fallen tree trunk lying across the ravine—which is how the raiders got so close to Solumia’s village without being noticed—but to cross it, the Game Master asks her player for a test. Solumia has five Traits, so her player will roll five dice, but she also has the Agile Trait, so asks the Game Master if that is appropriate to the situation. The Game Master agrees and the player is now rolling six dice. Solumia’s player rolls 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6—indicating that she has successfully run across the log.Combat uses the same mechanics. Damage inflicted negates a character’s Traits, if only temporarily. A character who loses all of his Traits is rendered unconscious, and should he suffer any more damage, he will be killed. A straight attack will inflict just a single wound, but certain weapons and Talents will inflict more. Armour will negate one Would per attack—prehistoric armour is not good enough to protect more than that, and worse, the protecting armour is damaged in the process and will not provide further protection. Weapons work like tools. They break on a roll of one, but on a roll of six, they provide an additional effect. So an obsidian maul has ‘Destroyed’ as a weapon effect, which means that rigid armour is smashed, soft armour is damaged, but can be repaired, and the target of the blow takes an extra wound, whereas a simple bone knife has the weapon effect of ‘Intimidate’, which means a foe is unnerved and loses his next attack if already wounded. There is no effect if the foe is not wounded or has the Wilful Trait.
Continuing the example above, Solumia and her fellow tribesmen have raced after the raiders and caught up with their rearguard left behind to help the raiders get away. The one attacking Solumia has four Traits—Agile, Dexterous, Brave, and Guileful. He is armed with a hand axe, which has the ‘Pain’ weapon effect, and being sneaky, will ambush Soumia. With four Traits, the Game Master will roll four dice, plus one bonus dice for his weapon and another for his Guileful Trait, for a total of six dice. However, Solumia might spot him beforehand. Her player only rolls five dice, because she has no appropriate Traits. The Game Master rules if he succeeds, Solumia spots the attack and can react, but if he fails, she will be unable to. A result of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 means that she does and can attack this turn, but the raider gets to attack first. The Game Master rolls the six dice for the sneaky raider—2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, plus 6 on the bonus die for the weapon—which means one success. Unfortunately, in response to the raid, Solumia did not have time to don any armour. So she takes a blow to the head and loses one Trait which her player decides is her Agility. Now Solumia’s player will be rolling four dice for her Traits. Worse, the weapon effect of ‘Pain’ also takes effect. This stops Solumia using any bonuses due from her Traits on her next action. However, she can act.Solumia turns and stabs at her attacker. Her player will have four dice to roll due to the loss of her Agility Trait. Worse, she cannot gain a bonus die from the Brave Trait because of the painful blow inflicted by the raider, but she still gets the bonus die from the wooden spear, so five dice. The wooden spear also has the weapon effect of ‘Ward’, which will make it more difficult for the raider to attack next turn and so cannot use any appropriate Traits. Solumia’s player rolls 1, 1, 3, and 4, but 6 on the weapon’s bonus die. The raider takes a wound and the Game Master crosses off his Guileful Trait, and the weapon effect means that next turn he is attacking with just three dice, the weapon bonus die, and no Traits! So in effect, Traits lie at the heart of the mechanics to Paleomythic. In terms of roleplaying, they are a character’s virtues and mannerisms, and of course, flaws. Mechanically, they work as advantages and disadvantages, but they also serve as a character’s Hit Points. When lost in combat or through other damage, their loss both reduces the number of dice a player has to roll to undertake an action and denies the player the bonus which the Trait Seoul’s grant. So a double effect, reflecting the brutal, savage nature of life and combat in the prehistoric world of Paleomythic.

Another interesting aspect of Paleomythic is the use of equipment and its fragility. It is possible to purchase equipment at more organised settlements, but by default, the Player Characters are expected to make their own and repair their own. No item possesses any great durability, but unless smashed or lost, they can be repaired. So as much as equipment or a tool provides a bonus, there is an element of a character and his player investing time in them not just because he can use them, but because he has to spend time repairing them too. In addition, the rules in Paleomythic also cover crafting, climbing, foraging, hunting, trading, trapping, and even locks (though not ones with keys for obvious reasons), all activities that the Player Characters are likely to engage in as they help their tribe.

