Time delve into the box under my desk and pull out an old, musty Dragon Magazine. Today we go all the way back to January 1982. Chevy Chase's "Modern Problems" is in the movie theatres, which is notable for the real acting debut of Broadway actor/singer Nell Carter. Olivia Newton-John is still dominating the airwaves with "Physical," and on the shelves in Waldenbooks and FLGS across the land is This Old Dragon #57.

Our cover comes from Dean Morrissey. I don't know much about it really. My copy doesn't even have it. 

Jake Jaquet's editorial mentions the first time he heard "Dungeons & Dragons" mentioned on TV; during an episode of "Simon & Simon," no less. 

Kim Mohan's Cover to Cover overview covers what we will see in this issue. 

Out on a Limb covers letters about previous issues' content. Typically, things the readers didn't like.

Classic Dragon MVP Ed Greenwood is up first with Modern Monsters. He gives us some AD&D (though I think it could all work for D&D too; this was the time when a distinction had to be made) stats for various modern objects like cars and modern weapons. Also, how *D&D characters can deal with with them with and without the magic they are used to.  This is a rather great article and one that should be referenced for "City Beyond the Gate" when it appears in Dragon #100. 

Nice ad for FGU's Space Opera. Well...the ad itself in nothing special, but the listing of game stores that carry it is. I find it interesting that my home state (Illinois) had more game stores than the others. This could have been because FGU was located in Chicago. Also, there was a game store in the town I now live in that is no longer there. It's now a Pizza place. 

Len Lakofka's Leomund's Tiny Hut is up with detailed information on shield and weapons skills in AD&D and what you can expect any particular group of humanoids to have. Very detailed, and while I appreciate this, I am (and was) of the mind to say "given them all swords and call it 1d6 of damage each."  Not as realistic I am sure, but certainly will get the job done. Len took this stuff a lot more seriously than I do. 

Not to be outshined, Gary is up with one his From the Sorcerer's Scroll with "Developments from Stonefist to South Province" for his World of Greyhawk setting. One day I need to do a retrospective all of his writings. I feel that something like this would have been done already.  In any case, it is a fun little look into the "current events" of Greyhawk. Something I think I appreciate more now than I did then. 

Moving from AD&D to Top Secret we have In Search of A James Bond by Mark Mulkins.  Or how the famous 007 would fit into the Top Secret game. Something I am sure EVERYONE playing Top Secret tried at one point or another.  A lot of this is particular to the game mechanics of Top Secret including how move Bond between agencies. 

Merle M. Rasmussen, as expected, follows up with his Spy's Advice column for Top Secret.  Top Secret always looked like a fun game but one I never got into. I am a little surprised we have not seen an OSR version of this game yet.

Pete Mohney has a quick on with Random Magic Items. A set of tables meant to aid the DM and supplement the DMG.

For DragonQuest fans, there is The Versatile Magician by Jon Mattson. This covers new skills for the Magician. It looks good and I'll add it to my big DragonQuest set of notes for if or when I ever get to play it again. 

Up next is one of my favorite series from the Classic Dragon days, Giants in the Earth. I know a lot of ink was spilled to tell us how D&D/AD&D was not a novel and visa-versa, but I did love seeing these literary characters get represented as D&D characters. In this issue we have C. J. Cherryh's Morgaine and Vanye from her "Morgaine Series" including the rather notorious (for its cover) "Fires of Azeroth." These books were a staple of the old Science Fiction and Fantasy book club. They were on my TBR pile forever. I really should give them a go. I have enjoyed C. J. Cherryh's other works. We also get Lynn Abbey’s Rifkin from "Daughter of the Bright Moon." This was also years before she would come to work at TSR.  And finally two from Robert E. Howard; Belit and Dark Agnes. 

Ok. The entire middle section of my Dragon is gone. Typical really, since it was an adventure, "The Wandering Trees."  I checked my Dragon CD-ROM and sure enough, that is what it is. BUT by the rules I have established for myself here I really can't go over it. I will say this though, it was the second-place winner, IDDC II (International Dungeon Design Contest II) the OSR Grimoire has more on that. It also looks like a fun adventure. I am kind of sad I don't have it.

Up on a Soapbox is next. We get a rare Brian Blume editorial about playing evil characters. He concludes that no serious gamer will ever want to. Meanwhile, a good amount of the 5.2 Million Baldur's Gate 3 players (according to Steam) are going to at least try the "Dark Urge" option at least once. BUT in principle, I do agree. All things being equal I would rather play a Good character than and Evil one.  Roger E. Moore is next with "Dungeons Aren't Supposed To Be 'For Men Only,'" an interesting bit of a slice in time. I am not 100% certain what the motive here is. Why? Well, it could be two equally valid things. Moore, or others, looked out at the vast demographic of D&D players and found the lack of women concerning. OR. They could have been responding to criticism. While I am NOT going to get into the personal views of the various creators of the game from nearly 40 to 50 years ago, I am going to take Moore at face value and say he is here (on his soapbox as it were) saying, yes women do, should, and can play D&D.  Thankfully, this is also not an issue these days and the years since this time have made great strides for more and more inclusion. 

You know the saying, "Getting off on the wrong foot?" I feel like that is where I am with the Minaria series. This month is The Chronology of Minaria by Glenn Rahman. I mean I know it is for Divine Right, but I never got into that game so I have no context for any of this. Here is what I get from it now. The 80s were a fun time. To think that TSR would spend valuable page resources (four full pages) on this is either amazing or amazingly short-sighted. I can't tell which, but I can say it was a very, very different time and a different mindset. If I posted my HUGE timeline of my Mystoerth world I would not expect anyone to be that interested. Maybe some, but enough?  This was the last of the Minaria articles too. Since it would be two more years before I would buy a copy of Dragon at this point I am not surprised this series never contacted with me. 

D&D's War Game roots are showing here in this next article from Michael Kluever on The History of the Shield. It's a neat article that goes into some historical detail about the focused development of the shield. It covers 9 pages (with some half-page ads here and there). It is interesting but more than I need for a typical D&D game. Granted, that is me. I would get excited about a 9-page on the history of scrolls or something magical. So every time I get a "Politics of Hell" there is one of these. It is a good article, but no where near my personal interests. 

Reviews are up next. Tony Watson covers Star Viking a game I only sort of remember.  It is a sci-fi mini-game for two players, a Viking and a Federate. Where the Viking player tries to raid bases and other ships and the Federate tries to stop them. Watson enjoyed the game and played around with variant ideas. I could see this game being reskinned as Star Trek, Orions vs the Federation style game easily. Might be fun.  In what could be called an understated review, the brand-new superhero RPG Champions gets less than a half page (compared to the two given to Star Viking).  Though Scott Bennie does say that the game does a very good job of emulating it's genre and he gives it a "hearty recommendation" despite it's flaws. Also the game was only 56 pages back then. 

Simulation Corner by John Prados covers The Art of Illustration in games. I am not sure if I am missing something here but his thesis is "good art sells games and makes games better." Yes. But I think back to some of the art that was common prior to 1982 and maybe this was something that needed to be said. 

The Electric Eye from Mark Herro goes over the recent survey about computer use among Dragon readers. Here are some interesting insights. 

Age
Under 19: 63%
19-22: 9%
22-44: 25%
45+: 0%

Education Level
Students: 71%
Professional: 29%

This tracks and was expected for the time. 

Access to Computers

None: 6%
Apple-l I: 17%
Apple-l I+: 29%
Apple-l I I: 0%
PET: 0%
CBM: 9%
VIC: 3%
TRS-80 (Mod. 1): 20%
TRS-80 (Mod. 2): 3%
TRS-80 (Mod. 3): 9%
TRS-80 (Color): 6%
TRS-80 (pocket): 0%
North Star: 3%
Atari (800): 11%
Atari (400): 9%
APF: 0%
OSI: 0%
ZX80: 0%
Exidy: 0%
Heath/Zenith: 0%
S-100: 6%
Other: 20%

Again, this feels right to me given the demographics above. Apple dominated the education market followed by TSR-80s.  Atari was a popular home model and was in competition with the Vic-20/CBM and the TRS-80 Color Computer. This also makes me wish I had tried out the Atari 800/400 line more.

Only one reader had access too more than two different kinds of computers.

Most readers want more programs in the pages of Dragon, and all want articles on gaming-related topics. Readers were more or less equally divided on whether they buy, copy, or write their own programs. 

The Convention Schedule tells what is hot in the Winter of 1982. February 5-7 were the dates for Gen Con South. Something I think Gen Con could do again. 

Dragon Mirth has our comics. And we end with Wormy and What's New with Phil and Dixie! 

So a very interesting snapshot in time of what was happening in the world of Dragon magazine. Not a lot of insight into the world of RPGs, unless you count the Electric Eye article.

I am curious to know what people's thoughts were on the included adventure.

 Moving to the next room, the party finds the tomb of a dwarven duchess. 

The name on the lid has been worn away with age. The dwarven runes, though, at least the occupant is a duchess in her final rest.

Underneath the sarcophagus, there is Treasure Type L.

 The first of the smaller tombs appears to be for some sort of duke or lord (the lettering is wearing off) who was an uncle to one of the kings.

This (and all the ones here) tomb is smaller than those on the main tomb entrances. It also appears to be less disturbed than the others.

It's occupant still rests, undisturbed. It's treasure is gone, but a close inspection (roll of 1 on a d6; 1-2 for elves and dwarves) will find a secret door under the sarcophagus.

Inside there is a an Axe +2. In the hands of a dwarf it is an Axe +3 and a Dwarven Throwing Axe. It can be thrown for ranges 20/40/80 and return to the dwarf that threw it.

I have been kinda quiet lately because I have a few projects I am working on. One will be ready for next month.

In addition to all the other stuff I do, I will have my Horror Movie Challenge as normal, this year hosted by the Halls of the Nephilim.  I am also hosting the RPG Blog Carnival. 

My theme for this year is Horrors, Gods, and Monsters.  

I am going to post my usual batch of horror related topics, but I am also going to present my take on the Deities & Demigods II concept I have been working on.

While I have been doing a bit of work, I think the one I am ready to share is my Roman-Norse Pantheon.  

I have gods, and yes, monsters to share for this project, and hoping that October will be my month to bring it all to light.

If you want to participate in the RPG Blog Carnival on this topic, just post what you want (that concerns this topic) and share your link below. Or share it on social media with the #RPGBlogCarnival hashtag, and feel free to tag me.  I'll do a round-up of all the posts in November.

To bring all my topics together, I am looking to do monsters on Mondays. Currently thinking about new versions of the Alp, Earth Troll, and Trow. Need two more. I am also looking for good horror movies that could have taken place in the Black Forest during 7th Century Europe, or conform to those basic themes. I can think of a few that fit right now, but they are ones I have already seen.

In any case I hope to have some great material for you next month!

 This last opening leads down to a chamber with four other exits to other smaller chambers.

