At its heart, the Old School Renaissance is about emulating the style of play of Dungeons & Dragons from forty and more years ago, and about exploring the history of Dungeons & Dragons, so it is always fascinating to see what its adherents will find after ferreting around in the archives. The Ruined Tower of Zenopus is a perfect example of something surprisingly brought back to the attention of the Dungeons & Dragons-playing audience. The Ruined Tower of Zenopus is not a new dungeon, having originally appeared in the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, published in 1977, and edited by the late Doctor J. Eric Holmes. What Doctor Holmes did was edit earlier example rooms and develop them into a coherent dungeon design, a ‘starter dungeon’ complete with backstory, context, and reasons for the player characters to venture into its depths. The Ruined Tower of Zenopus is however a new title, it only being known as ‘Sample Dungeon’ in the original appearance in the Basic Dungeons & Dragons book. The Zenopus of the title refers to the doomed wizard who built the dungeon under his now ruined tower.

Designed for a party of First and Second Level adventurers, The Ruined Tower of Zenopus is actually an update from Basic Dungeons & Dragons, but not for use with a retroclone as one might expect, but for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, Basic Rules, which are free to download from the Wizards of the Coast website. This means that it is also compatible with, and could be upgraded to, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and of course, with some effort, could easily be adapted to the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice. The adventure has been updated by Zach Howard, who has experience with titles from this era, notably the 'B1' Series: In Search of the Unknown Campaign Sourcebook which he hosts on his site. One thing that is missing from The Ruined Tower of Zenopus is a map of the dungeon itself. A map of the Portown, the location for the dungeon is included, but not of the dungeon itself. This map is available in the sample excerpt of the 1977 Basic Dungeons & Dragons book which can be downloaded from Wizards of the Coast.

The Ruined Tower of Zenopus takes place just outside of Portown, an important harbour town on the trade routes from the south, situated on a headland. It is notable for the ruined tower of Zenopus, a wizard who disappeared some time ago and who was rumoured to be digging into the ruins of the ancient city upon which Portown is built. It is now home to another wizard known as the Thaumaturgist. Portown and its environs are nicely mapped out to fit the extent of the dungeons below the headland whilst still allowing some room for the Dungeon Master to add her own content.

The dungeon itself consists of twenty or so locations, running from ‘A’ to ‘S’. The design of the dungeon is one of discrete locations separated by long corridors and empty rooms, so adhering to the design ethos that there should be plenty of empty rooms. The various locations include some classics, such as the room with four doors and a statue which must be rotated to face a door before it can be opened; a cave of smugglers going about their business; and a high vaulted room, its ceiling smothered in spider’s web. Now by modern standards, the design of the dungeon is basic, even a cliché, but remember this is a dungeon from 1977, from the very start of the hobby. And just because they are clichés or classics, it does not mean that they do not work.

The author though, does not simply update ‘Sample Dungeon’ to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. He also offers options to make the dungeon more challenging and adds a slew of monsters and magical items. The former include the Cleaning Cube—a lesser form of the Gelatinous Cube, the Veteran Smuggler, the aforementioned Thaumaturgist, Monstrous Rat, and Monstrous Sand Crab, whilst the latter includes the  Brazen Head of Zenopus, Verminslayer Longsword, Lesser Wand of Petrification, and Scroll of Stone to Flesh.

The providence of The Ruined Tower of Zenopus means that it is interesting enough, but the author does even more to make the scenario interesting through a quintet of appendices. The first of these suggests some of the fiction—weird and otherwise—which might have inspired the original author, Doctor J. Eric Holmes, in the design of ‘Sample Dungeon’, such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring for the inclusion of the Green Dragon Inn in Portown, Robert E. Howard’s The Tower of the Elephant for the Giant Spider in the cobweb filled Spider’s Parlour, and H.P. Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward for having a strange wizard dwelling near the town. The second develops the occupants of the dungeon's discrete areas into factions, giving them stronger motivations to help the Dungeon Master roleplay their actions, whilst the third gives twenty rumours and then expands upon each and every rumour to great effect. Here the author provides hooks, both false and true, with suggestions as to how to use them, to involve the characters in events in and below Portown.

The penultimate appendix expands upon the place of Portown and thus The Ruined Tower of Zenopus in the Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition campaign, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, itself based on the U Series of scenarios for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition which began with U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. The dungeon at least is mentioned as a possible adventure site, but not expanded upon. The Ruined Tower of Zenopus does that, suggesting how the scenario would work in and around Saltmarsh. This is very well thought out section and if a Dungeon Master has not yet run Ghosts of Saltmarsh, this is a really good addition to the start of the campaign. The last appendix contains four pre-generated characters. These have been created using the Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, Basic Rules, and so include a Cleric, a Fighter, a Magic-User, and a Rogue. They are decent enough, but they are all Human, rather offering a more diverse set of options.

Physically, The Ruined Tower of Zenopus is 1.83 MB, eighteen page, full-colour PDF. The layout is neat, clean, and tidy. It is perhaps a little oddly presented, in that the town and dungeon come first before the hooks that would get the player characters involved, but that makes sense in that they are an addition to the original rather than what included then.

By modern standards The Ruined Tower of Zenopus feels a little too basic and underdeveloped, so initially it comes across as something of a quaint artefact. Which is not to say that it is a poor dungeon design, but rather that tastes and gaming mores have changed. Of course, there is nothing to stop a Dungeon Master running as is, but the author has provided the means to make something more of it, whether that is the use of the rumours to provide flavour and motivation or developing its place as part of Ghosts of Saltmarsh. It also means that the Dungeon Master could run The Ruined Tower of Zenopus as a Old School Renaissance style dungeon and adventure for a group which is familiar with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition or for a group which prefers Old School Renaissance style play who want to try Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. So what you have in The Ruined Tower of Zenopus is a simple dungeon whose update empowers it with a lot of flexibility, but not just that, you also have a fascinating exploration of an early , ‘Sample Dungeon’.

Well. Skip out on one update in February, and look at what happens. All I wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi…er, I mean, all of those years of mental preparation for the collapse of human civilization, and here’s what … Continue reading →

Nosferatu Festival in Austin had a lot going for it, but one of the best was the screenings on Saturday and Sunday of the classic 1922 film. Modernized soundtracks for silent films aren’t new (after all, it’s been 35 years … Continue reading →

Before Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay with its grim and perilous world of adventure, there was the grim, but humorous world of Law Enforcement in the near future with Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game. Both were published by Games Workshop, the former in 1986, the latter in 1985, and since they shared one of the same designers, Rick Priestley, there are a number of parallels between the two roleplaying games. Now Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game was not the first homegrown roleplaying game to be published by Games Workshop—that honour would go to the highly regarded Golden Heroes: The Roleplaying Game of Super-Heroes in 1984—but it would be the first roleplaying game based on a British licence. In the years since, it has been revisited three more times with two editions—The Judge Dredd Roleplaying Game for both the d20 System and the Traveller, First Edition mechanics—from Mongoose Publishing and more recently, with the Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD RPG Core Rulebook from EN Publishing. This is because with its ’punk attitude, its brutal setting and depiction of comic book violence, and its often dark, but definitely satirical humour, it has been seen as the quintessentially British roleplaying game (along with Doctor Who). 

Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game is based upon the Judge Dredd comic strip in 2000AD, the long-running comic which has been published weekly since 1977. It is set in the early twenty-second century after a nuclear war which irradiated much of the Earth and most of the world’s population is living in a number of megalopolises—or supercities. Each is home to millions and millions living in great city-blocks, most of whom are unemployed and turn to hobbies, brand new trends or crazes, or even crime to keep themselves sane. The teeming masses are difficult to police and it takes a special dedicated individual, one who has trained for nearly all of his or her childhood to patrol and enforce the law in these great cities. These are the Judges, trained to be the best, armed with the best equipment, and ready to patrol the streets as combined policeman, judge, jury, and executioner. They enforce the law and do so fairly—and none no more fairly than Judge Dredd himself, a figure who is both authoritarian and an anti-hero, the most well known and feared Judge in Mega-City One on the eastern seaboard of what was once the United States of America. On a daily basis, Judge Dredd has to deal with litterers and jaywalkers, slowsters and sponts, robbers and murders, smokers and boingers, illegal comic book dealers and gangster apes, and even Judge Death from a parallel earth. Over the years, the Judge Dredd comic has presented a carnival of crazy crimes and criminals, certainly more than enough to provide a rich, bonkers background for Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game when it was published in 1985.

Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game was published, like all good roleplaying games of its day, as a boxed set. Inside which could be found the seventy-two page Judge’s Manual, the one-hundred-and twenty-eight Game Master’s Book, a sixteen by twenty-two inch double-sided map sheet, a sheet of character cutouts, and four dice. The Judge’s Manual is the players’ book and explains how to create characters as well as the mechanics, whilst the Game Master covers background and running the game. Both the cutout characters and the double-sided map sheet are done in full colour, in 25 mm scale, one side of the map depicting an entrance to a stretch of underpass, the other the floorplans of a Shuggy (3D Pool) Hall. Each is used in the two scenarios in the Game Master’s Book. Notably, both the Judge’s Manual and the Game Master’s Book are liberally illustrated with both art and comic strips from Judge Dredd. All of which is superb. The artwork might be black and white, but it all comes from the comic strip which is also done in black and white. Remember that at this time, colour artwork really was a luxury! Nevertheless, the illustrations in Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game are very, very good.

Of course, what each player roleplays in Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game is a Judge. Relatively fresh out of the Academy, beginning characters are fairly bland,and mechanically at this point, there is little to distinguish one Judge from another. This extends to roleplaying too, since a Judge is not meant to express any emotion and his life is entirely focused on executing the Law, and certainly straight out of the Academy will not have any time for a private life. Now there is scope for a Judge to specialise as a Med-Judge, Tech-Judge, or even a PSI-Judge, but being able to do so straight out of the Academy is unlikely. This is not to say that roleplaying a Judge is akin to roleplaying an automaton, rather than thinking of playing robot, think of it as a Judge being highly dedicated. How he or she will react to the bizarre everyday life in Mega-City One is where there is scope for roleplaying as well his somewhat repressed personality.

Mechanically, a Judge is defined by eight attributes. These are Strength, Initiative, Combat Skill, Drive Skill, Street Skill, Technical Skill, Medical Skill and Psi Skill. Strength is used in hand-to-hand combat and measures how damage a Judge can do as well as how many Wounds he can take. Initiative represents a Judge’s agility and when he can act in combat; all combat actions are handled by Combat Skill; the Drive Skill enables a Judge to drive any vehicle, from his Lawmaster motorbike to a spaceship; the Street Skill represents his area knowledge as well as authoritarian presence and being able to spot lies; Technical Skill is ability to use and fix devices and machinery of all types, including computer use, picking locks, and defusing bombs; Medical Skill covers first aid, trauma surgery, diseases, and related knowledge; and Psi Skill, a Judge’s skill with psychic powers if he has any or resisting them. All of these are rated as percentiles, except for Strength which ranges between one and three.

Creating a Judge is simple enough. A four-sided die is rolled and one deducted for Strength. Everything else is determined by rolling two ten-sided dice and adding twenty to the total. If any Attribute is equal to forty or more, then the player can choose an Ability. For example, Agile and Instant Reactions for Initiative, Crack Shot and Knock Out for the Combat Skill, Avoid Collision or Lawmaster Leap for the Drive Skill, Analyse Chemical or Use Date for the Technical Skill, Aura of Cool or Sense Crime for the Street Crime, and Detect Intent or Psychic Block for the Psi Skill. (As an aside this combination of attributes as skills plus abilities does feel reminiscent of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.) If this is for the Technical Skill, Medical Skill, or Psi Skill, then the Judge can become a Specialist Judge like a Tech-Judge, Med-Judge, or Psi-Judge respectively. Judges who start with a Strength of one do get a bonus to the Psi Skill, but nevertheless, becoming either a Tech-Judge, Med-Judge, or Psi-Judge is unlikely but possible during character creation, being more likely as a Judge gains Experience Points, improves his attributes to first forty, then fifty, sixty, seventy, and so on. 

Judge Smith
Strength 2
Initiative 27
Combat Skill 34
Drive Skill 31
Street Skill 30
Technical Skill 34
Medical Skill 34
Psi Skill 31

Unless a player has to select an ability, character generation is quick and easy. Indeed, more attention is paid to the equipment carried by a Judge than to character generation! This is understandable, since this equipment plays a vital role in a Judge’s day-to-day duties, whether it is a Birdie Lie Detector, Pollution Meter, or his infamous Lawgiver handgun with its multiple ammunition types. Both Lawgiver and its multiple ammunition types—General Purpose, High Explosive, Armour Piercing, Incendiary, Rubber Ricochet, and so on—along with the equipment takes up a fair portion of the character sheet. Further, each Judge’s Lawmaster, a self-driving motorbike equipped with  twin 20 mm cannons and a Cyclops laser has its own character (bike?) sheet. It should also be noted that the Lawmaster is as good as any starting Judge in combat and when dealing with technical matters, and as is twice as capable as the average Judge when it comes to the Drive Skill. So in general, unless a starting Judge is brilliant and begins play with a high Drive Skill of forty and a Drive Skill-related Ability, it is definitely better that the driving be left to the bike!

Mechanically, Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game is simple and straightforward. It is a percentile system, a player rolling the dice to get equal to, or under the appropriate attribute, for example, Combat Skill in a fight or Technical Skill to access a computer. This can be modified by the situation or by equipment, such as the Birdie Lie Detector which adds a 50% bonus to a Judge’s Street Skill when attempting to determine whether a perp is telling the truth or not. Combat is more complex in that each combat round is divided into ten phases and when a Judge or perp can act and how many actions he has depends on his Initiative. For every ten points of Initiative—rounded up—a character has an action. So a starting Judge will have either three or four actions, acting on phases three, six, and nine or two, four, six, and eight respectively. Actions themselves are discrete in that a character can do just the one thing, so that might be to after a perp, crouch, use an object, aim a weapon, fire, dismount a vehicle, and so on.

The rules cover most situations, whether that is weapon malfunctions, breaking down doors, or vehicle combat and chases. What is notable is that a Judge only wears armour on his head, arms, and legs, and it only provides a 25% chance of protecting him. Then when he does take damage, it is rolled for on the personal damage table, the roll modified by the attack or ammunition type, such as +1 for High Explosive ammunition. Now Judges typically have between one, two, or three wounds, and whilst it is possible to lose one or two wounds when suffering damage, most of the time, a Judge will suffer Stun effects, which will lose him actions as well as temporary points from his Initiative attribute. What this means is that a Judge is actually stronger than he looks on paper, not by much, but this certainly emulates the brutal comic book violence of the source material.

The other notable thing about combat in Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game is that it is rarely initiated by a Judge. He is duty bound to issue a challenge for the perps to surrender first before taking direct action, and this takes an action. Similarly, aiming takes an action and a Judge is expected to aim unless he wants to shoot an innocent bystander by mistake. Further, he likely to issue another challenge later in the combat. The point is that as much as the mechanics in Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game focus on combat, combat, at least not to kill, is not the point of the game. This is supported by a solid example of play and an arrest. Further help in the Judge’s Manual for the player comes with sentencing—the next step after making an arrest, calling for backup, Justice Department organisation, and a guide to both Mega-City One and Mega-City One slang.

In comparison, the Game Master’s Book is almost rules light, nearly all of the rules to Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game being in the Judge’s Manual. Instead of rules, Game Master’s Book expands greatly on the setting of Mega-City One and running the game. There is excellent advice to that end as well as on how to write scenarios, before examining how to handle character generation, combat, making arrests, getting around Mega-City One, and running campaigns. Stats and background are provided for NPC Judges and the Sector Houses, out which the Judges will operate, plus all of the perps, criminals, punks, dunks, pongos, futsies, heisters, mobsters, psykers, and more to be found on the streets of Mega-City One. There are also rules for aliens and muties, and the city-blocks where most of Mega-City One’s citizenry lives, as well as stats and backgrounds for some of the most notable perps to appear in the comic strip, from the meaner than mean Angel Gang and the mobster Uggie Apelino and the Ape Gang to the vigilante Blanche Tatum and the infamous Judge murderer, Whitey. The Dark Judges—led by Judge Death—are listed under famous and infamous Judges along with Judge Dredd and Psi-Judge Anderson.

The Game Master’s Book also includes two scenarios—one short, one long. The first is ‘Firefight – On a Hot Summer’s Night’, a short encounter with car wreckers designed to teach the players how the game’s rules work. It is easy to run as a first encounter before the Game Master runs, the second, longer scenario, ‘The Ultimate Crime of Tony Thermo’. This is a fully detailed scenario, designed as a proper introduction to playing Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game, and sees the Judges attend a briefing, go out on patrol, deal with an issue or two before evidence of a crime in progress and having to thwart that. Where ‘Firefight – On a Hot Summer’s Night’ will last a single session, ‘The Ultimate Crime of Tony Thermo’ will probably last two. Overall, it is a solid starting adventure.

If there is an issue with the Game Master’s Book, it is twofold. One is that it feels jumbled in its organisation of its subject matters, so that stats and backgrounds for generic perps are one section, famous and infamous Judges in another, that of notable perps in another, and so on, interspersed sections on other subject matters. As a result it makes it a little difficult to find things in the book. The other is that it actually has one section which the players will find useful—an expanded section on sentencing, much more nuanced than that given in the Judges’ Manual. For the most part though, the Game Master will not be needing to consult the Game Master’s Book during play.