As well as being a world of savagery and survival, Paleomythic is also one of mystery and magic. The magic is first reflected in various Talents, such as Mystic, Ritualist, and Shaman. So the Mystic can recall ancestral memories to gain the single use of particular Traits; Ritualists perform rituals to produce effects such as curses, famines, fertility, and more; and a Shaman can enter the Otherworld to commune with spirits, but can also repel, punish, and banish them. The Otherworld is a bleak and hazy reflection of the real world, but is also a place of mysterious ruins, forgotten temples, and dead forests where secrets can be found. The Shaman can automatically enter the Otherworld and bring others with him, so providing another realm for the player characters to explore. What there is not is a codified form of magic or really spells, and all of these various ‘magical’ abilities feel rougher and require more effort to enact. 

As to the setting of the continent of Ancient Mu, Paleomythic describes it in broad strokes. This is because it is a continent of the unknown in time where the only information is orally transmitted rather than recorded. So there are no maps that the Player Characters would see and so no maps for the Game Master. This does not mean that the world is not detailed as Paleomythic details elements which the Game Master can add to her campaign. So the means to create tribes and settlements, including beliefs, ceremonies, dwellings, leaders, supported by examples. Some of the stranger places across Ancient Mu are also described, such as the City of Dust, a trade city ruled by many chiefs and the Night Tombs, earth and stone mounds which constrain the treasures and relics of a once-powerful tribe, surrounded by marshland and close to the Otherworld. Numerous gods and how and why they are worshipped are also detailed, as are numerous adversaries. These include potential foes, beasts, beast men, the undead, and more. 

Notable amongst their absence from this list is anything akin to dinosaurs, but Paleomythic is very much a roleplaying game where their presence would intrude and detract from the setting. Notable by their presence amongst the various foes is the inclusion of the Serpents of the Forgotten Ruins and the Toad Things of the Black Obelisk, which both hint towards two of the influences upon Paleomythic: A Stone and Sorcery Roleplaying Game, and that is the writings of Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. Obviously, the Swords & Sorcery element is more readily apparent in the setting, but there are hints of—or nods towards—aspects of their stories, whether that is the Serpent Men of Howard’s King Kull stories or Clark Ashton Smith’s toad things and Tsathoggua from his Hyperborean cycle of tales. So as much Paleomythic draws from the Swords & Sorcery genre, there is just a hint of the Lovecraftian to the continent of Ancient Mu.

For the Game Master there is advice on running Paleomythic as well as possible adventure types—conflict, travel and exploration, and specialist types, along with tables of potential hooks. In addition, it looks at ‘Paleodelving’, the equivalent of dungeoneering on the Ancient Continent of Mu. A few final notes discuss how to adjust the game to fit a more realistic game in the Pleistocene Epoch with human species and to add elements of technology and civilisation to adjust it to the Swords & Sorcery genre. Rounding out the roleplaying game is ‘Captives of the Beastmen’, essentially a cave delve in which the Player Characters must rescue their fellow tribesmen who have been kidnapped. It is a decent introductory adventure, more detailed than sophisticated, but reasonable enough. It does though point towards a need for more interesting scenarios than ‘Captives of the Beastmen’, which hopefully Osprey Publishing will supply at some point—as well as a campaign.

Physically, Paleomythic: A Stone and Sorcery Roleplaying Game is a lovely digest sized hardback. Presented in full colour, is well written and very nicely illustrated with painted artwork. A pleasing touch is the use of cave painting-style illustrations which help impart some flavour to the setting. The map for the included scenario is perhaps a little too dark, but that is a minor issue.

There are not many Stone Age or prehistoric-set roleplaying games to choose from, but Paleomythic: A Stone and Sorcery Roleplaying Game is a good choice. The rules are simple and quick, pleasingly managing to support interesting and flavoursome characters and capture the savage nature of the Continent of Ancient Mu, whilst the Game Master is given the means to create an interesting prehistoric world of her own. Paleomythic: A Stone and Sorcery Roleplaying Game is a fantastic first roleplaying game from a publisher new to roleplaying games (if not other games), bringing a whole new genre to a forgotten time in a lovely little book.

Okay, so the limitations on non-essential retail businesses opening in Dallas County just expired, on the proviso that those non-essential businesses only conduct sales via curbside pickup. As it turns out, the Triffid Ranch has a whole slew of plants … Continue reading →

Since 2013, Goodman Games, the publisher of  Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic has released a book especially for Gen Con, the largest tabletop hobby gaming event in the world. That book is the Goodman Games Gen Con Program Book, a look back at the previous year, a preview of the year to come, staff biographies, and a whole lot more, including adventures and lots tidbits and silliness. The first was the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book, but not being able to pick up a copy from Goodman Games when they first attended UK Games Expo  in 2019, the first to be reviewed was the Goodman Games Gen Con 2014 Program Book. Fortunately, a little patience and a copy of the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book has been located and so can be reviewed.

