I am back to work on my next set of syncretized myths, this time my poster child of syncretism, the Greco-Egyptian gods, also known as the Ptolemaic Religion.  I am taking some of the historically documented gods (Hermes Trismegistus, Serapis, Harpokrates) and mixing in my own takes (Heka, Hermanubis), and others to round this set of myths out.

There are a few monsters that fit both the Greek and Egyptian myths very well. The pegasus (as a winged horse), the sphinx, giant snakes, giant scorpions, all sorts of undead. But there are some monsters common to both cultures (Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt) that could also be used. Here is one. The Hippalektryon is an interesting creature. Since it is the combination of two creatures I decided they are sacred to Hermes Trismegistus.

Since my Myths & Monsters series is for 1st Edition, here it is in that format.

HIPPALEKTRYON

Rooster-Horse Hybrid

FREQUENCY: Very Rare
NO. APPEARING: 1d4
ARMOR CLASS: 4
MOVE: 18" (Fly: 30")
HIT DICE: 4+4
% IN LAIR: 10%
TREASURE TYPE: C
NO. OF ATTACKS: 2 claws / 1 beak
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 1–4 / 1–4 / 1–6
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Sonic crow
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Immune to illusions
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard
INTELLIGENCE: Low to Average (6–10)
ALIGNMENT: Neutral
SIZE: M (5'–6' long)
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil
Attack/Defense Modes: Nil
LEVEL/X.P. VALUE: IV / 210 + 5/hp

DESCRIPTION: The Hippalektryon is an odd and rare creature with the hindquarters, wings, and tail of a giant rooster and the forequarters and head of a small horse. Their muzzle ends in a sharp, rooster-like beak. Native to mythic dreamlands and prophetic realms, it is often found in sacred sites, high mountain nests, or circling the domes of prophetic temples. They most often make their nests overlooking a body of water.

Though physically awkward, they are powerful flyers and capable of delivering swift, slashing claw strikes with their rooster-like talons, followed by a sharp beak attack.

Once per day, a Hippalektryon can emit a Sonic Crow (30’ cone, 10’ wide at base, 30’ at end) that causes confusion (as per the spell) to all creatures in the area unless they save vs. spells. Creatures that fail their saves also suffer a -1 penalty to any Wisdom-based rolls for 4 rounds. The crow may also be used to dispel illusions within 60' (as dispel magic, 7th level).

They are considered sacred to Hermes Trismegistus and are sometimes summoned by priests or sages seeking omens, clarity, or inspiration. A feather plucked from a living Hippalektryon may be used to create scrolls of prophecy or truth-telling magic.

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

—oOo—
Name: The Plague of ScratchesPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Maude Cort

Setting: A U.S. mining townProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Two page, 1.42 MB Black & White PDF
Elevator Pitch: “To die, - To sleep, - To sleep! Perchance to dream: - ay, there's the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life;”― William Shakespeare, HamletPlot Hook: There’s a murderer or there’s a plague or there’s bothPlot Support: Staging advice, fourteen named NPCs, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Sparse
Pros# Barebones presentation
# Easy to adapt to different eras# Multiple plot hooks# Good for the Keeper that really, really likes to improvise# Dipsophobia# Somniphobia# Oneirophobia
Cons# From the author of Millan’s Tomb# Presented in a backwards fashion# Needs development# Keeper will need to supply stats# Needs a slight edit
Conclusion# All the right elements, not necessarily in the right order# In need of development to flesh out the story, let alone the stats

It is the year 2287 and life is far from easy in the remains of New England, including Boston, an area called ‘The Commonwealth’. Two centuries after a nuclear holocaust that ended a war between the United States and China, there are plenty of pools of radiation hanging around, feral ghouls lurk in tunnels and caves, mirelurks hunt the banks of rivers and shores of lakes, and raiders are a constant threat. Yet there are survivors to protect and old Vaults to explore and even loot. It is a dangerous world out there, but when there is shooting and screaming, it probably means that somebody is in trouble. This is how ‘Once Upon a Time in the Wasteland’ opens, the mini-campaign in Fallout: The Roleplaying Game – Starter Set. Designed for two to seven players, aged fourteen and over, the Fallout: The Roleplaying Game – Starter Set is introductory boxed for Fallout: The Roleplaying Game, which is based upon the Fallout series of post apocalyptic computer games from Bethesda Game Studios. In particular, Fallout 4, which depicts a post-apocalyptic future that is heavily influenced by American culture of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. In fact, the events of ‘Starter Set Quest: Once Upon a Time in the Wasteland’ are set before those of Fallout 4. Published by Modiphius Entertainment, Fallout: The Roleplaying Game – Starter Set is an attractive looking boxed set.
Fallout: The Roleplaying Game – Starter Set includes a fifty-six-page ‘Starter Set Rulebook’, a sixty-page ‘Starter Set Quest: Once Upon a Time in the Wasteland’, six pre-generated Player Characters, two twenty-sided dice, one twenty-sided hit location die, four six-sided Fallout game dice, and fifty-six Nuka-Cola cap tokens. The ‘Starter Set Rulebook’ covers the basics of characters, the mechanics and combat, and equipment, whilst the quest book gives the campaign. The Nuka-Cola cap tokens can be used as Action Points in the game or as in the computer game, as currency. The six pre-generated Player Characters include a Vault Dweller who is good at hacking; a Survivor who hits hard and can lie well; a Ghoul who heals fast and is immune to radiation; a Brotherhood Initiate good at repairing and healing; and a Mister Handy with a pincer arm attachment that can stab and even inflict critical hits! All six of the pre-generated Player Characters are presented on double-sided card sheets complete with a biography. The dice are actually nice and chunky and done in the blue of Vault dweller uniforms.

A Player Character in the Fallout: The Roleplaying Game – Starter Set—and thus the Fallout: The Roleplaying Game—will look more familiar to anyone who has played Fallout 4 than anyone who has played a 2d20 System roleplaying game. A Player Character has seven ‘S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Attributes’. These are Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. These are rated between four and ten and will be familiar to anyone who has played Fallout 4. He will ratings in skills including Athletics, Barter, Big Guns, Energy Weapons, Explosives, Lockpick, Medicine, Melee Weapons, Pilot, Repair, Science, Small Guns, Sneak, Speech, Survival, Throwing, and Unarmed. Skills are ranked between zero and six. Some skills are marked as Tag skills, indicating expertise or talent. Tag skills improve a Player Character’s chances of a critical success. Each twenty-sided die rolled for a Tag skill that gives a result equal to or under the skill rank is a critical success, counting as two successes rather than one.
One noticeable difference between Fallout: The Roleplaying Game and other 2d20 System roleplaying games is that the Player Characters have hit locations. This reflects the nature of the computer game. A Player Character will also have several Perks and Traits, essentially the equivalent of advantages and disadvantages, and he will have Luck Points equal to his Luck Attribute. The ‘Starter Set Rulebook’ includes a long list of Perks, many of which the players will recognise from the computer game. For example, ‘Commando’, ‘Gunslinger’, ‘Hacker’, ‘Infiltrator’, ‘Iron First’, ‘Mysterious Stranger’, ‘Ninja’, and more. A Player Character does have a biography and a list of gear as well.
Mechanically, the Fallout: The Roleplaying Game – Starter Set—and thus the Fallout: The Roleplaying Game—uses the 2d20 System seen in many of the roleplaying games published by Modiphius Entertainment, such as Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 or Dune – Adventures in the Imperium. To undertake an action in the 2d20 System in Fallout: The Roleplaying Game, a character’s player rolls two twenty-sided dice, aiming to have both roll under the total of an Attribute and a Skill to generate successes. Each roll under this total counts as a success, an average task requiring two successes, the aim being to generate a number of successes equal to, or greater, than the Difficulty Value, which typically ranges between zero and five. Rolls of one count as a critical success and create two successes, as does rolling under the value of the Skill when it is a Tagged Skill. A roll of twenty adds a Complication to the situation, such as making noise when a Player Character is trying to be stealthy or breaking a lock pick when opening a safe.
Successes generated above the Difficulty Value are turned into Action Points. Action Points are a shared resource and a group can have up to six. They can be used to purchase more dice for a Skill test, to Obtain Information from the Overseer, Reduce Time spent on a test, or to take an Additional Minor Action or Additional Major Action.
With Luck of the Draw, a player can spend his character’s Luck Points to add a fact or detail or item to the area he is in that would benefit him. Other uses include Stacked Deck, which enables a player to substitute his character’s Luck Attribute instead of another, Lucky Timing, which lets a survivor interrupt the Initiative order, and Miss Fortune to reroll dice. The Overseer—as the Game Master is known—has her own supply of Action Points to use with her NPCs.
Combat in the Fallout: The Roleplaying Game – Starter Set and thus Fallout: The Roleplaying Game, is quite detailed in comparison to other 2d20 System roleplaying games. A Player Character can attempt one Minor Action and one Major Action per round, but Action Points can be spent to take one more of each. Minor Actions include Aim, Draw Item, Move, Take Chem, and more, whilst Major Actions include Attack, Command an NPC, Defend, Rally, Sprint, and others. During combat, Action Points can be expended to purchase more dice for a Skill test, to Obtain Information from the Overseer, to take an Additional Minor Action or Additional Major Action, or to add extra Combat Dice.
Damage is inflicted per random Hit Location and it is possible to target a particular Hit Location. The number of Combat Dice rolled to determine damage is based on the weapon, Action Points spent to purchase more Combat Dice, Perks, and other factors. Combat Dice determine not only the number of points of damage inflicted, but the ‘Damage Effects Trigger’ of the weapon used. This has an extra effect, such as Piercing, which ignores a point of Damage Resistance or Spread, which means an additional target is hit. Both damage inflicted and Damage Resistance can be physical, energy, radiation, or poison. If five or more points of damage is inflicted to a single Hit Location, then a critical hit is scored. Ammunition is tracked.
Radiation damage is handled differently. It reduces the Maximum Health Points of a Player Character rather than his current Health Points. Until cured, this reduces both his Maximum Health Points and the number of Health Points which can be cured.
One aspect of the Fallout computer games that the Fallout: The Roleplaying Game – Starter Set does not cover is crafting. In Fallout 4 and the other games, the Player Character can craft almost everything—arms, armour, food and beverages, and so on. This falls outside of the remit of the Fallout: The Roleplaying Game – Starter Set, but the ‘Starter Set Rulebook’ does include a lengthy list of equipment which includes plenty of the various items seen in the computer game. It also covers Junk—if not necessarily what to do with it—and also Magazines, for example, Astoundingly Awesome Tales, Massachusetts Medical Journal, and Tumblers Today. When read, these provide a single one-time bonus or Perk that can also be made permanent if the Player Character uses the Perk and learns it when he next gains a level.
The ‘Starter Set Quest: Once Upon a Time in the Wasteland’ presents a three-part mini-campaign that begins with an investigation of a vault and continues with a trek across and under the dangerous lands of the Commonwealth to Diamond City—Boston that was—and discovery of secrets about the setting. Each chapter should take a session or two to play through. It begins in a slight awkward fashion, with all of the Player Characters facing each other in a circle, in a potential stand-off outside the entrance to Vault 95. Each heard screams and the sound of gunfire and decided to investigate. However, the scenario uses this situation to get the players to talk about their characters by getting the Game Master to ask each of them a question. In the process, the players get an idea of who the other characters are and the characters are pushed towards co-operating with each other, potentially a problem given that they are such a diverse lot. This is only the beginning of the staging advice in ‘Starter Set Quest: Once Upon a Time in the Wasteland’, which does not overwhelm the Game Master with the rules, but eases both her and her players into the 2d20 System step-by-step.
The scenario also has some nice nods to the computer game, such as being able to befriend a canine companion and the Player Characters get to explore several of the signature location types found in the computer game—a vault, some sewers, a lone warehouse, and of course, Diamond City. There are moments too, for each of the Player Character types to shine, such as the Super Mutant interacting with fellow Super Mutants in order to avoid a fight or the Ghoul holding off some Feral Ghouls that will not attack him. The initial scenes are more action and combat-based, but later on, the players have plenty of room for roleplay and interaction, especially in Diamond City. There are also opportunities for the Player Characters to improve as well. The campaign only has the one side quest, and it is possible to complete that before accepting it from the NPC, but by the end, the Player Characters will either have established themselves in the Commonwealth or be left a challenging villain they still have to track down and defeat. The latter though, lies beyond of the scope of ‘Starter Set Quest: Once Upon a Time in the Wasteland’, and the Game Master will need to develop that herself. Although there are notes on possible sequels, the scenario stands alone and complete by itself.
Physically, the Fallout: The Roleplaying Game – Starter Set is decently presented. The dice are nice and chunky, the character sheets well done, and both of the ‘Starter Set Rulebook’ and ‘Starter Set Quest: Once Upon a Time in the Wasteland’ are easy to read and come with plenty of illustrations. The only thing lacking physically, is a map or two.
There is a lot in The Fallout: The Roleplaying Game – Starter Set that fans of the Fallout 4 and the other computer games will recognise and enjoy engaging with, whilst the rules are easily explained and staged to make both learning and teaching them an easy process, all backed up with a solid scenario. The result is that the Fallout: The Roleplaying Game – Starter Set is a very good introduction to both the Fallout: The Roleplaying Game and the post-apocalyptic setting of the Commonwealth.