Physically, Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game is solidly produced. The books are well written and it is clear that the authors have done their research. Plus with access to hundreds of issues of 2000AD, both books make great use of the comic strip. What is clear from the examples and the scenarios is the successful efforts of the designers to match the humour of the comic, much of which poked fun at the gaming industry of the time. The maps and cutouts are excellent, the maps of course being designed to work with the range of miniatures that of course, Games Workshop produced for the roleplaying game. The dice though, are cheap, and well, nasty.

Reviews at the time of the publication of Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game were polar opposites and reflected the then divided camps of British roleplaying magazines. In the one corner was Games Workshop’s White Dwarf, in the other was GameMaster Publications, the spiritual successor to TSR (UK), Inc.’s Imagine magazine. The review in GameMaster Publications Issue 2 (December, 1985) concluded that, “It is a good interpretation of the strip in game form, and the books are lavishly illustrated with panels from the comics. Most importantly, the designers have researched the subject in meticulous detail, trying to capture all the bizarre sides of life in Mega-City One. Stats for all the Perps that have appeared in the strips are presented — which may or may not strike you as odd given the way most of them have been blasted to atoms by Dredd — and several tables provide methods for creating new mutants and other potential opponents. But everything is going to depend on your ability to think up new and fitting perps, crimes and city events if you are going to progress beyond see ’em and blast ’em over and over again.” Unsurprisingly, Jason Kingsley, reviewing Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game in White Dwarf Issue 73 (January, 1986), was far more positive. Awarding the roleplaying an overall score of ten out of ten, he concluded, “All in all, Judge Dredd - The Role-Playing Game is an excellent product, for detail, value and content. Dredd fans will be pleased with it.”

The retrospectives would begin in 1996 with Arcane #3 (February, 1996), shortly after the licence for the Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game expired. In the Despatches section, Paul Pettengale said of it, “It’s fast, it's frenetic, and it’s more than a little fraught; but above all Judge Dredd, The Roleplaying Game is - or at least was - damned good fun.” and that, “The two rule-books - one each for the player and the ref - flesh out the campaign setting, giving a brief history of Mega City One, its peoples and its many quirks. Both are enjoyable and, like the game itself, they last forever.” This was followed up later in Arcane #14 (December, 1996) when it was included in ‘Arcane Presents the Top 50 Roleplaying Games 1996’ in the twenty-first slot, stating that, “This is one of the best roleplaying systems ever created. It oozes atmosphere and spits out gritting violence and playability, and generally makes for a very good time indeed. The excellent way in which the rules are laid out (and written), helps referees to start running the game almost straight out of the box. In our eyes, it should have featured in the top ten.” More recently, The Grognard Files—rated the number one Roleplaying Game Talk Podcast of 2019—discussed Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game and interviewed Marc Gascoigne in Episode 18 (Part 1) and Episode 18 (Part 2) of the podcast.

Right out of the box, Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game is complete and relatively easy to learn and start playing. The rules are simple, and really covered in just a few pages, leaving the rest of books to detail and explore the maniacally rich and complex world of Judge Dredd and Mega-City One, which it does in meticulous detail. There is something to be said of the suggestion that Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game is more of a ‘roll-playing’ game rather than a ‘roleplaying game’, and yes, whilst there is an emphasis upon combat in the rules, apprehending suspects is the point of the game and that often does involve combat. Yet, there is roleplaying to be had in investigating crimes, interrogating suspects, and in general, dealing with the citizenry of Mega-City One. So in some ways, Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game should be thought of an action roleplaying game—a police action roleplaying game (rather than as a superhero game as it is sometimes categorised). Then there is the rich detail of Mega-City One to dig onto, whether as a Judge to patrol and explore, or as the Game Master to develop crimes and investigations.

By modern standards, Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game is perhaps a little one-note in what characters the players roleplay and somewhat limited at the start of play. So yes, it can be hard to distinguish between player characters and they are often less than competent as you might wish, but the setting and its humour is worth it. And that is even before a campaign escapes Mega-City One into the Cursed Earth or other Mega-Cities. Plus, the Judges will begin to diverge as their players choose different abilities and perhaps become Specialist Judges. For the Game Master though, Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game is not so one note, for it comes with  an incredibly rich background with which to work and develop her own cases, which only really covers the first decade of Judge Dredd and 2000AD.

A combination of simple mechanics and background rife with humour and grit, Judge Dredd: The Role-Playing Game is still very playable. Those mechanics, and that grit and humour would undoubtedly influence Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay the following year, but it is here that they were first seen. 

Had the chance to pick up the new DC Black Label publication of Stjepan Šejić's Harleen.





It is absolutely fantastic.
Not only can he produce some fantastic art that just grabs you, he also is a great story teller.

If you don't know Stjepan Šejić's work then make sure you change that now! 
You can see some of Harleen here from Issue #1.  This hardcover combines issues 1 to 3.

I hear he wants to do one for Poison Ivy now too in the same universe.  I am all for that!
Though I am still waiting for that WonderCroft comic!

You can find Stjepan on the web:

• https://www.patreon.com/shiniebezial
• https://www.deviantart.com/nebezial
• https://twitter.com/stjepansejic

17th Century Minimalist: A Historical Low-Fantasy OSR Rulebook is the core rulebook for 17th Century Minimalist, an Old School Renaissance roleplaying game of smalltime tricksters, conniving thieves, stalwart ex-soldiers, swashbucklers with panche and gambling debts, and minor physicians, banding together out of necessity and the need for coin (glory optional). Published by Games Omnivorous and designed by the author of The Squid, the Cabal, and the Old Man for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying, it is a rules-light Class and Level roleplaying game set in the seventeenth century which features firearms, no magic, a task-based experience system, and a fast, deadly combat system. Flintlocks are easy to use, but have a chance of misfire and take time to reload. Instead of magic, Illusionists use tricks and misdirection, whilst Plague Doctors apply treatments which might be interpreted as miracles or witchcraft. Cuthroats gain Experience Points for backstabbing, stealing rare items, disarming hard traps, and so on; Illusionists for entertaining crowds, doing tricks, wooing persons of note, et cetera; Plague Doctors for curing the Plague and other diseases and for discovering new flora; Soldiers for killing strong foes, doing mercenary work, and going to war; and Swashbucklers for dueling and doing bold stunts in combat. Lastly, whilst characters acquire Levels, they never increase their Hit Points, so combat is deadly. 

Characters in 17th Century Minimalist are defined by five abilities—Charisma, Dexterity, Strength, Intelligence, and Luck; Class (as above) and Level—up to Fifth Level as campaigns are intended to be short in 17th Century Minimalist; and Reputation. Character creation is quick and easy. A player rolls three four-sided dice for the five abilities and then rolls three four-sided dice and add two to replace the values of any ability with a value less than five. Then he chooses one of the roleplaying game’s five Classes, rolling a background from the table given for each Class. The process is quick and easy, and helped by the fact that each Class has its own character sheet for ease of play.

Our sample character is a Laid-off Infantryman, a Scots mercenary and Protestant fighting in the Thirty Years War. Currently there is a lull in the fighting and he is seeking his fortune elsewhere, or least the means to pay for his keep and wine, women, and song.

Name: James McTavish
Class: Soldier Level: 1
Background: Laid-off Infantryman
Charisma 08 Intelligence 06 
Dexterity 10 Luck 09 
Strength 13 Current Luck 09

Reputation: 6
Hit Points: 12
Armour: Leather Armour, steel helm
Main Weapon: Claymore, musket & ammunition (d10)

Special Abilities: Military Training (no disadvantage with large weapons, advantage with musket), Scars of War (advantage on reisting disease, drugs, alcohol), Combat Prowess (extra action if exact Strength rolled), Merciless (critical hit range equals Level, plus own Critical Hit table)

Mechanically, 17th Century Minimalist is fairly simple. Whenever a character wants to undertake an action, his player rolls a twenty-sided die against the appropriate ability, aiming to roll equal to or under it. Rolls of one count as criticals and of twenty as fumbles. Luck can be spent to reroll anything other than fumbles and between one and three points of Luck is regained at the end of each adventure. 17th Century Minimalist uses the Advantage and Disadvantage rules as per Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and the Useage Die mechanic as per The Black Hack.

Combat in 17th Century Minimalist is brutal—and not just because player characters have static Hit Points. To begin with, initiative is handled not by die rolls. Instead, each player puts a recognisable die into a bag, into which the Game Master adds one die for the opposition and one as a neutral die. When a player’s die is drawn from the bag, his character can act, when the opposition’s die is drawn, they can act, and when the neutral die is drawn, the round ends, all of the dice are placed back in the bag, and a new round begins. Rather than the back and forth of traditional initiative mechanics, initiative is a wild affair—the opposition might get to act, but not the player characters before the round ends, or vice versa, some or even none of the player characters might get to act before the round ends, and so on. It is wild, but it is brutal.