There is nothing in this main chamber. The smaller chambers appear to be the tombs of lesser members of the dwarven royal family.  The rooms are detailed this week.

 It is the first Monday of Autumn. I spent my weekend buying Halloween decorations and playing Baldur's Gate 3. My monster today was almost the physical manifestation of Error Code 516, but this might be better.  I wanted a shadowy, liminal undead figure.

Dúlachán

Armor Class: 3 [16]
Hit Dice: 7+7** (39 hp)    
Move: 240' (80')
   Fly: 240' (80')
Attacks: 1 chill touch (1d8+1d6 chill, Constitution Drain) or 1 trample (1d6 x2)
Special: Constitution drain, undead, Magic +1 or better weapons to hit.
To Hit AC 0: 12 [+7]
No. Appearing: 1
Save As: Fighter 7
Morale: 12
Treasure Type: Nil
Alignment: Chaotic (Chaotic Evil)
XP: 1,250 (OSE), 1,300 (LL), 9/1,110 (S&W), 800 (BF)
Turn As: Spectre

Dullahan, the headless horseman. From Thomas Crofton Croker, Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland (3rd ed., 1834)

The Dúlachán can appear as a ghostly Headless Horseman or as a headless man or woman driving a funeral carriage.  The rider/driver is headless and will carry their own severed head under their arm or in a bag tied to their saddle or belt.  The horses are always of the darkest black, though their eyes burn with baelfire. In both cases, the rider/driver and horse(s) are all part of the same creature and can't be separated. The Dúlachán seeks out the death of one person but will also attack and kill anyone in their way. Behind them follows an army of wailing ghosts. 

These creatures are only found riding in "liminal" or in between times. So sunset or sunrise, the equinoxes and solstices, or on Samhain, the new year. They are most commonly encountered at sunset on the Autumnal Equinox and Samhain (Halloween).

They attack with either a trample (used against victims who are not their direct targets) or a chill touch that does 1d8 hp of damage on hit and an additional 1d6 due to their bone-numbing cold. Their touch drains 1 point of constitution per hit. This is treated the same as other undead draining. Anyone drained to 0 Con dies. If they are the called-out victim, they are whisked away. If they are someone that gets in the dúlachán's way, then they join the army of ghosts that follow along behind it, doomed to wail for eternity.

Their tactic is to ride up just as the sun is setting, call out a victim's name, and then ride the others down to claim their chosen. They will only name one victim per group. There is never more than one dúlachán at a time. 

Dúlachán can be turned as Spectres, but they will return the next night at sundown to make their claim again. They are incorporeal and can only be hit with magic weapons. If they are "killed" they will return on the next change of season. The only way to truly be rid of one is to Turn it or kill it and cast a Remove Curse on the character called out.

If the called-out victim gets into the coach version of the dúlachán, it is instantly killed, but the dúlachán will not attack anyone else and ride off into the nighttime sky.

Game Master's Note: These creatures should never be used as random monster encounters.

--

Happy Fall!

 Continuing on to the next room, this is the tomb of another dwarven prince. There is a sarcophagus and an interned body but no treasure save for a single bottle.

Inside the bottle is a Djinn. 

The djinn will offer the party 3 wishes total if they don't attack it.

The djinn knows nothing about the Vampire Queen. This is because before imprisoning the djinn she wished for him to forget everything about her.

The party could choose to attack. The Djinn will turn invisible and hide. He will come back around to see if he can get the party to consent to the wishes since this is the only way he can get back to the Plane of Air.

The djinn returning to the Plane of Air will also return his memories. At this point, the djinn will return to the party and offer them any weapons they need to help them defeat the Vampire Queen. The djinn is barred from directly dealing with the Queen herself.

 Moving on from the King's Chamber (where the dragon was), we get to the Queen's Chamber. 

This tomb has been desecrated and robbed of all treasures. The Vampire Queen is jealous of any other queen other than herself.

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

—oOo—
The first thing you notice about Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 is the dice. Of course, you are meant to. A set of black polyhedral dice with red lettering in a silver tin on a red cardboard background. It stands out. After all, what gamer does not like a set of dice? And they are nice dice. They sit on the front of the first issue of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer, a partwork from Hachette Partworks Ltd. A partwork is an ongoing series of magazine-like issues that together form a completed set of a collection or a reference work. In the case of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer, it is designed to introduce the reader to the world and the play of Dungeons & Dragons, specifically, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. With the tag line, ‘Learn – Play – Explore’, over the course of multiple issues the reader will learn about Dungeons & Dragons, how it is played and what options it offers, the worlds it opens up to explore, and support this with content that can be brought to the table and played. Over the course of eighty issues, it will create a complete reference work for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, provide scenarios and adventures that can be played, and support it with dice, miniatures, and more.
Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 does not come with the dice. There the first issue of the magazine, there is the ‘Introduction to Combat’, there are four ready-to-play character sheets, and there is advertising. The main item is Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1. Future issues of the partwork will include secretions dedicated to the seven gameplay elements—‘Sage Advice’, ‘Character Creation’, ‘The Dungeon Master’, ‘Spellcasting’, ‘Combat’, ‘Encounters’, and ‘Lore’—of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, but Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 concentrates on ‘Sage Advice’, ‘Character Creation’, and ‘Lore’. This starts with the basics of play, ‘The World of D&D’, ‘The Structure of Play’, and more… Notably, in ‘The World of D&D’ it mentions several worlds, including Dark Sun and Ravenloft, but notes that the Forgotten Realms is where all of the adventures to come in Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer will be set. It mentions the origins of the roleplaying game too and its creators, alongside a photograph of the original Dungeons & Dragons. Then it explains the ‘Structure of Play’, how the dice work and the concept of Difficulty Classes, the role of the Dungeon Master, and then it breaks down the elements of a Player Character, including Species and Class, equipment, and more. This includes the backgrounds for the four pre-generated Player Characters included in Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1. There is advice too, throughout. Some of this is done in ‘Top Tip’ boxes, split between those for the Dungeon Master and those for the player. For example, a ‘DM Tip Top’ gives advice on how to present an NPC using a one sentence description and motivation, whilst a player ‘Top Tip’ suggests that he think about not just his character’s best qualities and abilities, but also his worst, in particular, as a means to aid in roleplaying the character. Elsewhere the advice is more general, covering aspects such as the Session Zero, the lack of necessity to know all of the rules to play and run the game, and rolling the dice behind the screen. The latter is perhaps the most controversial piece in Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 suggesting as it does that the Dungeon Master use a screen to anonymise her dice results in order to prevent an unnecessary party death if she is rolling particularly well.
Is this good advice? Well, yes and no. Yes, because you do not want the players to necessarily fail on their first encounter or exposure to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and because if they do, there is no real advice as to what to do next in the pages of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 in the event of Player Character death. Yes, because the publisher wants the Dungeon Master and her players to remain interested in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth edition, and thus, Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer. Yet no because it is not entirely fair on the game itself which relies on the randomness of the dice rolls and the possibility of death is part of the game itself. It will be interesting to see how this issue is addressed in future issues.
The ’Lore’ section in Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 describes the town of Phandalin, the location for the scenario from the original Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set and also the more recent release from Wizards of the Coast, Phandelver and Below – The Shattered Obelisk. It gives a one-page introduction to the town in readiness for the ‘New & Exclusive Adventure’ in Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1, which is more of a detailed Encounter rather than a full adventure. It is, nevertheless, described as ‘Adventure 1 – 1 King of the Hill’, so that suggested that there is more of the adventure to come. ‘King under the Hill’ is set in the Stonehill Inn in Phandalin. It is intended to be played in one or two hours and involves a mix of combat and exploration with a little roleplaying thrown in. It is clearly explained, involves just the two linked monsters, and as with the rest of the magazine, there are DM Top Tips throughout such as describing particular feature of one of the monsters and reminding the Dungeon Master should describing the scene for her players and asking them what they want to do next. It is all clearly presented and easy to read from the page. In addition, the events of ‘King under the Hill’ are tied into Phandelver and Below – The Shattered Obelisk so that a Dungeon Master could add this encounter to that campaign if she wanted.
In comparison to the rest of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1, the included bonus ‘Introduction to Combat’ booklet is digest sized and has wire hoops to help it sit in the binders designed for the partwork. In eight pages, the booklet takes the reader through ‘The Rules of Engagement’, covering surprise, establishing positions, initiative, actions such as attacking, casting spells, helping, hiding, and more, before explaining Hit Points and damage and its effects. Then, in the ‘Combat Example’ it gives an example of combat using the pre-generated Player Characters included with Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 and the scenario, ‘King under the Hill’. It is designed to show how a round or two of combat could play out rather than should.
The four Player Characters in Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 have their own sheet each. They include a Human Rogue with the Charlatan background, a Hill Dwarf Cleric with the Acolyte background, a Wood Elf with Outlander background, and a Halfling Wizard with the Sage background. They are done on standard Dungeons & Dragons character sheets and are completely filled with all of the details needed to play, including a range of spells for both the Cleric and Wizard. They lack background on the sheets though, but otherwise they are fine.
Then, of course, there is the advertising, all pushing the reader to subscribe to future issues of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer. The simplest of this is a request to the reader’s nearest newsagent to reserve forthcoming copies, but the more complex highlights the Special Subscription Offer and the free gifts that the reader will receive if he decides to subscribe. These include more dice, a dice tray, binders for issues of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer, and so. Perhaps the most ridiculous of these the ‘Dice Jail’, a wooden mini-dice jail into which a player can temporarily imprison dice because they have been rolling badly. The six-page flyer is a mixture of the informative and the advertising, providing a good overview of Dungeons & Dragons at the actual table with a photograph also used in the first issue of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer. It includes a quick and dirty overview of the seven gameplay elements— ‘Sage Advice’, ‘Character Creation’, ‘The Dungeon Master’, ‘Spellcasting’, ‘Combat’, ‘Encounters’, and ‘Lore’—and just some of the extras that will accompany future issues. It all feels unrelenting and over the top, but its inclusion is understandable.
Penultimately, consider this. Bar the Dungeons & Dragons Annual, it is difficult to identify anything to have been published for the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons, let alone prior editions, in the United Kingdom since the days of TSR (UK) and the mid-eighties. Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 might very well be the first in several decades, and unlike the Dungeons & Dragons Annual, what Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 does is show the reader what the roleplaying game is like and how it is played, rather than simply telling him.
Ultimately, there is the cost to consider with Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer. There is no denying that Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 is inexpensive, but that is how the partwork concept works. The first issue or two is inexpensive to draw the purchaser in, its contents designed to entice him to buy further issues or even subscribe. However, as the subject of a partwork, Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer is going to be different to other partworks, which traditionally collect a series of figurines or the parts of a big model. Dungeons & Dragons already exists as a complete game in its own right and a gamer need not collect any of Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer to start playing. He can just buy the core rules or purchase a starter set. What Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer offers as an alternative is a gentler introduction to the roleplaying game, released in easily digestible and playable issue. Plus of course, the gifts that come with the issues. It is eighty issues though and that though does come to a grand total of £770. It is as they say a definite investment in Dungeons & Dragons.
Physically, Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 is very well presented, in full colour using the Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition trade dress and lots and lots of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition artwork. So, the production values are high, colourful, and the writing is supported with lots of ‘Top Tip’ sections. The result is that Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 is physically engaging. The core of it though, differs from a traditional magazine. Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 and the pre-generated Player Characters are glued together and designed to split and store in the partwork’s binders.
There is no denying that Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 is great value for money. The set of Dungeons & Dragons dice with the tin is worth the price alone, and that may well be the only reason that some purchasers buy it. But if you have never played Dungeons & Dragons then not only do you get your own set of dice, but you also get something that is easy to sit down and digest, prepare, and then explain and run in the space of an evening. By the end of session, both Dungeon Master and her players should have a good idea of how the roleplaying game is played and know whether they want to continue with Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 2—or even leap to the full Dungeons & Dragons experience. Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer Issue 1 is quite possibly the most cost-effective introduction to Dungeons & Dragons to have been released to the general public.