—oOo—
Modiphius Entertainment will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

There is someone stalking us. Someone faceless or wearing a mask that hides his features, makes him anonymous, who wants us dead. He will catch us. He will slice us. He will stab us. He will play elaborate pranks on us. Pranks that do not make us laugh, but make us die. Then he will fade into the background, allowing a moment of respite to recover, only to come stalking out of the darkness, relentless, unstoppable. Picking us off, one by one. Perhaps always targeting the same person. Again, and again. All for reasons only he understands. Perhaps he has a weakness, something that will stop his unflagging hunt for you all. What will it take for you to survive? What will it take to stop him? What will you tell your family, your friends, your children about this determined horror? This ‘Slasher’ insistent upon bringing your life to end? Nothing? Or reveal the truth? Or let the trauma of your experience fall upon their heads until the Slasher from your youth comes looking for them and they realise that it was all real…
The slasher film is a subgenre of horror films that involves one or more killer stalking and killing people with knives and other sharp implements. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Child’s Play, Scream, and I Know What You Did Last Summer are considered to be classics of the subgenre and most of them have spawned sequels and even franchises of their own, as well as books, games, and more. It is the idea of the Slasher film as a franchise complete with a returning Slasher such as Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and Chucky that is explored in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder.
SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is a stalking, slashing, stabbing sourcebook and campaign for Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown, the horror roleplaying game published by Parable Games. It not only analyses the Slasher subgenre, but also provides six different scenarios all from the subgenre and different eras of the subgenre. These can be run as a single campaign with generational play, the players creating and roleplaying characters who are related to or descendants of the characters who were victims of a Slasher in the previous scenario. The playthrough of each film or scenario follows the structure of the Slasher film, with its advance and retreat format and its building of terror, all to a final confrontation with the Slasher. In turn, they take the Player Characters from the nineteen thirties to the twenty-tens, via the nineteen fifties, eighties, nineties, and noughties, forcing them to confront a different type of Slasher each time. Any one of the six scenarios in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder could be run as a single one-shot, but ideally not, because in-between, the survivors will pass on an inheritance to subsequent Player Characters. In effect, the entirety of the campaign in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder can be seen as one big Slasher film, with the inheritance interludes between each scenario as the only respite.
Although the campaign in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder has its own Slasher(s), the supplement handily categorises the various types as monsters that the Game Master can use them in scenarios of her own creation. So, for the Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers type there is the Unstoppable Force, the Supernatural Terror for Freddy Kreuger or the Candyman, and even the Apex for the Xenomorph or the Predator, which obviously points to a different interpretation of certain Science Fiction film series. There are full stats for all of these and discussion too, of possible attacks and signature weapons, and of course, resistances and weaknesses, the discovery of the latter typically enabling the Player Characters to defeat their Slasher. Lastly, there are some thought upon what the Slasher is going to look like, what makes his appearance iconic. The advice here is fairly broad, but in that, it certainly fits the horror subgenre.
The inter-generational nature of the campaign in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is handled via ‘The Inheritance System’. This starts with the players deciding upon why their characters or one of the characters in their group has inherited the ire of the Slasher stalking them. This can be due to a curse, a transgression, or a prophecy, but whatever the cause the legacy means that they will inherit two things—a Boon and a Cost. A Boon can be an artefact or wisdom, a Cost a certain trauma or a fear. An artefact might be a Lucky Rabbit’s Foot or a Diary; the Wisdom might be First Aid Skills or knowledge that ‘The Truth is Out There’; the Trauma could be Fear Paralysis or Panic Attacks; and the Fear could be of Fire or Masks. The campaign makes use of these and more.
The campaign in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder presents six very different scenarios. Each is very nicely formatted, including a set-up, suggested characters for use as both Player Characters and extra NPCs, a Classification Board, details of what the Director knows, enemies, weapons, and items, the epilogue, and the Doom Events. The Doom Events are the four events per scenario that can be triggered over the course of the script, whilst the Classification Board categorises the scenario. Actually the ‘SHIVER Board of Classification’, for each scenario it lists the length of play time, number of players required, Subgenre, Film Age Rating, Content Warning, Recommended Ability Level, and Watchlist. The latter includes the archetypal films that the script references and that the Game Master should watch for inspiration. The six are all quite linear in terms of story and lengthy too, so will probably take two sessions to play through.
The campaign opens with a prequel, ‘The Quiet Isle’. It is set in the 1920s and inspired by King Kong and Cannibal Holocaust. The Player Characters are the cast and crew of the groundbreaking film, The Lost Temple. Groundbreaking because it is going to be shot on film with the new technology. However, despite the director having sent out an advanced scouting party to get things set up on what is a lost world, by the time the Player Characters get there, it seems to have doubled down on being abandoned. Even getting to the base and the film sets is fraught with danger, and that is before things begin to go badly wrong. And that is all whilst the director is trying to get scenes shot. The scenario switches into a big chase sequence as the Player Characters try to get out of the ancient temple below the island. The scenario would be easier to run if there was a map of the sequence and it feels more Indiana Jones than King Kong in places, but it sets everything up for what is to come. This includes the villain of the whole campaign and a secret organisation with an interest in what he will doing in the next one hundred years! Its filmic nature also means that there is scope for a crossover with the publisher’s other anthology-campaign, SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream.
It leaps forward to the fifties with ‘Static Zone’. The setting is small town America and the inspiration is Stephen King’s It and Channel Zero. Thus, the Player Characters are children and the subject matter is the technological marvel of the age—television. They get to explore the town of Wayville and get a hint of what the lives are like for some of the adults in small town America. In this case, living in a box that is suburban and conservative. As children they do get see behind the façade, if only a little, and may gather a few clues that might be useful in the second part of the scenario. This takes place behind the television screen, first in an unreal reflection of the Player Characters’ own home life, then wider suburbia, and lastly, in a series of very dark versions of children’s television programmes. They will encounter dangerous mannequins, cartoon bullies, a killer pig, and Chippy, an axe-wielding maniac, who could be a man in a beaver costume or a big, animated beaver! Thematically, ‘Static Zone’ takes the conservatism of the fifties and gives it very scary twist.
The given inspiration for the next part is Alien and Stage Fright, but at times it touches a little on The Running Man as well as video nasties. Moving into the eighties, ‘Curse of the Owlman’ shares some of the unreality of ‘Static Zone’, but this time of film-making rather than television. The Player Characters are only a little older, teenagers in their school’s Audio/Visual Club who sneak into a film studio shut down following a series of on-set deaths, for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a never before released film. Unfortunately, there is a very reason as to why the film was never released, which the Player Characters discover as the Slasher on-screen climbs out into the screening room and begins chasing them through the studio, including across sound stages which are set up just like they have seen on the screen! There is more of a mystery to this scenario and some puzzles to be solved before the final confrontation and the Owlman is sucked back onto the silver screen!
As the title of the fourth scenario suggests, ‘Be Kind, Rewind’ is all about VHS video cassettes. Set in the nineties and inspired by Saw and Squid Game, the Player Characters are now adults, looking for a ‘get-rich-quick scheme and desperate to sign up for a business conference promising wealth and success, held at a rundown Las Vegas-style hotel undergoing renovation. The villain of the piece, Mister Flick, only appears on screen for most of the scenario as the Player Characters ascend the hotel being made to play one deadly game after another. The scenario does involve scenes of torture that the Player Characters will need to find a way to stop, typically by winning the various games.

A cross between Terminator and Bubba Ho-tep, though there also hints of the novel, The Thursday Murder Club, ‘Fear, Scream-Lined’ takes place in the noughties at Shaded Pines, a retirement village. The Player Characters are retirees, members of the ‘Midnight Mystery Society’ to stave off the boredom of life in the highly regulated community, when the leader of their group goes missing. Investigating—or rather, being overly nosy—ends with them all following in her footsteps and receiving personalised care in the Shaded Pines’ medical facilities. Investigating further reveals that the retirement home is a front for a secret project to create the next evolution in fear, a biomechanical homunculus capable of transforming into the other Slashers. Which in this case means those Chippy, Mister Flick, and the Owlman! Of course, the creation turns on the creator in the final scene before the Player Characters have to battle it in the laboratory. This is weirdly creepy and made all the more challenging by the players having to roleplay retirees.

The campaign comes to a head in the last and final scenario, ‘Re-Slasher-Ed’. Combining Cabin in the Woods, Monster Squad, and Freddy vs Jason, it brings back the Slasher for 2010s at ‘Slash-fest 201X’, a convention dedicated to the horror subgenre and the works of a late director renowned for his horror films. It unsurprising that this final scenario is self-referential, with room for Player Characters from previous instalments to star as attendees much as Slashers from those previous episodes do, and there are plenty of callbacks to those instalments along with room for more. These include a playdate with Chippy and facing Mister Flick in a virtual realm, all the Player Characters have a final showdown with the villain behind it all. It brings the campaign to a decent close, but is less useful as a standalone affair given that it references so much of the rest of the book.

Physically, SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is another good-looking book from Parable Games. Although there are moments of respite, the artwork looms out of the darkness at you, cartoonishly horrifying in its depiction of the monsters and maniacs that will threaten one set of Player Characters after another. Unfortunately, it does need an edit in places and the writing feels a little rushed.
Unfortunately, SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder does not work quite as well as the publisher’s other shared anthology campaign, SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream. Whereas in SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, the players are roleplaying the same characters from one film or scenario to the next, although performing a different role each time, in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder, the players are not roleplaying the same characters in each of its scenarios. They are roleplaying different characters, some or all of whom are related to characters who appeared in a previous scenario. They are also playing in different eras, decades apart, with each scenario showcasing a different type of Slasher each time. Whilst there is the connection of the villain between scenarios, the overall connection between the scenarios is not as strong or as immediate because of the campaign framework. Obviously, the supplement has to showcase the different types of Slasher and different types of Slasher particular to each era, but this weakens the connections between the scenarios and the campaign, because unlike the film franchises which inspire the supplement, there is no horrifying realisation that Michael Myers or Freddy Kreuger has come back from the grave to hunt us down again.
Conceptually, SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is a great idea, but the supplement really shows how difficult that idea is to bring to fruition and make it engaging for the players. This is not to say that the idea is unplayable or indeed, that SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is unplayable. Rather that ultimately, SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is easier to run as an anthology of disconnected Slasher scenarios than as a connected campaign.

—oOo—
Parable Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

I found this at Walmart and was surprised by how much I like the figures.

It begins in simple, almost Film Noir fashion. There is not much call for a Private Investigator right now in Arkham. So, both cases and funds are light when the woman comes knocking at your office door. Her son, Lester, has been kidnapped, she says. Her husband did it, along with his family, and they have fled back to their hometown of Innsmouth. She wants you to get him back, but warns you that it will not be easy. The people of Innsmouth are strange, likely members of a cult, and do not take kindly to outsiders. She suggests that perhaps they can be bribed with gold, so obsessed are with the precious metal, but otherwise, you need to be careful. You promise you will be and so you find yourself ashore in the dilapidated, blighted town on the New England coast, your senses assailed by the smell of fish and the sight of buildings that were once a sign of wealth gone to seed and decrepitude. Can you rescue Lester from one of the most notorious towns in Lovecraft County? Can you find any sign of the previous investigator that the woman hired, only a week ago? Can you ‘Escape from Innsmouth’?

Innsmouth: The Stolen Child puts you in the flat shoes a Private Investigator hired to look into a kidnapping of a young boy in one of H.P. Lovecraft’s most famous creations, the town described in his short story, The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Published by Blue Fox Gamebooks following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is a solo adventure book in the mould of the Fighting Fantasy series of solo game books as typified by The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. In fact, it is only slightly more complex than the Fighting Fantasy series and requires no more than a pair of six-sided dice and paper and pencil to play. Your character has seven attributes. These are Health, Speed, Accuracy, Stealth, Detection, and Power. Speed is how quick you are in terms of reaction time and running; Accuracy is aim and precision; Stealth is hiding and quiet movement; Detection is both spotting things and reading people; and Power is brute strength. In addition, your character also has Conspicuousness, measuring how much you stand out and bring attention to yourself. Health is set at a value of fifteen and is likely to go down over the course of the investigation, whilst Conspicuousness is set at a starting value of four and will go up and down, and even reset if your character changes his appearance. The value of the other attributes are determined by rolling a single die and adding six to each. They will not change over the course of the investigation.

Mechanically, Innsmouth: The Stolen Child is simple. For most of the attributes, you roll two six-sided dice and if the result is equal to, or lower than the value of the attribute, you succeed. Otherwise, you fail. This is reversed for Conspicuousness, where rolling higher than its value means that you have not been spotted. Combat is fast and deadly, especially when firearms are involved. Attack order is determined by Speed, successfully hitting by Accuracy, and damage by weapon. Firearms have a chance of killing a target with one shot. Damage is deducted from the Health of the character or NPC. The character does have a limited inventory and can carry and find rations, effectively the equivalent of packed lunches, which will restore Health if eaten.