After having reviewed Goodman Games Gen Con 2014 Program Book, it is clear that there have been changes between its publication and that of the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book. It is slimmer at just sixty-four pages, but as subsequent entries in the series have appeared, they have got thicker and thicker with ever increasing page counts. Nevertheless, the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book set the template and is still a book of bits and bobs, the silly and the seriously useful, an eclectic mix of the useful and the ephemeral, all illustrated with some great art. What is radically different between the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book and the Goodman Games Gen Con 2014 Program Book, is that the silliness in the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book begins with the first page! So we have a ‘Gen Con Luck Chart’, a table of prizes and benefits to be rolled for when the attendees might have won—or even lost—when they purchased the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book. This is followed by ‘Bios of the Band’, fun filled biographies of many of the luminaries who were writing and drawing for Goodman Games in 2013—and still are in 2020. They include Doug Kovacs, Brendan Lasalle, Michael Curtis, Brad McDevitt, and of course, Joseph Goodman. These are nice snapshots of the team behind Goodman Games and it is indicative of the strength of the team that they are still working together today.

Art has always been a major feature of titles from Goodman Games—of course, it is with any roleplaying book—but Goodman Games has placed a certain emphasis upon it and its Old School Renaissance style. So it features in ‘We’re with the band’, a look at the band of adventurers whose story has been told through their appearances in successive titles for Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, from the core rulebook and through each of the adventure modules. This is essentially a run of Easter eggs for the observant and adds a nice little level of detail through the series. The we are on to ‘What’s Next for DCC RPG?’, ‘What’s Next for Age of Cthulhu?’, and ‘What’s Next for Systems-neutral Sourcebooks?’, each section highlighting releases then forthcoming in 2013. Most notably, they include two notable boxed sets for Dungeon Crawl Classics, both of them—Dungeon Crawl Classics #83: The Chained Coffin and Dungeon Crawl Classics #84: Peril on the Purple Planet—now highly sought after. This all takes up the first third of the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book. Then we are on to the volume’s adventures.

The first of these is Michael Curtis’ ‘The Undulating Corruption’. The first of two adventures for Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book, designed for player characters of Fifth Level and parties which include a Wizard who has been corrupted by his use of magic, which as the adventure points out, is all too likely by the time he reaches Fifth Level. By various means, this Wizard has learnt of a means to expel the corruption from his body—the Crucible of the Worm. The exact location is up to the Judge, but wherever she places it, what the Player Characters discover is a disaster area, which instead of being free of corruption has been blighted by it, and not only that, whatever is the cause has now left a trail as it heads off across the countryside. So this sets up a chase for the Player Characters to take as they track down a very nasty threat to them, the countryside, and potentially, a nearby city. Designed to be played in a session or so, the scenario pleasingly picks up on a mechanic in Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and builds a good adventure around it. Although it has a specific set-up, this is a good adventure to slip in between longer larger affairs and gets the adventuring content in the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book off to a good start.

If ‘The Undulating Corruption’ was a good start, then the second adventure, ‘The Jeweler that dealt in Stardust’ is even better. Harley Stroh’s scenario is designed to be played by Third Level characters is a heist, a raid by thieves upon the house of Boss Ogo, jeweller and one of the many fences of stolen goods in the city of Punjar. Unfortunately, he has not been seen for a month. Fortunately, this surely means that something must have happened to him—probably dead if no one has seen him for a month—and represents a opportunity to grabbed. That is, to break in and steal everything worth taking—or at least portable—and do it before anyone else does. His premises are famously said to be heavily trapped to trick and kill those foolish enough to attempt to burglarise him. The fully mapped building is full of traps and puzzles and clues as to Boss Ogo’s recent activities… The question is, just what has happened to Boss Ogo, but importantly, where is his loot?

This is a great scenario with plenty of detail and flavour. It is a really good scenario for Thief or Rogue type characters, and despite being set in the city of Punjar, would also really work with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set, a setting in which every Player Character is a thief—whatever their character Class.