Quick-starts are means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps too. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game for the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

—oOo—

What is it?The Gaia Complex – Quick Start is the quick-start for The Gaia Complex – A Game of Flesh and Wires, the Science Fiction, Cyberpunk roleplaying game published by Hansor Publishing.

It includes an extensive explanation of the setting, rules for actions and combat, details of the arms, armour, and equipment fielded by the Player Characters, two ‘Data Seeds’ (or scenario outlines and hooks), and five ready-to-play, Player Characters, or Agents.

It is a fifty-two page, full colour PDF.

The quick-start is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is decent. The rules are a slightly stripped down version from the core rulebook, but do include examples of the rules which speed the learning of the game.

How long will it take to play?
The Gaia Complex – Quick Start and its two ‘Data Seeds’ are designed to be played through in two or so sessions.

What else do you need to play?
The Gaia Complex – Quick Start requires two twelve-sided dice and three three-sided (or six-sided) dice per player.

Who do you play?
The five Player Characters a Human Operator, an ex-cop, made redundant, turned mercenary, a Human technician and drone operator, Human Operator, an ex-gang member and corporate enforcer, a Feral with his partner dog, and a Human Hacker.

How is a Player Character defined?
An Agent has seven stats—Brawn, Reflexes, Guts, Brains, Allure, Perception, and Grit. Stats are rated between one and ten. There are multiple skills. These do not have a value. A Player Character either has them or does not have them and his proficiency in them is determined by their associated stat. Endurance represents his physical health and Pressure his mental health.

How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, The Gaia Complex uses two twelve-sided dice to determine the outcome of a skill attempt. A roll equal to or below the skill’s associated stat, after any modifiers for complexity, counts as a success, on either die. If both succeed, the Player Character will succeed at the skill attempt, whether he has the skill or not. If both roll higher than the modified stat value, the attempt is a failure, and if both are equal to twelve, it is a critical failure. If the stat value is below the difficulty rating of the skill test, the player has to roll the dice, but if higher, his character automatically succeeds. A specialisation in a skill allows the reroll of a single die if the result was not a twelve. Grit can be spent by the player to modify the die result.

How does combat work?
Combat in The Gaia Complex uses the same mechanics. It includes support actions such as ‘Jack Into a Hacking Rig’, ‘Perform a Hacking Action’, ‘Perform a Drone Action’, and ‘Meld – Feral Only’ which fit the setting. The range of other options are what you would expect for a modern modern game with firearms, included aimed shot, snapshot, and burst fire. Burst fire enables the attacker to reroll a single damage die. Combat is deadly, with Endurance reduced to zero indicating death, whilst Pressure reduced to zero, either from a Vampire special ability or the effects of a program in the Core.

In addition to the rules for combat, there are rules for drone use and access and hacking The Core, a virtual space akin to Cyberspace. Hacking usually targets secret data stores and other locations below the extensive data archives of The Core. It requires a hacking Rig and Jacking in and in combat, a hacking Player Character can only do one action per round. Out of combat, hacking is handled in narrative fashion rather than rolling for every encounter. Several dangerous countermeasures are detailed to ward off any hacking attempt.

How do Vampire and Feral abilities work?
A Feral can Meld with a ‘partnered’ animal, which requires the use of the Meld skill. This enables him to imprint his consciousness into the animal and see through its eyes and act as if he is the animal. Damage suffered by the animal is suffered as Pressure damage by the Feral.

Vampires are not included in The Gaia Complex – Quick Start.

What do you play?
The setting for The Gaia Complex – Quick Start is the year 2119. Following the Resource War of 2039 and the damage done to the environment, humanity was forced to retreat into sealed metropolises. New Europe, which covers most of the European continent is the largest. in addition to the development of atmospheric processing and other meteorological protective technology, cyberware was developed and spread, true A.I.s came online, including in new Europe, Gaia. Her technological developments would revolutionise society, including heavy surveillance and increasingly, robotic law enforcement. The streets exploded into guerilla warfare as a resistance, augmented by cyberware, arose against the surveillance and law enforcement as hackers attempted to stop the influence of the A.I.s. In between horrors out myth have swept onto the streets—vampires! Eventually, a synthetic blood source was developed as food for the vampires, but that does not stop vampire gangs in search of real from being a problem. Another species are the Feral, which are capable of melding with the consciousness of an animal, which are mostly biogenetic closes in 2119.

The Gaia Complex – Quick Start includes two of what it calls a ‘Data Seed’. This is not a scenario as such, but rather an expanded hook that includes an idea, one or more suggested scenes, and more. In ‘The Raid’, the Player Characters are hires to infiltrate and steal a file called ‘Hivemind’ from a research facility in Bruss (old Brussels). The three suggested scenes describe the research facility and what might be found inside and below it, followed by a difficult escape. The second ‘Data Seed’, ‘The Hack’, the Player Characters are hired to kill a mercenary hacker. Its suggested scenes involve the Player Characters hunting down the hacker and confronting him in his base.

Is there anything missing?
The Gaia Complex – Quick Start is complete.

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in The Gaia Complex – Quick Start are relatively easy to prepare. However, the Game Master will need to do some extra preparation in order to have either ‘Data Seed’ ready to play.
Is it worth it?
Yes and no. Anyone wanting something that can be run with relatively little preparation, including a read-to-play scenario is advised to look elsewhere as each ‘Data Seed’ in The Gaia Complex – Quick Start requires more preparation than a standard scenario would. So, no. However, a Game Master happy to undertake that preparation or run either ‘Data Seed’ from the given information will have no issue with The Gaia Complex – Quick Start. So, yes.
Where can you get it?
The Gaia Complex – Quick Start is available to download here.

 This room is directly in line with the corridor the party used to enter the room. The passageway slopes down considerably and goes for nearly 100 feet.  The room it opens up into is large.

Inside this room is a large dragon.

This dragon has been down here for centuries and it has grown too large to leave or even fly. It is a Necrotic Dragon. It had been a Red Dragon (and uses those stats) but its exposure to the necromantic magics of this tomb has changed it. Its breath weapon is a gout of black fire that burn cold, but burns all the same.

The local living goblins pay it tribute and the Shadow Elves from above believe it is some sort of dark avatar of long dead gods.

It has maximum HP for a red dragon and three times (x3) the amount of treasure.

It can be harmed with holy water (1d8 per vial) and a light or continual light spell will cause it to hit and save at a -1 penalty.