Fumbles mean that the attacker has hit an ally or that his weapon has broken, whilst Criticals simply add damage. When an attacker fails to land a blow in melee combat, the defendant can riposte, although with Disadvantage. Armour blocks damage a number of times equal to its Armour Value, from the one of Leather to the four of Full Plate, and be fixed, either by the player character or a craftsman. Weapon damage is determined by size—a four-sided die for small weapons, a six-sided die for medium weapons, and an eight-sided die for big weapons. Being reduced to zero Hit Points does not necessarily mean that a character is dead, though there is a chance of that along with maiming and scarring.

Firearms get their own section. The default type—muskets and pistols—is the flintlock. Inflicting damage equal to big weapons, they take time to reload and there is the chance that they might misfire or backfire. Rules for grenades are also given as is a table of rare firearms, such as the axe-pistol and Duck-feet pistol.
So for example, James Mactavish has signed as a guard for a caravan of refugees going to a region where their faith is accepted. It is attacked by mercenaries. They ride in on horseback, their sabres ready to strike. James’ player puts in a blue die into the initiative bag and the Game Master puts a red one in for the opposition and a white one as the neutral die. On the first round, she pulls the red die out first—a mercenary is going to attack James. His player rolls a twenty-sided die and gets a nine. This is under James’ Dexterity so he ducks the sword strike from the horse-mounted mercenary. Since the mercenary missed, James is allowed a riposte with a melee weapon, though it is rolled with disadvantage. He states that he is going to swing his halberd. His player rolls two twenty-sided dice, but with rolls of fifteen and nineteen, he misses. Next the Game Master draws another die out of the bag. It is the neutral die, so the round has ended. Both the red and the white dice go back in the bag and the next round begins.
On the second round, the first die out is a blue die, which means that James acts first. His player decides that James will ready his halberd and strike as soon as the mercenary, who has ridden away and wheeled around to come back for another attack, comes into reach. He rolls a nineteen, which is obviously not good enough, so he burns a point of Luck to reroll. This time, he rolls a one, which is a critical success. As a critical hit, it ignores Armour, so the Game Master cannot block the damage. In addition to the damage die of an eight-sided die, plus the standard bonus of a four-sided die rolled for more damage, because James is a Soldier, his player gets to roll on the Class’ own Critical Hit table. So rolls six on the eight-sided die and three on the four-sided die for a total of nine damage. Then on the Soldier Class Critical Hit table, he rolls a five, which means that he disarms the mercenary, smashing his sabre from his hand.Being ‘A Historical Low-Fantasy OSR’ roleplaying game, 17th Century Minimalist  does not include magic. It does however include abilities which to the uneducated might appear to be indistinguishable from magic. In particular, two of the Classes, the Illusionist and the Plague Doctor have such abilities. Thus, the Illusionist has a ‘Bag of Tricks’ with which he can create a ‘Fake Sound’ or perform a ‘Card Swap’ which enables him to make a character friendly to him, whilst the Plague Doctor can perform Treatments, such as ‘Send Rats’ to attack a target or ‘Apply Light Leeches’ to provide minor healing.

In terms of character progress, two other factors are tracked in 17th Century Minimalist. One is Experience, as in any other retroclone, but instead of tracking hundreds and thousands of Experience Points, in 17th Century Minimalist, a character receives single points. For every ten of these, a character can go up a Level, up to a maximum of five. They are received though, one at a time, for undertaking tasks particular to their Class as described above. The other factor is Reputation. This starts at six and rises and falls depending upon whether a character commits Virtuous—such as rescuing someone of note or slaying a witch—or Vicious—killing innocent folk or desecrating tombs—actions. Should a character’s reputation drop to one, he becomes Infamous and can Infamy tokens which can be spent to contact the criminal underworld or hire a retainer for free—a vile, vicious retainer. On the other hand, should it rise to twelve and the character becomes Famous and receives Famous tokens which can be spent to gain access to the local authorities or to receive an exotic gift. A character’s Reputation must remain at either one or twelve to continue receiving the Infamous or Famous tokens and will continue to remain Famous or Infamous until his Reputation rises or drops to six respectively. What you have in this Reputation mechanic is both a means of measuring what the populace at large think of a character and the nature of the character’s actions and their ramifications, basically a simple, binary Alignment system.

Besides rules for commerce, equipment, pets, and retainers, as well as alcohol, drugs, disease, and poison, there is very little in the way of world information in 17th Century Minimalist. It is assumed that Game Master and players alike will at least know something of the period, given that there is no bibliography. Similarly, it is expected that the Game Master has some experience in running roleplaying games, since there is scant advice given bar handling of supernatural monsters and their damage, and converting Armour Class and monsters from the Old School Renaissance roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice. In fact, the one real issue with 17th Century Minimalist is the lack of advice when it comes to the creation and handling of NPCs.

The second half of 17th Century Minimalist is dedicated to describing its five Classes. The Cutthroat is a Hired Assassin, Former King’s Spy, or Nomadic Ninja who receives Luck Tokens to avoid death outside of combat, to reroll fumbles, and perform sneak attacks; and gain Advantage when climbing, wearing a disguise, sneaking, and so on. A Court Jester, Foreign-Fire Breather, or Apprentice of Magic, the Illusionist also has a sense of Déjà vu and so adds an extra die to the initiative bag, can earn money entertaining the crowds, and can perform various Tricks pulled literally from his Bag of Tricks’. The Plague Doctor, possibly a Aspirin Alchemist, Survivor of Leprosy, or Botanical Cataloguer, is educated and knows more Exotic and Dead languages, when wearing their beak-like masks they are immune to disease and can instil fear, know how to fight off the diseased—vermin and human alike, and can perform Treatments. The Soldier, possibly an Outlaw Traitor, Uncredited War Hero, or Disgraced General, can wield big weapons without Disadvantage and muskets with Advantage, make Strength checks with Advantage to resist the effects of alcohol, drugs, and disease, gain an extra action when their exact Strength is rolled with Strength tests in combat, and gain a wider Critical Range as well as having his own Critical Hit table. Possibly a Former King’s Musketeer, Self-Proclaimed Poet, or Duelling Artiste, the Swashbuckler gains extra Luck, can perform Swashbuckling Deeds such as shooting a firearm with double Advantage or inflict an extra die of damage, can use their Luck to test any situation, and cannot refuse a duel, and will either fight with a sense of Superiority, Egotism, Vanity, or Arrogance.

All five of these Classes are fun and flavoursome. All five also counter some of the brutality and deadliness of the setting, especially for the Soldier and the Swashbuckler Classes. Further, being reduced to zero Hit Points does not mean that the character dies. His player still has to roll on the Zero Hit Points table and that only grants a one in six chance of instant death—unlike NPCs!

Physically, 17th Century Minimalist: A Historical Low-Fantasy OSR Rulebook is a full colour, well written, charmingly presented digest-sized booklet. The artwork manages to fit the setting, despite being almost suited to a child’s storybook. As an artefact though, it has the feel of being handmade and it really does feel good in the hand.

The most obvious thing missing from 17th Century Minimalist is an adventure. There is however the 17th Century Minimalist ‘Mini Adventure Folder’ which includes five mini-adventures. There is also any number of Old School Renaissance scenarios, of which many of those published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess, including the author’s own The Squid, the Cabal, and the Old Man as well as No Better Than Any Man, Scenic Dunnsmouth, or Forgive Us, would be suitable as they share the same setting. That said, the more fantastical the nature of the setting, the less useful a scenario may be, depending to what degree the Game Master wants her 17th Century Minimalist game to involve the fantastic or the supernatural.

Yet as good and as charming as 17th Century Minimalist is, it is not perfect. First, it does not explain its core mechanic clearly enough, if at all, so it does not state clearly if the players are doing all of the rolls or both players and the Game Master are. Second, it does not tell the Game Master how to create or handle NPCs. Third, there is no background to the game. Now all of this can be overcome by the Game Master, who needs to decide how to handle the first two problems and possibly do a little research for the third. Or the author could publish a 17th Century Minimalist Game Master’s Guide and address all three issues.

Now despite its problems—all three of which can be overcome by the Game Master—there is a great deal to like about 17th Century Minimalist. The rules are simple, the Classes are both flavoursome and fun to play, and the system is deadly enough to make players think twice about fighting, but provides the means to ameliorate that deadliness by playing to their Classes. (As an aside, these Classes and the mechanics could be used to model a fantastic, gritty 19th Century Minimalist Wild West roleplaying game too.) Although, 17th Century Minimalist: A Historical Low-Fantasy OSR Rulebook does leave the Game Master with a few decisions to make that it really should not have done—though they are relatively simple fixes—there is no denying its brutal charm and flavour.

Well, there’s Austin. Despite arriving in town just in time to learn that the famed SXSW Festival was being cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns, everyone else involved with this year’s Nosferatu Festival was ready to go, and so was the … Continue reading →

Apologies for a lack of updates this week: expect a whole lot later today, as I had to drop out of one show tonight out of concern for my mother-in-law and several others are rescheduling until after the current COVID-19 … Continue reading →

It's Friday the 13th! You know that is like a holiday around here.