Innsmouth: The Stolen Child consists of six hundred paragraphs and within moments of stepping off the boat in Innsmouth harbour, you are presented with hard choices. Investigate some crates on the wharves even though opening them might cause a noise and raise Conspicuousness? Deal with a man begging for death? Approach a solitary man sitting on the dock of the bay? The story funnels your character from the drop-off point into Innsmouth town proper where it opens up again after making rendezvousing with a contact in the town. There is a pleasingly appropriate point here to get a change of clothes and so enable the character to reduce his Conspicuousness. The story unfolds around places familiar from Lovecraft’s short story, including encountering the bus that takes the narrator from Newburyport to Innsmouth, but the much of the action and investigation takes place in the Gilman House, Innsmouth’s only hotel of note. Getting in—and getting a room—is surprisingly easy, but searching the hotel is not. Getting out, especially with young Lester in tow, is harder. Sometimes finding a uniform to use as a disguise will help, but at other times, it will not, as the hotel staff will wander what you are doing. This is a nice touch, forcing the player to think about remaining in disguise or not.

Innsmouth: The Stolen Child is an adventure that presents the reader with a lot of detail and a lot of options to chose from as you move from paragraph to paragraph, often as many as four or five. Often, the reader will find that there is not enough time to do everything at a location before you are pushed onward into the investigation. Innsmouth: The Stolen Child does not have a Sanity mechanic, but there moments throughout the investigation where the character’s fear overcomes his judgement and he flees a scene, again likely in the process losing an opportunity to investigate there further. As with all solo adventure books, as you move from one paragraph entry to the next, you switch back and forth through the pages of the book getting glimpses of artwork and wondering how you might get to them in the story from amongst the maze of entries. Or not given the fact that that is a horror scenario and you want to get away unscathed.

Physically, Innsmouth: The Stolen Childis well presented and written. The artwork, all black and white, is decent.

Innsmouth: The Stolen Child is a big adventure that presents you with a lot of detail and options to explore, in which stealth through the Conspicuousness mechanic plays a big part, whilst not shying away from the deadliness of combat. It presents both an opportunity and a reason for the reader to want to visit and hopefully, escape from, the dread town of Innsmouth, and so make an entertainingly desperate return to The Shadow Over Innsmouth.
—oOo—
Blue Fox Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

Terror in the Streets is perhaps one of the most mundane scenarios written for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay in recent times. In fact, there is nothing outré, weird, or even profane in the scenario, that is, unless the Game Master decides that is what she wants it to include. In which case, the scenario provides options to add aplenty. Otherwise, the Game Master could run it simply as a straight historical scenario and her players would be none the wiser that it is written for a fantasy roleplaying game with a certain reputation. Similarly, the author of Terror in the Streets breaks his track record of doing bad things with typically big things inspired by his childhood toys to English villages in the 1630s. Instead, he shifts the action to Paris and sets it against the background of the city’s political and religious turmoil as the Player Characters are hired to investigate the disappearances of a number of children from across the city. Yet despite that mundanity, Terror in the Streets is a terrific scenario, rich in historical detail background—decent enough to serve as the backdrop for further adventures in the city during the seventeenth century—and rife with real and interesting historical figures for the Player Characters to interact with, including the greatest and most powerful political figure of his age. However, Terror in the Streets suffers from a truly terrible problem of its own, one that can be almost, but not quite completely, be blamed upon the author. It cannot, though, be forgiven.

Terror in the Streets is published by Lamentations ofthe Flame Princess and fulfils a brief that was given to the author as, “Jack the Ripper, but 250 years early.” It is a murder mystery—inspired by historical events of thirty years before, the ‘Werewolf of Châlons’—involving the disappearances and then deaths of initially, four children from the streets of Paris. It is quickly followed by more as the rate of disappearances and deaths accelerates, driving the Player Characters to investigate ever deeper in an attempt to stop further murders and whatever it is that the murderer is planning. Clearly, Paris has a serial killer stalking its streets and alleyways, one who like Jack the Ripper did in London two-hundred-and-fifty-years later, taunts the authorities with a series of letters that hint at his motivations. Ostensibly, the Player Characters are hired by a Deputy Provost, one of several city officials reporting to the Provost of Paris, the king’s representative and governor of the city, though other set-ups are possible. The adventure opens on November 7th, 1630, and will be over by November 18th. The Player Characters have the freedom of the city to investigate as they like, first the deaths and then the letters. Similarly, the players are free to approach the investigation how they want and the scenario facilitates that with a very clean layout that makes everything easy to find by the Game Master and by not having the players roll for their characters to find clues. Instead, the focus is on interpreting them and using them to further the investigation and the story.

However, there is one issue that will hamper the Player Characters’ investigation—Paris. Getting around Paris is difficult, a city just two square miles, but threaded through with narrow streets and alleyways that makes getting anywhere slow and occasionally difficult, and this despite the fact that there are numerous taxi services that run throughout the city. Then there are the Parisians, who will grow increasingly fractious and give themselves over to mob rule, which will ultimately lead to city offices closing, Paris being shut down, and martial law being declared. This tension is measured through an ‘Unrest Die’, a large—ideally, the largest that the Game Master has—six-sided die which sits in the middle of the table where the players can see it. As the tension rises, the Game Master will adjust the die to the new face indicating the increase in tension. Thus, the players will be aware of the tension in both narrative terms, as portrayed by the Game Master, and in mechanical terms. It is, as the author acknowledges, very similar to the ‘Escalation Die’ used to track the degree of action in Pelgrane Press’ 13th Age.

The investigation is neatly organised into tautly detailed little scenes that are clearly presented on the page making each and every easy for the Game Master to run and expound upon as necessary. The smaller scenes are typically with the families of the missing children and thus pertinent to the exploration, whilst the longer, more detailed scenes and locations tend to be red herrings—a potential werewolf attack and the search of a townhouse belonging to the wizard, Alain de la Mare.* Much like the rest of the scenario, these scenes can be played mundane or magical. Thus, for the encounter with the werewolf if magic factors into the campaign, this yes, it is werewolf, but if the campaign is mundane, then the werewolf is a fake. The Author does give advice on the Player Character use of spells to gain information, in case they decide to go down that route. Ultimately, the efforts of the Player Characters’ investigation will reveal that Armand Jean du Plessis, First Duke of Richelieu, also known as Cardinal Richelieu, is connected to the murders, but how? There is potential at the end of the scenario for the Player Characters to actually gain a degree of influence over the most powerful man in France, for good or ill. They could actually change history here if the ‘Day of the Dupes’ does not end in the way it did in our history! That said, apart from these scant few hours when the Player Characters can leverage their knowledge into a proper favour, Cardinal Richelieu is described as constantly playing fourth dimensional Chess and will always be a step or three in front of whatever they have cooked up.

* Yes, this really is who you think it is meant to be. Just not living in Northampton.

The scenario is very well appointed and the Game Master ably supported. Besides the description and map of Paris, there are full stats and details of Cardinal Richelieu, details of the various taxi companies operating in the city, and a full discussion of the possible outcomes to the scenario.

There are also the various letters sent by the perpetrators as handouts, rare in a fantasy roleplaying game, and a table of encounters. For the most part, there are no stats provided for these, so the Game Master will need to provide these herself.

Lastly, Terror in the Streets closes with a quintet of appendices. The first, ‘La Perfide Angleterre’ provides an optional event involving an English spymaster who wants the Player Characters to smuggle a ring out from a prisoner currently being held in the Grand Châlet, which is also the headquarters of the Provost of Paris. The English spymaster simply calls himself ‘W’, so could be Sir Francis Walsingham as the appendix suggests. Which is odd, because Walsingham has been dead for forty years when the scenario starts. The second appendix gives a full description of the Grand Châlet, whilst the third is potentially the most fun. ‘Musketeers’ gives stats and details of the main characters from Alexander Dumas’ The Three Musketeers for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay and thus other retroclones. It opens up the possibility of Terror in the Streets being as a one-shot as an investigation in the style of The Three Musketeers using the given characters, but it also suggests that Terror in the Streets could be run using other roleplaying games set in the swashbuckling period, such as Musketeers vs. Cthulhu: A Simple Nightfall RPGBook, AllFor One: Régime Diabolique, Swordpoint: A Swashbuckling Roleplaying Zine, and Miseries & Misfortunes – Book 1: Roleplaying in 1648 France, though the scenario will require some historical adjustment as it is set in 1648 rather than 1630. The fourth appendix, ‘Comment t’appelles-tu?’ provides a list of ready names for NPCs in the scenario, whilst the firth appendix, ‘Maison Richelieu’, which describes the home of Cardinal Richelieu, should the Player Characters ever need to visit (or break in).

Physically, Terror in the Streets is very well presented. The artwork has a slightly scratchy, cartoonish quality to it, but is still decent, and the cartography is good.

So, what of its utterly awful problem? Terror in the Streets—beginning with the acronym for its title—contains a profusion of puns and bad humour that in places does not so much veer as leer into slightly poor taste. To be clear, this is no Asterion or Beware the Mindfuck, so not utterly tasteless, but the schoolboy humour and dad jokes of Terror in the Streets gets wearisome very quickly. That said, in comparison to both Asterion and Beware the Mindfuck, let there be no doubt that Terror in the Streets is a work of profound genius and skill.

Humour aside—and there is a lot to put aside—Terror in the Streets is a very good scenario, an engaging murder mystery with lots of historical flavour and detail and options to run with or without magic, depending on how fantastical the Game Master’s campaign actually is. The scenario is well written, well presented, and well, one of the best scenarios for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay.

—oOo—

DISCLAIMER: The author of this review is an editor who has edited titles for Lamentations of the Flame Princess on a freelance basis. He was not involved in the production of this book and his connection to both publisher and author has no bearing on the resulting review.

—oOo—
Lamentations of the Flame Princess will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

Man, Myth & Magic by Herbert "Herbie" Brennan and J. Stephen Peek and published originally byYaquinto Publications in 1982, and now published (in PDF and single softcover formats) by Precis Intermedia.  

I have always been fascinated by this game. The name of course grabbed me for two reasons. There was the whole "Myth and Magic" side to it all which in 1982 was a big draw for me.  There was the magazine and encyclopedia series also called Man, Myth & Magic that dealt with all sorts of occult-related topics.  

I read reviews for it in Dragon Magazine (#80) and White Dwarf (#41) and was actually quite curious about it.  The reviews really ripped into the game, and I needed to know if it was as bad as they made it sound.  Sadly, I never found a copy near me, and a mail-order of $19.00 + tax and shipping and handling made it a little more out of reach when it was new and all I had was a paper route for spending money.

But I was always drawn to historical games. If I could play or run a game and learn something about history at the same time, then it was time well spent. I have enjoyed quite a few, mostly Victorian-era ones, and others I ripped online so much that I promised I wasn't going to rip on them anymore. 

Man, Myth, & Magic sadly belongs to the camp of a historical mishmash, that is to say, it is about as historically accurate as an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess.  Don't get me wrong, I love me some Xena and it is very entertaining in the right frame of mind.  The same is true for this game. Great, in the right frame of mind.  In fact, I think that now, living in a post-Xena world, there is a place for this game that did not exist in 1982.   

For this review, I am going to consider my original boxed set from 1982 (now minus the dice) and the newer PDF versions found on DriveThruRPG published by Precis Intermedia.  In both cases, the material is the same minus some of the extras that came in the boxed set like the dice and a pad of character sheets.

Man, Myth, & Magic

Man, Myth, & Magic was published in a boxed set of three books (same covers), with a pad of character sheets, some maps, and dice.  The PDF combines the three books into one 132 page volume. The original boxed set retailed for $19.00 in 1982 ($55 in today's buying power) and the PDFs sell for $7.95 today.  The books feature color covers and black & white interiors. 

Book 1

Book 1 is 24 pages and covers the "Basic Game" and the game most like the one as originally conceived of by Herbie Brennan.  In this game, the players play gladiators in the time of the Roman Emperors. Which one? That is up to a random dice roll unless of course, the players want something different. 

It's an interesting idea, but...well there are some problems here. According to the back of the box, it is the Summer of 41 CE. Cool.  But Caligula was assassinated in January of 41 CE.  Tiberius ruled 14 to 37 CE and Nero was Emperor from 54 to 68 CE.  The only Emperor in the Summer of 41 was Claudius. Adding dates in parentheses would have been a nice touch.  Let's not even get into the fact that Cleopatra VII, the last of the Egyptian Pharaohs, had died back in 30 BCE, 71 years before the events of this game, but that looks like her on the cover.  I'll talk more about this later.  In theory you can tun this game from 4000 BCE to 500 (or 1000) CE. 

You begin with your Roman Gladiator and your two percentile d20s and roll up your characteristics.  The characteristics in the Basic Game are Strength, Speed, Skill (not used just yet), Endurance, Intelligence, and Courage. The scores range from 1 to 100.  You add all these up for your Life Points (so 5 to 500), you fall unconscious at 20 or below and dead at 0 or below. 

The Basic rules take your gladiator from start to a bit of combat and adventure with the maxim that the best way to learn is to do.   This is a tactic that the rest of the game uses.  At the end of this, your character is ready for new adventures.

The neat bit, and one I want to revisit, is the idea of reincarnation. That is if your character dies they can be reincarnated. 