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’, which sadly, can be a very North American event. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2020’—the very first, which took place on Saturday, May 16th, 2020, the publisher released two items. The first was DCC Day #1: Shadow of the Beakmen, a single scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. The second was the DCC Day 2020 Adventure Pack, which not only provided support for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, but also for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set, with a scenario for each. This format has been has been followed for each subsequent DCC Day, that is, a single scenario and an anthology containing two or three scenarios, all of them short, relatively easy to run and add to an ongoing campaign, or even use as a one-shot of convention game.
DCC Day 2020 Adventure Pack is actually longer than most scenario releases for either Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, or the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set! The trilogy opens with ‘Expedition to Algol’, a scenario for First Level Player Characters for Dungeon Crawl Classics. The Player Characters are engaged by the wizard Bartakus-Thrum to participate in an experiment which will see them transported to another planet. Fortunately, the experiment is a complete success and the Player Characters find themselves under the intense heat and light and humidity of an alien world and its three suns—two yellow and one green—in a city of several thousand lizard-men being besieged by another several thousand cat-men. Unfortunately, the Player Characters have no way of getting back home, so as it turns out, the experiment is not actually a complete success. Their situation though, is not quite as dire as it sounds. Their arrival has been foretold and the Hall of Tests awaits them…
The Hall of Tests consists of a hollow tower which descends deeper into the ground and is dominated by a giant statute of a humanoid with three eyes. It has a number of rooms leading off the main tower that the Player Characters will work their way down, exploring and examining its techno-magical features. In the long-abandoned complex, the Player Characters will discover the source of the animal-men outside the tower and of course, in doing so, will transform themselves, some of the secrets of the thoroughly Lawful Evil Space Wasps which once ruled this world and their technology, a very helpful purple arm, and even a way home! The most fun part of this, at least for the Judge, is going to be portraying the arm. Ultimately, the Player Characters can find a way home, but if they are in any way transformed, will they want to? If they decide to stay, the Judge will find further information about the world of Algol in Dungeon Crawl Classics #84: Peril on the Purple Planet and of course, ‘Expedition to Algol’ can be used as an introduction to that campaign setting. ‘Expedition to Algol’ is an excellent scenario, whether used as a one-shot or introduction.
‘The Heist’ is the second adventure in the DCC Day 2020 Adventure Pack. This is for Third Level Player Characters and is written for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. As small-time crooks—thieves, burglars, and cutpurses—the Player Characters all know that the treasure hoard of the merchant-lord Duke Oraso is only bettered by the Overlord of Lankhmar himself. The most famous of his fabulous treasures are the Stars of Lankhmar, three enormous jewels that the duke has pledged to the Gods of Lankhmar, though not yet delivered. Whilst many a thief has sworn an oath into his cups to steal such treasures, none have succeeded, but when news comes that Duke Oraso will throw open the gates of his city manse and host a grand fête for all the nobles of the city, the opportunity to burgle one of the richest men in the city and do it under his very nose, is not to be missed. With this set-up, ‘The Heist’ is one-part grand soirée, one-part mystery play, and one-part dungeon, and all together, a grand affair.
The Player Characters will need to procure disguises and decide how they want to get into the duke’s manse and then begin their search of it—above and below ground—for the duke’s treasure vault. There are lots of opportunities for sneaking around, roleplaying (especially with dissolute members of the nobility), and larceny, all under the watchful gaze of the duke’s guards and his assistant, the Vizier. For the most part, the Player Characters are free to move around as they want, though their disguises will work better in some areas of the Manse than other, and there are a number of timed events throughout the evening. The Player Characters only really have to be present for grand finale to the duke’s mystery play. The scenario includes a full map of the Manse, both above and below ground, a table of rumours and gossip, timeline, a big table of nobles in attendance whom the Player Characters can mingle and hobnob with, a smaller table of treasures to purloin, and a quick-sheet of rules from the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set for easy reference or if the Judge is running the scenario using just Dungeon Crawl Classics. The only thing missing perhaps is a table of possible relationships between the nobles attending the fête and more item descriptions of the things that the Player Characters can steal to add flavour and verisimilitude rather than just monetary value.
‘The Heist’ is a grand affair and at twenty-four pages in length, not just the longest scenario in the DCC Day 2020 Adventure Pack, but its highlight. This is a great scenario, very well supported, with plenty of options in terms of how the Player Characters approach what could be a very Oceans 11-style heist. However, it is far too big and far too detailed to be really run as a one-shot or convention scenario as suggested, and given how good the scenario is, what is it still doing hidden away in the pages of the DCC Day 2020 Adventure Pack and not being more readily available for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Judge? Hopefully, if there is an anthology of scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set, this one will be included. It deserves a reprint and to be better known to Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Judges.
The third and final scenario is ‘Ruins of Future Past’. Designed for Player Characters of First Level, this is for use with Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. It begins with the Player Characters stumbling into a temporal rift and being sent swirling back in time to find themselves in a stone complex inhabited by an annoyed out of time ‘ghost’, and full of weirdness such as edible mushrooms seeking human comfort that sprout from the walls, a puppet show performed by skeletons, a library arranged as a perpetual spiral of book piles, and a thing of wax stretched so membranously thin it covers a whole room. This is the partially abandoned workshop of Ram’Gan, a wizard who specialises in the magic of time and considers himself to be a ‘chronoartist’ and much of the contents of the workshop consists of incomplete or failed experiments from his ‘art’. Located in a former temple to a minor pharaoh, ‘Ruins of Future Past’ concludes with a confrontation with one or more temporal echoes of Ram’Gan, such as ‘Primordial Ram’Gan the Vicious’ or ‘Black Powder Ram’Gan the Leadslinger’ and the discovery of a ‘time tunnel’. This can be used to get the Player Characters home or alternatively, thrown through time to their next adventure.
Although there are some technological treasures to be found at the end of the adventure, ‘Ruins of Future Past’ is only nominally a scenario for Mutant Crawl Classics. Of course, it pulls the Player Characters from Terra A.D. and out of time, but what they end up in feels like and is written as a dungeon more suitable for Dungeon Crawl Classics than Mutant Crawl Classics. The fact that the scenario is not written from the point of view of the Mutant Player Character and that the author suggests that it is “equally suitable for equivalent-level Dungeon Crawl Classics characters” lends itself to the suggestion that this was a Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure quickly repurposed to Mutant Crawl Classics with mentions of Terra A.D. at the beginning and end of the scenario. That said, as a Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure, ‘Ruins of Future Past’ delivers all of the Swords & Sorcery weirdness you would expect of a Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure and as a Mutant Crawl Classics adventure it works as a ‘fish out of water’—or ‘mutants out of time’—scenario. In either, its ‘thrown out of time’ start makes it easy to drop into a campaign and if the Judge wanted to start a time travel campaign using either Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic or the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, this would be a good jumping off point.
Physically, the DCC Day 2020 Adventure Pack is as decently presented as you would expect from Goodman Games. The adventures are well-written, the artwork decent, and the cartography excellent.
Of course, the DCC Day 2020 Adventure Pack was a bargain when it was released for DCC Day back in 2020. After all, it was free! Plus, all three scenarios are playable, with one scenario—‘Expedition to Algol’—being good and one scenario—‘The Heist’—being really good. In fact, ‘The Heist’ is a must have scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Judge, making the DCC Day 2020 Adventure Pack a worthwhile purchase for that alone. In which case, the other two adventures are a bonus.

The very latest entry in the Ticket to Ride franchise is Ticket to Ride: Berlin. Like those other Ticket to Ride games, it is another card-drawing, route-claiming board game based around transport links and like those other Ticket to Ride games, it uses the same mechanics. Thus the players will draw Transportation cards and then use them to claim Routes and by claiming Routes, link the two locations marked on Destination Tickets, the aim being to gain as many points as possible by claiming Routes and completing Destination Tickets, whilst avoiding losing by failing to complete Destination Tickets. Yet rather than being another big box game like the original Ticket to Ride, Ticket to Ride: Europe, or Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries, it takes its cue from Ticket to Ride: New York, Ticket to Ride: London, Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam, and Ticket to Ride: San Francisco. Part of the ‘City’ series for Ticket to Ride, it is thus a smaller game designed for fewer players with a shorter playing time, a game based around a city rather than a country or a continent. The entries in the series are also notably different in terms of theme and period.
Published by Days of Wonder and designed for play by two to four players, aged eight and up, Ticket to Ride: Berlin is easy to learn, can be played out of the box in five minutes, and played through in less than twenty minutes. As with the other entries in the Ticket to Ride ‘City’ series, Ticket to Ride: Berlin sees the players race across the city attempting to connect its various tourist hotspots. All of entries in the ‘City’ series are both set in their respective and have a them representative of their city. Thus, Ticket to Ride: New York had the players racing across Manhattan in the nineteen fifties via taxis; Ticket to Ride: London had the players racing across London in the nineteen sixties aboard the classic double-decker buses; Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam took the series back to the seventeenth century and had the players fulfilling Contracts by delivering goods across the Dutch port by horse and cart and claiming Merchandise Bonus if they take the right route; and Ticket to Ride: San Francisco continued the lack of trains in the series by having the players travel around ‘The City by the Bay’ aboard its icon form of transportation—the cable car! In Ticket to Ride: Berlin, the players can travel from the Teirgarten to Check-Point Charlie, from Charlottenburger Tor to Alexander-Platzfrom, from the Reichstag to the Zoo, either by the trams that crisscross the city or the underground which encircles it—or both!
Inside the small box can be found a small rectangular board which depicts the centre of Berlin, from Moabit, Charlottenburger Tor, and Kurfüstendamm in the west to Alexander-platz, Humbodt Forum, and Morotz-Platz in the east. The board has a scoring track at its eastern end, running from one to fifty, instead of being placed around the edge. There are Streetcar and Subway Car pieces in four colours (as opposed to the trains of standard Ticket to Ride), the Transportation cards drawn and used to claim routes between destinations, and the Destination Tickets indicating which two Destinations need to be connected to be completed. Both the Streetcar and the Subway Car pieces are nicely sculpted, the Streetcar pieces having a more rounded feel, as opposed to the square, more train-like Subway Car pieces. Each player begins play with eleven Streetcar pieces and five Subway Car pieces. The Transportation cards come in the standard colours for Ticket to Ride, but are illustrated with a different form of transport for each colour. So black is illustrated with a river cruise boat, blue with a taxi, green with a streetcar, purple with a bus, red with a train, orange with a subway car, and the wild card with a bicycle. This really makes the cards stand out and easier to view for anyone who suffers from colour blindness and the range of transport options give the game a greener feel. Similarly, the Destination Tickets are bright, colourful, and easy to read. As expected, the rules leaflet is clearly written, easy to understand, and the opening pages show how to set up the game. It can be read through in mere minutes and play started all but immediately.
In comparison to the boards in the other entries in the ‘City’ series, the one Ticket to Ride: Berlin is more functional than attractive. The various routes are laid out in strong coloours over a light tan streetmap of the city. It is not an unattractive board, but there is an austerity to it. Most routes are one, two, or three spaces in length, though there are three routes four spaces long, all of them grey in colour meaning that any colour can be used to claim them. The major difference with the board is that is that it is ringed by an underground system. Each only has space for one Subway Car piece, but the number of dots alongside the single space indicate the number of Transportation cards which have to be played to claim that route. These are either one, two or three Transportation cards. The board has two Route Scoring Tables, one for claiming the Streetcar routes and one for the Subway routes. In general, a player will score more points for claiming a Subway route than a Streetcar route. However, a player only has five Subway Car pieces to place as opposed to eleven Streetcar pieces.
Play in Ticket to Ride: Berlin is the same as standard Ticket to Ride. Each player starts the game with some Destination Tickets and some Transportation cards. On his turn, a player can take one of three actions. Either draw two Transportation cards; draw two Destination Tickets and either keep one or two, but must keep one; or claim a route between two connected Locations. To claim a route, a player must expend a number of cards equal to its length, either matching the colour of the route or a mix of matching colour cards and the multi-coloured cards, which essentially act as wild cards. Some routes are marked in grey and so can use any set of colours or multi-coloured cards. If the route is a Streetcar route, the player places a number of Streetcar pieces on it equal to its length. If it is subway route, he places just the single Subway Car piece on it, though he still has to expend the indicated number of Transportation cards.

In fact, Ticket to Ride: Berlin feels so much like standard Ticket to Ride that it is not immediately obvious what makes it different from either standard Ticket to Ride or the other entries in the ‘City’ series, each of which has a strong theme and an extra mechanic. For example, in Ticket to Ride: San Francisco, the players also collect Tourist Tokens. In Ticket to Ride: Berlin, the difference is the subway network which rings the city. A player only has five Subway car pieces to place, so they are a limited resource, but when played, they tend to score more points and they tend to connect routes that are harder to connect via the Streetcar pieces. Most Destinations in the centre of the board lie just a single route’s length from the beginning and end of a Subway route. Thus, for the longer Destination Tickets, a player will likely be wanting to claim the Subway routes to get around the board, whilst claiming routes into the city using the Streetcar pieces. It is an underplayed difference in comparison to titles in the ‘City’ series and to Ticket to Ride in general.

What Ticket to Ride: Berlin is reminiscent of is the Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 7: Japan + Italy and its Japan map. This introduced the ‘Bullet Train’ route, which when claimed using the indicated number of Transportation cards, only used a single Bullet Train piece to indicate that it had been claimed. The Subway routes in Ticket to Ride: Berlin work in a similar fashion, although unlike on the Japan map, they are not shared by all of the players and nobody is penalised for not building any Subway routes.

Physically, Ticket to Ride: Berlin is very nicely produced. Everything is produced to the high standard you would expect for a Ticket to Ride game.

Like Ticket to Ride: New York, Ticket to Ride: London, Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam, and Ticket to Ride: San Francisco, what Ticket to Ride: Berlin offers is all of the play of Ticket to Ride in a smaller, faster playing version, that is easy to learn and easy to transport. The balance in the game lies between claiming two different types of route, one that feels faster and goes further, as well as scoring more when claimed, but the player is limited to claiming five of this type in total, the other shorter, more flexible, with more pieces to put down and claim routes, but not scoring quite as much. This is more demanding than the other ‘City’ series titles and in combination with the fact that Ticket to Ride: Berlin is not as strongly thematic as the rest of the ‘City’ series, the result is that Ticket to Ride: Berlin feels austere in comparison. Of course, Ticket to Ride: Berlin still offers the same quick, competitive play of Ticket to Ride, but loses theme in favour of slightly more thoughtful play.

