On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. As new fanzines have appeared, there has been an interest in the fanzines of the past, and as that interest has grown, they have become highly collectible, and consequently more difficult to obtain and write about. However, in writing about them, the reader should be aware that these fanzines were written and published between thirty and forty years ago, typically by roleplayers in their teens and twenties. What this means is that sometimes the language and terminology used reflects this and though the language and terminology is not socially acceptable today, that use should not be held against the authors and publishers unduly.

The Beholder was a British fanzine first published in April, 1979. Dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it ran to twenty-seven issues, the last being published in July, 1981. It was popular and would be awarded ‘Best Games Fanzine’ at the Games Day convention in 1980. After the final issue of The Beholder, the editors would go on to release a number of anthologies which collected content from the complete run of the fanzine such as Beholder Supplement Glossary of Magic, which collected many of the magical items which appeared in the fanzine and collated them into a series of tables for easy use by the Dungeon Master, and Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2, the first of several scenario anthologies.
The Beholder Issue 2 was published in May 1979—the same month as Margaret Thatcher was first elected Prime Minister. Its contents follow the same pattern as set by The Beholder Issue 1—a new Class, some new monsters, spells, and magical items, along with a competition dungeon. There are other articles and not all of them for Dungeons & Dragons. The new Class is ‘The Loner’, which mixes the abilities of the Thief, the Ranger, and the Monk, so inspired by Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. The aim is to create a Player Character who has a broad range of skills and abilities and is thus capable without being a specialist, suited for play with small groups or solo play. Members of the Class will not join groups numbering more than five and cannot be Lawful in Alignment. He does not wear armour or use a shield, but his natural Armour Class improves as he gains Levels. For the most part, the Class’ abilities make sense, such as combining the Hide in Shadows and Move Silently skills of the Thief Class into Stalk, Track from the Ranger, Resist Cold, and so on, but there are aspects which make less sense. For example, Infravision, Wilful Healing, and eventually, Fly. Overall, the Class does not feel particularly coherent.
The only article not about Dungeons & Dragons is ‘Traveller’, for the roleplaying game of the same name. The article opens with a compliant that the Science Fiction roleplaying game is not as complete as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. However, it does offer an interesting use for the Computer skill, which it points is not useful until the Player Characters obtain a spaceship. This the ‘Programmable SMG’. When attached to its tripod, a program on a cassette can be inserted to provide one of four firing modes—continuous, fire at any movement, fire at any humanoid, or fire at anyone in a police uniform! The last cassette is highly illegal. It highlights the state of technology, what was thought technology could be in 1979, and the state of technology in Traveller was then, it is very clunky. Other additions include different types of grenade, such as High Explosive, Smoke, and Vapourisation, the latter being the equivalent of the disintegration. Lastly, the article notes that lasers are either very powerful or very weak, depending on the armour worn by the target. Reflec armour makes it impossible for the target to be hot, but anything else almost guarantees it. Instead, the author points out that lasers do not work in the rain, so either change the weather or if indoors, turn on the sprinkler system!
‘Monster Summoning’ describes six monsters. They include the ‘Catilae’, like a centaur, but replace the horse body with that of a centaur; the ‘Albatross’, which if killed inflicts a nasty, nasty curse; the ‘Vampirebat’, which is exactly what you think it is; and the ‘Ohm’, a terahedron—or three-sided pyramid—shaped creature with an eye and a tentacle in each face. Given the name, it should be no surprise that electricity runs through the Ohm, making it glow, and of course, hitting it with a metal weapon inflicts damage on the attacker. It feels reminiscent of the Modrons, in shape at least, which would later appear in the Planescape setting. Other monsters include the ‘Juvah’, a river or swamp dwelling creature like an Umber Hulk, but covered in a liquid that deludes its victims into thinking that they have not taken any damage; the ‘Snapdragon’ is the plant, but with dragons; head; and the ‘Mofe’, a humanoid of foam whose attacks deplete the victim’s Intelligence. None of the monsters are very interesting or sophisticated, but they are typical of the sort that might be found in a fanzine, being more  designed to test and surprise the players and their characters than anything else.
‘Thoughts on Combat’ offers suggestions to make combat in Dungeons & Dragons more interesting and sophisticated. These include bringing in player skill by getting each player to write down what their characters are going to do and sticking to it, adding critical hits and fumbles, and altering the bonus to Armour Class from Dexterity for heavier armour types. It does not go into details, merely giving suggestions. The ‘New Spells’ has four spells. These are Fuse, Block Transformation, Water Walking, and Locator, which are all self-explanatory bar Fuse, which enables a delay effect to be added to an object.
The Competition Scenario in The Beholder Issue 2 is ‘Petrarch’s Tower and the Vaults of Experimentation.’ At ten pages long, it is the longest piece in the issue. This is written for Third Level Player Characters of which eight pre-generated ones are provided, including one named ‘Westphalia’! The setting for the scenario is the Tower of Petrarch and the caves below it. The tower stands on a ledge over the Pass of Petrarch, inaccessible except by flight or through the tunnels below. The Wizard Petrarch discovered the entry into the ‘Three Thousand Steps of the Abyss’ that now lead into the Vaults of Experimentation five centuries ago, but it has been several centuries since he was last seen and the nearby authorities fear what might be found in them. Consequently, they have hired mercenaries—the Player Characters—to clear the tower and confirm that Petrarch is actually dead. The adventure is divided between the tower and the caves/tunnels below, there being more of the latter than the former. The dungeon contains some interesting rooms, like the room that Ogres have turned in a bowling alley using paralysed victims as the bowling pins, but this is very much a funhouse style dungeon with little in the way of a connected theme. The scenario ends with notes on adapting it to a Dungeon Master’s campaign and a competition points table which lists all of the points for achieving various objectives. Unfortunately, the adventure overall is too random and lacking in theme to be really interesting.
Lastly, The Beholder Issue 2 ends with ‘Magic Jar’. This describes some seventeen magical items. Much like those in the first issue of the fanzine, there are some fun entries here. For example, a Dispel Scroll has a specific spell written backwards on it. When read out it negates the nearest incident of that spell, whether that is a Player Character or an NPC elsewhere! The Automatic Sword functions like a permanent Dancing Sword, and will serve anyone who places five gems in the slots in the hilt. However, replace the gems with ones of a greater value and it will change master, so it is very mercenary! Spell Potions bottle spells and when the seal is broken, the spell infused into the potion is unleashed.

Physically, The Beholder, Issue 2 is a bit scruffy in places, but readable. The layout is tight and that does make it difficult to read in places. The illustrations and the cartography is not actually that bad. Of course, every issue of the fanzine was published when personal publishing was still analogue and the possibilities of the personal computer and personal desktop publishing were yet to come. In the case of The Beholder that would never be taken advantage of.

The Beholder has a high reputation for content that is of good quality and playable. The Beholder, Issue 2 does not yet match that reputation, let alone alone meet its own high standards in this second issue. The monsters still fail to excite and again, the given scenario is playable, but without any real purpose except to see if one playing group is better than another. That said, the design of it is better than the Competition Scenario in The Beholder, Issue 1 and this sort of dungeon dates from a time in player lives when play was enough rather than necessarily requiring a good reason. Overall, The Beholder, Issue 2 still feels like a typical fanzine of the period, not quite yet developing into the highly regarded fanzine to come.

 I am going to use Sundays of this Challenge to talk about the various Editions of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) game that have been published over the last 50 years. 

One of the challenges people have when getting into a game like D&D is where do you start? Generally speaking, you are always best starting with the edition that people around you are playing. If they are playing the newest edition (right now, 5th Edition), then great! This will make finding products easier. If it is an older edition, then great! All editions are fun. 

But what are the Editions? Are there 5 then? Well...it is a bit more complicated than that. Hopefully, this graph (making its rounds on social media and started on Reddit.) will help. The editions are all only sort-of compatible with each other. I'll explain that throughout the month. 

So there are, by some counts, 15 different versions of D&D. Some are 100% compatible with each other, some less so. 

For my posts, I am likely to focus on Basic era D&D (1977-1999), Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1977-1988), and D&D 5th edition (2014-2024).  Right now "One D&D" is not out yet. It is due near the end of the year, and by all accounts, it should be 100% backward compatible with D&D 5. We will see. 

Here are a couple of notes for people who don't know (or care) about the differences in these games.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition is the edition made popular by Stranger Things and E.T. the Extra-Terristrial. It was the one popular in media in the 1980s, though there is some evidence that it was D&D Basic (edited by Frank Mentzer, aka "The Red Box") sold better.

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition is the edition made popular by Critical Role. 

I hope that this month I can help with some of the confusion and mystery and maybe, just maybe, make so new players out of you all.

In addition to doing the April A to Z challenge, I am also doing the Ulitmate Blog Challenge. 

AND

I hope to have some good entries in the RPG Blog Carnival, hosted in April by Codex Anathema on Favorite Settings.

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. However, not all fanzines written with the Old School Renaissance in mind need to be written for a specific retroclone.