Book 2

Book 2 covers the "Advanced Game" and includes 40 pages. Here we learn more about skills, the Power score, and the different Nationalities (10) and Classes associated with each (2-5 each).  All are completely random and no real attempt is made to explain why say an Egyptian Sorcerer, a Gaulish Barbarian, a Roman Gladiator, and a Hibernian Leprechaun would all be part of the same adventuring party.  Ok. That's not entirely true, but the explanation takes some digging. 

Up first is determining your Nationality. Again a random roll gives you African, Briton, Egyptian, Gaul, Greek, Hebrew, Hibernian, Visigoth, Roman, and Oriental. Each at 10% chance.   Within each nationality, there are character classes.  Regardless of how many there is an equal chance for any given class.  Most nationalities have a sort of "fighter" like class and all have merchant.  There are two classes open to women characters only, Wisewoman (African) and Sybil (Greek).  Details are given for all the classes, 20 in total, but not a lot of information.  In most cases only a paragraph here and some more details later on.  This brings up a persistent issue, the rules are a bit scattered everywhere throughout the book. 

Additionally, there are two "Special Categories" of players (not characters) of "Orator" and "Sage" or essentially a storyteller and a record keeper.  Much in the same way Basic D&D has a "Caller."  Not much else is mentioned about these roles however. 

This character is considered to be your first incarnation.  Anytime your character dies, you can then reincarnate.  This allows you to change your nationality, class, and gender and retain a little bit of the Skill from a previous incarnation.  It is an interesting idea, I am not 100% certain though that it works. Knowing gamers I see a situation where players would play a character only to get them to die for a chance at a better character next time. 

There is a fun chart on inheritance that would be fun to port over to other games.  Related there are our ubiquitous tables of equipment.   

Some of the other secondary "Optional" characteristics are also detailed.  These include Agility, Charm, Dexterity, Drinking, and so on.  These are really more akin to "skills." The trouble is that some of these you have to roll higher, some you have to roll lower and others you don't roll at all.  There is no rhyme or reason here. 

Combat rules follow and they remind me a bit of Runequest.  Nothing really special really.  Strength points over 50 can add to your damage, Skill points over 50 can add to your "To hit" chance. Combat, like all the rolls here, start with a basic 50% chance to hit.  The Basic game just has you roll. The Advanced game has you make called shots.  Classes with Combat as their "Prime Ability" can improve their ability to hit even more. All classes can spend Power to also increase their to-hit bonus; 10 points of Power to increase your chance by 1%.  Interestingly armor does not stop you from being hit, it does reduce damage taken.

The goal of the game though is the accumulation of Power.  Power advances your character and can overcome that 50% failure rate.  Power also is the, well, power behind Magic. 

The last third or so of the book covers all sorts of additional rules.  Some seem tossed in, to be honest. Poisons are covered as are spells.  

Magic, as expected, is given some special attention, though not as much as I was expecting.  Magic is assumed to be real and work, at least part of the time.  Magic is described as "Coincidence," a spell is uttered and something happens whether it caused it or not. "Science," Damascus steel is given an example. The superior technology was seen as magic. "Psychic Phenomena" which not really an explanation at all, likewise "Trance State" and as "Lost Knowledge."  Though no explanation is really given as to how magic works.  

Book 3

The adventures take up Book 3 and is 64 pages.  This book is for the Lore Master (Game Master) only and is also one of the weaker parts of the game.  The Adventures, while interesting, are a bit of a railroad. In order to succeed the players have to hit all the parts in order and then move on to the next adventure.   

The adventures include the following:

• The Dragon Loose in Rome. Not a dragon really, but a rogue T-Rex.  Not that this makes any more sense, but ok, points for effort.  
• Apollo's Temple. Emperor Caligula sends the characters to the Temple of Apollo aka Stonehenge.
• The Witches of Lolag Shlige. The characters then have to go to Ireland (Hibernia) and rescue a child from some witches.
• The Great Pyramid Revealed. Caligula has issued a death warrant for the characters. They find themselves in the Great Pyramid of Giza.

These adventures are a prelude to the published adventures.   There are some neat ideas here, but the adventures lack something for me. Actually, it lacks a lot of things for me, but I could make some changes to make them work.

There are some encounter tables, but they only cover the areas that the adventures are detailed here. I also have to note there are no monsters here. Just humans. 

One of the bigger criticisms of this game at the time was the then $19.00 price tag, which is about $55 in today's buying power. Now, $20 for a boxed set of three books, character sheets, and dice sounds like a steal. With the PDF at just $7.95, it is a price I think should attract anyone interested in this game. 

The art is in black & white, which is expected and welcome, but there is not a lot of it and some of it is repeated throughout the books.  

Man, Myth, & Magic sometimes feels like two different games, or rather two different ideas merged into one game. I feel that the classic Roman Gladiator/Basic Game was Herbie Brennan's idea and the worldwide game of various nations and types or the Advanced Game was Steve Peek's. Given that Brennan started working on a game called "Arena" which was a Gladitorial RPG. I don't have anything concrete to base this on other than a feeling. 

About Reincarnation

Reincarnation is quite a big deal in this game. This is not a huge surprise given Herbert Brennan's publication history.  His book "The Reincarnation Workbook: A Complete Course in Recalling Past Lives" could work as a guide for this game.  Personally, I would like to use the reincarnation idea to help smooth out some of the issues with different times.  So adventurers from Cleopatra VII's Egypt can then deal with Tiberius and then help in Boudicea's raid on Londinium.   Something similar to the Old Soul quality in Unisystem.  

Somehow, using the idea of the Distant Memory, which, like Old Soul, allows the characters to draw on past life knowledge and skill.  That is easy to do in Unisystem, not so easy to do in D&D like games with very rigidly defined classes. Taking a level in another class might do it. 

Not the same thing, but great fun

There is an interesting game here but I think the concept of it is greater than the rules as presented actually allow.  It never quite lives up to what the box claims.  Nor is it the abomination that earlier reviews made it out to be.  I think most reviewers balked at the price tag and the fact that the game did not offer anything new; at least not anything that meant going through the rather clunky rules. 

It is most certainly not a historically accurate game. It is historically inspired, to be sure, but not by any means accurate. 

The bottom line is that the game isn't good; in fact, it's rather bad in many respects. That is not to say that someone won't find this game interesting or fun. There are far, far better games out there. The game has some things that I enjoy, but not enough to make me want to play the RPG on a regular basis.  

Larina Nix for Man, Myth & Magic

Given this game's history and other tie-ins, a witch character is absolutely called for. As I have pointed out before in my *D&D games, witches can't use raise dead or resurrection spells, nor can they be used on them; witches can only reincarnate. This works well with Herbie Brennan's own ideas. So I am left sitting here wondering why it has taken me this long to make a witch character, especially one whose backstory (and future story) includes reincarnation. 

Indeed, the connection between Herbie Brennan, this game, and his own interest in the occult makes this character a no-brainer. A lot here works well for Larina, but nothing is perfect for her. There are sorcerers, wise-women, and even the leprechaun looks like fun. 

Larina "Nix" Nichols
Daughter of Lars

Nationality: 
Class: "Witch" (Mystic)
Prime Ability: Intelligence

BASIC
Strength: 45
Speed: 66
Skill: 78
Endurance: 60
Intelligence: 89
Courage: 75
Power: 91
LIFE POINTS: 335

OPTIONAL
Agility: 58
Charm: 15
Determination: 77
Dexterity: 60
Drinking: 22
Devotion: 20 (to the Old Ways)
Hearing: 50
Height: 5'4"

Language: 86% (3) Brittonic (Fluent), Latin (Basic), Saxon (Rudimentary)
Loyalty: 92 (to coven and outcast kin)
Luck: 3
Mental: 23
Read & Write: 92% (Brittonic runes, Latin scripts)
Senses: 45
Sight: 60
Stealth: 60

Swimming: 65
Portage: 40
Throwing: 48
Weight: 122 lbs

City Knowledge: 29 (limited, prefers villages)
Desert Knowledge: 5 (none)
Mountain Knowledge: 52 (hills, sacred sites)
Sea Knowledge: 51 (familiar with coastlines)
Woods Knowledge: 86 (knows herbs, hidden paths, spirits)

Magical/Special Fundamental Failure Rate:  5%/ 21%
First Strike Capacity: 125
Basic To Hit Number: 66
Number of Blows per Combat:  2   Per Round: 1  
Damage Bonus: +2
CMF: +10 when using spells, herbs, or improvised items

Weapons Allowed: Dagger, small blade, staff, sling
Armour Allowed: Leather or cloth robes only (prefers no armor)

Dexterity Figure: 17

Spells

• Healing - 1 pp = 2 LP
• Corn Dolly - 5 points of damage
• Woven Cross (Cross of Brigit) - Restores LP
• Pentacle - Turn Demons

Who Should Play This Game?

I would say the PDF, at just under $8, makes it worthwhile for the very, very curious. I have my boxed set, and I am happy with it, but my expectations were low, and my curiosity was really high. The PDFs are good, and Precis Intermedia did a great job cleaning them up and getting them out, so that is also a point in favor of the game.

The game itself is only worth about 2 stars.  My curiosity about it and desire to have it pushed it closer to 4 stars.  Ultimately, I will give 3 stars since I don't want to unduly affect Precis Intermedia games' overall rating.  But don't grab this unless you are really curious (which is a good reason) or want to see how not to design a game. 

There is another group that might be interested in this. Anyone who takes Herbie Brennan's ideas of reincarnation and astral projection seriously can use this game as a guide for exploring ideas in his Reincarnation Workbook. Not my thing, but some one will enjoy that aspect of it. 

Still, there is fun to be had with the right group and mindset. 

Links

• Man, Myth & Magic on RPG Geek
• Man, Myth & Magic (Classic Reprint) PDFs on DriveThruRPG
• Timeship, Herbie Brennan's other game.
• Man, Myth & Magic RPG (Classic Reprint) Published by Precis Intermedia
• PDF and Softcover store
• Character Sheet
• Roll for Sanity Unboxing video

Johan Nohr has had an almost unparalleled effect upon the roleplaying home. Together with Pelle Nilsson, he created Mörk Borg, the pitch-black pre-apocalyptic fantasy roleplaying game which brings a Nordic death metal sensibility to the Old School Renaissance, designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. Since its publication in 2019, has gone to become the basis of several other roleplaying games, such Cy-Borg, Pirate Borg, and Death in Space, as well as a host of other supplements, scenarios, fanzines, and other third-party content. It has not only retained its popularity, but become a firm fixture of the Old School Renaissance hobby, even if it does not share the same origins. In particular, Johan Nohr created the look of Mörk Borg, beginning with the distinctive chromium yellow of its cover to the swathes of deep black and neon pink inside. The look and style of Mörk Borg is art punk, inspired by the post-punk rock sophistication that drew on the theory of art.

Art by Nohr, subtitled ‘Drawings and Doodles by Johan Nohr, Made Between 2006 and 2033’ and published by Stockholm Kartell following a successful Kickstarter campaign, is part retrospective, part showcase of the graphic designer and illustrator’s work from before, during, and after Mörk Borg. It is a coffee table artbook, that in truth is dominated by his art for Mörk Borg and other roleplaying games, but there is more than that just here, some it of simple sketches, some of it more. Some of it is simply annotated, most left to speak for itself. From the beginning there is always a jagged edge to Nohr’s style, figures and monsters lurking in the gloom, such as ‘The Skull Crone. Malevolent forest spirit I made up when living in the woods’, the annotation a story in itself, the old woman caught in the shadows of the tall trees, clawed hands reaching out, the skulls piled atop her head hiding her face in their shadows as green flames flicker from their eye sockets. Others seem to stagger at the viewer, whilst other images draw on classic heroic heavy metal fantasy, great horned helmets and mighty weapons, but here the weapons are cracked and stained through use, the helmets keeping the warriors anonymously inhuman. Witches wail and goblins cackle, strange figures stare accusingly at the reader.

‘Barkhäxan’ looks at an earlier collaboration with Pelle Nilsson, a folk horror roleplaying game, a startling simple black and white suggestion of horror and the unknown that contracts sharply with the more widely seen Mörk Borg style. This is widely showcased in the book, with covers and internal illustrations from titles both official and third-party. Some are accompanied by fuller explanations, such as that given for ‘Wickheads’ who have lanterns for heads and who lurk in the dark only for their lights to blaze and blind, before going dark again and striking at the temporarily sightless. They are shown in four images, charting the development of the creatures. For the Mörk Borg there are interesting images of books that have never appeared, such as ‘The End’ which would have depicted the ‘36 Miseries’ which marked the end of the world. The illustrations for third-party both show how popular Mörk Borg has been and act as an illustrated catalogue. The artwork for Cy_Borg is given a similar treatment, but typically less monochrome and more frenetic in its use of colour and energy, but clearly a Mörk Borg-style game.

Nohr changes tack for Into the Odd Remastered with a more subdued style that consists of collages that depict a world of industrial horror and mystery. There is a subtlety to this not seen in the punchiness of the illustrations elsewhere in the book. It is a shame that there is not more of this, both here and in other roleplaying games. ‘Other Projects’ covers a range of promotional posters, album covers, and other roleplaying products. Other sections highlight the other sometimes near illegible typography employed in Mörk Borg, whilst the most fun are the ‘Cardboard Drawings’ that Nohr decorates packages he sends out, whilst the artbook comes to a close with some of the maps he drew for Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days and its predecessor.