The third and last scenario is actually a preview for the then forthcoming Maximum Xcrawl. This is one of the most original settings for Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying. It is set on an alternate Earth which was a Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy world and in modern times is dominated by a Roman republic in North America. Like any Roman empire, it has gladiatorial games, but in modern times they take the form of dungeoneering as of old. Essentially, this combines the pizzazz and showmanship of World Wrestling Entertainment with classic dungeoneering and turns it into sports entertainment, complete with arena events. Written for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, ‘What’s next for Xcrawl?’ introduces the setting and the setting’s take upon Dungeons & Dragons-style gaming.

The introduction includes backgrounds for three of the Xcrawl Races—Dwarves, Elves, and Gnomes—as well as a list of Xcrawl Classes to enable players to create their own characters for the setting. To be fair, to get the most out of the accompanying scenario, ‘Maximum Xcrawl: 2013 Sudio City Crawl’, the Referee and her players will need a copy of Maximum Xcrawl. The scenario is designed for characters of Sixth to Eighth Level and showcases the type of dungeon to be found in the setting. It combines game show elements with combat and showmanship—characters can gain rewards for grandstanding—and very room and encounter is a test in itself. This leads to an intricate design for every room, whilst the modern sensibility enables plots to run inside and outside of the dungeon arena and ‘Rules Lawyers’ to take on a wholly different meaning.

Rounding out the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book is a selection of photographs taken on the ‘World Tour’ that the Dungeon Crawl Classics Judges team takes each year around various conventions. These are all North American conventions in the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book, but in the seven years since this book, the tour has expanded beyond those borders.

Physically, the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book is very nicely put together. It is tidily presented, the artwork is good, and the editing decent. However, there is a problem with the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book and it is that even in 2013, its gaming content was not new. So both ‘The Undulating Corruption’ and ‘The Jeweler that dealt in Stardust’ appeared in the Free RPG Day release from Goodman Games in 2012 and then ‘Maximum Xcrawl: 2013 Studio City Crawl’ appeared in the Free RPG Day release for 2013. What this means is that if the Judge or Game Master has either of these, then the truth of the matter is that the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book is not going be of greatest use to her. The rest of the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book is fun, but not useful, so if the Judge already has these adventures, then the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book is really just a collector’s piece.

Now the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book did set the template for the Goodman Games Gen Con Program Books to come—Goodman Games having published one each year since. Of course, the format would evolve from book to book, as evidenced by the Goodman Games Gen Con 2014 Program Book, but many of the same elements would be retained from issue to issue. And if the Judge does not have any of the three scenarios in the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book, then it is definitely worth her time. Whether she is running a standard Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, a Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar campaign, or an Xcrawl campaign. The Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book is a fun silly book, but its gaming content is still as good as it was in 2013.

A solid month after the COVID-19 lockdown started, and everyone understands my hometown’s unofficial motto: “So…aside from THAT, Mrs. Kennedy, what do you think of Dallas?” For those having issues with shelter-in-place orders, I sincerely sympathize and empathize with your … Continue reading →

Things continue to get interesting: this Saturday at 2:00 pm Central Time, catch the latest Texas Frightmare HQ stream featuring a Triffid Ranch interview and tour, and expect a new newsletter by the time the weekend ends. Depending upon announcements … Continue reading →

A lot going on at my day job.  This social distancing has us busy as hell revise a number of our courses. Well, nothing like job-security I guess.

Going through my various Trek RPGs and collecting various ideas that may, or may not fit in with my BlackStar campaign.

Star Trek: Mercy
This idea came about by watching the hospital ships come into New York, and Beverly Crusher-Picars's ship the USS Pasteur in "All Good Things."  I was going through my new FASA Star Trek boxed set and was thinking about my first Trek character, Dr. Scott Elders, the CMO of the USS Andromeda.

I thought a good Post-Enterprise (2151), Pre-TOS (2265) era game might focus on the USS Mercy, a Federation Hospital Ship.  It has the authorization to go into other parts of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants to provide medical assistance.  I was also thinking it could doctors of dozens of different species.  If I set it between 2151 and 2265 it gives me an excuse to use a character that has been mentioned in my games, but never actually seen, Fleet Admiral Lucille Ball, Commander of Starfleet Operations.

How Lucille Ball Helped Star Trek Become a Cultural IconIn any case, she is part of my Trek-universe history. So just as Admiral Nyota Uhura is a central figure to my BlackStar game, Admiral Ball is to Star Trek: Mercy.