As beautiful as pieces of artwork that medieval illuminated manuscripts are, we have a fascination not with their actual words and their artistry of the copied work, as great as they, but with what lies alongside that artistry. For alongside the texts, medieval monks, in the laborious process of copying one manuscript after another, medieval monks would essentially add doodles in the margin, but doodles of a wholly illuminated and weird world full of strange creatures doing equally as strange things. Knights riding snails. Banditry rabbits. Headless duellists. Menacing snails. Magical beasts. Essentially, medieval scribes liked to fill the margins of their illuminated manuscripts with pictures of strange creatures doing strange things. Yet what if this monkish marginalia was not just the work of the imagination, but drawn from real life and such creatures as the monks drew to alleviate their boredom, were all too real. And if all of it was real, what could you do with it? This is a question answered by The Medieval Margin-agerie.
The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder is a sequel to The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 1, and likes its predecessor, takes our fascination with the marginalia of medieval monks and turns it into something gameable. Published by Just Crunch Games, following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it describes itself as “a zine of the grotesque, the weird and the bizarre for OSR games”. Although designed for use with the Old School Renaissance, it is not retroclone specific, but will work with most. In particular, the contents of The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2 will work very well with those of A Folklore Bestiary, published by The Merry Mushmen, and in tone, if not necessarily straight mechanics, with Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance retroclone designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing.
The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder restricts itself to just six entries—three fewer than in The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 1 ! Each is categorised under ‘What’, ‘Where’, ‘Why’, and ‘How’. Thus, ‘What’ is the creature, ‘Where’ is the creature found, ‘Why’ does the creature act the way it does, and ‘How’ might it be encountered and faced. This is followed by the stats. What is also noticeable about the second issue is the change in tone from the first issue. It should be noted that the various entries in both issues all represent the Medieval imagination, which is as prurient as our own, so there is content in the fanzine that is suggestive of the sexual and the scatological. Where the tone in The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 1 avoided being unnecessarily prurient, instead being a little smutty or saucy a la the Carry On films, the tone of The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder is just that bit more racier, a bit more dirty. It is though, only a slight shift, the more noticeable shift being how weird some of the entries are. What The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder does suggest is several uses for its various entries, building upon those given in The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 1. These include being summoned, accidentally or on purpose, as part of a demonic pact, such creatures slipping into out world when the walls between worlds are thin, or their appearance being the response of the natural world to an abundance of order.
The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder opens with ‘The Mysterious Caped Baboon’. This is a small, grey caped and eye-mask-wearing baboon whose posterior changes colour between red, blue, and white depending on his mood. He also wields a polearm with amazing skill, is incredibly pious, and is an assassin for hire—but only for assignments which he thinks the church will approve. ‘The Mysterious Caped Baboon’ can obviously be hired by the Player Characters, or he might have been hired to assassinate one or more of them! ‘The Black Lion of Saint Buffoonitus’ is a black lion—actually a demon—who prowls the countryside consuming churchmen and appreciating the local flora and fauna. It got its name from Saint Buffoonitus, a former magus and infamous idiot, who summoned it as joke, and after doing so, refused to banish it before running off on endless pilgrimages to escape the very annoyed Lion and its soul-scarring pleas to be freed. As fearsome as the Lion is, he can be spoken and is willing to speak, especially if the Player Characters are in a position to banish it or take revenge on Saint Buffoonitus!

Then it gets really weird with the ‘The Urns of Homuncules’. These are a pair of clay pots, plain apart from the letter ‘H’ scratched into their bottoms along with a fingerprint. Each also contains a mall, two foot tall, mishappen homunculus. Both are excellent thieves. Consequently, they are prized possessions for anyone who wants things stolen or planted, but does not want to go to the thieves’ guild. Indeed, any thieves’ guild would be very happy to own the urns. Not just to deploy the homunculi to its own ends, but also to deny that skill to anyone else. So far, so not weird. What is weird is the method of their creation. The process involves the owner of ‘The Urns of Homuncules’ defecating into one of the urns and urinating into the other, but at the same time (the accompanying illustration has to be seen to be believed!). The resulting creations are revolting as is their scatological and urological means of attack. There is an accompanying table to determine whether the creation goes right, since after all, it is a very messy business. ‘The Urns of Homuncules’ is fantastically weird and unpleasant, but also very silly.
The ’Froth-Tailed Stalking Monkey’ is also weird, but fortunately lacks the creation process. Take a cockatrice’s body, replace its head with that of grinning monkey’s, and make the tail very, very fluffy. It has an amazing ability to mimic voices and its means of attack is not a death stare, but a glossolalia stare. It makes its victims babble constantly, forcing them to spill secrets in the process, but in a language only it understands. So, it is sometimes sought out for the secrets it knows. The other reason why anyone would go looking for it is that each one of its tail fronds is guaranteed cure for any poison! That said, the ’Froth-Tailed Stalking Monkey’ is an evil creature and will often work with Rabbandits (see The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 1), gleefully using its mimicry skill and secrets learned to undermine the social order and sow paranoia in a village, eating the victims of any resulting murderous chaos, and then letting the Rabbandits loot everything!
‘The Melancholy Ploox’ is weirder, but not as fun. It consists of a head with a pair of bat’s wings and a pair of cat’s legs that jut out of its mouth. It is also deeply boring. So boring that its melancholia actually infects both people and the land, and its poetry is so bad that it actually hurts anyone listening to it. The last creature in The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder is ‘The Satyrica’. This is a Satyr-like beast, but with a goat’s head and then a lion’s head in its midriff. They are satirists and wits, driven out of the forests by Satyrs for their barbed comments and jokes which are capable of reducing listeners to tears. Tyrants or the pompous could also be the target of its insult-based comedy, but the ‘The Satyrica’ can actually be a good friend if you have no object to its gentle, near constant mocking. In general, ‘The Satyrica’ avoids combat, but it can deliver a stand-up routine that is so devastating that a target is physically hurt and avoids the creature for weeks!
The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder comes to a close with two tables. One is ‘Signs & Spore of Marginalia Manifest’, which is random signs left behind, whilst the other is its very own ‘Interesting Things to Find on the Body of the Dead’.
Physically, The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder is superbly presented, as if an illuminated manuscript itself done on parchment. The artwork is, of course, taken from the source material and so perfectly in keeping with that source material.

The entries in The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 1 are undoubtedly odd and weird. The entries in The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder are even odder and weirder. Very much weirder and odder, and if the contents of the first issue might be too much for some campaigns, then it is a case of being even more so with this second issue. There is still a lovely sense of verisimilitude to these creatures in being drawn from the vivid imaginations of monks and scribes, who thought up and created a weird world of monsters and beasts outside of the walls where they had been cloistered. Yet there is also the sense that the author has had to work harder to create the half dozen entries in The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder, that he is out-weirding himself in the process, and you have to wonder if he can do it again with a third issue. Thus, The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder takes the charmingly weird and wonderful of The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 1 and ratchets it up even further, adding in a dose of silliness in the process.

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. However, there are still fanzines being published which cover a variety of different roleplaying games, such as Grogzilla. This is published by D101 Games, best known for the OpenQuest roleplaying game and the Glorantha fanzine, Hearts in Glorantha. It is undeniably a showcase for what the publisher does and is full of ideas and bits and pieces, some of which are silly, some useful, and some interesting.

Grogzilla #2 – Son of Grogzilla! was published in October, 2021, as part of ZineQuest #3 and following a successful Kickstarter campaign. Its tone is distinctly less silly than Grogzilla #1, and its pages contain a good mix of the playable and the interesting. The issue opens with ‘A Slight Return’, a scenario for Monkey: The Role-Playing Game, the action-packed storytelling roleplaying game based upon the Chinese Classic, The Journey to the West, and of course, the television series, which tell of the heroic journey of the Monkey King and his companions, Pigsy, Sandy and Tripitaka through the vibrant world of Chinese folk religion. Monkey: The Role-Playing Game is a lot of fun and allows the players to both roleplay the Monkey King and his companions, or create characters of their own. ‘A Slight Return’ is designed to be run with the latter rather than the former. It is an introductory scenario, which can be used as a one-shot or a convention scenario. It opens with the Monkey King having made a mess across all of Creation in his rebellion against the Heavenly Authorities. It is the job of the Player Characters as disgraced minor Immortals and the appointed inter-Ministry clean-up crew, to tidy everything up and put it back as it was. The Player Characters will find themselves cleaning up the trickster’s poo left on the Register of the Dead, rescuing someone sent to Hell, fix a mountain whose top he lopped off, and more. It is a fun, picaresque little adventure and should be fun to both play and run.

Monkey: The Role-Playing Game is also the subject of the second entry in the fanzine. ‘The Ten-Minute Monkey Setup’ is designed to work with ‘A Slight Return’ or any time that a Game Master is running Monkey: The Role-Playing Game at a convention. It is written in response to a comment from the doyen of Games on Demand, Lloyd Gyan, that the designer’s explanation of the background to Monkey: The Role-Playing Game prior to running it at a convention was too long. It distils the background and set-up to just two pages as well as suggesting what to leave out. Clear and concise, it is the sort of thing that every roleplaying game should have.