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.

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Name: The Timeless TerrorPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Marco Danili

Setting: ArkhamProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Thirteen page, 1.17 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: All aboard the Groundhog Day Night Train! Plot Hook: A train ride. A MacGuffin. A murder. A train ride. A MacGuffin. A train ride. A MacGuffin. A train ride. A MacGuffin. A train ride. A MacGuffin. Doom.
Plot Support: Staging advice, twelve NPCs, one floorplan, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Tidy
Pros# Big structured puzzle of a scenario# Easy to adapt to other time periods# Works well with fewer Investigators# One-shot or easy to add as in-between scenario# Siderodromophobia# Chronophobia# Cleithrophobia
Cons# Needs a good edit# NPC reactions underwritten# No handouts# No Sanity-loss for the alive-dead-alive murder victim?
Conclusion# Trapped on a terror twister train time-teaser# Chronological conundrum mystery that needs development in places, but otherwise a serviceable one-shot

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: On AirPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Quico Vicens-Picatto

Setting: ArkhamProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Fourteen page, 449.09 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Coast to Coast AM meets H.P. Lovecraft Plot Hook: The truth is out... side
Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated ‘Investigators’, forty-six NPCs, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Tidy
Pros# Experience the Mythos at telephone call’s length# Heavily structured plot# Strong roleplaying situation# Innovative and intriguing set-up# Excellent art# Homichlophobia# Radiophobia# Ichthyophobia
Cons# Needs a strong edit# Keeper has a lot—really, a ‘lot’—of NPCs to portray# Heavily structured plot# Reactive rather than investigative# Potential for underwhelming climax# Format needs reworking to be easier to use
Conclusion# Intriguing set-up leads to vicarious encounters with the Mythos# Lack of investigation means scenario relies on reaction and roleplaying in call-in show radio play

If there is revolution and repression above, there is freedom below. Freedom to be who you are. Freedom of expression. Except freedom from desire. Except freedom from your heart’s desire. Or is that what your desire from the Heart… or the Heart desires from you? No-one knows what the Heart is—inquisitive god-cocoon, time-travelling alien terraformer, unknowable world-engine, the land of the dead, the root of all magic, faith, and the occult across the world, or the manifestation of all the sins committed and considered in the Spire far above. In the mile-high tower of the Spire, the Aelfir—the High Elves—enjoy lives of extreme luxury, waited upon by the Destra—the Drow—whom they have subjugated and continue to oppress the criminal revolutionaries that would rise up and overthrow through them. In the City Beneath, where heretical churches have found the freedom to worship their forbidden gods and organised crime to operate the drug farms that supply the needs of the Spire above, the Aelfir find themselves free of conformity, the Destra free of repression. They are joined by Gnolls and Humans. The former are hyena-headed people from the far south, renowned for their demonology-driven mechanoccultism technology, those in the City Beneath free to be close to the Spire despite the cold war between the Aelfir and the Gnolls. The latter are renowned for their interest in the past, retro-engineers and tomb robbers who have developed their rediscovered technology into an arms industry, those in the City Beneath, free to delve and explore as is their wont. Some simply live in the City Beneath, but others are Delvers, driven to survive and delve deep below the Spire and the City Beneath. Here they will the remnants of the Vermissian, the great public transport network that would have bound the Spire and the City Beneath together. Then caves and tunnels, first of stone and rock, then of bone and teeth. The archaeological remainders of lost civilisations. Pockets where science and the occult are what they once were or are somewhere else. Realms lit by the stars of another world. Lost worlds home to mythic predators. The closer the delver gets to the Heart, the more the unreal the City Beneath becomes… In between are landmarks, perhaps points in the darkness where sanctuary can be found, more likely danger and death, but they are always stable points by which delvers can navigate ever closer to the Heart, a “rip in the holes between worlds”, and what drives them deeper…

This is the setting for Heart: The City Beneath, a roleplaying game that explores the horror, tragedies, and consequences of delving too deep into dungeons. Published by Rowan, Rook, and Decard Ltd. following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it would win multiple Ennie awards in 2012, including for Best Writing, Best Setting, and Best Layout. It is both a sequel and a companion roleplaying game to the publisher’s Spire: The City Must Fall. If Spire is punk anarchy and revolution, Heart is the wild frontier and a desire to know what is out there, if that is, the wild frontier is the equivalent of a mega-dungeon and the desire to know what is out there, is the yearning to know what calls to you far below. As a dungeon-delving roleplaying game, it puts the desires and wants of the Player Characters first and foremost, shifting from the simulationist play style of the dungeon-delving roleplaying game to a narrative play style, focusing on story, and the repercussions of the Player Character actions with the Game Master expected to undertake a minimal approach to preparation beyond a location—or Landmark—or two and the elements of their characters that the players want to explore. This shift does not mean that there is any less scope for action and heroism, but rather there is more freedom to interpret and describe how it happens. Although Heart has the feel of a mega-dungeon, or at least, a dungeon frontier, it is really designed to played in short campaigns, roughly ten sessions or so. This does not mean that Heart: The City Beneath is a ‘one-and-done’ roleplaying game, that is, once the Game Master and her players and their characters have delved deep into its bowels, everything that it offers has been played. Heart: The City Beneath offers numerous options within the types of Player Characters it includes and numerous sample Landmarks, as well as a handful of campaign ideas beyond the simple delve, that give it a high replay factor.

A Player Character in Heart: The City Beneath has an Ancestry, a Calling, and a Class. Together, these will determine his Skills, Domains, and Knacks, as well as Abilities. He also has Resistances. Ancestry—either Aelfir, Drow, Gnoll, or Human—does not provide any mechanical benefit, but suggests backgrounds and reasons why the Player Character is in the City Beneath, along with trinkets he has with him. A Calling, either Adventure, Enlightenment, Forced, Heartsong, or Penitent, develops the reason further. The Adventure indicates that the Player Character is looking for excitement, Enlightenment for secrets and answers, Forced that the Player Character is not in the City Beneath by choice, Heartsong that he is somehow connected to the Heart, and Penitent that he is making amends for betraying the trust of the organisation he belongs to. Each Calling gives a Core Ability, some questions to answer that explain why the Player Character is in the City Beneath, and a list of Beats to choose from. These consist of Minor, Major, and Zenith Beats, and the higher the tier of the Beat selected, the longer it takes to complete. A beat is used to signal to the Game Master what the player would like to see his character do in the next session or so. For example, a Minor Beat for the Adventure Calling could be ‘Defeat a powerful foe one-on-one’ or ‘Kick someone off a tall structure (they really deserved it)’. Of course, this forewarns the player as to what could happen in the forthcoming session and the Game Master is going to be enabling it, but not only does completing it grant the Player Character an Advancement within his Class, but it also gives the player a roleplaying and storytelling opportunity in both anticipating and completing it!

Heart: The City Beneath has nine Classes. Each provides a Resource, some equipment, and two core abilities as well as a list of Minor, Major, and Zenith Abilities. A Player Character will begin player with three Minor Abilities and a Major Ability, and will earn more through fulfilling the Beats from his Calling. Zenith Abilities mark the Player Character’s apotheosis, and their use the end of the Player Character’s story when used as they transform the City Beneath around him. The Cleaver is a hunter whose body warps in reaction to wilderness beyond the City Beneath and consume his prey to fuel his untamed powers. The Deadwalker is caught between life and death, having already died once, is never alone from that first death, and can walk between the worlds of the living and the dead. The Deep Apiarist has become a living hive for bees and together, they help him manipulate the magics of chaos and order. The Heretic is a member of the Church of the Moon, driven out of the city Above when the Aelfir first invaded. The Hound is a mercenary who draws upon the reputation and will of a lost regiment which was sent to a pacify the Heart sometime in the past. The Incarnadine was driven into debt so catastrophically deep that Incarne, the Crimson God of Debt, marked as her own, still paying off the debt, but drawing on its divine power too. The Junk Mage is a pioneering wizard who has become addicted to the dreams and thoughts of the godlike things slumbering in the City Beneath and is driven near to madness by both the knowing and the wanting to know. Wearing unique suits of armour scavenged from the wrecks of trains leftover from the creation of the Vermissian, the Vermissian Knight guards and patrol the transport network, as well as explore the routes the network takes deeper into the City Beneath. The Witch carries a blood disease, each of a different lineage, but all from the heart itself, and uses both blood and disease in ways feared and loved.

A Player Character will have Skills, Domains, Knacks, and Resistances. The skills are Compel, Delve, Discern, Endure, Evade, Hunt, Kill, Mend, and Sneak. The eight Domains, which represent experience of an environment or a knowledge of some kind, are Cursed, Desolate, Occult, Religion, Technology, Warren, and Wild. A Player Character either has a Skill or a Domain, or he does not, but if he has a Skill or Domain twice, it becomes a Knack, which means he can roll with Mastery. There are five Resistances—Blood, Echo (representing warping influence on body and mind of the Heart), Mind, Fortune, and Supplies—and these track the amount of Stress the Player Character is suffering in that aspect. Suffer too much Stress and there is the chance of Fallout, consequences which can have temporary or permanent effect on the Player Character.

To create a character, a player selects an Ancestry, a Calling, and a Class. He answers the questions posed by each and then from each Class selects three Minor Abilities and one Major Ability. Our sample character is Redeye. She was a healer serving in the Gnollish military captured by the Aelfir of the Spire. Escaping into the City below following a prison breakout, she fell ill, thinking she was going to die… Then she heard a song and when she awoke knew it was her blood infected. Now it sings to her. She misses being under the moon and being to run under the stars. She dreams of the moon running with blood and believes that the Heart is strongest where diseases touches—for good or ill. Her fellow delver, Urwain, a Vermissian Knight recently recovered from Gnollish Scrofula, which is known to kill a human, so she thinks him strong enough to lead him to the heart. When she blinks, her eyes turn blood red, but then drain back to her normal colour.

Redeye
Ancestry: Gnoll Calling Heartsong Class Witch
Skills: Compel, Discern, Kill, Mend
Domains: Occult
Abilities: Crucible, True Form, The Old Blood, Witch-Spit, Heart-Wise, Crimson Mirror
Resistances: Blood, Echo (Protection +1), Mind, Fortune, and Supplies
Resource: Tattered Finery (D6 haven)
Equipment: Spyglass built by her lover, painted dog skull, ink-blotted dream journal with maps of the places seen in your dreams, Sacred Blade (Kill D6, Bloodbound)
Beats: Let your curiosity lead you into danger, terrify or intrigue an NPC with your obsession.