I am partial to a Daedalus or Olympic-class style ship, with the extra space in the "saucer" section dedicated to hospital beds and medical care facilities.  Maybe I would have something a little more advanced than the Daedalus-class (2196), but not quite the Olympic-class (2395).


It is tempting to split the difference and set it in 2295.  That would put it firmly into the Enterprise-B time.  Again, appealing for just for the newness of it.  Among other things, it gives me a Captain Nyota Uhura, a Cmdr. Chekov is part of Starfleet Intelligence and an Admiral McCoy.
I might also get a Captain Demora Sulu.

This is also a good time because this is the time period I set my original Ghost Ship adventure.
Maybe I could do a Mercy one-shot to set up Ghost Ship later on!

Star Trek: Federation News Network
This came from a couple of different places.  First, going back to the Star Trek Generations and the new Picard series, both featured news reporters in the Trek universe.  I really liked that idea and thought it might be fun to have some other points of view than just Starfleet officers.
Secondly, I am working as a mentor for a high school senior.  She is writing her own Trek story and the central character is a reporter.

That is all I have at the moment, but it could be something I could add to any game.

In some distant star system, great armada mass, dreadnoughts manoeuvring to bring their massive batteries to bear on their enemies, starcruisers unleashing barrage after barrage of missiles, destroyers darting in to fire torpedoes, and carriers launching wave after wave of single seat starfighters to swarm over their targets to attack pinpoint weaknesses. Energy beams scour away ablative armour, explosive missiles shatter ships’ hulls as nuclear-powered missiles explode and pump their energy as laser blasts which pierce ships’ hulls, freeing oxygen and ships’ crews to the vacuum of space, setting fires to race between the bulkheads, and compartment after compartment is lost… When the battle ends, it does not matter who won, for massive hulks remain, whole or broken by the battle, some still burning or fizzing with freed energy, others venting life preserving, whilst still contain sealed compartments holding the last of their crews, desperate to escape or hoping for rescue. Clouds of energy and radiation swirl amongst the fields and trails of debris left behind by damaged or destroyed ships. The combatants may have gone bar perhaps a picket ship or rescue boat perhaps, but into this scene of devastation come other ships and crews, each bent on other missions. Perhaps they have come to salvage the wreckage, to rescue the survivors, or to get aboard the ruined ships to go in search of data, secrets, or something else… 

This is the set-up for The Graveyard at Lus: A Dynamic Space HexCrawl for OSR Sci-Fi Games published by InfiniBadger Press. Designed for use with White Star: White Box Science Fiction Roleplaying, its contents would not only work with other Old School Renaissance Science Fiction roleplaying games, but with other Science Fiction roleplaying games in which large scale space battles take place. Mostly obviously, Traveller, but also Starfinder, Golgotha: A Science Fiction Game of Exploration and Discovery at the Edge of Known Space, and These Stars Are Ours!.

What The Graveyard at Lus does is take a staple of Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy roleplaying games and apply it to another genre—that is, Science Fiction. Specifically, it takes the Hexcrawl and turns it into a Spacecrawl, but instead of exploring a a region of space marked with star systems and planets and asteroid belts, and so on, or the ruins of a previously unknown planet, it has the Player Characters exploring a much smaller area and really, during a particular period of time. That is, in the aftermath of a great space battle. It is a toolkit, but one in which the designer takes the Game Master step-by-step through the process of creating her own space graveyard.

By default, starship graveyards created using The Graveyard at Lus are twenty-by-twenty hex grids. From this starting point the Game Master can roll for or choose the height and width of the battle area, the factions involved in the battle—those suggested can come from White Star: White Box Science Fiction Roleplaying or from the new ones included in The Graveyard at Lus, debris fields and their density and degree of radioactivity, what starships can be found in the graveyard and how damaged are they, and lastly populate unique space hexes—for example with a starbase or a rip in the fabric of space. Further tables enable the Game Master to generate events which could occur whilst the Player Characters are exploring the graveyard.