Physically, Art by Nohr is an imposing book. All of the artwork is crisply reproduced and it is fantastic to see so much of it presented in double its original size given that its typical format was digest-sized. It also provides an opportunity for the reader to see a lot of art that can only be found on the covers of hard-to-find books and fanzines. Fans of the Old School Renaissance and fans of the artpunk will both enjoy this book, but ultimately Art by Nohr is definitely a book for fans of Johan Nohr and for Mörk Borg, who will appreciate seeing the collection and development of the artpunk style.

—oOo—
Stockholm Kartell will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

 I am starting this in the early Winter of 2025, but I suspect it will take me a bit to finish it. I want to set up some reasons why the newest edition of Dungeons & Dragons, called the 2024 Edition by Wizards of the Coast and the 5.5 edition by me really needs it's own new campaign world.

I have spent most of this year talking about how you can, and maybe should, try out other games besides D&D 5.5.  But I get why many would not. 

Today I want to take a different track. That D&D 5.5 (2024 edition) should have it's own game world and embrace the changes they have made.

D&D is Becoming Creatively Stagnant

Let’s face it. Wizards keeps returning to the same old wells: the Sword Coast, Ravenloft, Planescape, Greyhawk. Some of it’s great, a lot of it, even. But the nostalgia engine is starting to sputter. At what point does reverence for the past become a chokehold on the future?

Look, I get it. There is 50 years' worth of lore and backstory and things people can do in D&D that rest on what has come before. It would be foolish to think D&D would abandon all of that. That would be the same as DC saying they are rolling out a new comic line that has nothing to do with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. 

But. The overreliance on nostalgia is becoming creatively thin, if not stagnant. I can buy into Iggwilv saying the hell with it all and running off to hide in Feywild. I get that. I can sorta see Bigby being transformed into a gnome or whatever. Hey, the world is weird and weird things happen. Though would it not be better to just make a new gnome character? I don't know.

I will say this by way of example. A while back, I had a 20-something explain to me who Kas was and his importance to Vecna's lore. Instead of being a dick and saying shit like "don't quote the deep magic to me..." I just let them be excited and share something that was obviously new and exciting for them. Maybe that is why we keep going back to the Keep, the Sword Coast, and Wild Space. 

Sure, it’s fun to reimagine Bigby or retcon Kas and Vecna’s ancient grudge. And I love that new fans are discovering these stories and making them their own; that’s part of the magic. But do we really need to keep dragging the same characters through the multiverse like Weekend at Bernie’s NPCs?

Where’s the creative risk? The bold new mythology? The chance to start over without decades of canon stacked like bricks around the game?

The Grogs who loved those settings will puff out their chests (and then cough a lot because, well, we are getting up there aren't we) and loudly proclaim they don't buy "WotC D&D." Fine. Then D&D should be made for the people who do buy it.

A new setting, unburdened by layers of TSR-era geopolitics and decades of novels, would give writers, designers, and players room to breathe.

Human-centric is No Longer the Norm

When D&D began, the assumption was largely a human-centric worldview with some elves, dwarves, and maybe some halflings thrown in. Each edition expanded the selection of species choice. This has largely been a benefit to the game since people can play what they want. But, many of these new options are not well mapped onto the worlds in use. The Forgotten Realms has made some strides to explain why there are dragonborn and tieflings and for the most part that works for me. But it is harder to see all of these folk in, say, Greyhawk. Interestingly enough, this is exactly the sort of thing I feel Mystara does well. 

D&D’s playable species have exploded since 1974. We now have playable angels, rabbitfolk, genasi, tieflings, dragonborn, and more. The world of the player is no longer a human one with some elves and dwarves in the margins. It’s a multicultural multiverse and that is a good thing.

And yet, the game keeps returning to campaign worlds built for that older paradigm.

I am playing a my first ever tiefling in Baldur's Gate 3 now. It is interesting. There are dialog choices that were not there before, most around "will I be accepted as a tiefling?" Larian Studios at least gets some of the issue with adding some new species in lands with a ton of lore that doesn't include them. But again, maybe the Forgotten Realms was just better at this than say Greyhawk.

A new setting could make this diversity the foundation, not the patch job. 

Look how Star Wars does it. Aliens everywhere and each one is more interesting than the last. In movies and TV shows, humans are cheaper to do obviously (no CGI or makeup) but RPGs should not have that limitation. 

D&D 5.5 is Brighter than Previous Editions, And Its World Should Be, Too

The tone of the game is more hopeful. You are not really murder hobos, you are heroes. The art is brighter, too. The world is more escapist fantasy where the Grim Dark is now found in the Non-fiction and Current Events sections of the library.

Characters aren’t just delvers of dungeons or looters of crypts, they’re agents of change, defenders of ideals, aspirants to legend.

You can see it in the art. It’s vibrant, inclusive, and dynamic. You can see it in the rules, as well with an emphasis on collaboration, character backstory, and narrative arcs.

But many of the older campaign settings were built on a darker foundation. Political cynicism, gritty realism, moral ambiguity. That’s great for some stories. But it’s not the dominant tone of 5.5.

I am running an AD&D 1st Ed game on Tuesday nights set in the Forgotten Realms. I mentioned that at the time of the game's writing (1987 CE) and the time I am setting it in (1357 DR) that there were not a lot of the species running around. I said I wanted to keep the spirit of the original rules for this. I compromised and allowed a "good" Drow and a Kitsune. This is what the new players want and why should anyone tell them no?

Let’s give this new era a world that fits its heart and implied vision.

A New Setting Would Be a Statement

The release of a new setting wouldn’t just be a product; it would be a signal. A declaration that this isn’t just another iteration of D&D. That D&D is evolving and ready to explore new myths, new cultures, and new stories, in new ways. Yeah, if you want, you can still go out and commit orc ethnic cleansing if that is your desire. I'll point out that you should stick to the older editions because, honestly, they do that better than the current one.

It wouldn’t negate the old settings. Greyhawk will always be there. So will Eberron and Mystara and the Realms. But just like 3e had Eberron, 4e had the Nentir Vale, and even 2e had Birthright, 5.5 deserves a world it can own. 

Something new. Something bright. A place where all these design choices of the last 15 years can come home and say "this is our world."

I’m not saying Wizards must make a new setting to make 5.5 a success. But if they want to inspire a new generation the way Greyhawk inspired Gygax’s table or the Realms inspired Ed Greenwood’s then they might consider lighting a new torch instead of holding onto the old ones.

Next time I'll talk about what this would could be.

Photo by Ferdinand Studio

 Working on a new project. It should be pretty obvious, but I will wait for the full announcement. Among some of the features of this new project is the notion of "Advanced Classes." You have already seen these kinds of classes before. They are the Bard (PHB), Thief-Acrobat, the Archdruid (UA), and the Wizards of High Sorcery from the Dragonlance Adventures book. 

Mine, however, are all occult-based. I have already been play-testing a couple of them, some for a while, but today's is brand new. Based quite honestly on a dream I had Monday night/Tuesday morning. Though, the idea of the class has been running around my head for many years now.

Presently, I have four of these Advanced Classes worked out. Three for Witches and one for Magic-users.  I am toying around with about three-four others for other Advanced-era Classes/Sub-classes. 

ARCHWITCH

Advanced Class for Witches

The Archwitch is the culmination of a witch's arcane and spiritual mastery. Unlike common witches who deepen their craft through occult rites, the Archwitch transcends the circle, walking the border between witchcraft and wizardry. She gains insight into the deepest mysteries of magic and the cosmos, weaving both witch spells and high arcana into her grimoire. Figures such as Iggwilv, The Simbul, and Sagarassi exemplify this path. While many label them as mere magic-users, their roots lie firmly in the traditions of the witch.

Only those witches who have proven themselves through trial, wisdom, and power may take on the mantle of the Archwitch. This path is rare, and most witches never reach such heights.

Requirements

To become an Archwitch, a character must:

• Be a Witch of at least 7th level.
• Have an Intelligence of 17 or higher.
• Complete a Great Working, an act of magical significance witnessed by their Patron or coven. Examples include banishing a demon lord, opening or sealing a planar gate, the construction of a powerful magic item or new spell or ritual, or binding a major spirit.
• Be acknowledged as an Archwitch by their Patron or a gathering of at least three witches of 7th level or higher.

Restrictions

The character ceases to gain new Occult Powers granted to witches at levels 7, 13, and 19. These are replaced by Archwitch abilities.

Spellcasting

The Archwitch retains her full Witch spellcasting progression.

In addition, starting at Archwitch level 7, the Archwitch may select one Magic-User spell per spell level, beginning with 5th level magic-user spells and advancing with her own level. These are treated as bonus spells known, castable once per day each, and are cast using her own spells cast per day.

At level 11, the Archwitch gains the ability to cast one 9th-level Magic-User spell per day, chosen from a written copy in her Book of Shadows or from a scroll. This simulates her mastery of the highest arcane knowledge.

Note: There will be spell advancement tables for magic-user spells 1 through 9.

Archwitch Abilities

Mastery of the Veil (gained at level 7): Once per day, the Archwitch may combine two spells of 4th level or lower into a single casting. The casting time is doubled and both material components must be used. The effects occur simultaneously but must be directed at the same target or area.

Arcane Communion (gained at level 9): Once per week, the Archwitch may enter a trance to commune directly with her Patron or a cosmic force, gaining insight similar to the Commune spell. Additionally, she becomes immune to confusion and feeblemind effects.

Unbound by Circles (gained at level 11): The Archwitch may cast a 9th-level Magic-User spell once per day, provided she has access to the spell in a written form. This spell does not count against her daily limit of learned Magic-User spells. This ability reflects her transcendence of mortal limitations and entry into the ranks of true arcane legends.

Role and Influence

The Archwitch is no longer bound to any single coven, though she may lead one. Her word carries power in the witching world. She is often sought for advice, feared by enemies, and respected by peers. Her Patron may grant visions or quests of great import. In some traditions, the appearance of an Archwitch heralds the turning of an age.

Only a handful of witches per century achieve this status. Their names are remembered in spellbooks and whispered in ritual.

Experience Progression and Saving Throws

The Archwitch continues to use the Witch's experience table, attack matrix, and saving throws.

Multi-Class and Dual-Class Use

The Archwitch path is only open to single-classed Witches. Dual-classed characters must complete all level requirements before entry. Elves and other multi-classed races may not become Archwitches unless the campaign permits exceptions.

Optional Rule – Ritual Ascension: At the DM's discretion, the transition to Archwitch may require an in-game ritual, quest, or magical confrontation. This may include astral travel, defeating a rival Archwitch, or recovering a lost grimoire.

Beleriand toy Soldiers ("BTS") just keeps making more and more amazing figures.  The magi figures make good druids.  

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

—oOo—
What is the Nature of the Quest?Feast of the Forest is a scenario for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition.

It is a full colour, thirty-one page, 16.28MB PDF.

The layout is tidy and it is reasonably illustrated.

Where is the Quest Set?Feast of the Forest is a one-shot (or potential campaign starter) scenario for Pendragon, Sixth Edition. It takes place in East Anglia during the Anarchy Period.
Who should go on this Quest?
Feast of the Forest includes six pre-generated Player-knights.
What does the Quest require?
Feast of the Forest requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition rules or the Pendragon Starter Set. The Hunting, Folklore, and Horsemanship skills will prove useful during the play of the scenario.
Where will the Quest take the Knights?
Feast of the Forest opens with the Player-knights ambushing a Saxon convoy containing a silver-laden wagon. Barely do the Player-knights have time to celebrate their success before they are presented with a moral dilemma—do they let the survivors go or do they put them to the sword? In other words, are they Merciful or are they Cruel? There are benefits to either course of action, but there are also penalties too. This is the first of many such tests in the scenario as the Player-knights first discover that the wagon was not carrying taxes, but tithes for the church and that has its own repercussions… They are forced to flee from the scene of the crime and deeper into the fens as first they are pursued by angry Saxons, and then by a creature out of Myth that literally hounds them and drives them into fear and hauntings.
The middle part of the scenario involves a radical shift in the point of view as the players roleplay villagers under attack by bandits. The realisation should come at the end of these scenes that the bandits are no mere NPCs, but the Player-knights of the previous scenes, and that the Player-knights are neither heroes nor embody chivalric ideals. Although jarring, this shift is a good way of showing how villainous the Player-knights actually are, rather than forcing their players to roleplay them committing immoral acts. Nor are they anti-heroes. They are the villains of the piece, morally compromised and very far from the oaths they took as knights. Already, the Player-knights’ decisions and actions will have had serious personal consequences. Mechanically, their acts of cruelty, sacrilege, cowardice, and so on, have earned each Player-knight ‘Curse Points’, representing his spiritual corruption and penalising skills, Traits, and ultimately his Honour. It is possible to find a path of Redemption by committing merciful acts, making confession, and the like. This is what the last part of the scenario is about. The Player-knights are given the opportunity to undertake a number of tests that will lead to a great battle, all of which will put them on the path to atonement, though the exact details of that path lie outside of the scenario. That path—and even getting to that path—is not certain and no Player-knight is under any obligation to follow it.
Feast of the Forest does require some set-up. The scenario works best when the players begin unaware exactly as to the true nature of the knights they are going to play. This requires some adjustment to the character sheets to keep that information hidden until after the scenes in the village where the players take the roles of the villagers being attacked by the knights. That way, the players and their knights can come to the conclusion that they are not heroes rather than being informed of it right from the start. The scenario is also quite complex and there is a lot to keep track of by the Game Master with the various tests, the accumulated Curse Points, and the big battle at the end to keep track of.
Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?Feast of the Forest is a short, but far straightforward adventure that does something that Pendragon typically asks the players never to do. That is, play the villains. It neatly sidesteps the issue of having to roleplay villainous acts, instead focusing in the immediate consequences of said acts. Primarily, it is a one-shot, though one that is slightly too long for a single session or convention scenario given its complexity, but has potential as a campaign starter where the Player-knights are on the path to redemption. It would be interesting to see such a path explored in a sequel. Fear of the Forest is the antithesis of a classic Pendragon scenario, presenting a rare and intriguing exploration of the anti-Chivalric knight whilst suggesting that there might be a path of out of The Anarchy and the darkness.