‘Summerset: The Heart of Angland’ introduces a setting for 13th Age, the roleplaying game from Pelgrane Press which combines the best elements of both Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition and Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition to give high action combat, strong narrative ties, and exciting play. The setting takes place in Summerset, between the Red Castle in the north and Glasteenbury in the south, the most magical area in all of the Kingdom of Angland. It combines Arthurian legend with elements of the War of the Roses and the dark Satanic mills of the North some six centuries after the Romanous Empire withdrew from the country, five centuries after King Arthur I united the peoples of Angland, and five years after the end of The Rose War between the Nobles of Lankshire and the Nobles of Yirkshire in the Grim North. It gives a short history of the setting, a guide to its leading notables—they are the Icons of Angland which the Player Characters will be associated with, for good or ill, and its various locations. There is actually quite a lot of detail here and this is a solidly decent introduction to the setting. All that is really missing is a page or so of hooks that the Game Master could develop into scenarios.

The second scenario in Grogzilla #2 is ‘More Metal Than You’ll Ever Live to Be!’. This is designed for use with three to six Player Characters of Second and Third Level, for use with either Crypts & Things or Swords Against the Shroud. However, it would work with any number of other retroclones. It describes a crypt that was once the metallic body of the dead insect god, Anack’doska, hollowed by his evil cultists, who then developed amazing arms and armour before turning on themselves and wiping out the cult. There is said to be a great still left within the complex. Located under a volcano means that the tunnels and caves have a sulphurous quality and scattered throughout the complex are a number of metallic statues and ‘constructs’. The dungeon is serviceable and playable, but nothing more than that. It is the least interesting entry in the fanzine.

‘Welcome to Slumberland’ is the first of three entries in Grogzilla #2 devoted to Slumberland, a proposed roleplaying game of ‘Sleepy Horror’ using the mechanics of Liminal. It has a roughly Elizabethan feel and distinct North of England tones combined with a rural distrust of outsiders and especially anyone from the South. In Slumberland, the Player Characters are Wanderers, rootless adventurers sent by a Merciful Monarch, Queen Nell, to the edge of her Queendom to help the residents of Slumberland. The mistrustful inhabitants refuse to accept the interloping Wanderers as ‘locals’, restricting where they can sleep or what residence they can own, until they have earned some ‘Respect’. This is done by carrying various tasks and jobs too dangerous for ordinary folk. In other words, doing the typical adventuring things. ‘Respect’ is included as a new stat in Slumberland, representing the Wanderers’ interaction with the locals, whilst ‘Rest’ replaces Will in Liminal. A Wanderer with a high Rest is calm and collected, but with a low Rest is irritable and unpredictable, yet is at an advantage when interacting with the Dreaming, the magical realm that pervades Slumberland.

‘Welcome to Slumberland’ includes a guide to the area, its places, including the River Slumber, which sends anyone who falls into it asleep and an Underworld of failed routes under the mountain now filled with monsters. Important things include Tea and Slow Gin, and horrors include undead horrors like the Barrow Wrongs and night horrors found under the bed and in the closet. There is also a lengthy guide to Slumberish, the dialect of the region. ‘Welcome to Slumberland’ has an intentionally odd bucolic feel, set in Tudor England, but it does veer into regional stereotypes at times.

‘The Slumberland Hack’, the middle article presents the changes to the Liminal rules to run Slumberland as a setting. This includes rules for Rest, weapon and armour as Slumberland is a fantasy setting, and new skills, concepts like the Royal Guard, Spy, Templar, and Field Magician, and Limitations such as ‘Servant of the Crown’ meaning that the Player Character has sworn an oath to serve Queen Nell and takes it very, very seriously. The new Limitation, ‘Royal College Field Magician’ grants access to a handful of spells, which cost Rest to cast, whilst ‘Order of the Solemn Temple Liturgist’ provides divine powers. Of note is the magic spell, Slumber. Which specifically affects a target’s Rest and can put a mob to sleep. Overall, the changes make sense, though there is no mechanical explanation for ‘Rest’.

‘The Tunnel to Slumberland’, the third article dedicated to Slumberland, is an introductory scenario designed to get the Player Characters there. Every thirty years the monarch of the Realm is obliged to send aid to the North, ‘Agents of Mercy. In this case, it is the Wanderers, or Player Characters, who are sent north from Crystal City by good Queen Nell. Their route will be via a tunnel to avoid Spider Wood which has been taken over by the Darkness. Built by Dwarves and managed in part by Master of Royal Works in the north, Bob Dibner, the southern tunnel entrance is in Cheese Gorge. The adventure is a series of linked encounters in the tunnel and will get the Wanderers to the North at the least. After that, the Game Master will need to develop her own adventures.

Overall, Slumberland is fun if slightly silly, British readers of a certain age being able to spot the jokes and references. There is a lot more to be revealed about Slumberland—if it ever appears—but this trio of articles is an enjoyable, if slightly messy introduction. Were it not for the use of the Liminal rules, Slumberland feels as if it could be slotted into the Midderlands setting from Monkey Blond design.

The last article in Grogzilla #2 is one last bit of silliness. ‘The Secret of the Grogdice’ is inspired by Grogmeet, the annual convention organised by The Grognard Files, a North of England podcast dedicated to the games of the late seventies and early eighties. Specifically, it is what the author uses his ‘Grogdie’—a six-sided die given to Game Masters for the event, which has The Grognard Files icon on the number six face of the die—for in play. Essentially, it provides a quick and dirty table to roll on for spicing up play. It does not actually require a Grogdie and would work with any die with a different face to the usual six.

Physically, Grogzilla #2 is clean and simple. It is easy to read and the illustrations are decent. It is a little rough around the edges in places and it does need an edit in others.

Grogzilla #2 has a lot of playable content. The scenario for Monkey: The Role-Playing Game is excellent and a lot of fun, whilst with ‘Summerset: The Heart of Angland’ and ‘Welcome to Slumberland’ the fanzine introduces a pair of interesting settings that do leave the reader wanting more. However, it is disappointing to see neither of them yet fully developed, so the Game Master is on her own until they are. Nevertheless, Grogzilla #2 is an entertaining read that captures a certain Englishness.

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Then there is also Old School Essentials.

The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2 continues the description of the ‘Lost World’ setting begun in The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 1, detailing a plateau only whispered of lying deep in the southern jungles for use with Old School Essentials. Unfortunately, the first issue of the fanzine was an unbalanced affair, dividing its attention between some evocative Classes for Player Characters and NPCs residing on the plateau and a adventure to get Player Characters from the lands of civilisation to the north onto the plateau. The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2 presents the various social groupings atop the plateau. These consist of ten tribes, six humanoid tribes, and four kingdoms. The ten tribes are hunters and gatherers, and fairly small. Each is given a page that lists their (Present Social) Structure, Relationships, Weapons, and Cultural and Ethnic Aspects. The Present Social Structure breaks down their numbers, the Relationships notes connections to other tribes, and the Cultural and Ethnic Aspects. The descriptions vary wildly in length and thus detail. For example, ‘The Aasai’, skilled hunters and trap makers, is only accorded half a page, and note the tribe is dominated by a shamanic council, number roughly thirty, and its members paint their hair red, stretch their ears, and make statues to various dinosaur deities. The Hazda tribe is give three quarters of a page. They are skilled scouts and explorers and know the plateau very well, its members include eight scouts, and they believe that after death, the soul transforms into a tree, so worship the whole jungle across the plateau as their ancestors, believe that the world was created by a giant Megaloceros known as Ksitu and build bone towers in their camps to him, and use a flower extract as eyedrops to increase tribe members’ physical and spiritual perception. There is this constant fluctuation from one tribe to the next in terms of content and detail or lack of it, including the relationships between tribes. In too many cases, it is simply stated that a tribe is in an ethnic conflict or has problems with another, but not why. There is a lot of variation between the tribes, but too many feel underdeveloped, especially if the Game Master and her players want to use them in conjunction with the character Classes given in The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 1.

The six humanoid tribes are all treated as monsters rather than Player Characters and NPCs which could use the Classes given in The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2. Like the human tribes, they are given a page that lists their Social Structure, Relationships, Weapons, and Cultural and Ethnic Aspects. Added to this is a table of names. This is done for each of the six humanoid tribes, leaving the Game Master why something similar was not include for the ten other tribes? There appears to be greater numbers of them, and they include Neanderthals, what could be apes, and what could be Orcs. Unlike the description of the ten tribes, which includes an illustration, few of the descriptions of the humanoid tribes do. This is a fundamental failing, because these are essentially monster tribes in the Kalunga Plateau setting and the Game Master has no idea what they look like.

‘The Four Great Kingdoms’ presents a similar treatment of the organised kingdoms in the south of the plateau, one of which is found underground. Each is given a two-page spread, which lists its Crops and Livestock, Language, Social Structure, Economic Structure, Religion, Population and Hierarchy, and war Technology. The entries are longer, but typically most of the second page is taken with a single large illustration. To call them kingdoms is a misnomer, since each only has the town. That said, why not name that town and mark it on the map? Also, why is there no description of the towns? No simple description of what the kingdom is? No mention of the relationships between the kingdoms or between the kingdoms and the various tribes—both human and humanoid? For example, the Anuunaki have vertical farms in the black dirt walls of cliffs, where they also having breeding huts for the pterodactyls which they ride, but this is listed under Crops and Livestock. Okay, yes, the pterodactyls are technically livestock, but surely one of the leading facts about the kingdom is that it raises pterodactyls which are then ridden? That should be upfront and not buried in a section on farming, and ignores the fact that the entry on the Anuunaki does not tell the reader what they are used for. It does show in the accompanying illustration, but that is not the point. So, whilst there is a lot of good description given for the four kingdoms, the fundamentals are still missing and the information is poorly organised.