Mechanically, Heart: The City Beneath uses dice pools of ten-sided dice. Whenever a character wants to undertake an action, his player rolls a ten-sided die. To this, he can add another die for a relevant Skill, relevant, Domain, and Mastery—the lack from a Knack. Once the dice have been rolled, the player removes the highest die if the task is Risky, two if it is Dangerous. The highest die is counted. The result ranges from Critical failure to Critical success, and the Player Character can fail and suffer Stress, succeed and suffer Stress, succeed without Stress, succeed dramatically and increase the Stress inflicted on an NPC or opponent. The amount of Stress suffered by either the Player Character or opponent will vary. It can be from an Ability, a weapon, the environment, or generally how close the Player Character to the Heart. This is measured by Tier, and the higher the Tier, the closer to the Heart and the greater the Stress die rolled. Stress is marked off against the appropriate Resistance and at the end of situation, the Game Master rolls to see if the Player Character suffers Fallout, which the actual consequences of the Stress, which itself only has a narrative effective. For example, a Minor Blood Fallout could be Bleeding or Spitting Teeth, but Minor Echo Fallout could be Buboes on the skin or a Strange Appetite. Blood, Mind, and Supplies Stress is easier to remove than Echo or Fortune. NPCs only have the one Resistance, also called Resistance, meaning there is less mechanical complexity and nuance to them, leaving the Game Master and her players to narrate the effects of Stress and then Fallout upon them.

Combat in Heart: The City Beneath uses the same mechanics. It primarily uses a combination of the Kill skill plus the Domain where the fight is taking place and Blood as the primary Resistance used. This will vary depending on the situation. Notably, it only has optional rules for initiative, included if the players are used to turn-based combat. Instead, combat, including initiative, is handled on narrative basis, as in, does this narratively make sense? Combat in Heart: The City Beneath runs to a single page and even that is impressively comprehensive for a narrative roleplaying game!

Beyond the rules, there is excellent advice for running Heart: The City Beneath, whether as your first roleplaying game, your first storytelling game, or simply the first time running Heart: The City Beneath. The specific advice includes the fact that the Player Characters can change the world, that the Game Master need no longer plan, drop the idea of balanced encounters because no fight is ever fair—though here is some advice if the fight is too hard (or too easy), she should ask questions of the players and give them and their characters what they want—typically tailored to each Calling with the Beats, and so on. It handles the adjustment to the storytelling style fairly well, though it often feels as if it wants to scream out, “Yes, we know you’ve played Dungeons & Dragons. This is like that, but different, and really intense, okay?”

Two fifths of Heart: The City Beneath is devoted to describing the nature of the City Beneath. Although it discusses the main society to be found near the surface, its main focus are the Delves that the Player Characters or Delvers will be undertaking. A Delve consists of a journey between two or more Landmarks, in general the deeper the Delve, from Tier 0 down to Tier 3 and beyond. A Delve has its own route, a Tier, one or more Domains, its own Stress that will be suffered if a Player Character fails an action whilst there, possible events that can occur there, and a Resistance which must be worn down via collective action upon the part of the Player Characters. This typically means using equipment, such as rope to climb down cliffs and crevasses, a compass marked with a fifth cardinal direction—‘H’, a crowbar, and so on. The nearest equivalent are the journey rules in The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings and Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World and they are tough. There is even the possibility that the Player Characters suffer so much Stress and subsequent Fallout that it is not actually worth continuing on the Delve. Some Abilities and having the right equipment can alleviate that, but it may be less frustrating for the players if Delves are handled in this fashion when it is narratively important. Perhaps if the Player Characters have used part of a Delve before, to have them learned its dangers, and so be better prepared? In that way, their experience comes into play and deeper Delves can still be dangerous.

A Landmark has a Domain, a Tier, it can be a Haunt where resources can be exchanged to remove Stress or downgrade Fallout, but it will have its own Stress that will be suffered if a Player Character fails an action whilst there, resources to be found, harvested, or stolen, and potential plots to involve the Player Characters. Heart: The City Beneath describes some forty or so Landmarks, starting with Derelictus, the City Between, the link on Tier 0 between the City Above and the City Below, followed by the God of Corpses, worshipped via its Seven Sacred Ailments which the physickers are more interested in than the patients and which a sect wants to see resurrected; Redcap Grove, a stain of fungal growth over the ruins of a cathedral, home to criminally mad druids from it is possible to purchase hallucinogens; Grin Station, a decrepit folly of an amusement park, which seems to be regenerating; and the Hoard, a vast, predatory library that seeks out books and knowledge, its librarians under the mind control of a maggoty dragon larvae at its centre. Beyond the Landmarks, there are Fractures, including Eight Heavens—each a different afterlife, and time and space seeming to bend this way and that, until finally, there is the Heart itself. If the Player Characters can reach it… There are numerous suggestions as to what the Heart is, all of them true, all of them false. Getting there though, seems beside the point. The journey seems to matter more, and the Landmarks are all brilliant and the Game Master is going to want to use all of them! Fortunately, she need not do so. Heart: The City Beneath suggests mapping the locations of the Landmarks out on a superhex of hexes roughly seven or eight hexes across. Each ring of hexes out from the centre represents a higher Tier, the hexes being populated through play as the Player Characters extend themselves out in Delves. It is very unlikely that a single play through of Heart: The City Beneath would use all of the given Landmarks and many are worth using more than once, as the various monstrous and legendary creatures given in the bestiary. Thus, whether the Game Master is running Heart: The City Beneath as one-shot Delve, a standard Delve campaign, or perhaps having the Player Characters operating or defending a haven, there is still plenty of content for the Game Master to use.

Physically, Heart: The City Beneath is stunning. The book is well written and well presented, but Felix Miall’s artwork really brings the dark, desperate feel of the City Beneath to life, often bruised and bloody, if not brooding, and if you look for it—just like the Player Characters—also wondrous and wonderful.

Heart: The City Beneath is the antidote to the dungeon-delving roleplaying game, to the first style of roleplaying game we knew. It provides a nonet of fascinating Player Character options that twist and change who we expect to be dungeon-delving and maps their progress through what they want and what their players want to see told as part of their story. They are desperate despite the danger, heedless of the horror, careless as to the consequences, and despite the grim dark nature of the City Beneath, they are heroes—at least in their own eyes. Heart: The City Beneath brings a fantastically decrepit and dangerous world to life and lets the players and their characters drive their delving ever deeper, hoping for divine divulgement, more likely to their doom, but always intense and dramatic from start to finish.

Before the advent of the internet, the magazine was the focus of the hobby’s attention, a platform in whose pages could be news, reviews, and content for the roleplaying game of each reader’s choice, as well as a classified section and a letters page where the issues of day—or at least month—could be raised and discussed in chronically lengthy manner. In this way, such magazines as White Dwarf, Imagine, Dragon, and many others since, came to be our community’s focal point and sounding board, especially a magazine that was long running. Yet depending upon when you entered the hobby and picked up your first issue of a roleplaying magazine, you could have missed a mere handful of issues or many. Which would have left you wondering what was in those prior issues. Today, tracking down back issues to find out and complete a magazine’s run is much easier than it was then, but many publishers offered another solution—the ‘Best of…’ magazine. This was a compilation of curated articles and support, containing the best content to have appeared in the magazine’s pages.

1980 got the format off to a good start with both The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios and The Best of White Dwarf Articles from Games Workshop as well as the Best of Dragon from TSR, Inc. Both publishers would release further volumes of all three series, and TSR, Inc. would also reprint its volumes. Other publishers have published similar volumes and in more recent times, creators in the Old School Renaissance have begun to collate and collect content despite the relative youth of that movement. This includes The Gongfarmer’s Almanac which has collected community content for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game since 2015 and Populated Hexes Monthly Year One which collected the content from the Populated Hexes Monthly fanzine. The ‘Best of…’ series of reviews will look at these and many of the curated and compiled titles from the last four decades of roleplaying.