Once defined, in order to help the Player Characters explore the graveyard, The Graveyard at Lus provides the Game Master with expanded rules for exploration and combat by spaceship. Building on the rules in White Star: White Box Science Fiction Roleplaying, these cover movement—both realistic and cinematic, dangers such as debris, collisions, and radiation, scanners, weapon ranges and targeting, rounding out with notes on explosions, surviving in space, and singularities. Already included in earlier tables, the new alien species in the supplement include the giant jellyfish-like space-going Dremwan who can harden their skins and eject bolts of venomous plasma; the Koldar are a parasitical scorpion-like race which strip planets of their resources; Neemen are a genetically engineered human species whose egos drive them to become the dominant version of humanity; and the TakTakTak, a four-armed race of telepaths divided into three castes, each with different psionic abilities. Stats are given both races and their starships—or just the race in the case of the Dremwan—but they do feel slightly underwritten in terms of  their motivations. The Dremwan seem written to be mysterious, the Koldar strip planets, and the Neeman want supremacy, but the TakTakTak? No idea as nothing is really said.

As well as updating some of the races from White Star: White Box Science Fiction Roleplaying to include the ships they use, The Graveyard at Lus includes several new creatures. Feroozes are magnetic oozes which squeeze through hulls and exude acid break down other species for their iron content; Graveworms feast on dead starships; Space Sharks feed on the energy given off by starships and sometimes their engines too; Space Syrens are energy beings which psionically lure ships’ crews to dangerous stellar objects and feed on their dying life energy; and the Unquiet are space zombies. There is not great invention on show here with these creatures, their parentage being fairly obvious as they are adaptations of classic Dungeons & Dragons monsters. To be fair though, White Star: White Box Science Fiction Roleplaying is a pulpy kind of Science Fiction roleplaying game and monsters like Space Syrens and the Unquiet do not feel out of keeping with the genre.

Rounding out The Graveyard at Lus is a selection of new technology, such as FTL Jammers and Teleporters, before it provides a fully worked example with ‘The Graveyard at Lus’. It nicely takes the Game Master through the process step-by-step before presenting it as an example for her to run. Lastly, the supplement provides half a dozen forms ready for the Game Master’s use when she comes to create her own space graveyard.

Physically, The Graveyard at Lus is neatly and tidily presented, though an edit is needed here and there. There are no illustrations as such, but silhouettes are used for ships throughout and together with several hex maps serve to break up the text. The various forms are very nicely done and the tables clear and easy to read.

The idea of a space graveyard is full of possibilities and adventure, and if the Game Master’s Science Fiction campaign can support them, then The Graveyard at Lus is a worthy addition to her toolkit. Indeed, it would also be possible to adapt the concept to the fantasy genre, whether that is on the high seas of the Game Master’s fantasy campaign or in a space-going fantasy a la TSR, Inc.’s Spelljammer. And yet, what The Graveyard at Lus leaves the Game Master to decide is the motivations of the Player Characters—just why have they come to this graveyard in space? And since this is a ‘SpaceCrawl’, what spurs them on to go from one location to another, rather than simply head for the dead or dying ship they want? And once the Player Characters have got there, what do they find aboard the space derelicts? Just a table of hooks and ideas would have been enough to answer these questions and possibly serve as spurs for the Game Master’s imagination. As written, The Graveyard at Lus does feel as if it tells the middle of the story, but leaves the beginning and the end for the Game Master to develop herself.

The Graveyard at Lus: A Dynamic Space HexCrawl for OSR Sci-Fi Games takes a fantastic idea and does a good job of developing it into a solid little toolkit for creating an interesting, and of course, dangerous environment. However, it needs the input of the Game Master more than it should to fully round it out and perhaps a new addition might address the purpose and the destination in a way that it currently does not.

Let’s talk about ferns for a bit. Anyone working with terraria or miniature gardens eventually has to deal with ferns, both accidental and deliberate. In cases where they’re deliberately introduced, it’s because their foliage or other habits. Maidenhair ferns (Adiantum … Continue reading →

This image has been floating around the net for about a year.  Figure I should do something fun with it.  So here it is for Old-School Essentials.



Witch Whistle (Witch Flute)
Summons an army of rats when blown.

• Summons 10-100 (10d10) normal rats when blown (usable 2x per day)
• Or summons 5-30 (5d6) giant rats when a short tune is played (1 per day)
• Or summons 1-4 (1d4) wererats when a longer song is played (1 per day)

These whistles are created by Pagan Witches and Death Pact Warlocks. Crafted from the bone of a wererat and petrified paw of a rat.  They keep the songs well hidden but allow the magic to be used to summon normal rats.  If the songs are learned the player can use one of any of the powers once per day.
Under any circumstance, the player does not control the rats that are summoned.
They arrive within one round.