What better way to celebrate than a new game from my friend Justin Issac?

Slashers & Survivors - Slashcan Edition



From DriveThruRPG:

Slashers & Survivors: Slashcan Edition is an ashcan version of the our new slasher rpg. Based on The Blackest of Deaths by Bloat Games, the game allows you to create a nerd, jock, or other slasher staple and see if you can outwit and survive a homicidal maniac or deadly cult. This is not the final version of the game and the pdf will be updated periodically with feedback recieved. There will be a deluxe version of the game coming to Kickstarter later this year with more content.I grabbed it and it is fun.

It is PayWhatYouWant, but do throw money at it. 

The Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns is overwritten, underdeveloped, unedited, contradictory, and repetitive. The Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns is a frustrating book to read and therefore likely a frustrating book to use. These are not good words with which to start a review and these are not good words which as a reviewer that I want to write, but they have to be written. And as frustrating as it is to have to write them, they have to be written at the top of the review because they are the primary impression of the Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns after having read it. It is also frustrating because it is very obvious what the authors of the Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns were trying to do and it very obvious that the Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns is full of ideas, and it is just about obvious that the Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns is not without potential. Lastly it is frustrating that as a professional editor that there was nobody involved in the Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns to help its authors reach that potential.

So what is the Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns? Published by Wisdom Save Media, following a successful Kickstarter campaign, the Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns is the second in the publisher’s series of ‘Pocket Companion’ supplements. The first, the Pocket Companion: A Tavern Guide, presented a plethora of inns and taverns, from highest of high-class establishments to the lowest of dives, from forests to mountains, villages to cities, and more. As its title suggests, the Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns, widens the scope of the series to cover long established settlements large and well, larger. From mountains to swamps, jungles to deserts, the Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns details some twelve cities which the Game Master—or Dungeon Master—can add to her campaign world.

Each of the twelve entries follows the same format. This begins with a listing of the settlement’s ‘Points of Interest’, ‘In a Nutshell’ gives a basic description of it, ‘Location’, ‘The People of …’ the settlement describes its inhabitants, ‘Trading and Taverns’ describes drinking establishments and the settlement’s trade, ‘Popular Establishments’ presents more taverns, blacksmiths, and other shops, ‘Locations, Shops and Sights’ describes particular districts, ‘Tourist Traps’ are more detailed descriptions of the settlement’s ‘Points of Interest’, and lastly ‘NPC’s’ details unique and individual characters.  Each entry is also accompanied by two tables, one of popular establishments and the other of important NPCs. In general, the Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns is well organised and it is easy to pick things off the page.

The twelve towns and cities include Barrelside, a city divided between the rich north and heavily-taxed poor south, almost at war with each other, but renowned for its bards’ college; Greywater stands on stilts in a swamp, a known haunt of both pirates and smugglers; and Zha’rath is an island city which caters to pirates. So there is a fair degree of variety in the types of city presented in the supplement, but drill down and oddities appear. So the inhabitants of some cities have particular customs and do not like them being broken, even by outsiders, but not once is the reader told what these customs are. Everything seems to be local (except when it is not), there are always taverns and blacksmiths, and it seems that there is always one little shop hidden away, waiting to be discovered. Cities are never located by a river, they are always divided by it. Then there are the inconsistencies, such as the city which might be on the edge of a desert or in the middle of a vast expanse of desert or that a city has docks for the trade ships which use the river that the city straddles to reach the sea, a route which runs through treacherous gorges and over imposing cliffs. How exactly do the ships get to the sea?

Again and again, the Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns leaves the reader—the potential user as Game Master—to decide on such matters. To literally do the development work that the book is so clearly crying out for. Perhaps the descriptions might have been helped by maps, but there is only one and that feels more like a wilderness map than city map. 

However, the dozen city descriptions are not the only content in the Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns. It starts with four plot hooks, such as an empty city in sky and a series of bangs which come from a number of robed spellcasters lobbing spells at a tower and the guards attempting to stop them—sadly neither of the twelve detailed later on, and it ends with a set of tables for Urban Encounters and for developing the Underbelly—the city’s criminal underworld, and then spaces for the Game Master to write up her own. The tables are basic enough, but they are simple, clear, and easy to use as prompts for developing aspects of a settlement by the Game Master.

Physically, the Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns looks clean and simple. The artwork is adequate, although it does not always seem quite relevant, such as stone bridge in a swamp town where everything is built on stilts.

In any book there has to be some merit, something worth the time of the reader or potential Game Master or Dungeon Master, but truthfully the Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns is almost bereft. All for the want of an editor and somebody asking, in too many instances, if that was what the authors meant. What merit there is, is as a source of ideas perhaps, details to spur the reader’s imagination, because that is what he will have to work in order to make use of the contents of the Pocket Companion: A Guide to Cities and Towns.

 Exhibit / March 12, 2020

Object Name: Vidas Ilustres: “El Hombre Que Se Convirtirio En Un Insecto”
Maker and Year: Editorial Novaro, 1973
Object Type: Comic book
Description: (Richard McKenna)

Coming out every month between 1956 and 1974, Vidas Ilustres (“Illustrious Lives”)—was a monthly Mexican comic published by Editorial Novaro, each issue of which looked at the exceptional achievements of a man—it was always a man, with the two exceptions of Madame Curie and Florence Nightingale—in the arts or sciences. Over its 332 editions, Vidas Ilustres covered a vastly eclectic range of subjects, ranging from Anatole France, Orson Welles, HP Lovecraft, Mishima, Jung, Hokusai, Charles Fort, Gandhi, Simón Bolívar, Confucius, and Martin Luther King, even finding space for an astonishing eight comics on Balzac.

Founded by brothers Luis and Octavio Novaro in the early ’50s, Editorial Novaro had started by publishing reprints of foreign comics like Batman and Tintin, but in 1954 the company began putting out its own stirringly-titled Vidas Ejemplares (“Exemplary Lives”), comic book biographies of notable figures in the Catholic Church. The series was a hit, and like-minded titles like Patronos y Santuarios (“Patron Saints and Sanctuaries”) soon followed.

Luckily, the  company’s other publications also included less pious fare, like Mujeres Célebres, a comic devoted to famous women that was published from 1961 to 1974 and included issues on Eleanor Roosevelt, Josephine Baker, Jean Harlow, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, and Greek poet Sappho. Its publications from the time used a slightly stiff font for lettering imposed by a regulatory body called the Qualifying Commission for Illustrated Magazines and Publications (made up of members of the Mexican Ministry of Public Education and created mainly to assuage the reactionary Catholic Legion of Decency) with the aim of protecting young readers from eye damage.

Most editions of Vidas Ilustres dealt purely with the biographical details of the person in question, but in the Obras Inmortales (“Immortal Works”) series the comic would dramatize not only their lives but also a famous work of their oeuvre—perhaps following the popular American line Classics Illustrated. This was the case with “El Hombre Que Se Convirtirio En Un Insecto”—“The Man Who Became an Insect.” Though not enormously faithful to Kafka’s original, “El Hombre Que Se Convirtirio En Un Insecto” does, in its lurid way, somehow retain the mood and intent of The Metamorphosis, its cover evoking perfectly the juvenile horror-story thrill that first drew me—and perhaps many others—to Kafka’s work.

I am sure a lot of you, if not all, are familiar with the Bundle of Holding.
You pay a reduced price to get some great RPG books. Pay a little more and get a lot more. Often some of the money goes to charity.  Well, this month is one of my favorite games.

Bundle of Holding: Blue Rose


For just under $8 you can get $48 worth of material.  Not a bad deal at all.
If you were at all interested in this game this is the place to get it from and now is the time.

You can read my reviews of the game here:

• Review: Blue Rose 2nd Edition,
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
• Shadowtide: A Blue Rose Novel

It really is a great game.

I have been thinking about Time Crystals and Klingon Time Travel.
That almost sounds contradictory, but hear me out.

A couple of things about Klingon culture stand out to me.

First, there is Boreth, the Klingon Monastery.   When the First Emporer Kahless was leaving his people he pointed to a star and said: "Look for me there, on that point of light."  That point of light was the star that Boreth orbited.  It has been given as one of the reasons that Klingons expanded into space; to keep their promise with Kahless.


Boreth has only one building, a monastery dedicated to Kahless. Here devotees can have visions. One thing not spoken about in Federation circles is that these visions always come true.  Why?  Boreth is also home to naturally occurring Time Crystals.  These warps time around them much like dilithium warps matter and space.   No, the science doesn't make any real sense, but this is Star Trek, not Astrophysics.   So we have a culture that has a planet full of time altering crystals.  We saw the Klingon High Priest Tenavik grow to an adult in a few months here (ST:DISCO) and later Worf sees visions of his future (ST:TNG).