—oOo—
Bernpyle is a fanzine dedicated to Mausritter – Sword-and-Whiskers roleplaying, the rules-light fantasy adventure microclone in which the very big and very dangerous world is explored from a mouse eye’s point of view. This is our world, but one in which the mice are anthropomorphic and can talk, as can other species. Beyond the walls of their home, the world is one of opportunity and adventure, fraught with hazards natural and unnatural, those untouched by mankind and those imposed by mankind. Using the base mechanics from Into the Odd, mice in Mausritter need to be brave, resourceful and clever, as well as lucky if they are to survive. Funded via a Kickstarter campaign, Bernpyle YEAR ONE collects the most interesting, the most popular, and the best content from first six issues. This includes a regional hexcrawl complete with eight adventure sites and locations, a selection of alternative mechanics inspired by a range of Old School Renaissance adjacent roleplaying games and even a non-Old School Renaissance, new weapons, spells and magic items, two playable species, and more.
Bernpyle: Year One opens with ‘The Earldom of Bernpyle’, a hexcrawl of nineteen sub-hexes. At its heart is the large settlement of Bernpyle, once home to rats, but now home to twelve hundred mice and a minor kingdom where mice reside in some safety and trade is booming. To the west, the woods of the Feylands are home to the Faerie Queen and her people, once at war with the earldom, but now there is a tentative peace between them. To the east is the road that humans built through Cobblefence Park and The Great Spine mountain range. The earl hopes to find a way through the mountains to expand his economic reach into the grasslands on the other side. ‘The Earldom of Bernpyle’ includes a map of the region; a description, but no map of Bernpyle itself; a list of the factions present—including their resources and goals; and stats for all factions, notably The Six, the cavalier mice and their bird mounts, who aid the earl. This though, is only the start, as Bernpyle: Year One expands greatly upon the simple hexcrawl.
The major content starts with two big adventures. ‘A Grizzly Revelation at Badger Burrow’ is set in a series of caves and human-dug mine beneath The Great Spine mountains. A renowned wizard and teacher, a star-faced mole named Suetonius, known to live there, as is a tribe of shrews. However, when the mice venture into the caves, they discover not one tribe of shrews, but two—and they are at war. A religious schism has divided them and the tribes meet daily to battle each other in the caves. The scenario is one of exploration and diplomacy more than combat, with mice choosing the latter option likely to find themselves dead quite quickly. Various outcomes are covered, but to get to the best of them, the mice will need to solve difficult situation. If ‘A Grizzly Revelation at Badger Burrow’ is classic dungeon adventure, then ‘Murky Mysteries of Mice in Marshes’ is traditional hexcrawl—or rather diamond crawl, since it consists of a single hex divided into twelve equal, diamond-shaped segments. The hamlet/town (the fanzine is not quite sure) of Coypu sits on the edge of the Froschsumpf Marshes in the Feylands. The mayor is known for his extensive whisky collection, but has not been heard from recently. Could the swamp’s frogs under their tyrant Mudlord Swelcheeks have something to do with this? The resulting scenario is a boggy bayou horror-tinged affair with some revolting villains.
In addition to the stats for the monsters, NPCs, and treasures to be found in both scenarios, Bernpyle: Year One includes a description of ‘The Missing Wand of Suetonius the Wise’, whom the mice will probably have met in the first scenario. The wand is given quite a good list of its abilities, but an even longer list of magical maladies that can befall the user if he miscasts. There are descriptions, illustrations, and floorplans of the border towers surrounding Bernpyle, each previously used by humans to play something called ‘disc golf’. In ‘Traversing the Feylands’, the author takes inspiration from The Gardens of Ynn to turn the region into layers that the mice will in effect descend as they delve deeper into the forest. This is complicated by the fact that locations within the forest can move, so if the mice may not necessarily being going up or down but both during their delve. The idea is supported by a number of tables which the Game Master will use as prompts.
Separate to the ‘The Earldom of Bernpyle’, ‘A Not So Stille Nacht’ is included as one of the fanzine’s more popular pieces. It is a one-shot, in which the mice are celebrating Christmas at the North Pole when Belsnickel the barn cat and his Pixie allies invade Santa’s polar home. It is as twee as you would expect it to be and if your playing group is partial to that sort of thing, is a passable Christmas one-shot. ‘MausTrap’ is more interesting in that it takes the concept of the Character Funnel from the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and applies it to Mausritter, only with a crueller touch. The mice are ordinary mice in debt, and to clear that debt they are being sent down a dungeon to return with enough pips’ worth of treasure to repay said debt. Each player has four mice and if any survive, they become First level and can begin play as normal. Tables are provided of occupations and occupational possessions, and the possible nature of their debts. ‘Rodents and Recreations’ adds a set of classic Dungeons & Dragons-style alternative backgrounds, such as wizard, assassin, and barbarian. They are primarily designed for creating mice on the go for one-shots, being ready-to-play packages that can be applied to a player’s mouse.
Other rules cover ‘Foraging Whilst in Human settlements’, whilst ‘Mouserules of Combat’ adds a ‘to hit’ roll where there is none in Mausritter with the intention of keeping players coming to Mausritter from Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and mounted combat and movement is added with ‘Mauspanzer – A ‘tacti-cool’ brief for Warband Scale Mounts’. The rules cover finding or buying them, and using them in combat, which is only becomes possible after a mount has acquired a Prestige Level or two. ‘Scars’ gives a table of injuries and effects for whenever a mouse is reduced to zero hit points. They include ‘Battle Worn’, ‘Shaken’, ‘Jostled’, ‘Haunted’, and more. ‘Time and Resource tracking in the Veins’ is inspired by Veins of the Earth and adds rules to make Mausritter even harder when delving into deep into the underground. This does run counter to the light nature of Mausritter, but if the Game Master and her group are happy with that, their dungeon delves are going to be tough indeed. Alongside this, there are new spells in ‘Magic from Mayfield’ with a botanical theme, such as Petal Strike and Thorn Bramble, thistles turned into weapons, and even #’A Weapon from Maukbörg’, a big crossbow.
‘Songvogel – A Maus’ Field Guide to Songbirds and other perching avian’ introduces the Songbird as a playable race, all small, and all hailing from Harmony Glade. There are just three Backgrounds—Soldier, Porter, and Companion. The Soldier gets armour, the Porter can carry more with his Traveller’s Duffle, and the Companion has a Saddle and Bridle, enabling a mouse to ride on his back. Songbirds do not have hands, so cannot use weapons. Instead, they use their beak attack and talon strikes. ‘Make a Fienkrieger’ provides another playable race, Fae Warriors whose love of Mauskind have led them to become Faerie Outcasts. The creation involves rolling for Former Occupation, Physical Look, Wing Type, Colour, and Weapon of Choice. Instead of spell tablets, the Fae have Tattoos, for example, Blood Dart, which lets a mouse or fae shoot a projectile out of his skin and Maus’ Paw, which grants the user a spectral paw with which manipulate objects at a distance. Rounding out Bernpyle YEAR ONE is ‘For Mouse, for Home, for Bernpyle!’, which lists all of the releases for Mausritter and even though Bernpyle YEAR ONE was published in 2022, there are a lot!

Physically, Bernpyle YEAR ONE is well presented. The artwork is excellent and the maps clear and easy to use. One issue is that the book does refer to other locations and content from other issues of Bernpyle, so in places the Game Master will need to locate other issues.

Bernpyle YEAR ONE is a lovely little book. It is really divided into the two halves—one devoted to Bernpyle as a location and the other a Mausritter miscellany. In truth, the Bernpyle is better than the rest, being more focused and useable, easier to bring to the table. It is a pity that more of Bernpyle was not included. Bernpyle YEAR ONE has something for every Mausritter Game Master, something to play, something to try, and all nicely packaged.

The Wretched is lost. The crew of the intergalactic salvage ship is all dead, bar one. Adrift between stars with its engines having failed and a hostile alien lifeform having stalked and killed most of the crew, you made one last, brave stand. You drove the alien off the ship, flushing it out via an airlock. You hoped that this would kill it. It did not. Having seen it kill your friends and family aboard, it now scrabbles and skitters across the hull of the ship, searching for a way in, for a way to reach its last victim aboard ship—you. Unfortunately, you cannot truly escape it, but you can hold on and hold out for rescue. Someone out there has to find you. First, you have to keep life support going long enough to repair and activate the distress beacon, and then hope that someone will respond, all whilst fending off the predations of the alien lurking on the other side of the ship’s hull.
This is the set-up for The Wretched, a Science Fiction journalling game published by Loot the Room. Clearly and self-confessedly inspired by Alien and similar films, The Wretched is a game about isolation, fear, and perseverance and potentially, survival in the face of overwhelming odds. The game requires an ordinary deck of playing cards without the Jokers, a six-sided die, a Jenga or similar tower block game, and a set of tokens. In addition, the player will require a means of recording the results of the game. It is suggested that audio or video longs work best, and they are in keeping with the genre. A traditional journal will also work too. The Wretched is a played out as a series of days, the player, actually the flight engineer of The Wretched, undertaking a series of tasks each day and responding to prompts before ending the day by recording its events and his thoughts in his personal log. The odds are that the lone crewman is unlikely to survive, either due to catastrophic failure of the ship’s systems—which will happen if the tower block collapses or the alien finding him. There are multiple ways in which the crewman can fail and die, but only two ways to survive. Either repair and turn on the beacon and then survive long enough for a rescue vessel to come or to repair the ship’s engines and blast out of the situation he is in, leaving the alien behind.

The four suites correspond to different aspects of the ship and its environment. Hearts represents ship’s systems—life support, water purification, and the like; Diamonds are its physical structure—hull, opening and closing doors; Clubs are the crew—remnants of their presence such as their rent bodies and their tools and possessions; and Spades are the Creature—physically present or simply knowing that it is out there… Whilst the presence of the Creature veers between ominous and terrifying, the most horrifying of encounters are to be had with the crew, or rather with what they have left behind, both of themselves and their belongings, as well as memories of them. Here is where the sense of loss and perhaps the nature of sacrifices made in order for the player to survive, come to the fore. The player will have between one and six encounters like this each day, the player taking notes in readiness to record the details in his journal or log. Some end with the instruction to remove a block from the tower block game. Several have already been removed at start of play, so the structural integrity of the ship is imperilled from the outset. It is, however, unlikely that the player will go a turn without having to remove a single block.

Physically, The Wretched is cleanly and tidily presented. It is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is excellent.

The is a fantastic economy of emotion to The Wretched. Like every Journalling game, its tension builds and builds, exacerbated by the looming presence of both the alien and the possibility of the tower block game’s collapse—and thus the end of the game. Yet this is made better—or is that worse?—when the player’s reports and thoughts are recorded rather than simply noted down. Recording the daily logs as either audio or video adds intimacy and emotion to the play through, that is far more difficult to capture on paper. If there is an issue with The Wretched, it is that there are limited options to play more than once, but that experience is going to be fraught, frightening, and claustrophobically intimate.

How do you like your GM Screen?

The GM Screen is a essentially a reference sheet, comprised of several card sheets that fold out and can be stood up to serve another purpose, that is, to hide the GM's notes and dice rolls. On the inside, the side facing the GM are listed all of the tables that the GM might want or need at a glance without the need to have to leaf quickly through the core rulebook. On the outside, facing the players, can be found either more tables for their benefit or representative artwork for the game itself. This is both the basic function and the basic format of the screen, neither of which has changed all that much over the years. Beyond the basic format, much has changed though.

To begin with the general format has split, between portrait and landscape formats. The result of the landscape format is a lower screen, and if not a sturdier screen, than at least one that is less prone to being knocked over. Another change has been in the weight of card used to construct the screen. Exile Studios pioneered a new sturdier and durable screen when its printers took two covers from the Hollow Earth Expedition core rule book and literally turned them into the game’s screen. This marked a change from the earlier and flimsier screens that had been done in too light a cardstock, and several publishers have followed suit.

Once you have decided upon your screen format, the next question is what you have put with it. Do you include a poster or poster map, such as Chaosium, Inc.’s last screen for Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition or Margaret Weis Productions’ Serenity and BattleStar Galactica Roleplaying Games? Or a reference work like that included with Chessex Games’ Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune or the GM Resource Book for Pelgrane Press’ Trail of Cthulhu? Perhaps Or scenarios such as ‘Blackwater Creek’ and ‘Missed Dues’ from the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition? Or even better, a book of background and scenarios as well as the screen, maps, and forms, like that of the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack also published by Chaosium, Inc. In the past, the heavier and sturdier the screen, the more likely it is that the screen will be sold unaccompanied, such as those published by Cubicle Seven Entertainment for the Starblazer Adventures: The Rock & Roll Space Opera Adventure Game and Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG. That though is no longer the case and stronger and sturdier GM Screens are the norm today.
So how do I like my GM Screen?