Although the four kingdoms described, there are no guidelines on creating either Player Characters or NPCs from any one of the four. This partly negates their use until more information is provided, but certainly space could have been made in the pages of the fanzine given that so much space is devoted to artwork that takes up almost whole pages.

Lastly, in ‘Creed’ examines some of the gods and spiritual beings attracted to the plateau and worshipped there. That worship is more formalised in the Southern Kingdoms, but in each case gives the entity’s Spiritual Form, Physical Form, Behaviour, Interests Over the Plateau, Offerings, Shaman’s Clothes, and Symbol Made on the Floor. The latter describes how the symbol is made, for example, that of Agwessu, ‘Master of the Lakes and the River’, must be made with the powder of dried fish scales, but not why. Where the tribes see them as animistic beings, the shaman of the southern kingdoms call them ‘Baghvãs’ and allow them to manifest in their own bodies. Besides the main pantheon, there is a list of minor ‘Baghvãs’ too. What really is not explored is what the shaman gets out of all of this.

Physically, The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2 is well presented. The artwork and the cartography are both decent. The fanzine is overwritten and slightly heavy going, and in need of a good edit.

The problem with The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2 is not just that its contents vary between the not very interesting, the poorly explained, and the unanswered questions, but that it avoids the interesting parts of the setting. The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 1 described how the Plateau was once home to an alien civilisation whose presence was destroyed when an enormous sphere hit the planet. The sphere still remains, buried deep in the earth under the plateau that its impact threw up. What ruins remain are regarded by the current inhabitants of the Plateau as having been built by the gods. This, plus the combination of dinosaurs and the Lost World, is what is interesting about The Kalunga Plateau as a setting. Yet two issues in and none of that is explored or examined, leaving the would-be Game Master waiting for what is essentially, the good bits. Hopefully, some of that will be explored in The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 3, but in the meantime, The Kalunga Plateau as a fanzine is beginning to feel like a partwork in which all of the interesting and playable content has been saved for much later issues.

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. A more recent Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game that fanzines are being based upon and inspired by is Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance retroclone designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing.

Book of Misery Vol. 1 is a fanzine for Mörk Borg written and published by Gizmo in December 2022. It contains a mix of options for both players and the Game Master. This includes new Classes, weapons, monsters, and dungeons that can be easily brought into play and all done in the artpunk style that Mörk Borg is notorious for. It opens with the first of six new Classes, a mixture of rebels, dissidents, revisionists, and weirdos. ‘The Thinking Thinker’ is weak, but has an enormous Presence and head—whether from a spillage of alchemical liquids, an experiment that gave him an extra brain, or a vestigial twin that was devoured in the womb and absorbed into his brain—and might be equipped with The Calculated Method Book that allows a daily reroll or a letter opener, which is no good against anyone wearing armour. The ‘Nihilistic Conqueror’ is a warrior driven to spread wrath and destruction, perhaps because he believes that his gods will despise him for his cowardice if he does not fight, he wants to see everyone he dislikes pay a blood price for having the gall to exist, or simply has anger issues. He is tough and charismatic, and armed with something like a sharpened axe capable of piercing heavy armour or be accompanied by Huginn, a trusty raven friend capable of pecking enemies when not spying all around.

The ’Hag of a Bygone Age’ is a nun who worships a dead god or has been abandoned by her god, but she has abandoned it. Weak and clumsy, her faith gives her great charisma, and she knows a single prayer, written in a dead language. These can be very powerful, such as causing the undead or those without flesh to crumble into dust or as her eyes roll back in her head and she speaks in tongues, the strength of those around her to wither and even inflict damage. ‘Man’s Best Friend’, is exactly what it suggests, an agile dog with keen senses that can roughly sniff out the number of enemies nearby or locate an object or with ‘Cujo Syndrome’, which after having been bitten by a sewer rat, his foaming teeth are infectious! The ‘Sewer Baby’ was raised in a sewer and the toxic sludge cemented his physical age, whilst being raised by rats taught him to be cunning. His childhood memories are twisted and terrible, but accompanied by a faithful rat companion, he is also capable of spitting acidic sour milk or staring at people so hard that they run away. Lastly, the ‘Ashen Warrior’ is a unique character type for Mörk Borg—a hero! Wearing heavy armour and armed with a mighty claymore, the Ashen Warrior does not have a quirk, power, or trait, but simply has Bloodlust, which grants him extra damage after killing ten enemies in combat.

Overall, this is an entertaining and interesting mix of Classes. They include the usual range of the revolting and wretched, but balance that against an actual heroic Class and a Class that can be happy in the form of ‘Man’s Best Friend’. All six could find a home alongside those given in Mörk Borg and supplements for it.

There is not one ‘Crit Fail Table’, but two. One for attacking and one for defending. Both are decent and do exactly what they are intended to do. As does ‘More Weapons’, which gives seven more weapons like the Sharpened Throwing Finger, the Stabby Sticky, and the Claymore. These are followed by twelve monsters! These include the ‘Cosmic Phase Spider’, the ‘Piskie’, ‘Undead Lightning’—a combination of the machine and the dead which pulsates lightning, ‘Carapace Man Spider’, ‘The Red Spawn of Rot’, and more. There are other monsters detailed elsewhere in the fanzine.

‘Gran’s Tea Hut’ is an encounter in the woods with a quaint little hut, the home of an old lady who sells tea. Depending upon their behaviour towards her, she will serve them tea with either positive or negative effects. If things go really bad, her granddaughter, a mighty warrior woman will step in to protect her grandmother.

The first of the three scenarios in Book of Misery Vol. 1 is ‘Howling Caverns’. A fall into a pit of sludge and waste from which a single narrow tunnel leads to a number of caverns, mostly filled with the dead or dying. There is an encounter with a sacrifice attempt, which is not going the way that most of them do, and that really is it. There is very little in the way of plot beyond the Player Characters falling into the pit and having to find a way out, so the Game Master may want to create something. Otherwise, easy to add as an encounter as a sinkhole in the wilderness or a pit in another dungeon, but not very interesting. The second scenario, ‘A Dungeon Most Pointless’ lives up to its name. The dungeon consists of nine locations, unconnected except for the fact that they are on the same map. It is not even clear if any of the rooms are actually connected and even then, one of the locations is outside of the dungeon. With no overview, no reward, or even anything in the way of a hook or a plot, the most redeeming quality of ‘A Dungeon Most Pointless’ is that you can flick the pages over very fast to get past it. The third scenario, ‘The Putrid House’ is not as long as ‘A Dungeon Most Pointless’, but it is infinitely better and proves that the author can create a decent dungeon. It starts with the Player Characters waking up in the dungeon, unsure of how they got there. To get out, they must fight past troughs of mould and fungi, maniacs, and more. It has a dark, dingy, and desperate feel and is quick and easy to run.

The editorial does not come until the last page, the inside of the back cover. It acknowledges the inspirations for the issue come from a wide variety of sources and persons.

Physically, Book of Misery Vol. 1 adheres to the artpunk style of Mörk Borg. For the most part it works, but some of the founts selected do make the titles difficult to read.

Book of Misery Vol. 1 is a mixed bag. The scenarios are simply disappointing. The monsters are okay, but nothing really stands out. However, and fortunately, ‘Gran’s Tea Hut’ is enjoyably charming in its simplicity, plus the six new Classes are generally interesting and playable.

 Gary Con is not just a great place to see old friends, play some great games and sell some books. It is also a great place to meet some new friends. I want to spend some of the next few #FollowFridays featuring some of the great folks I got to meet.  Up first Luna and Blaise at The Bewitched Parlor.

Luna is in charge of this eclectic shop located in the aptly named Salem, WI. So they are local to Gary Con and this was their first con.

They were selling some fantastic handmade witch hats, journals, leather goods, and yes, even some dice. Actually, everything is handmade by Luna, except for the dice, but you can choose those...so a handmade set.

Shop owner Luna

Elf Lair Games with a new Witch Hat

Plus, they had the coolest looking booth and even a fireplace!  Luna and Blaise were fantastic, and I wish them all the best!

You can check out all their links below. Head over to her website and pick something up!

The Bewitched Parlor 

• Website, https://www.thebewitchedparlor.com/
• Bio.site, https://bio.site/TheBewitchedParlor
• Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/thebewitchedparlor
• Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/thebewitchedparlor/
• Threads, https://www.threads.net/@thebewitchedparlor
• Pinterest, https://www.pinterest.com/TheBewitchedParlor/
• Twitter/X, https://twitter.com/BewitchedParlor

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another popular choice of system for fanzines, is Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, such as Crawl! and Crawling Under a Broken Moon. Some of these fanzines provide fantasy support for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, but others explore other genres for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. One such fanzine is the aforementioned Crawling Under A Broken Moon.

Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 4 was published in in December, 2014 by Shield of Faith Studios. It continued the detailing of post-apocalyptic setting of Umerica and Urth which had begun in Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 1, and would be continued in Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 2, which added further Classes, monsters, and weapons, and Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 3, which provided the means to create Player Characters and gave them a Character Funnel to play. The setting has, of course, gone on to be presented in more detail in The Umerican Survival Guide – Core Setting Guide, now distributed by Goodman Games. The setting itself is a world brought about after a rogue object from deep space passed between the Earth and the Moon and ripped apart time and space, leaving behind a planet which would recover and it inhabitants ruled by savagery, cruel sorcery, and twisted science. Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 4 focuses a particular aspect of the Cleric Class in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, but obviously for the Umerica and Urth setting. This is the Patron, the particular deity or entity that that the Cleric has sworn to worship and serve, and in return gain access to a number of spells that only a member of his faith can cast.

The first of the three Patrons described in Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 4 is actually a throwback to Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 2. ‘The Earth Brain of the Cyberhive’, which is fascinated understanding how living beings conceive and react to Life and Death, the Cyberhive actually being fully detailed in the previous issue along with its Zombie Monk and Robo-Lich servants. Its fascination with life and death is not reflected in all of the spells it grants. Defensive Upgrade providing temporary cybernetic armour to one or more targets and Control+Alt+Delete enabling the caster to control computers and robots, but Create Cybomination actually creating reanimated undead with cybernetics. ‘The Mighty Kizz – The intergalactic god of Rock and Roll’ is the uber masculine god of awesomeness dressed in black leather, jagged spikes, and chains and never without Soulbreaker, his massive, flaming battle axe guitar, in his hands. He does not demand that his worshippers be musicians or even play an instrument, but rather that they obtain a state of ‘Enlightened Awesomeness’ and apply it to everything they do, because if something is worth doing, it is worth being ‘Awesome’ about it, especially if it entertains him! The results of his Invoke Patron check is particularly entertaining, such as summoning a stampede of spectral fans or causing a wall, floor, or ceiling to transform into a wide mouth with bright red lips, sharpened teeth, and lengthy tongue that attempts to lick up all enemies and devour them! The entertaining them continues with the spells Kizz my Axe, Mosh Pit, and Aspect of KIZZ. The Mighty Kizz is obvious in its inspiration, but it is over-the-top, wild-haired fun.

The third of the Patrons is ‘Theszolokomodra – the 1000 headed multi-dimensional Hydra’. Also known as the Unknowable Serpent Sage, the Observer of Realms, the Many-headed Master of Secrets, its actual purpose is inscrutable, but Theszolokomodra does is known to study the views from thousands of dimensional portals that surrounds its glittering Thronemound. Worshippers become hosts to its Servitor Worms and gain the benefits of Theszolokomodra’s knowledge such as a glimpse of the future, a question asked of the Game Master answered truthfully, whilst the spell Tactical Display drops stat blocks over the heads of enemies that the caster can read, Wraith of the Worm makes the host’s Servitor Worm target the host enemies with a bolt of gut-twisting pain, and Dimensional Maws calls forth several of Theszolokomodra’s jaws to chomp at the caster’s enemies.

The Patron theme continues with ‘Patron Objects’ and its first entry with The Solar Saber. This is an intelligent techno-magical weapon, originally created to kill Cyber-Sorcerers. It has to be wielded by a worthy—and thus Lawful—user, and it will only do its fullest damage against Cyber-Sorcerers, otherwise its damage is reduced or even negated. Three points of Luck have to be sacrificed to bond with it, and it has to be invoked to use, but can taint the wielder too, so effectively the equivalent of a mini-Patron that the Player Character is wielding!

Lastly, the ‘Twisted Menagerie’ describes the Rocker, a Heavy Metal Elemental, which is the mindlessly devoted servant of Kizz. Just as silly and knowing as Kizz himself, they congregate in small groups, wear black tee shirts, and really only spring into action when there is music and then they slam dance each other and anyone caught in their own personal mosh pit!

Physically, Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 4 is serviceably presented. It is a little rough around the edges, as is some of the artwork, but overall, it is a decent affair.The problem with Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 4 is that much of its contents have been represented to a more professional standard in the pages of The Umerican Survival Guide – Core Setting Guide, so it has been superseded and superseded by a cleaner, slicker presentation of the material.

Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 4 is a fairly light affair and upon first glance, it feels a bit one-note, dealing with just the one aspect of the setting. That feeling never goes away, even despite the fact that the three Patrons are really quite fun and the inspiration for The Mighty Kizz is obvious. Plus, ‘The Earth Brain of the Cyberhive’ really does feel as if it should have been included in Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 2, and it does feel like perhaps each of the three Patrons could have had a monster or their own or a Patron Object, just to develop them a little further. Perhaps there should have just been the one Patron in this issue and there should have been something else to balance it.

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

—oOo—

What is it?Eyes’ Rise is a supplement for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha which details the sandbox setting of the village of Five Eyes and its surrounds and its factions, as well as the River Folk of the River of Cradles.

It is a thirty-one page, full colour 2.80 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy and it is lightly illustrated. It needs a slight edit.

There are notes on how to use it with QuestWorlds.
Where is it set?Eyes’ Rise is set in the Grantlands along the banks of the River of Cradles after the Lunar Empire has been driven out of Pavis and fled the area.
Who do you play?
Eyes’ Rise does not require any specific character type. The main hook for the supplement has the Player Characters hired to protect the village, so combatants will be useful.
What do you need?
Eyes’ Rise requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary.
What do you get?Eyes’ Rise presents a settlement facing an uncertain future. This is the village of Five Eyes, a former River Folk settlement renowned for the nearby ancient carvings on the cliffs which look like eyes and from which the village takes its name. Following the Lunar invasion, the village was selected as town and administrative for the surrounding grantlands. Circumstances that begin the Dragon Wise forced the Lunar Empire to flee the area, leaving the would be town partially completed, but without protection or direction as to its future and in danger of imminent collapse and abandonment by the remaining population. The villagers need to find a way to finish building the fortifications which will protect them from raids by bandits, grow the population, train the militia, and establish it as a viable stopping point along the river. In the immediate future, the villagers need to find a way to protect the village and train the militia. This is where the Player Characters, hired for their services. (Other reasons are given for visiting Five Eyes, but this is the primary one.)
Both the village and its inhabitants are described in some detailed, including detailed backgrounds, with eight of the Grantlanders or newcomers and three Riverfolk given full stats as well as a number of outsiders. The former includes five teenagers that the Player Characters will have to train into a serviceable militia. The latter includes a scholar, a bandit, and more. Each NPC is given one or more aims or motivations and several have reasons why they might hire the Player Characters.

A last part of Eyes’ Rise is devoted to the River Folk, their society, culture, governance, and religion. There is the means too to create Riverfolk characters. This is useful to create characters local to Five Eyes and up and down the River of Cradles.
Eyes’ Rise is essentially the set-up for a mini-campaign. This can be one of simply providing protection to the village, but there is scope too for the Player Characters to settle here and use Five Eyes as a base of operations or a home. How either will play out is outside the scope of the supplement, as it does not provide details of the threats facing the village and its inhabitants. The Game Master will need to create these and build in events and happenings to keep the campaign moving and the Player Characters involved. There is thus potential here for a campaign in the style of Seven Samurai or The Magnificent Seven, or given the upheaval of recent events in the region for a bunch of vagabonds, deserters, mercenaries, and the like to redeem themselves and hopefully keep the village safe.
Is it worth your time?Yes—Eyes’ Rise can form the basis of a solid mini-campaign though one that the Game Master will need to further develop to make her own.No—Eyes’ Rise is not developed enough for the Game Master to use easily and it is set well out of the way.Maybe—Eyes’ Rise has potential as a campaign, but not without a high degree of effort.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: The Mask of the Black SunPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Alexander Nachaj

Setting: Jazz Age Canada
Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twelve page, 2.11 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A stolen case leads to stolen maskPlot Hook: When a monster crosses your path...
Plot Support: Staging advice, ten handouts, four NPCs, and one Mythos monster.Production Values: Tidy.
Pros# Very straightforward investigation
# Easy to slot into an existing campaign
# Easy to adjust to other times and places# Easy to run as a convention scenario# Plays to the Private Detective tropes# Masklophobia# Kinemortophobia# Foniasophobia
Cons# Needs an edit# Very straightforward investigation# Uninteresting villains and motivations
# No maps# No floorplans# Plays to the Private Detective clichés # Handouts are text handouts, even for the photographs

Conclusion# Unsophisticated, very straightforward investigation# Plays to the tropes and clichés of the Private Detective genre and is easy to adapt