Klingons have also had access to time travel devices in Voyager. In particular, in 2404 (five years from the current Picard series) a Klingon named Korath "sells" Janeway a time travel device.  The implication is this was something only a Klingon could get and he wasn't supposed to be sharing it with any non-Klingon.

Then there is the Klingon homeworld of Qo'noS. Or as we say it, Kronos. Another nod to time.

So why don't Klingons travel in time?  Simple.  Kahless told them not too.

Before Kahless went to Sto'Vo'Kor he passed on some more wisdom to his fellow Klingons.
"nuq 'oH legh ghaH 'Iv legh qa' jIH."

or "He who looks to the past misses the future."

Klingons, while they honor their past, took this as an injunction against meddling with it.
Kahless is not just their Emporer, he is a messianic figure. Remember, according to Lt. Commander Worf, "Our gods are dead. Ancient Klingon warriors slew them a millennia ago. They were more trouble than they were worth."  Kahless is all they have left.

BlackStar


How does this fit into BlackStar?

This is the background I am using to set up "The Ghost Station of Inverness Five."
It would make for a great con game.  I could even run it straight as a pure Star Trek game, to be honest.  Though this makes The Ghost Station the most "Trek" of all the BlackStar adventures.

I am going to have to see if I can find an old copy of the FASA Trek Regula-1 Deck Plans.
After I posted my first post on The Ghost Station I realized I put a Space Station into what should at that time be protected space.  So the Time Crystals simply pulled the science station into the current time.



The station is from the Federation-Klingon war, so lots of old-school Trek fun with it.  I just have to be careful and not steal to many ideas that I was going to use in the "Ghost Ship" adventure.

Jonathan Lukens / March 10, 2020

In 1985, the first issue of an unusual new title hit the shelves of North American comic book stores. Part of Marvel Comics’ short-lived creator-owned imprint Epic, Rick Veitch’s The One stood out because its cover was an obvious visual reference to the red, orange, and yellow concentric circles of Tide laundry detergent’s branding. Throughout the pages of the first issue and those that followed, it became clear that those garish circles were meant to evoke the presence of an otherworldly energy emanating from The One—a savior figure and super heroic manifestation of humanity’s collective potential that is unleashed by the massive psychic shock of an imminent nuclear exchange.

The first issue opens with a reproduction of a newspaper clipping from March 14, 1984 that details the opinions of one Dr. Derrick de Kerckhove, then acting director of the Marshal McLuhan program in culture and technology at the University of Toronto. Dr. Kerckhove explains the benefits of nuclear weaponry, referring to the bomb as “something to bring us together.” Thirty-six years later, with a 2018 hardcover reprint of all five issues in front of me, I found myself questioning the veracity of the clipping: was it some conceit Veitch was using to establish the emergent consciousness of his oblique protagonist? A web search confirmed the existence of Dr. Kerckhove, and led me to a 1984 New York Times article that summarized his thesis: nuclear weapons, and the attendant possibility of the annihilation of our species, “binds people together in a way they have not been linked since the Middle Ages, albeit on the brink of collective suicide.”

Like a tripping Herman Kahn, or some Fellowship of Holy Fallout choir via Rand report, the origin of The One (both the character and the title) is drawn from this proto-accelerationist rhetoric. Presented throughout the series as a creation of cooperative and convivial aspects of human nature and manifesting itself (ourselves?) as both a black spandex-suited male figure and an aged man in a purple shirt and green and black windowpane-checked blazer, The One first appears in the moments just prior to the impact of nuclear missiles in a potentially world ending exchange between the Soviet Union and United States. Flying through the sky radiating an aura of weird magnetism, referencing the so-obvious-maybe-no-one-ever-noticed visual similarities between psychedelic art and detergent branding, The One drains the destructive energy of the incoming Soviet missiles. Mutually assured destruction is derailed by the awakening collective consciousness of this super-powered gestalt entity reminiscent of the Eternal Uni-Mind.

Subsequent super heroic action is punctuated by a series of recurring panels in which individual characters face the camera and explain events after the fact. Here, it is revealed that The One isn’t just a first wave example of the postmodern graphic novel that brought us Watchmen (1986-1987) and The Dark Knight Returns (1986). And it isn’t just a book about superheroes with moral ambiguities set in a universe with greater verisimilitude. Rather, The One is a work of eschatology that combines gonzo satire with superhero tropes to detail a dualistic cosmology, an immemorial struggle between The One and The Other, the latter a manifestation of selfishness and avarice. The Other functions as a stand-in for the allegedly basal desires exploited by consumerism. This critique is also evident in subsequent covers that continue in the vein of the first: a U.S. one dollar bill, a pocket calculator screen, a Coca Cola can, J.M. Flagg’s “I Want You” Army recruitment poster, and a McDonald’s Big Mac. (The subversion of corporate logos, products, and slogans by independent and underground artists became an ongoing “ironic commentary” in the decade that followed.)

The Other speaks through the character of Jay-hole, a shirtless and mulleted junky who explains: “Tribes! Armies! Governments! My master bore them all! […] His name is the other and he’s come back to collect the rent. […] He’s in competition with The One for total mastery over the human race.”

During its first manifestation, The One’s constituent members are rendered unconscious. Evoking the Christian rapture, and referencing the 1939 Raymond Chandler novel, they fall into what the characters refer to as “the big sleep.” At first, they are thought dead by those who remain “awake,” but as the series progresses the distinction between The One and the many is blurred. Jay-hole shares an apartment with his lover, Egypt, a pink and white-haired artist with skull earrings; her young son Larry; Jay-hole’s father, Doc Benway; and Benway’s girlfriend Guda. Much of the story involves Egypt’s potential corruption through Jay-hole and redemption via an association between Larry and The One.

This abortive Third World War as origin story was initiated by a character called Itchy Itch. A chain-smoking, bath-robed Bond villain, Itch is a defense contractor who has sold backdoor enabled computer systems to the United States and Soviet Navies. Itch uses this malicious firmware to manipulate the leaders of both countries: a cigar-chomping analog of Ronald Reagan (president McKenzie) and a Soviet premier (Kubalov) resembling Leonid Brezhnev, who speaks through a non-indwelling voice prosthesis. Drawing them into what he believes will be a survivable military confrontation, Itch plans on benefiting from the ensuing chaos. His investments, Itch explains, “have been strategically placed to capitalize upon the reckless errors others will make under pressure.”

However, while Itch’s Lex Luthor-like plans are successful, the emergence of The One is unanticipated. A new arms race begins, as the United States and Soviet Union call upon top secret super soldier programs. It is important to note that all of these “super heroes” are grotesques: on the Soviet side, the vamp and femme fatale Dr. Vera Pavlova borrows the forgotten Nazi endocrinological methods that produced Übermaus—a kaiju like giant rat—to create the caped superhuman Comrade Bog. Bog deploys his heightened strength, stamina, and gluttonous appetite against the Yankees while pontificating about the benefits of socialized medicine and the inadequacies of state-capitalist economies.

On the United States’ side, the super powered Charlie and Amelia have been brainwashed, somewhat like Marvelman’s Michael Moran, to believe they are earnest Midwestern siblings—an attempt to keep them from reproducing. Clad in the uniform of the 1984 US Olympic gymnastics team, and later revealed to be scientifically enhanced super-clones of Randian heros Charles Lindberg and Amelia Earhart, they struggle with desires for each other that they believe to be incestuous. Charles attacks Moscow, though he is seduced by Dr. Pavlova in a cringe-worthy scene in which unclear consent seems to be played for laughs. Meanwhile, Bog and Amelia proceed to battle in New York City, while The One and The Other compete for the souls of humanity.

This new superhuman arms race, and the “superior war,” allow Veitch to satire the “fallacy of the last move” explained in H. Bruce Franklin’s War Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination (1988) as

the addictive, ever-unfulfilled expectation that each new exotic weapon created for our ‘defense’ would confer upon the United States permanent military superiority and invulnerable ‘security.’ Underlying this is another fallacy, also nourished in some science fiction, that science and technology are products of lone wizards such as Thomas Edison, or brilliant research teams, or national genius. This fallacy binds policymakers to the fact that since the United States and Soviet Union are at roughly equivalent stages of science and technology, and new weapons produced by one can soon be matched by the other, thus bringing about not supremacy for either but increased danger for both.

The series ends with The Other constructing a human pyramid—though an ambulatory one that responds to its commands—out of those who remain chained to their fears and desires, while “the ones” who comprise The One are revealed to occupy a sort of idyllic virtual space encapsulated within the material form of The One. Reminiscent of the soul world pocket dimension folded into the gem in Adam Warlock’s head, the One’s members frolic naked in a pastoral landscape complete with a reunited Beagles (yes, that’s spelled correctly) playing “mellow submarine.” The One, as a single material body, leaves earth to enter the “vastness of interstellar space,” with “a billion hearts and souls fueling his magnetic field.”