I like my Screen to come with something. Not a poster or poster map, but a scenario, which is one reason why I like ‘Descent into Darkness’ from the Game Master’s Screen and Adventure for Legends of the Five Rings Fourth Edition and ‘A Bann Too Many’, the scenario that comes in the Dragon Age Game Master's Kit for Green Ronin Publishing’s Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5. I also like my screen to come with some reference material, something that adds to the game. Which is why I am fond of both the Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune as well as the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack. It is also why I like the Loremaster’s Screen and Rivendell Compendium for The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying, the adaptation of The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings to be compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.
The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Loremaster’s Screen and Rivendell Compendium is not new, or rather, it is not entirely new. Just as The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying is adaptation of The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings, The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Loremaster’s Screen and Rivendell Compendium is an adaptation of the similarly named The One Ring Loremaster’s Screen & Rivendell Compendium. Similarly, it consists of two items. The first is the Loremaster’s Screen. A three-panel affair in landscape format, it is not a GM Screen for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in general, but rather just for the specific rules and mechanics of The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying. It opens on the far left with the spot rules for magical success, encumbrance, and resting, before moving onto the three major mechanical and narrative elements of the roleplaying game. The first of these is for Shadow, the insidious influence and effect of Sauron and his minions, as well as certain baleful locations that are best left unexplored. It identifies four sources of Shadow—Dread, Greed, Misdeeds, and Sorcery—and lists various examples and the possible Shadow Points that might be gained through exposure to such sources or committing such misdeeds. The centre panel is primarily devoted to the Council Sequence, taking the Loremaster through the procedure from set-up and Introduction to the End of the Council via Interaction. The accompany table lists useful Ability checks at both the Introduction and Interaction stages as well as possible Experience Point rewards if the Player-heroes are successful—and in some cases, even if they are not! A little bit of the centre panel and all of righthand panel covers the Travelling Company. The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying is a roleplaying game where travel—just as in Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings—really matters and plays a big role. The Loremaster’s Screen summarises the roles for any Journey—Guide, Hunter, Look-out, and Scout, the length of a Journey, and Events and Event Resolution that may occur on that Journey. It gives the Ability checks for each role and provides a list of possible events as well as the Experience Point results for conducting a Journey through a Perilous Area. Across the Loremaster’s Screen the spot rules and tables include page references for the full rules in The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying. Overall, the Loremaster’s Screen is clear, simple, and easy to read, and very serviceable. The front or player-facing side depicts a small fellowship deep in the wilderness about to be assailed by a band of Orcs. It is a nicely tense piece, but different in style to that of The One Ring Loremaster’s Screen & Rivendell Compendium.
The second item is the ‘Rivendell Compendium’. This is a short supplement which details Imladris, the Last Homely House, home to its master, Elrond Halfelven, for thousands of years. His magic has kept this Hidden Valley safe in all that time and protects it still, either making difficult for anyone to find the entrance or actively blocking access. A map is given of Rivendell, though only the floorplans of the ground floor of Elrond’s mansion is given. There are multiple levels of vaults below and storeys above which are not mapped out here, and though that is disappointing, it is unlikely that the Player-heroes will have ready access to them. They are described in broad detail though, so the Loremaster can develop something from this as necessary; more detail being given to particular locations. Not all of the locations are included on the given floorplan. For example, the library is described in the text, but not marked on the floorplan. Ultimately, both the floorplan and the descriptions need to be taken as a guide—good guide—to Elrond’s home.

Also found Rivendell are many Elven folk. The many here include Elrond Halfelven himself, his daughter, Arwen Undómiel, Glorfindel, the great Prince of the Elves, and others. Elrond is described in the most detail, primarily because he is a source of wisdom and a potential Patron for the Player-heroes. In particular, he favours those with the Scholar and Warden Callings, and can be consulted for advice when it comes to making journeys and on particular marvellous artefacts and wondrous items that may have come into the Player-heroes’ possession. Along with the description are spot rules for how to find the entrance to the Hidden Valley, making music in Rivendell which grants Advantage on Charisma (Performance) checks, the moment when the Player-heroes first see Arwen Undómiel and gain Inspiration from her presence and grace, while an Elven character will lose Shadow due to her sorrow, and more. These add to the magic of Rivendell and bring elements of the setting into play.
Lastly, the High Elves of Rivendell are added as a new Culture. They are based in Rivendell as it is one of their last refuges. Their inclusion means that along with the Elves of Lindon, members of the Firstborn who rarely leave the Grey Havens, there are two Elven Cultures available in The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying. The Virtues include ‘Artificer of Eregion’, ‘Beauty of the Stars’, ‘Night of the Firstborn’, and ‘Skill of the Eldar’. ‘Artificer of Eregion’ is for the Elves who have studied the ancient crafts of the Elven-smiths of Eregion, and how can Hand-craft metal arms and armour to grant them an enchanted reward or even a ring or jewel to make it a wondrous item. An Elf who possesses the ‘Beauty of the Stars’ have such poise and grace that he has a surprisingly charismatic effect on non-Elves and Wizards; one of the ‘Night of the Firstborn’ possesses the will with which to deny the influence of the Enemy; and an Elf with the ‘Skill of the Eldar’ has a skill that others see as bordering on magical. Of the four, ‘Artificer of Eregion’ is the most interesting and feels like it bring something markedly different into a campaign.

The ‘Rivendell Compendium’ expands The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying eastwards—if only a little. It provides a potential sanctuary and patron for the Player-heroes as they explore and journey in that direction, although there remains much to be explored in Eriador, the focus of the new roleplaying game. Devotees of the earlier edition of The One Ring—The One Ring: Adventures over the Edge of the Wild Roleplaying Game—may find there is some repetition between the new ‘Rivendell Compendium’ and the earlier Rivendell supplement, but that is inevitable given that they are covering the same subject. In fact, the earlier Rivendell supplement is notable for how many of its elements found their way into The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings such as the Eye of Mordor and the rules for treasure, and consequently, The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying.

Physically, the ‘Rivendell Compendium’ is again done in the same style as The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying. The book is nicely presented and easy to read and understand. The only real downsides to the ‘Rivendell Compendium’ are that as a slim book it is easier to lose and perhaps some of this may be repeated in a fuller supplement devoted to Eriador later on.

The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Loremaster’s Screen and Rivendell Compendium is exactly as it should be, a useful tool to have in front of the Loremaster during play, whilst the ‘Rivendell Compendium’ adds to the setting of The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying with material that the Loremaster can really make use of as her Player-heroes’ explorations take them to further edges of Eriador. Overall, this makes The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Loremaster’s Screen and Rivendell Compendium a solid, useful package, one that a group playing The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying should get plenty of use out of.

If a copy of each of the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide fell from the sky how would it be received in the archetypal medieval world? Together would they have been taken up as a triptych of holy books and their words accepted not as a of means play and exercising the imagination, but as a way of speaking to god, of determining whether you have his blessing before undertaking any action, including deciding your future career, or rather rolling up your character according to scripture. This is the conceit of FRUP, an unpublished roleplaying game designed by James Wallis, and it is a conceit shared with The Sorcerer of Pyongyang. Not a new roleplaying game or supplement, but a novel by Marcel Theroux which examines the consequences of a work of the imagination and imagineering arriving unbidden in a land that is both real and unreal. For The Sorcerer of Pyongyang asks what would happen if a copy of the Dungeon Master’s Guide accidentally found its way into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, one of the world’s most isolated and closed off countries. What effect would Dungeons & Dragons have in a society whose government and culture imposes its own reality upon its citizens?

In the early nineties, during the time of the famine known as the Arduous March, Cho Jun-su, an ordinary schoolboy with a love Kim Il Sung and the socialist fantasy comics he has to hire from a vendor at the station to read, discovers by accident, a copy of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Dungeons & Dragons. Left behind by the son of visiting a professor in North Korean socialist thought, and taken from lost property at the hotel he works by Jun-su’s father, he is fascinated by the book, but his English is not yet good enough to read it, although his later translation of the book will both improve his English and his imagination as he becomes an award-winning poet. Until then he turns to a teacher who has been helping with the illness that keeps him out of school. The teacher comes to understand the book, explaining that it is a game of the imagination and storytelling, and when the boy asks, promises to run it for him. Thus Jun-su takes his first steps into roleplaying, not via Dungeons & Dragons, but the House of Possibilities, an interpretation of the rules that is more faithful by intent than by design, but nevertheless recognisable as roleplaying.

As his illness keeps him home from school and helps isolate him from the worst effects of the Arduous March, so too the House of Possibilities isolates him from the adulation and respect that he is expected to give the Kim Jong Il, the Dear leader, the self-criticism exercises he is expected to participate in at school, and so on. The notion of roleplaying and of Dungeons & Dragons is doubly dangerous within North Korea. It is nerdish and like to be socially unacceptable just as it was in the West in the nineties, but in North Korea, it could be seen as an artefact of American decadence, one that encourages individualism. Yet it is this individualism that makes Jun-su stand out, his involvement with the House of Possibilities setting him a trajectory through layers and layers of accepted reality, as he first experiences success, then downfall, then success again, before finding hope. It pushes him to Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang, where he mingles with the elite, he is denounced and imprisoned, before being released and pulled into the orbit of the ultra-elite once, and then finally finding his own release. At university Jun-su isolates himself from the reality of the dangers that House of Possibilities, but its reality is left behind and Jun-su is forced to rely upon the accepted reality in which his love for Kim Jong Il will save him, but just like Winston Smith and Big Brother in Orwell’s 1984, it is Kim Jong Il that is stamping on his face. Nevertheless, it is Jun-su’s connection to the House of Possibilities that will save him again. Which leads perhaps to the most extraordinary reality in which Jun-su finds himself in, spending time in the company of ‘Jimmi’, in fact, Kim Jong-chul, older brother of Kim Jong Un, son of the late Kim Jong Il and supreme leader of North Korea. ‘Jimmi’ is portrayed as a member of the idle rich, when not drug addled, obsessed with the guitar and great rock guitarists, whose reality isolates him from the rest of the country and its cowed masses. Weirder still is the job he is given at a state insurance company, fabricating the reality of serious accidents, so that the country can gain foreign currency from the insurers in London. Even ‘Jimmi’ in his most maudlin state is affected by Dungeons & Dragons, wondering if his influence is sufficient to render Cho Jun-su the status of an NPC, a ‘Non-Player Character’ as controlled in the game by the ‘leader’ or Dungeon Master, or if he too, is an NPC, not for Cho Jun-su, but rather for Kim Jong Un. This is not an aspect that the author really explores, merely bringing it to our attention as he hurtles to the book’s conclusion. It is the novel’s startlingly missed opportunity.

Although he does not belabour the point, it is clear that the author knows about Dungeons & Dragons and roleplaying games in general. It is not a case of the author just having done his research to be able to use Dungeons & Dragons as a literary device. Or if it is, then that research is more than cursory. Readers in the know will recognise the copy of the Dungeon Master’s Guide from the description given, a great red demon (or efrit) grasping a scantily clad women in its left hand, a sword in its right as a knight and a wizard attempt a rescue as being for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. They will realise too that Jun-su’s battered copy is later replaced by Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. This could have been the result of simple research, but there is more. British readers will recognise the name of the games shop in North Finchley from where the author in the book purchases a copy of The Habitition of the Stone Giant Lord which is an undoubtedly obscure choice. There is though, Jun-su’s initial reaction to playing the game, his fascination with its imagined world, with it feeling more real than the one around him. This is something that many a roleplayer will recognise, that heady rush of discovery of not just having an imagination, but of being able to explore it too.

It would be trite to have simply explored the imagination as a means of liberation from conformity and repression. The Sorcerer of Pyongyang does that, certainly, but it goes beyond it to examine the dangers of the imagination, not just under the ordinary Orwellian repression of North Korea, but also in the layers of reality surrounding Pyongyang’s elite under radically different circumstances and under two different Supreme Leaders. Again and again, Cho Jun-su finds his imagination pulling him onward in a great journey through a bildungsroman of realities. The Sorcerer of Pyongyang is a fascinating glimpse behind the walls of the Hermit Kingdom that is North Korea with Marcel Theroux using Dungeons & Dragons as a surprisingly sophisticated means to drive its story along in a fashion that would have been unthinkable, let alone acceptable when Cho Jun-su first entered the House of Possibilities.