By its very nature, the play of Call of Cthulhu is peripatetic, the Player Characters or Investigators travelling from strange mystery or occurrence to the next, their investigations and discoveries exposing them to the stark reality of cosmic horror, with little in the way of life in between, especially if playing one of the roleplaying game’s massive campaigns like Shadows of Yog-Sothoth or Masks of Nyarlathotep. That changes with Call of Cthulhu: Arkham. This is a supplement that presents the crown—if the jewel is Miskatonic University—in the milieu of Lovecraft’s fiction, the New England town at its heart, witch-haunted and fabled, rich in secrets and conspiracies and crime. It appeared in stories such as ‘Herbert West—Reanimator’ and ‘The Shadow Out of Time’, and it was from here and Miskatonic University that the disastrous 1930 expedition to the Antarctic was launched, as detailed in At the Mountains of Madness, followed by the Starkweather-Moore expedition of Beyond the Mountains of Madness. It is a new supplement for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition from Chaosium, Inc., one that details the town and its history, its inhabitants, its shops and its societies, and much, much more. However, it is not a new supplement for Call of Cthulhu, having originally been published in 1990 as Arkham Unveiled. Designed by the late, great Keith ‘Doc’ Herber, Arkham Unveiled introduced and laid the groundwork for the Lovecraft Country series of setting supplements and anthologies that followed in the nineties and then again in the noughties with the superb anthologies from Miskatonic River Press, New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley and More Adventures in Arkham Country, again under the aegis of Keith ‘Doc’ Herber. In their wake has followed a raft of scenarios set in and around Arkham and across Lovecraft Country, enabling Investigators to experience the Mythos on their doorsteps. The republication and update of Arkham means that it can happen all over again.
Call of Cthulhu: Arkham begins with an acknowledgement of its own history and the credit due to Keith ‘Doc’ Herber and others. Not only that, but it retains Herber’s own introduction from 1990 edition alongside that of Mike Mason’s in 2023, and in the third and final of its three appendices, it provides a good bibliography that lists supplements and anthologies published by both Chaosium, Inc. and those of its licensees. This topping and tailing is a respectful acknowledgement of both Call of Cthulhu’s own publishing history and the contributions of authors and licensees to Lovecraft Country canon over the years. Chaosium, Inc. should be commended for including both. Not only does it show appreciation for the history of the roleplaying game and this supplement in particular that veteran players of Call of Cthulhu will be pleased to see, but it provides context and history for those new to the roleplaying game.

The actual description of Arkham begins with an overview and history. This gives a description of its general geography, its settlement by more liberal thinkers from Salem and Boston in the latter seventeenth century, its poor treatment of the indigenous peoples, its growth as a fishing port despite it being a river port on the Miskatonic River and an industrial town with its textile mills and the town’s fall in fortunes as those industries declined, all the way into the twentieth century and the Jazz Age. The opening year is 1922 rather than the 1928 of the earlier versions, so that the Keeper and her players can make the greatest use of the decade. Today, Arkham is recovering from the losses of the Great War only ended a few years before, much of its wealth and reputation reliant upon the early founding and prestigious reputation of Miskatonic University. There are notes too on climate, general government, annual festivals, firearm regulations, and crime, including the town’s two organised mobs, one working to replace the other. Dan O’Bannion’s Irish mob now controls the flow of bootleg whisky into the town, whilst Giuseppe ‘Joe’ Potrello’s gang has been but displaced from Arkham. Here too, is an overview of the major towns of the Miskatonic Valley, some like Innsmouth and Kingsport having their own supplements. This is a mix of fictional and real locations, but together they provide a snapshot of what is to come in future supplement exploring up and down the Miskatonic Valley.

For the Investigator, there are options in terms of background and skills. Arkhamites can have their own significant people and meaningful locations, and there are skills particular to the city and new to Call of Cthulhu. The Arkham skills are Navigate (Arkham) and History (Arkham), whilst the new skills are Reassure, which provides calming words and intuition as a means of recovering Sanity, and Religion, a general skill which can also be very useful for the Priest and Missionary Occupations. Investigator skills can be improved by attending various institutions, for example, the Ivan Toledo School of Dance for Art (Dance) or the N.E. School of Bookkeeping for Accounting. This can be a mix of night classes, self-improvement, or simply hobbies. Popular with players are likely to be the Arkham Gun Club or the Miskatonic Ladies Shooting Club, the latter coached by the Arkham Police Department. Notably, the resulting skill increases from such activities need not require skill checks to improve as in standard play, but simply be rewarded for time spent learning and practicing the skills. For example, the owner of Ballard’s Auto Lot, Grainger Ballard, will not only sell or rent an Investigator a car, but offer a course of driving lessons. At the end of two weeks or ten lessons, the Investigator will simply gain a number of points in the skill depending upon his existing skill value. This has the extra effect of enhancing the Investigator’s independence of movement beyond Arkham and into the wider Miskatonic Valley and Lovecraft Country, perhaps in readiness for future supplements and scenario anthologies.

There is a list of clubs, societies, and Investigator organisations that they can involve themselves in, such as Arkham Chamber of Commerce or Miss Andrews’ Social Parlor, where retired ladies can congregate and socialise. There is the option too for Arkham Reputations, which can levy a penalty or grant a bonus die when it comes to interacting with folks in Arkham and up and down the valley, on skills such as Fast Talk or Persuade, and even on Credit Rating. This, of course, is dependent upon the actions of the Investigators and if they come to the attention of the authorities or the Arkham rumour mill. All Investigators begin as Respectable, but their public behaviour, accompanied by a successful Luck roll, can raise this to Distinguished and even Celebrated, but with a failed Luck roll, send it plummeting to Shameful or even Notorious. This though, is only temporary, but similar repeated and public behaviour can cement the new Reputational status and its accompanying Bonus or Penalty for longer.

The day-to-day nature of life in Arkham is covered in guides to getting around the town—primarily on foot, taxicab, and trolley with its confines, and by bus and by rail beyond, by finding accommodation with a list of hotels and boarding rooms of varied quality and price, and of finding employment or help. In the case of the latter two, this will be tied to one of the hundreds of places of business and work described in the gazetteer that makes most of Call of Cthulhu: Arkham. This could be going to Markwil’s Theatrical Supplies to purchase the wigs, makeup, and costumes, whether for a costumed ball or the use of the Art (Acting) skill, the Science Hall at Miskatonic University to consult with a mathematician about a code, or attending weekly sessions with Doctor Allen Turner for help with a psychiatric issue. These are all means to pull an Investigator into the ordinary life of being an Arkhamite, of working and having a social life, of giving him a life other than making enquiries about the outré.

The bulk of Call of Cthulhu: Arkham is dedicated to describing the many businesses, residences, institutions, and places to be found across the town’s nine neighbourhoods. They are preceded by a directory which numbers and categorises everything for easy reference, and each neighbourhood begins with an overview and not only a very attractive map, but a very good map of the neighbourhood that depicts it isometrically. Each map is accompanied by a list of the points of interest to be found within its confines. Then the numbered entry for each location is given a description, which also includes a list of the notable folk to be found there. That though, is the extent of the simplest of entries. Many others include sections that give the benefits of visiting the location for the Investigators, examine the historical nature of the location, the strangeness to be found within or below, and also ‘Look to the Future’, which charts the history of the location and its inhabitants over the course of the next decade. This can be mundane or it can be Mythos related, tied into the particular events of Lovecraft’s stories. Some also include the stats and thumbnail portraits of particular NPCs, and notably, these have a list of personality traits that quickly enable the Keeper to grasp the nature of each NPC and help portray them. Even the simple list of the notable folk can include the core skill for each NPC listed. Beyond the immediate environs of Arkham, there are descriptions of the Town Heap, the Blasted Heath at Clark’s Corners, Goody Fowler’s cottage, and Arkham Airfield. Throughout there are cultural notes and details aplenty. This includes lists of films, novels, and songs that will be released throughout the twenties, but there are interesting sections on the importance of wearing hats and student life at the Miskatonic University as well.

Of course, the pride of Arkham is Miskatonic University, which stands proud in its own neighbourhood, Campus. The Campus description will perhaps be the most familiar to Call of Cthulhu, it previously having been visited by numerous supplements all of the way back to 1983’s Pursuit to Kadath from T.O.M.E. In terms of the Mythos, the most notable location is the Orne Library and its restricted section overseen by Doctor Henry Armitage and the University Exhibit Museum, and both locations are fully detailed and given floorplans as well. There is more than enough information here should any Investigator want to visit its hallowed halls and consult with an expert or visit its museum. There is probably not quite enough information to run a long-term campaign based around the university, but doing so is not impossible. However, Call of Cthulhu: Arkham would be an all but mandatory companion to any campaign based at Miskatonic University, expanding as it does, upon the town and its various neighbourhoods beyond the grounds of the campus. More recently, this chapter would work well with A Time to Harvest: Death and Discovery in the Vermont Hills – A 1930s Era Campaign Across New England and Beyond, as would the rest of the book.

In terms of the Mythos, Call of Cthulhu: Arkham does two things. Primarily and overtly, it presents an overarching threat, that of the Arkham Coven. This strongly ties back into H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction with ‘The Dreams of the Witch-House’ and its antagonist, Keziah Mason, who continues to lead the Coven today, some two centuries later. She rarely makes an appearance at the coven’s gatherings, but she and the other twelve members are fully statted out, complete with motivations, spells known, and modifications for Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos. Apart from Keziah Mason, they are all woven in all levels of society across Arkham, including banks, social clubs, shops, schools, and more, so the Investigators may come across members of the coven in walks of life and not know it. Plus, there is scope for the Keeper to create associate members who can serve all manner of roles in a campaign. That said, all thirteen members of the Coven are very powerful, both in terms of the Mythos and the mundane world, often holding positions of some authority, so will make very tough opposition for any Investigators looking into them. The inclusion of a fully detailed associate member might have provided the Keeper with an example and a lesser threat for the Investigators to face. Beyond that and more overtly, the Mythos is woven into the fabric of Arkham and its environs, such as the ‘Imperfect Resurrected Thing’—a holdover from Herbert West’s experiments that haunts the Railroad Properties; the Old Wooded Graveyard on Hangman’s Hill where the vengeful ghost of the witch, Goody Fowler, is said to manifest; the strange source of items secretly on sale at the antique shop, Unconsidered Trifle; the tunnels which run below the town’s sewers—also detailed—that are home to the strange Arkham Creepers; Dombrowski’s Boarding House, a.k.a. the Witch House, where the events of ‘The Dreams of the Witch-House’ will play out. Of course, the chapter on the Miskatonic University includes details of Doctor Henry Armitage and the surprising number of Mythos tomes held by the Orne Library. The lengthy section includes a discussion of who knows about the Mythos at the university and when.