 Getting back to an old favorite of mine. My AD&D 1st edition Forgotten Realms game is still going great. The characters are still on a stolen boat and will land soon. I already know what is waiting for them.

PIASA BIRD

Frequency: Very Rare
No. Appearing: 1
Armor Class: –2
Move: 9" / 24" (Flying, Class C)
Hit Dice: 11 + 6 (55 hp average)
% in Lair: 50%
Treasure Type: Nil
No. of Attacks: 5 (claw/claw/horn/bite/tail)
Damage/Attack: 1–4 / 1–4 / 1–6 / 2–8 / 1–6
Special Attacks: Shriek (fear)
Special Defenses: Nil
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Low (5–7)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Size: H (20' long, wingspan 40')
Psionic Ability: Nil
Attack/Defense Modes: Nil
XP Value: 3,200

DESCRIPTION

The Piasa Bird is a terrible predator, said to haunt river cliffs and lonely forested bluffs. It combines the scaled body of a giant fish or serpent with the wings of a bat, antlers like a stag, claws like a dragon, and a monstrous human-like face complete with beard and gore-slick teeth. Most sages believe it to be unique, a living myth given form either by ancient curse or dark magic.

Legends trace its origin to a painted bluff near the Mississippi River, where the Illini people spoke of "the Bird That Devours Men." It is feared for its physical strength and its unearthly scream, which has driven entire camps mad with terror. It hunts mainly for pleasure and meat, especially favoring children and young adults.

COMBAT

The Piasa swoops upon its prey from above, initiating combat with its terrifying shriek. This is followed by a flurry of physical attacks: claws, horns, bite, and lashing tail. It can engage multiple foes at once, often striking with claws and bite against one target while sweeping others away with its tail or gore.

Shriek (Fear Effect): Once per day, the Piasa may emit a horrifying shriek. All creatures within 30 feet of the creature and of 5 Hit Dice or fewer must save vs. Spells or flee in panic for 1d4+2 rounds. Those above 5 HD must save or suffer –2 to hit rolls for the same duration due to overwhelming dread.

Only one Piasa Bird is known to exist, though superstitious accounts claim it disappears and reappears across generations. It lairs in a high cliffside cavern overlooking riverlands. It has no use for treasure, discarding anything it cannot eat. Its hunting cycle includes long periods of dormancy.

The Piasa feeds exclusively on fresh meat. It is a solitary apex predator. Due to its grotesque appearance and violent habits, it is considered a dire omen and subject of local legend. Some arcane scholars believe it to be a cursed spirit or manifestation of fear or ancient blood magic. Capturing one alive would be nearly impossible, but if somehow achieved, its display would command a king’s ransom.

Its shriek functions similarly to a fear spell but has a sonic origin.

Due to its chaotic nature, it may sometimes slaughter creatures without feeding, simply to instill dread.

--

I debated on whether to make him Chaotic Evil or not. I went with it since he his described as an evil monster and eater of humans, especially children. Plus tales of the Piasa used to scare the crap out of me as a little kid.

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

—oOo—
Name: Fear Jet 1975 – Hijack!Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Andy Miller

Setting: 1975 USA and beyond...Product: Expansion to Fear Jet
What You Get: Thirty-four page, 31.94 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A flight into The King in Yellow via hijack-horror horror!Plot Hook: When fear of flying takes you out of this world with a gun to your head...Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Investigators, six Investigator portraits, and one handout.Production Values: Decent
Pros# Mad Men meets the Mythos# Can be run as a convention scenario
# Can be run over and over until some Investigators escapes...# Easy to adapt to other periods during the Age of Flight# Pre-built tension and secrets# Extensive playtest notes# Xanthophobia# Aerophobia# Katagelophobia
Cons# Very similar sequel to Fear Jet# Challenging to run as a convention scenario# What happens next?
Conclusion# Mad Men meets the Mythos in mid-air# Character-driven re-iteration that a group might not want to play again

The Vaterländer Empire is in purgatory. The Holy Empire of the Sanguine Church is rent by a schism of faith. The Church of Holy Blood, governed by the Grand Magister from the Holy City of Mars, has administered to the faithful for a thousand years. The Church has launched rituals of bloodletting and the imbibing of sanguine sacraments in honour of the Torn Prophet and launched crusades upon the unfaithful. However, some call it decadent, accuse it of corruption, and there arose schisms when some wanted worship to be less excessive and more ascetic. They were called heretics and put to the torch by the Inquisition, yet they found a voice in Luther Martin, who taught that the God of Light and the Torn Prophet’s teachings be taught and experienced by the common man as well as the clergy. To that end, the text of the Torn Prophet was printed in the common tongue, the first of what the Church of Holy Blood regarded as acts of high blasphemy… As Luther Martin’s words drew an ever greater flock, the Church of Holy Blood declared them and Luther Martin to be heretics and he was assassinated. Those who followed his teachings broke with the Church of Holy Blood and from the schism arose two faiths—the Orthodoxy of the Church of Light and the Puritans of the Church of Light. As the Emperor of the Holy Empire of the Sanguine Church led his armies into the Vaterländer Empire to put down the heresy of the Puritans. The peasantry and the zealots of the Puritans of the Church of Light rose up in the city of Deliverance and rounded up the tax collectors and the priests and burned them alive in what was once Festival Square, but is now Execution Square. The Vaterländer Empire split into the Holy Confederacy of the Puritan Church and those loyal to the Church of Light and Holy Emperor.

As religious war spread, cities burned, thousands died, and neighbouring powers took advantage of the weakened Holy Empire of the Sanguine Church. Svea and Orla funded the Puritans and as one city and town after another declared its allegiance to one side or the other, one faith or the other, or even none, no army could protect them all. So out went the call for mercenaries on all sides, and as long as they are paid, such free companies will serve their paymasters, but if not, they become as much of a threat as the enemy extracting the pay they are owed, in the process, making the populace suffer further. The Inquisition and its witchfinders scour the broken land in search of corruption, signs of the dark arts, and demons, ready to torture, burn, and hang all it suspects, all in service of the Orthodoxy of the Church of Light, yet almost as fanatically as the Puritans. The Inquisition cannot be everywhere and where a witch would be burned where the Puritans hold sway, a wise woman would be revered where the Orthodoxy remains, and demons frolic, come to Vaterländ to revel in the pain and suffering. Worse, even worse than the plague and famine that rolls back and forth across the land, is the Staggering Pox that blights the dead of the battlefields in their shallow graves and forces them to walk again… Another year of Purgatory and winter seems longer and colder than the last…

This is the setting for Black Powder and Brimstone, a roleplaying game which is very obviously inspired by the events of the Thirty Years’ War, the civil war which tore the Holy Roman Empire apart between 1618 and 1648, born of the Reformation that divided Christendom in Western Europe. Published by Free League Publishing following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is compatible with Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and also published by Free League Publishing. This is a setting in which the Player Characters not only have to survive the horrors of war, but also the fanaticism of the faithful, the unnatural and the occult as well as the attentions of the Inquisition in ferreting out signs of apostasy and heresy. Vaterländ is a land where demons lurk and cultists skulk, flagellants scourge themselves into apoplexies of piety and pain, mercenaries and armies tramp the land taking what they want when they feel they have not been given what they are owed, the night folk dart out of the black swathes of forest at night in search of human flesh, the Bandersnatch takes lost children to who knows where, and the Staggering Pox casts a sickly green shadow... They may simply survive or they may form free companies, mercenaries for hire by either side, and so gain employment and responsibilities.

A Player Character in Black Powder and Brimstone has four stats—Strength, Agility, Presence, and Toughness. These range in value between -3 and +3. The values are determined by rolling three six-sided dice, modified by the character’s Archetype and Subclass. The five Archetypes are Mercenary Deserter, Bounty Hunter, Witch, Opportunist, and Practioneer. The Subclasses for the Mercenary Deserter are Rifleman, Greatswordsman (who comes with a Zweihander) and Grenadier; for the Bounty Hunter they are Pistolier, Master Trapper, and Beast Hunter; for the Witch, they are Woods Witch, Herbalist, and Hexen; those for the Opportunist are Adventurer, Sneak Thief, and Silver-Tongued Trickster; and for Practioneer, they consist of Vow of War, Vow of Healing, and Vow of Sustencance. Each Archetype provides the Stat bonuses, some gold, and a little background, whilst the Subclasses provide equipment and a special ability. A set of optional tables provide various character traits including a background skill.

Ottilie Schönlein
Archetype: Witch
Subclass: Hexen
Abilities: Curse (-2/+2 penalty/bonus), Black Candles, Deck of Cards
Strength 0 Agility 0 Presence +3 Toughness +1
Hit Points: 12
Background: Running from a deal gone wrong
Spells: Invisibility, Befuddlement
Character Traits: Ottilie is sullen; Ottilie wants to write a book; Ottilie’s setback is rudeness; Ottilie is good at dancing; Ottilie’s passion is being creative; Ottilie most notable physical feature is her jewellery

Collectively, the Player Characters can form a Free Company. This costs a lot of gold to register, but the members should have a shared goal and will share both treasure and income. If a Player Character is killed whilst a member of a Free Company, a new one can enlist at the same Level and degree of income. Beyond that, being a member of a Free Company does provide any benefits. It is supported with rules for hiring mercenaries and a very light means of handling combat between detachments.

Mechanically, Black Powder and Brimstone is, like Mörk Borg, player-facing. In other words, the players roll the dice, not the Game Master. This particularly applies to combat whereas as well as rolling for his character to stab a witch, a player also rolls avoid being bitten by the witch rat familiar. To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls a twenty-sided die, aiming to roll equal to or over a Difficulty Rating from six and simple to eighteen and impossible, with an average Difficulty Rating being ten or twelve. To this he adds the value of the stat.

In addition to setting the Difficulty Rating of a task, the Game Master can determine the Position and Impact based upon the situation. These do not adjust the Difficulty Rating, but set out the consequences of the action, Position the outcome if a failure, Impact if a success. Position can either be ‘Shaky’, ‘Risky’, or ‘Dire’, that is, not as bad as it could have been, as bad as expected, or worse than was imagined. There is scope for the player to negotiate with the Game Master as which degree of Position or Impact applies to the situation and a player can even trade Position for Impact, making a task easier to complete, but not be as effective. Position and Impact are also applied to negotiations, a player typically having his character attempting to shift an NPC’s disposition from Hostile/Strong through Indifferent/Fair to Positive/Strong.

Combat uses the same core mechanic. Initiative is simply determined by who acts first, but combat order is rolled with any Player Character with a positive Agility stat at an advantage. Mêlée combat uses the Strength stat, both magic and ranged combat use Presence, and Defence uses Agility. The rules cover stealth, the breaking of morale, cover, attacks of opportunity, grappling and stunning, and more, including simple chase rules for mounted combat. There are a handful of possible outcomes given for rolls of natural one or twenty in combat for mêlée, ranged combat, and using magic. If a character is reduced to zero or negative Hit Points, his player must make a Toughness check. If successful, the character is simply Broken, but fail and he might fall unconscious, suffer a wound, or bleed to death. A wicked scar might be small or might be missing nose or a limb. Worse, there is a chance that rusty, unclean weapons will cause an infection beyond the wound itself…

Most of the weapons have special rules. For example, on roll of eighteen plus, a zweihänder will cut a man in half, whilst its cumbersome nature means that it is at a penalty to use in enclosed spaces, whilst a club will knock someone out on a roll of sixteen or more. All black powder weapons have a misfire die, an eight-sided die rolled in addition to the attack roll. On a roll of two, the weapon misfires, one a roll of one it explodes and injures the wielder—the aarquebus is worse! All take a round to reload, but the advantage of these black powder weapons is that they ignore armour. Armor simply reduces damage for other attacks.

A Player Character also has access to ‘Devil’s Luck’. This can be spent to either lower the Difficulty Rating of a task or to activate a Dark Power. A Dark Power might be to deal maximum damage, neutralise a critical roll or a fumble, allow a reroll of any die, or ignore all damage dealt to a Player Character. However, it has its consequences, as the Player Character might gain a mutation, like small bony horns sprouting from his head or growing an extra finger on his hand.