Perhaps put more succinctly by Doc Benway in one of the last issue’s final panels: “The nightmare of a nuclear confrontation had started a catharsis, and the superior war had finished it. Thus mankind unconsciously short-circuited evolution itself–and somehow lived to tell the tale… Some of us did anyway. And not only were we flying about in space as The One but we were still alive, somewhere, just like we used to be. Only happier. Much happier!”

This is a misunderstanding of the theory of evolution—as if the process is a historical movement toward some sort of pre-determined state of optimality instead of the ad-hoc accretion of adaptations that were proven advantageous after the fact of their instantiation. However, this misunderstanding underlines the modernist assumptions in what we may consider to be one of the first of the so-called postmodern comics: that time involves “progress” toward something specific, that history has a point. Perhaps it is easier to imagine a Beatles-referencing magnetic-field rapture in the ashes of civilizations destroyed by superheroes than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.

The One presents a benevolent mass mind triumphing through a sort of collectivized actualization. I’m reminded of the techno-positivist utopian rhetoric surrounding the early internet, as if all of those humans who had “short-circuited evolution itself” were traversing interstellar space in a giant humanoid craft, all plugged in to a VR Beatles concert to pass the time. The problem is that that collectivized actualization, that end of history, just seems boring and anticlimactic. Would I have enjoyed more catharsis if all of humanity had perished?

Rick Veitch would go on to work with Alan Moore on Swamp Thing, eventually taking over writing duties as well. After DC refused to publish a finished story of his in which Swamp Thing met Jesus Christ, Veitch turned to independent and self-published work. There, he continued to work with some of the concepts first sketched in The One. Titles like Maximortal and Brat Pack extended his deconstruction of the superhero, while his dream log, Rare Bit Fiends, addressed the anima mundi we see in The One’s gestalt form. In his afterward to the 2018 edition, Veitch writes, “It is not difficult to imagine that as capitalism takes its victory lap, the true ‘end of history’ is imminent. If there is any slim hope I cling to it is the same one that inspired this book back in 1985: that the current existential stresses placed on us by the situation we’ve put ourselves in will fundamentally transform the human race.”

Though the idea of a bucolic nudist countryside of mass-mind at the end of history leaves me even colder now than it did when The One was first published, we can’t fault Veitch for offering us something expected. In fact, my motivation to seek out a copy of something I vaguely remembered buying back in 1985 wasn’t because of the story or characters. It was because The One was jarring enough to my eleven-year-old self that it stuck with me. Though at times it seemed to As You Know and jump-cut, The One stood out because of its ambition and the weirdness it offered: in the era of Top Gun and Rambo, of American Anthem and Rush’n Attack, things like a giant Nazi rat eating Washington, and human faces peeling off to reveal orange and yellow pop-art radiation, offered something that freaked me out in a different way than the mechanical appendages and mutagenic ooze that were my usual fare. Dr. Strangelove met Dr. Strange. The One offered up a satirical end of both history and the superhero, and tried to offer some transcendent hope in a world that seemed to be on the precipice of annihilation.

Jonathan Lukens is a cultural worker from Atlanta. His work has been shown at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, played through omnifarious speakers, and published in The Atlantic, Design Issues, and The International Journal of Design in Society.

Darren Hatley is a fellow cllector and long time friend of this Blog.  He lives in England in a hole in the ground and boils all of his food.  Darren has an amazing collection but takes things one step farther by creating his own unique custom figures.  He is a true master of the art of customizing figures.  You may have seen some of his creations on Stad's Stuff a couple of years ago.  You will get to see far more of his work here.  It is my privilage and joy to let him present his works of art and describe them in his own words in the first ever guest post on this Blog.  So, with no further ado . . .    


Hi my name is Darren.A.Hatley. I'm 51 years old and i live just outside London England. I started collecting Toy Soldiers and other figures when i was 4. I now collect mainly plastic 1/32 Scale ie 50mm to 60mm or 2 inch to 2 and half inch Ancient, Medieval Soldiers/Warriors and Fantasy figures. My collection has grown to around 5000 figures, About 1000 of which ive converted and painted in some way or another. I started converting and painting about 15 years ago, 1st off because i enjoy it, But the main reason was that i was always frustrated that there were not more figures that i wanted in 1/32 scale being made, Especially Fantasy figures. Of course there are some really nice figures but not enough. So i searched the internet and i found that there were many companies from all around the World making Fantasy figures from 35mm up to large scale but not as toy soldiers. Some were 1/32 scale but most were not. However i found that with some imagination patience and skill many of these figures could be made to be 1/32 toy soldier scale. 99% of my figures are between 50mm and 60mm which is my preferred scale size. Almost all of my conversions are unique one offs as i dont like multiples of 1 pose unless its a row of archers. There are basically 2 types of ways to convert, The 1st is say moving a figures own arms into a different position to make a new pose, And the 2nd type is mix and match different figures together, Some of my conversions are made of 4 or 5 separate figures. Simple conversions can take just a few days to complete, Where as harder conversions with a full paint job can take up to 3 weeks. I always try to pin my figures together as well as using Super glue and American made Quick Grip glue for maximum strength. Also the Quick Grip can be manipulated into clothing skin and muscle. My aim is to have an army of 1000 Fantasy Monsters of which i'm up to about 700 now. So here are just some examples of my work.Regards Darren   


Toy Major Custom Skeletons


I love these Toy Major Skeletons but I thought they had Great potential for many more dynamic poses, So I mixed and matched there body parts and came up with these figures.










































Russian No Name Goblins & Werewolf Knight



They are nice figures but i thought they were a bit short, The Knight and Werewolf were 45mm and the Goblins were 40mm and as i may have told you before i like most of my figures to be 50mm to 60mm so that they all fit nicely together in scale size and of course they fit nicely with my 1/32 scale Ancient and Medieval figures. So these were more straight forward conversion, I simply cut the short legs in half pinned them back together again at there new height size and then filled in the gaps with bits of plastic and glue as armour. I liked the Metallic Blue colour of these Goblin figures so i left them as they were and painted the new legs with Metallic Blue paint to go with the rest of the figures. I used string for the Werewolf legs and plastic silver armour from a Knight for the No Name Knight. So now the Goblins are 50mm and the Werewolf and Knight are about 52mm






























































Helm Toy & Others


This next figure is a Black Demon i made from a Native American body with a DFC Demon head, The Shield i made from bits of plastic. Then the figure has a full paint job.These next 6 figures are Helm Toy Ogres/Orcs and another Creature. I extended the bodys and legs to make the Ogres taller, And moved the Creatures arms and gave him a different weapon, And gave them all a full paint job.The next 3 are Mummy figures in which i carefully wrapped up 3 Cherilea Nubians and Egyptian figure with masking tape and gave them a shield.



































Reaper Bones

These next 11 figures are from a company called Reaper Bones Miniatures, 6 Orcs/Goblins, 1 Lizardman, 1 Tiki or Merman, 1 Gnoll and 2 Ogres. They are made in China but are American designed i think? Most of these figures come in at 35mm to 40mm but the top half of the figures are just about 1/32 scale but they have tiny legs which ive replaced with bigger longer legs, Then ive covered the waist and top of the legs with a loincloth made of plastic and Quick Grip glue which is quite hard and takes time to do but very rewarding when finished. Then a full paint job on every figure.




















































AD&D
These Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures and Pathfinders Battles figures have been going for about 15 years now. They make all kinds of Brilliant well detailed and prepainted Fantasy figures. There are many sets and Thousands of figures been made, But 95% or more are way to small or large to fit into 1/32 scale. However 5% or a couple of figures from each set is either 1/32 scale or can be converted to it. I have done nearly 50 figures from this range and here is 7 figures to show how they can look. Perhaps the hardest part of the conversion with these figures is matching the paint colour of my converted pieces to the prepainted figure.



































M.U.S.C.L.E.S.



Mattel M.U.S.C.L.E. made these Great weird and wacky Men and Monster wrestle figures back in the 1980s in the United States, And there have been quite a few more made in recent years mostly He-Man Muscle figures so overall there must be around 300 of them. Although they measure from 40mm to 45mm they are basically 1/32 figures with small legs. So i have cut the legs off around 50 of these and replaced them with longer legs and they make great 1/32 or 54mm to 60mm figures, Here are 5 examples of these figures i have converted.
