One of the difficulties in presenting the historical period in which Call of Cthulhu: Arkham is set is dealing with its lack of diversity and representation. Here the authors strike a balance, but encourage the Keeper and her players to make choices. For example, the personal/romantic relationships and sexuality of named NPCs is intentionally left blank for the Keeper to decide what best fits her campaign and the book makes clear that LGBTQI+ people do live and work alongside their fellow heterosexual Arkhamites, but given the historical period and its social attitudes, they are very careful about whom they reveal this to. So, they are present in the town by intent, and the Keeper is encouraged to bring them into play. The town’s minority communities, whether of colour or culture, are accorded a similar treatment, the authors pointing out that they are subject to negative attitudes by some parts of Arkham’s white majority, but rather than focus upon that, the Keeper and her players should focus upon the diversity and richness of those cultures and communities. One example of this is the fact that that the racist attitude of Arkham’s bank managers make it very difficult for members of the African-American community in East-Town to obtain loans and mortgages, preventing property ownership and the improvement of businesses, but the positive effects of the Harlem Renaissance do work their way into the community in later years of the decade, encouraging creativity and artistic output. It would be great to see this explored in later supplements and anthologies in more detail. Ultimately, Call of Cthulhu: Arkham explores these potentially difficult issues in a broad manner, acknowledging them in what is an overview, but leaving it up to the Keeper and her players as to how to address them or change details as is their wont.

Rounding out Call of Cthulhu: Arkham is a set of three appendices. The first provides a timeline of the town and a table of typical Arkhamite names, the second collects game aides, such as the weather and Reputation rules, travel times, and generic NPCs in one place for easy reference, whilst the last is the aforementioned and excellent bibliography. Call of Cthulhu: Arkham also includes three extra items. The first is a Special Edition of the Arkham Advertiser, a copy of the town’s newspaper that can be used to help bring the town to life and pique the interest of the Investigator and his player. The intention is to use that interest as a hook that will lead the Investigator to look into a story further and so pull him into Arkham life and society. The other two are a pair of double-sided maps. One depicts a street plan of Arkham as if done as a business directory, whilst on the other side is a highway map of Massachusetts. The other shows a street plan for the Keeper with all of the locations in the book marked, with a topographical map of the outskirts of town on the other. Both sets of maps are down in full colour and on sturdy paper and very nicely done. The Special Edition of the Arkham Advertiser is done on newspaper paper and has a fantastic verisimilitude to it.

Physically, Cthulhu: Arkham is very well presented. The book is clean and tidy, and despite it consisting of hundreds and hundreds of individual entries is very to read. The cartography is excellent and the artwork great.

So the question is, is Call of Cthulhu: Arkham missing anything? Most obviously a scenario. Hopefully that will be addressed with new supplements and anthologies containing scenarios old and new. That said, there are already scenarios available and for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. This includes the aforementioned New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, but there are two scenarios in the Call of Cthulhu: Keeper Screen. A table of places where the Investigator could go to increase his skills might have been useful though.

Call of Cthulhu: Arkham is designed as two things. First, a sandbox campaign setting with locations and NPCs and strangeness that the Investigators and their players can engage with and the Keeper can develop into scenarios and mysteries of her own. Second, as an introduction to Lovecraft Country and a jumping off point for supplements set up and down the Miskatonic Valley, old and new. Call of Cthulhu: Arkham is more successful at the latter than the former. This is not to say that Call of Cthulhu: Arkham does not provide the necessary information to do that, because it does. Rather that it leaves the Keeper with a great deal of work to develop that information into something playable. Far from impossible, but daunting nevertheless, especially given that Call of Cthulhu is not usually designed to do that. There can be no doubt that the shift from the more nomadic play style of Call of Cthulhu to the location play style of Call of Cthulhu: Arkham and Lovecraft Country is radical. Here though, Call of Cthulhu: Arkham shines in setting that up, establishing Arkham as a place and bringing its places, peoples, and peculiarities to life and then pulling the Investigators into that life, giving them homes, jobs, and social lives. It sets them up to notice the aberrations of Arkham, whilst laying the groundwork for future releases for Lovecraft Country.

Call of Cthulhu: Arkham is a truly impressive release for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. It takes a classic supplement and updates it for both the current rules and to make accessible and useable and succeeds on both counts. It presents a charming façade of an old New England town behind which lurks the secrets and horrors of the Mythos, just waiting for the Investigators to discover if they take a peek too far. It provides a home and a life beyond investigations into the outré for the Investigators and so offers an opportunity for the players to roleplay them beyond maddening encounters with the Mythos, only of course, discover that such encounters can found lurking close to home. Above all, it lays the groundwork for the whole of Lovecraft Country, ready to be explored in future releases and by the Investigators from their homes in Arkham, whilst on their doorstep, it gives both players and Investigators the opportunity to investigate some of H.P. Lovecraft’s most well-known stories.

TROIKA! is the Science Fantasy roleplaying game of weird and whimsical adventure across the universe and beyond. Originally published by the Melsonian Arts Council in 2016, mechanically, it is inspired by the most British of roleplaying games—the Fighting Fantasy series of solo adventure books—and fiction as diverse as Jack Vance’s Dying Earth tales, Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius adventures, and the baroque future of the Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. With no limit as to where, and possibly even when, the Player Characters can go—whether by eldritch portal, non-Euclidean labyrinth, or golden-sailed barge from crystal Sphere to another, they are essentially the flaneurs of the far future. The game combines simple character creation and easy rules, but with rich character ideas. However, what strikes you about the new edition of TROIKA! is its format: a light softback book with spine cover unglued so that the front cover folds out and sits flat to show the map of ‘The Blancmange & Thistle’, the hotel that is the site for the adventure of the same included in the book. Not only does the front cover sit flat, so does the book as a whole on the table, making it physically very easy to read. That is in addition to the fact that TROIKA! itself is easy to read and digest.

TROIKA! begins with character creation. A Player Character is defined by his Skill, Stamina, and Luck. A player rolls for each of these, notes his possessions, and then rolls for his Background. Each Background provides several Advanced Skills, which can be actual skills or they can be spells. There are thirty-six of these, ranging from the ordinary to the outré—and there are definitely more of the latter than the former. So the ordinary include the Burglar, the Chaos Champion on a sabbatical from plunging worlds into chaos and speaks Kurgan no less, the Member of Miss Kinsey’s Dining Club whose members will and can eat anything that can be imagined edible, and Questing Knight, whilst the outré includes the Befouler of Ponds, high priest of the Great Toad and his reed filled waters; a Parchment Witch’ long dead sorcerer who wraps herself in perfectly beautiful paper skin; and many more.

Name: MacKack
Background: Monkeymonger
Skill 5
Stamina 19
Luck 6

ADVANCED SKILLS
Climb 4, Trapping 2, Club Fighting 1, Knife Fighting 1

POSSESSIONS
Knife, rucksack, lantern, flask of oil, provisions (six), 4 silver pence, monkey club, butcher’s knife, pocket full of monkey treats, five small monkeys

Mechanically, TROIKA! is very simple. To undertake an action, including casting a spell, a player rolls two six-sided dice, the aim being to roll equal to, or less than, his character’s Skill attribute. If the character has an appropriate Advanced Skill, the player adds that to his character’s Skill attribute. A roll of two sixes always indicates that the action fails. In contests, such as a race or a combat, the combatants roll two six-sided dice each, and each add any appropriate bonuses or Advanced Skill. The highest roll indicates the winner. Luck is tested when a Player Character is subject to fate. It is reduced by one no matter whether the test is a success or a failure. It can be recovered after several hours of rest.

Combat uses the same mechanics except initiative. This requires a lot of different coloured tokens and a container or cloth bag. The players each then add two dice of the same colour, but different to the other players, to the bag. The Game Master also adds a number of dice equal to the total enemy initiative. One last token, of an entirely different colour, is also added to the bag. This is the ‘End of Round’ token. All together, this is the called the Initiative Stack. When a token is drawn from the container, the NPC or Player Character whose token has been drawn, gets to act. When the ‘End of Round’ token is drawn, the round ends. This has an interesting range of effects. Players no longer know when their characters are going to act and may face innumerable actions upon the part of the enemy, before they have the opportunity to act. Further, they may not even get to act before the round ends. Opponents can have multiple tokens in the stack, perhaps because they are faster, more cunning, or better prepared, or have fewer tokens in the stack, because they are slower, cowardly, uncertain, and so on. It can also mean that the same opponent acts multiple times in a round, though this really applies to bigger or more powerful monsters, for example, a dragon, who have multiple options in terms of what they can do or attack with. (As an aside, this has a side effect of TROIKA! not being easy to run online.)