A Witch can cast between one and four spells per day. Casting a spell is a simple Presence roll, but if failed, the Witch is left temporarily dizzy and whilst dizzy cannot successfully cast another spell. Only a Witch can learn spells, although other Player Characters can consume various potions for similar effects. Spells include Cursed Ammunition which hits easier and harder, but the wielder suffers damage; Wound Eater causes the target to suffer all damage temporarily that the caster would otherwise suffer; Back from the Brink brings a fresh corpse back to life, but reduces his total Hit Points. The spell list is not extensive and includes three spells—Spectral Skeletons, Raise the Dead, and Death Glare—that can only be learned from Gothel, the Mistress of Twilight. A mishap will occur if the Witch’s player rolls a one on the spell casting roll.

For the Game Master there is revelations about the setting and some decent advice on running the game and creating scenarios. The former includes applying ‘Yes and…’ and ‘No, but…’, using failed rolls to make something happen rather negate the action, and the use of countdown clocks, all very modern for an Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying. The latter is backed up with some short frameworks around which the Game Master can build a plot, some sample plot hooks, and a set of tables to generate adventures, locations—and inns in particular, and even dungeons. There is also quite a large bestiary, of which mutants, bandits, free company mercenaries, and puritan martials are the most mundane. More outré monsters include the Grave Colossus, walking graveyards with a hatred of grave robbers, Dryads, and a host of demons. There is even a weird swerve into Science Fiction in the form of the Watchers, cowardly aliens which conduct experiments in secret. There is also a full gallery of villains, friends, and adversaries, some of which more than a little tongue in cheek, like the world-renowned thief, Carmen San Dominira, and Lord Flash, a British mercenary with a silver tongue and a lot of luck, unlike those he leads into battle.

Rounding out Black Powder and Brimstone is a short scenario, ‘The House of Pain and Loss’. The Player Characters arrive in the town of Koch. It is rundown due to the war and the higher taxes, but the town noticeboard has several notices nailed to it asking about the whereabouts of several missing women. There is little to learn in the town except that the local nobleman, Count Lethgar, has not been seen since the death of his wife and that the wife of the innkeeper is missing. The inference is that there might be a creature of the night abroad and it might be the count. It is an easy assumption to come to since the plot to the scenario is underwhelmingly straightforward, ending in an investigation of the count’s manse and discovering his secrets. Annoyingly, the Game Master has to ‘read to find out’ what the plot is as there is no explanation at the start of the scenario, which can played in the same session as the players create their characters.

Physically, Black Powder and Brimstone is stunning. The artwork has a cartoonishly grim and gothic style that is really eye-catching and pivotal in conveying the sense of the game and its world, enticing the viewer to look, find out, and want to play. Black Powder and Brimstone really is a cool looking book. However, it does need an edit.

There is a lot to like about Black Powder and Brimstone. The setting—and the artwork are enthralling, since this is one of the few roleplaying games to specifically draw upon the Thirty Years’ War for its key inspiration. There have been other roleplaying games to do the same, most notably Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, but that does not draw so directly upon the religious schism and the resulting war. Indeed, it could be argued that Black Powder and Brimstone is the Old School Renaissance answer to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, but the historical parallels between the setting of Black Powder and Brimstone and the Thirty Years’ War and the emphasis upon horror rather than fantasy in Black Powder and Brimstone suggests otherwise. (In fact, it could be said that the parallels between the setting of Black Powder and Brimstone and the Thirty Years’ War are a bit too on the nose, such as naming the instigator of the Reformation, ‘Luther Martin’.) Yet Black Powder and Brimstone is not a wholly satisfying design. Mechanically, it is underdeveloped, in the main, the ‘Position’ and ‘Impact’ mechanic feeling bolted on and being more narrative in play, at odds with the Old School sensibility of Mörk Borg. As an extension of that, the social mechanics are best described as a statement of intent rather than a set of rules. Other issues are more minor, but Black Powder and Brimstone seems to be trying to be modern, yet old and not quite right as either.

The other issue is the setting and what to do with it. That the included scenario is so uninspiring is the coda to the issue of what the Player Characters are going to be doing in setting. There are some plot hooks and advice, but there is no discussion of long term or campaign play.

Black Powder and Brimstone is a really fantastic looking book with what looks to be a very gameable setting, but unfortunately it does not deliver that setting or that game as easily as it should have done. Its lack of development is going to leave the Game Master with some work to do and a lot of rulings during play to successfully run it. Hopefully a companion volume or some scenarios will go a long way to fixing that.

—oOo—

Free League Publishing will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist expands the divided world of Fyera. ‘The Ruination’ divided it into three when it ceased to spin on its access. The ‘Lands of the Old Days’ faced the sun, waters and rivers boiled away to leave only sand and heat. ‘The Darklands’ will never face the sun, frozen and withered, now home to beasts and beings of the darkness unknown before The Ruination. Between them runs a narrow band around the world, the ‘Penumbra’, where the survivors have to live with no diurnal cycle, no night and day, always at the mercy of attacks from deep within The Darklands. From the Penumbra, the peoples of Freya launched expeditions into The Darklands and once there, constructed Cressets of Vigil, towering portable beacons of light that revealed once again the lands and secrets lost to the darkness and advanced warnings of attacks upon Penumbra. These attacks bare cease, as if the very darkness would reach out and swallow the last of the light. Many of the survivors of The Ruination would find themselves changed, granted ‘The Gifts of Fyera’ that enabled them to hold back the Darkness, yet facing the ever-present danger of falling into the Darkness as a result of committing or witnessing sins done in the name of the Light, of their souls being scarred by both the Light and the Dark. Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist is the first supplement for Soulmist: A Journey from Darkness to Light, a dark fantasy setting compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Black Lantern following a successful Kickstarter campaign, this is the first roleplaying game and setting to be published by a Greek publisher and reach the English-speaking market.
Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist leaps straight into the world of Fyera with introductions by the authors of the ‘Tenebris Cordis’—the ‘dark heart’—a treatise that presents some of the threats emerging from The Darklands. These are scholars and participants in reclamation expeditions into the Darklands whose voices give an engaging verisimilitude to the supplement, one that continues throughout the supplement with marginalia that annotates and adds commentary to its content. Yet it does leave the reader slightly adrift to quite wonder what the supplement is and what its content consists since there is no introduction from its designer. Once past the introductions—which actually could be used as handouts for the players—and the Game Master will discover that Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist is a grimoire of monsters and demons supported by new rules and advice for creating memorable antagonists and stories suited to the pitch-black half of Soulmist’s world and the shadows that the Player Characters’ light can cast upon it.
The Dark Saints are the natural and spiritual leaders of the forces of The Darkness, some ancient, some new, some native to the world, some foreign. Some were martyrs of the Light who fell to Darkness, others struck down previous Dark Saints, but they all wear the legendary ‘Black Halos’, the ‘Dark Crowns’ that are the symbols of their authority and power. Fortunately, only ten Dark Saints are known, each embodying a different aspect of the Darkness and each perusing their own agenda. Each of the ten is accorded a description that includes a lengthy history, details of its lair, the Dark Endowments—major and minor—that it can bestow on its followers, and the lair actions it can take within its domain. Full stats are also given. These include not just its standard actions, but also bonus actions, legendary actions, and abilities. The least of the Dark Saints is Sixteenth Level, the highest Nineteenth Level, whilst one is listed as its Level being unknown.
For example, Nycta, the Dark Saint of Voracity was once an inquisitive young noble woman who paid to be taken on an expedition into The Darklands. Unfortunately, her naivety and poor choice of expedition led to everyone being captured by a dark raid and imprisoned. Refusing to be left to starve, she horrified the other survivors by consuming the flesh of one of their number who had died. This attracted the attention of the demon lord, who, enraptured by her beauty took her as his wife and on their wedding night, literally offered his bride his heart of magma. In seducing and taking him to the heights of ecstasy, she took his power and his ‘Black Halo’. Since then, despite many suitors and many rivals, she has seduced and consumed them in order to protect her position and make herself more powerful. There remains though, a void in her that she cannot fill, even as she continues to slake her desires. Although scholars have identified who the young noble woman who became Nycta was, an injunction has been placed by the Judiciary Order on the Legislative Order to prevent it from becoming public knowledge.

Mechanically, Nycta is a Seventeenth Level Undead Demonoid. She has a Charisma of 26 and her standard include include using Heartrender, a whip that inflicts more damage on those she has Charmed; blowing a ‘Kiss of Surrender’, that if the recipient fails the saving throw, forces him to drop his weapons and divest himself of both armour and all combat gear, before going on in subsequent rounds to extoll his allies to do the same; and with ‘Insatiable Hunger’, drain the Hit Points from the willing and the Charmed to keep for herself or her allies. Her ‘Damsel in Distress’ Reaction calls on a Charmed ally to rush to her defence. Her Abilities consist of ‘Thief of Hearts’, which makes it harder for those charmed by her to break that charm and ferociously compete for her attention; as the ‘Foil of Hearts’, appear as an innocent maiden to the pure of heart, making it hard for them to attack her; ‘Destiny Consumed’ turns her followers into zealots who gain attacks of opportunity if anyone attacks her; her ‘Innate Spellcasting means that amongst other spells, she can cast Charm Person at will; and her Crown of Voracity hungers for what desires lie in the hearts of men, forcing those nearby to attempt to fulfil them and even forces those who fight near it to swap their allegiances!
Nycta also has the Legendary Actions of Charm Person (though she can already cast this at will, so…), ‘Foerender’, which enables her to swing her whip, Heartrender, in a thirty foot radius, and ‘Voracious Command’ that gives her allies an extra action or move. As her lair actions, her very presence can drive the residents of the city to her location, drunk on desire and impulsiveness, call ruination black warriors and then an alastor knight to her, and raise a cloud of the ethereal dust that covers the city into the air causing any charmed creature in the cloud to randomly attack someone else! Last she has Dark Endowments. The Major Endowments grant advantage on saving throws against being charmed—except by Nycta, the ability to cast Charm Person three times a day, and the temporary ability to steal the appearance of someone they have charmed. The Minor Endowments make them permanently charmed by Nycta, increase two attribute scores, and grants them a Dark Spark when they complete one of her commands.
All ten of the Dark Saints are given a similar and as powerful a treatment, from Acheron, the Dark Saint of Corruption and Asmodae, the Dark Saint of Void to Sagha, the Dark Saint of Fear, and Varna, the Dark Saint of Madness. These are all major NPCs and thus significant challenges for the Player Characters to overcome and Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist makes clear that they sit atop a very simple hierarchy in the realm of Darkness—might makes right. And that percolates all the way down to the bottom. The supplement provides several ways in which to populate this hierarchy. One is to add a template like ‘Hollows’ or ‘Umbrus’ to an existing creature, another to use the extra creatures given in the supplement. These range from the ‘Yormoth’, the most common creature, known as ‘flesh hunters’, in the Darklands to the ‘Wandering Qualms’, former ordinary men and creatures whose regrets and shame ate them from within and turned into masses of stings and tentacles bound in iron. They also include the Guardians of the 2nd Legion, a unit so brave and so stubborn, that when they were recognised by the Dark Saint of Vengeance, they had to be resurrected through their armour, so worn were their bodies. With the legs of a carnivorous bird, the body of a wolf, and wings of bats, the Septigore is the major flying predator in the Darklands, flying in packs form buildings and caves big enough to accommodate their flock. They are often fielded as aerial guards or scouts. The Ruinetarians are the natives of the Darklands, the descendants of those who did not flee to the Penumbra in the wake of the Ruination, but survived enslavement and subjugation. They have advantage on Stealth rolls and can see in darkness as if it were daylight, but are sensitive to sunlight. None of the monsters in Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist is below Tenth Level and all of them are challenging opponents.
Lastly, Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist discusses a means in which any one of its Dark Saints could be in a campaign. This is as a nemesis for one or more the Player Characters, who can be introduced at the start of a campaign, as part of the ongoing play, through the nemesis itself deciding that the Player Characters are his enemy—either from their actions or their fame, or simply player choice. Once introduced, they can be used to enhance the theme of a campaign and develop drama via the ‘Nemesis System’. The relationship between the Player Characters and a nemesis is measured in Edge and who has it. Effectively, this is the narrative advantage that one side has over the other, gained through scoring victories, learning information, and so on, that will push the story on to the next Challenge or episode in the campaign. Only one side can have the Edge and it can only be used once before the turn of events might mean that the Player Characters overcome a Challenge and regain the Edge over their nemesis, or they fail and the nemesis gains it. In play, it is spent by the players to advance the narrative, for example, finding a map showing all of the entrances to a fortress where the nemesis is holding some of the Player Characters family hostage or a captured prisoner is willing to reveal information in return for help. The players take it in turn to spend their characters’ Edge and the Game Master then incorporates their suggestions, if not necessarily their desired outcome of those suggestions, into the campaign.
What the nemesis can do when it has the Edge is less clearly defined, but what it can do is overcome minor challenges in going after the Player Characters. If the Player Character take too long in using their Edge, they can lose it to their nemesis. Ultimately, both sides are working towards a confrontation with each other, and whilst the campaign can progress to this narratively, it is possible to initiate a confrontation using Edge. The side which has used the most Edge will be at advantage in the ensuing confrontation. The confrontation need not be campaign-ending or result in the final defeat of one side or the other, so that it is possible to go through several cycles of Edge swapping back and forth, a confrontation taking place, and then starting again before the final, final battle. The Nemesis System is slightly lose and woolly, though far from unworkable, adding a narrative element that is not always found in Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games.