SCS Direct


I really like these SCS Direct Monster figures which are a good toy soldier size, But i like my figures to be as dynamic as possible. So i made new poses for these figures and gave them weapons and shields and as i usually do with most of my figures a full paint job.











































Gormiti & Such


Gormiti figures from Italy are mostly to big and chunky to really fit with 1/32 toy soldiers, But i came across a series in a pound store which came in at 40mm to 45mm but with a bit of converting fit really well as 1/32 figures, Here are 4 examples of these figures.The next 2 figures i have no idea who made them and in what country but i got them on ebay a while back. They are a Sharkman and Alien type figures, So i gave them weapons and different taller legs and a full paint job and i think they make really good Fantasy figures.
























































Monster in my Pocket & Converted Demons



These are 2 Monster In My Pocket figures. I made them taller as usual as they come in at 40mm to 45mm, And i stuck some extra bits to them that i thought might improve there look including the vines on the Tree Monster using bits of plastic and of course a full paint job, And the weapon on the staff of the Charon figure.  These are 3 Red Demons i put together using bits and bobs of different figures and the paint job as standard.








































Nolzurs

These next 3 figures the Minotaur and 2 Dragonborn Warriors figures are from a company called Nolzurs which are very similar to the Bones Reaper figures in material colour and size, They only came in at 35mm to 40mm so they needed a lot of work to bring them up to 1/32 scale. On the Minotaur i stretched out hes Torso and legs, And on the 2 Dragonborn figures i had to stretch the Torso legs and arms and of course a full paint job for all 3. They took up to 3 weeks to finish but were i think worth it when i had finished.






























Arco, Yu Gi Oh & Orc


These next 2 figures are Arco: Dragons and Monsters Cyclops and Lizardman, I replaced there original legs with longer legs to bring up there height and paint job.The next figure is a Yu-Gi-Oh Black Cat/Panther Warrior, I moved the arms for more dynamic pose and put him on taller legs and full paint job.The next figure is a mixture of 3 different figures i put together to make this Orc Warrior and of course paint job.






































Navia Dratp & Massive Darkness




This is a Navia Drapt figure from Japan, I moved hes arms and gave him another weapon, But the hardest thing about this figure was that i couldn't match up the colour paint to the original colour so i gave him a complete paint job which wasn't my original intention.These next 3 figures i brought from a website here in England from a company called Massive Darkness, They needed quite alot of work. I made them taller by either stretching the legs of the Troll and making a loincloth out of plastic bits, Stretching the Demons body or putting new legs on the Orc and a loincloth made of glue, I moved the arms for more dynamic poses and added weapons and shields, And a full paint job on all 3 figures.













































WWE MIghty Minis

As well as doing all kinds of Monsters i also do Human figures and as soon as i came across these 6 WWE Mighty Minis figures which are of famous American wrestler figures i thought they would make excellent Fantasy Barbarian Warriors. So i stuck the bodies onto Tehnolog Gladiator legs, And i use the Brilliant Russian made Tehnolog for many of my conversions, Then i gave them weapons and shields. For the hair of the Warriors i carefully and patiently manipulated the Quick Grip glue for the affect. The rock that one of the figures is holding i made from a small toy elephants body, Obviously cutting it to a shape of a rock and then using 2 small screws fixed it to the wrestlers hands.



















































 Lizardman!

This Lizardman figure took me about 3 weeks to make and is made from 4 different figures. He is one of the hardest figures ive ever done especially the skin which is made from thin pieces of plastic and the good old quick grip glue carefully put over the top of a human torso figure.



















































Merman Before & After



Over the last 6 months or so China and Hong Kong have been bringing out some brilliant but unbranded Fantasy figures like this Merman i recently did. As you can see the original red Merman is nice but only 40mm tall with the typical small legs. So i cut the original legs off and put him on a Tehnolog figures legs and then i moved the arms into a more dynamic pose, I then replaced the weapon on the left arm with a Warhammer Lizardman shield, I then put a horn on hes head and more barnicles onto hes body and then finished with a full paint job, This figure also took about 3 weeks to do.





















Warrior Before & After





The original figure is a drinking buddy figure i got from a supermarket. I then cut hes arms and legs off and added better ones, Gave him a long main using the quick grip glue and a full paint job and turned him into a Warrior.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Lost Symmetry

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Benjamin Schäfer

Setting: Lovecraft Country in the Jazz Age of the 1920s

Product: Scenario
What You Get: 1.65 MB twelve-page, full colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Sometimes the numbers add up to more than they should. 
Plot Hook: A missing brilliant mathematics student would never miss an exam, would he?
Plot Development: A missing friend, grumpy faculty staff,something for the bookhound in your life, sir?, and the Mythos comes home.
Plot Support: A new Mythos tome, two handouts, and a set of floorplans.

Pros
# Simple set-up
# Easily adapted to other times and periods
# One-shot or one-session scenario
# Potential addition to a Lovecraft Country campaign
# Nicely curmudgeonly NPCs
# Easy to run with little preparation
# Potential investigator introduction to the Mythos
# Could be played one-on-one
# Cinematic feel to a fun climax
# Possible sequel to Spark of Life

Cons# Needs editing
# Underdeveloped in places
# Why do the police turn up?
# No Sanity rewards

Conclusion
# Needs editing
# Simple, straightforward scenario with a cinematic climax 
# Decent one-shot or introduction to Lovecrafian investigative roleplaying

- image source

I think if I was hard-pressed into it I could recall all of the monsters from the Moldavy Basic D&D book.  I read that section over and over.  In my pre-adolescent mind, I felt I had to memorize the monsters so I could properly run a D&D game.

"Acolyte, Ape (white), Bandit, Bat, ..."  I didn't try to memorize the order, but it came with the territory.  I would pour over the Monster Manual with the same enthusiasm and likewise the Cook/Marsh Expert book.   But they did not "attach" themselves to my psyche the same way that the Basic book did.  The Monster Manual did so in different ways and the Expert monsters provided me with some of my all-time favorites.

Largely due to something called "The Serial Position Effect" in psychology it was easiest to remember the endpoints; Acolytes and Zombies.  So my earliest games had a lot of these.  Sometimes, oftentimes, in the same encounters. 

I grew rather fond of acolytes to be honest.  Not only did they have more flexibility than veterans (the "monster" type for fighters) but they could be used in a variety of ways.  Devotees on pilgrimages, wandering friars or monks, cultists, and yes, these guys.

With the Craft of the Wise: The Pagan Witch Tradition on the way, why not do the same with witches?

Image by Enrique Meseguer from PixabayInitiates
Initiates are 1st level witches on personal quests.  They usually travel in small groups, but larger groups can have higher level witches.  Groups of 4 or more are led by a higher level witch (1d10: 1–4: 2nd level, 5–7: 3rd level, 8–9: 4th level, 10: 5th level).

These witches will typically all be from the same coven and tradition.  For example, a coven of Bandrui witches can be Pagan Witch and/or Green Witch Traditions.

Initiates
(Labyrinth Lord)
No. Enc.: 1d6+1  (2d6+1)
Alignment: Any
Movement: 60' (20')
Armor Class: 9 [10]
Hit Dice: 1* (3 hp)
Attacks: 1 (dagger)
Damage: 1d6
Special: Witch spells
Save: Witch 1
Morale: 8
Hoard Class: IV
XP: 10

Initiates
(Blueholme Journeymanne Rules)
AC: 9 [10]
HD: 1d4
Move: 60
Attacks: 1 (dagger, 1d6), Witch spell
Alignment: Any
Treasure: 0 (3)
XP: 10

Initiate 
(Old-School Essentials)
1st level witches on personal quests.

Armor Class 9 [10]
Hit Dice 1 (5 hp)
Attacks 1 × dagger (1d6) or spell
THAC0 19 [0]
Movement Rate 60’ (20’)
Saves D11 W12 P14 B16 S15 (W1)
Morale 8
Alignment Any
XP for Defeating 10
Number Appearing 1d6+1 (2d6+1)
Treasure Type U

• Demi-Human witches. Elven NPC witches are known as “Kuruni,” and Dwarven NPC witches are called “Xothia.”
• Leader. Groups of 4+ are led by a higher level witch (1d10: 1–4: 2nd level, 5–7: 3rd level, 8–9: 4th level, 10: 5th level). Choose or roll the leader’s spells.
• Person. Considered a “person” for magical effects.

Initiate
(Iron Falcon)
Armor Class 9
Hit Dice 1
No. Attacks 1
Damage 1d6, by weapon
Move 6"
Alignment Any
No. Appearing 2d6+1
% in Lair None
Treasure C

Coming Soon!



The Craft of the Wise - The Pagan Witch Tradition for Old-School Essentials

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Church of Chiropteran Wisdom

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Sal North

Setting: England Jazz Age of the 1920s

Product: Scenario
What You Get: 733.72 Kb seven-page, full colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Shopping for sacrifices? 
Plot Hook: A missing person case points to a jewel on the English coast.
Plot Development: Several missing persons and a batty old shop.
Plot Support: Two NPCs, a new monster, and a Mask of the Crawling Chaos.

Pros
# Simple, location based scenario
# Easily adapted to other times and periods 
# One-shot or side-quest scenario
# Potential addition to Masks of Nyarlathotep

Cons# Unedited
# Underdeveloped plot
# Paucity of clues
# Underwhelming hook
# Tamworth, ‘Surrey’?

Conclusion
# Underdeveloped 
# Needs editing
# A Keeper project to improve?

godzillabreath:

Dragon and flora. Sketch commission piece for August.