Physically, Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist is a dark, grim-looking book as befits the setting. The artwork is decent, but the book does need another edit.

Soulmist: A Journey from Darkness to Light introduced an interesting setting that really did not detail the nature of the threat at the heart of the game. Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist does that, showcasing the monsters and other horrors, including their vile leaders, to be found within the Darklands. Any one of the Dark Saints would be a grand threat or nemesis in a Soulmist campaign—or indeed in any other grim dark roleplaying game—and Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist supports that too with the Nemesis System. Ultimately, Darklands – A Dark Sourcebook For: Soulmist is the bestiary—the horridly dark bestiary—that Soulmist: A Journey from Darkness to Light needed.
—oOo—

Black Lantern will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

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 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. Some simply live free of the stifling Aelfir control, whether by means lawful or unlawful, others are driven to beyond the Undercity, delving ever deeper into the bowels of the world in search of the fabled Heart, or perhaps their heart’s desire. There are also those who use the Undercity as a sanctuary, as a base of operations, from which they lead the rebellion against the Aelfir. They are members of the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress, both a faith and a revolutionary movement, and outlawed for both reasons. As the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress foments and funds rebellion and unrest in the Spire above, it sends cells of its black ops paramilitary wing, Throne Division, scurrying up the Spire to conduct assassinations, acts of sabotage and blackmail, abductions, extractions, and more. The City Beneath then, is a home to many, sanctuary to some, a base of operations to others, a stepping stone to elsewhere for a few, and a thorn in the side for even fewer. What though, would happen if the City Underneath was threatened from somewhere else, perhaps a means of escape?
Doors to Elsewhere is a supplement 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., like the other supplements for Heart: The City Beneath—Sanctum, Vermissian Black Ops, and Burned and Broken—it explores other ways in which to roleplay in its world underneath. Where it differs is that it actually takes the Player Characters away from the City to explore another place and from there, potentially, whole new dimensions. This opportunity comes when dozens of doors that were not there before suddenly appear and open. On the other side is a strange land between the dimensions. This is the City Elsewhere, home to untold numbers of people, who live in buildings that reach four or five storeys into the sky, the upper levels connected by wrought iron bridges, their homes connected to markets and workshops by warrens of alleys and streets. By day, the vast city is a blaze of colour, noise, and light, but at night, only the light remains, fizzing and fizzling in the streetlights that provide sanctuaries against the dark. And such sanctuaries are needed, for no one walks the streets voluntarily now. Between the light of the lamps and darkness beyond, there is no shadow, there is only a darkness that is home to the Interstitials, pools of liquid darkness that smell of curdled milk whose mandibles click at locks to unpick them, whose claws clack on the cobbles and so make you realise that your companions number more than you can count, and who want to eat you and spread the darkness. They abhor the light and something or someone is stealing the Power Crystals that fuel the lights of the City Elsewhere. Citizens of Elsewhere remain inside and lock their doors at night, but many have begun fleeing the city, leaving via the many passageways that lead to doors to other dimensions—and that includes the City Beneath. Can the City Beneath provide them with sanctuary as it does others, or now that the doors are open, will the Interstitials follow and bring their eternal death and darkness with them?

This is a campaign framework which begins in the City Beneath rather than away from it as do the other supplements for Heart: The City Beneath. Its set-up presents an immediately intriguing mystery, one almost on the Player Characters’ doorstep. The framework really consists of that beginning and its possible endings, leaving what happens in between in the hands of the Game Master and her players. This includes the culprits behind the theft of the Power Crystals, Doors to Elsewhere suggesting multiple options, some of whom might be surprisingly close to home for the Player Characters. After that, it explores the nature of the City Elsewhere, the main factions in the city and their notable personalities, various locations or landmarks that the Player Characters might visit, the dimensions that the Player Characters might find themselves in if they take a wrong turn, and a set of tables for bringing the City Elsewhere and its inhabitants to life.
Some of the flavour of the difference of the City Elsewhere comes through in the small details. For example, one possible door from the City Beneath to the City Elsewhere is described as a corpse, slumped over, through coral has blossomed to form a doorway, whilst potential means of overcoming the language barrier is solved by everyone smoking from the same hookah to temporarily understand each other or a book, when handed to the Player Characters by an NPC, reveals in exact detail, the conversation they would have if they spoke the same language. At the Crowdswallow Market—where the bustling crowds over seven streets never quite seem to buy anything, the Player Characters might want to buy a Fighting-Rope, since bloodshed is forbidden in the City Elsewhere or a Light Bomb, as it is one of the few things that harms the Interstitials. Other locations include the Café De L’Autre Monde, which always remains a café no what happens in the City Elsewhere and serves a delightful menu of cakes; the Desert Maiden, a ship lost at sea that crash-landed atop an artist’s workshop and become a bar; and the Street of Doors, the City Elsewhere’s central street lined with stable doors to other dimensions, allowing travel to and from Approved Realms—if the toll is paid, of course.
The City Elsewhere’s major factions include the City itself and only the one guild, the Guild of Cartographers, which seeks to catalogue and control every portal. Surprisingly, the Vermissian Collective has a presence in the City Elsewhere. The group of scholars and explorers who map and examine the transport network which runs up and down the Spire to the City Beneath and beyond, maintains an embassy in the City Elsewhere. It has become much busier since the doors to the City Elsewhere began opening. Not all of the factions are happy to see the Doors open. The Hounds—or the Glorious 33rd—are dedicated to finding every door, closing the ones they can, and boobytrapping the ones they cannot.
Doors to Elsewhere also has discussion on ‘Dimensional Theory’ and descriptions of some of the major dimensions that have multiple, stable links to the City Elsewhere, along with several minor ones that are harder to reach. A favourite from the latter is ‘The Place Where Cats Go When No-One’s Watching’, a constant twilight labyrinth of rooftops, alleys, airing cupboards, bins with fish in, and more, that all cats can access if nobody is watching. Sadly, non-cats are not allowed and to them it is anything other than a feline paradise. The SS Freebird is ship that sails on the aether between dimensions, the collective of shamans, magi, fringe scientists, de-frocked priests, and occult oddities that make up its crew working to maintain and improve their vessel when not docking at other dimensions and partying hard—really hard!
Rounding out Doors to Elsewhere is a list of the (story) beats—minor, major, and zenith—that the Player Characters can hit whilst in the City Elsewhere and the advances available. There is some advice on how running as different a campaign in the City Elsewhere compared to the City Beneath, but it is relatively light. It is backed up with a set of random tables for creating details in play at the table.

Physically, Doors to Elsewhere is a slim, very well-presented book. It is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is excellent and the book is easy to read and understand.

Much as with Sanctum, Vermissian Black Ops, and Burned and Broken before it, Doors to Elsewhere presents a different campaign focus and set-up for Heart: The City Beneath. In fact, a very different campaign focus and set-up for Heart: The City Beneath, one with an external rather than an internal focus. It enables to the Player Characters to explore and contrast their existence in the City Beneath with the City Elsewhere and beyond, but as much as it is filled with lovely little details and intriguing secrets as you would expect for a supplement for Heart: The City Beneath, ultimately, Doors to Elsewhere does feel like an outlier.

—oOo—
Rowan, Rook, and Decard Ltd. will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

The Hum has been heard for weeks now, a near-constant source of pain that has been affecting the tribe’s hearing-sensitive mutants and manimals and impeding their ability to invoke their divine gifts. The leaders of the tribe sent out parties of its young Seekers to locate the source and whilst they failed to find it, what one Seeker learned revealed an even bigger threat to the tribe. Her party was ambushed by a gang of Ascended Ones—a violent sect of three-eyed mutants who believe that Pure strain humans were responsible for the destruction of the planet and bringing about Terra A.D. She learned from them that the Ascended Ones were on a quest of their own, to find The Temple of Mutant Alpha: the first known mutant on Terra A.D. or ‘Terra After Disaster’. Does The Temple of Mutant Alpha really exist? If so, if the Ascended Ones find it, there can be no doubt that they will turn it into a site of holy pilgrimage that will further their aims. In response, a stronger and more experienced party of Seekers is to follow up on the information. This is the set-up for Mutant Crawl Classics #15: The Mutant Menace of Lab 47, the fifteenth release for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, the spiritual successor to Gamma World published by Goodman Games. It is designed for Third Level Player Characters and will take deep into the history of Terra A.D. to reveal some of its secrets with a big dose of Area 51-style ufology thrown in.

Mutant Crawl Classics #15: The Mutant Menace of Lab 47 begins with Player Characters near the source of the Hum in the glow desert, an oasis of the Ancients. After some exploration of what are nearby tourist facilities a la Rachel, Nevada (the nearest settlement to Area 51), the Player Characters can break into the facility, which reveals itself through notices and announcements to be the Trevino Research Base. There is some knowing fun to be had here, since the adventure assumes that any Player Characters of the Shaman Class or of sufficient Intelligence will know the Ancient Tongue. This means that the players will quickly grasp what is going on at the facility, but their characters will not, effectively adding an element of metaplay as the players have their characters explore the facility in search of conformation of what they know and their characters can understand. The adventure also emphasises classic Gamma World-style play in which obtaining the correctly collared com-badges will allow the Player Characters access to different areas of the facility. Alternatively, the Player Characters can use brute force or Security Systems checks of various difficulties, but the simplest and easiest method of exploring the facilities is to find and use the com-badges.

What the Player Characters find in the Trevino Research Base are clear signs that the Ancients obtained—from a place called ‘Glossop’—alien technology and survivors that scientists were conducting research on, including gene research. Plus, the results of the research may well indeed, have led to the creation of the first Mutant. This research was kept well hidden from the outside world, although of course, conspiracy theorists and UFOlogists thought otherwise, hence the UFO-themed tourist facilities outside of the base. The Player Characters do have plenty of opportunity to learn about this research and even conduct a little of it themselves, but perhaps the most entertaining part of the scenario is the fact that they discover living results of that research begun long ago that will trigger their parental instincts. Consequently, the latter half of the scenario is likely to consist of the Player Characters exploring the rest of the Trevino Research Base whilst caring for squalling, wailing, defecating babies! Although their players will have been alerted much earlier in the scenario, eventually their characters will discover that the base’s self-destruct system has been triggered and they will need to find a way to deactivate it. The scenario ends in a genre classic showdown t the bottom of a missile silo!

In addition, Mutant Crawl Classics #15: The Mutant Menace of Lab 47 suggests some possible sequels if the Player Characters survive the scenario and three appendices. One details the various artefacts that the Player Characters can find in the scenario and make use of, such as the Biomesh Com-Badge Jumpsuit—colour-coded, of course, Illuma-Drones for lighting, and NuEarz, jaunty, animal-shaped hearing devices with various modes, some of them useful. The others describe the new monsters in the scenario and the new Mutation, ‘Binary Voice’, similar to Achroma’s Artificial Intelligence Hack, but without the need to bond with the A.I.

Physically, behind a very suggestive cover, complete with a metallic logo, Mutant Crawl Classics #15: The Mutant Menace of Lab 47 is cleanly and tidily laid out, clearly written, and decently illustrated. The maps are decent too, although a little scratchy towards the end.

Mutant Crawl Classics #15: The Mutant Menace of Lab 47 is a short adventure with an emphasis on exploration and combat. As with other scenarios for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, it is self-contained, but with plot strands to develop, and so is easy to add to a Judge’s campaign. Overall, Mutant Crawl Classics #15: The Mutant Menace of Lab 47 is solid and entertaining.
—oOo—

Goodman Games will be at UK Games Expofrom Friday 30th May to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

 Yeah, I said I wasn't going to do many more of these, but here we are. Though this week has some real treats and none of them really need my help.

Wandering Blades

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tonyatplusoneexp/wandering-blades?ref=theotherside

Daniel Kwan , of the Asians Represent! podcast and many RPG books, is doing something I have been wanting him to do for a while now: make a Wuxia action RPG. This one also combines that with Japanese Animation action, so yeah, I am looking forward to it. 

Just three weeks left on this one and I am looking forward to seeing it hit more stretch goals.

The Necromancer's Game: A Complete Boxed Set

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/necromancergames/the-necromancers-game?ref=theotherside

I certainly don't *need* this game, but I rather like the looks of it. I am sure it will be fun.

Heroes of Might and Magic TTRPG

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lmpublishing/heroes-of-might-and-magic-ttrpg?ref=theotherside

From Mōdiphiüs and based on Heroes of Might and Magic video games. This one should also be fun. And they have a native Witch class, so you know that has my attention!

OSRIC 3

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/mythmere-games/osric-3?ref=theotherside

Ah. The big one. This game caused quite a stir on the old Open Gaming Foundation lists back in the day. It would go on to be one of the biggest names in the OSR scene.

All three aim to give you a similar experience. All three are currently killing it in their respective crowdfunding campaigns. 

I am sure there is something here for you all.