Armour is classified as either light, medium, and heavy, and reduces damage suffered by either one, two, or three points respectively. If a Player Character’s Stamina is reduced to zero, he is dying and his fellow Player Characters have roughly a round or so to act before he actually dies.

Casting a spell in TROIKA! costs the caster points of Stamina and also requires a Skill roll. A rolls of two ones always succeeds and a roll of two sixes not only fails, but necessitates a roll on the ‘Oops! Table’. The spells again range from the ordinary to the outré. The ordinary includes Darkness, which creates a sphere of blackness, and Find, which enables the castor to locate a lost object. Examples of the outré include Coal Resolve, which turn the target’s heart into a burning ember of grief which captures his entire focus, rendering him immune to mind control or physical pain, and Thought Vapour, which grants the caster’s nose a multidimensional presence enabling it to smell emotions, attitudes, and thoughts, though strong smells can block this effect.

Enemies in TROIKA! are simply defined. An Enemy’s Skill covers everything it can do, including the equivalent of a Player Character’s Advanced Skills as well as covering Luck, Stamina is generally lower to encourage faster combat and play, Initiative indicates the number of tokens that the Game Master adds to the Initiative Stack, and Armour indicates how much its protection, whether thick hide, worn armour, or incorporeality, reduces damage suffered. The damage an enemy can do is random, but the range determined by its size. Every one of the enemies described in TROIKA! is given a Mien table to help indicate its behaviour. And again, just like the spells and the Backgrounds, Enemies include the ordinary and the outré. There are Boggarts, Cyclops, Dragons, Goblins, and Harpies, but also Khabits, the cloned handmaids and officers of Exultants, used to fill out the attendance at parties and often as a source of spare organs for their clone-parents, but really want to replace or inherit from them; Notules, formless and freezing star-creatures which are sometimes used as a means of murder by targeting a victim to have their warmth sucked out to leave behind an unmarked corpse; and the Sympathy Serpent, which does not aggressively constrict its prey, but takes them in a gentle embrace and soothes them reassuringly that life is indeed soul-crushingly awful whilst swallowing them whole…

Rounding out TROIKA! is the introductory adventure, ‘The Blancmange and Thistle’. It is as weird as the Backgrounds that the Player Characters are likely to have. They arrive at their hotel to discover that it is hosting the Feast of the Chiliarch on the top floor, the consequences of which are there is only one room left in the hotel and it too, is on the top floor. Getting to their hotel room is a challenge and the meat of the scenario. The primary routes are by the Mandrill-operated lift or the stairs. There are some absolutely terrific encounters here, such as a Sweet Old Lady who asks lots of questions and the process gets the players to think about and describe their characters, rewarding their characters with magical bonbons; a Gas Form alien whose presence will drown the Player Characters, essentially forcing them to deal with an environmental threat; let them go shopping and peruse the wares of a Pushy Wall merchant; and more. There is an entirely different set of encounters on the stairs. This a genuinely fun adventure, for player and Game Master alike, well designed with just about the right level of oddness without overwhelming the players.

Physically, TROIKA! is cleanly and tidily presented. The artwork is cartoonish, mixing humour and weirdness in equal measure. The book itself is very light in the hand.

TROIKA! combines very quick and easy to learn and play rules with a set of fantastically entertaining and enticing choices for both for the players and the Game Master. These choices are wonderfully weird and whimsical in a very British way, slyly humorous, and all in readiness to explore the Crystal Spheres starting with the really fun scenario in the book.

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. This is done via the Vermissian, the great public transport network that would have bound the Spire and the City Beneath together. Throne Division takes advantage of its non-Euclidean magic to access every level of the Spire, but there are dangers to travelling its length, let alone the dangers to be faced in the execution of its missions.

Vermissian Black Ops is a supplement for Heart: The City Beneath, the roleplaying game that explores the horror, tragedies, and consequences of delving too deep into dungeons, published by Rowan, Rook, and Decard Ltd. In Heart: The City Beneath, the Player Characters are concerned with what lies beneath, and very rarely will they concern themselves with events in the Spire above, but in Vermissian Black Ops, the reverse is true. They will be conducting missions in the Vermissian and in the Spire, thus going up rather than down. This requires some significant changes to the rules of Heart: The City Beneath to account for this change. Thus, Player Characters gain advancements not from hitting story beats related to their Calling, but from completing missions; Domains, which represent experience of an environment or a knowledge of some kind, can be found in the Vermissian rather than just the Technology Domain; and in stead of using Haunts to remove Stress and Fallout from a character, the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress has numerous safehouses and access to doctors and spiritual guidance! To reflect the more combat oriented nature of a Vermissian Black Ops campaign and that the Player Characters are working for a proscribed organisation, the Combat and Ministry Fallout and Resistances are detailed.

Notes are included for combining Heart: The City Beneath and Spire: The City Must Fall via Vermissian Black Ops, essentially in troupe style play with players making characters for both roleplaying games and switching back and forth as necessary. Spire: The City Must Fall can also serve as a setting supplement for Vermissian Black Ops. That said, Throne Division operatives are advised not enter the Spire outside of their missions as they are wanted terrorists with a price on their heads, their time in the City Beneath has changed them enough that they stand out, and exposure to the Heart, even at a relative distance, means they leak weirdness…

Game play in Vermissian Black Ops is conducted as a series of operations, beginning and ending with using the Vermissian to get and from the target. In between can be many scenes, including the actual execution of the mission. Mission creation is intended to be co-operative, the Game Master as the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress assigning a mission and the players outlining together the objectives involved in completing the mission. One-shots are slightly different in that it is suggested that the Game Master creates the mission and its objectives herself. Numerous example operations are given here.

A list of Throne Division equipment is also detailed, such as the Coffin-Crawler, a multi-legged lead-lined box capable of automatically ferrying an operative juddering and lurching shielded from the invasive energies that flood parts of the Vermissian and the Witch-Hunter Railgun, which fires fizzing electro-magnets inscribed with runes designed to rip a magician’s soul from his body and pin it in place. Pride of place, of course, goes to the descriptions of the five lines of the Vermissian, from the Loft Lint atop the Spire with its access to the connected cathedrals to the Aelfir gods and the Autumnal Vaults, sanctified murder corridors where the masked adherents of the Harvest Church ceremonially hunt the Drow, to the Pulse Line which snakes underneath the City Beneath, all the way down to the Heart itself… Bar the Pulse Line, all of the lines are accorded a general description so as give each one a different flavour and feel, and numerous stations and accessible locations are detailed so that the Game Master can bring the transit from the Vermissian to the Spire and back again to life as well as the places that the Throne Operatives will be targeting with their Operations.

Rounding out Vermissian Black Ops is a selection of NPCs and enemies ready for the Game Master to use in her campaign. Arrayed against Throne Division operatives and the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress are the Paladins, the mighty army of one hundred killers sanctified by the Solar Church, which also uses the Vermissian to navigate the Spire and interdict against intrusion by Throne Division operatives, and the Spiral Council, the rulers of the city above, including each of its seven members and its elite guards, the Black Guard of Amaranth. Directing Throne Division operatives is the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress itself, the most successful and possibly maddest of the revolutionary fronts against the Aelfir in the Spire, with possible motivations for joining listed. Between them are the Vermissian Collective, a group of scholars and explorers who map and examine the transport network as much as they collect and hide the secrets of the Drow, and Gutterkin—Goblins, Kobolds, Trash Fairies, Toadgirls, and others—which form a secretive underclass in the City Beneath, but flourish in the Vermissian.

Physically, Vermissian Black Ops is a slim, very well-presented book. The artwork is excellent and the book is easy to read and understand.

Vermissian Black Ops essentially inverts Heart: The City Beneath and sends its players and their characters in the opposite direction, that is, up into the territory of Spire: The City Must Fall, rather than down towards the Heart. Thus, it focuses on campaigns that are not ‘traditional’ to Heart: The City Beneath, and not necessarily of use in Heart: The City Beneath, more episodic in nature given the operation style structure and emphasis on action and combat, whilst the expanded details of the Vermissian will be useful in a Spire: The City Must Fall campaign. Otherwise, Vermissian Black Ops enables the Game Master and her players to bring the revolutionary fervour of Spire: The City Must Fall to Heart: The City Beneath and send it all the way back up the towering city from a different direction.
—oOo—
Dagger in the Heart, a full length scenario for Heart: The City Beneath written by Gareth Hanrahan is currently funding on Backerkit.

Masks of Lankhmar is the first scenario written for Fritz Lieber’s Lankhmar setting published for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Indeed, the publisher, Goodman Games, released the scenario in 2015 before it published the actual Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set in 2017. Thus, it is written for use with the standard rules for Dungeon Crawl Classics rather than those given in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. That said, the differences are relatively slight, and the Judge could easily run this scenario using the rules in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. The scenario is designed for First Level Player Characters, who are dropped into the action en media res, and it can be played in a single session or so. It is designed as a ‘Meet’ scenario, one that throws a diverse bunch of characters together and as a consequence they decide to work together to perform a heist. In effect, Masks of Lankhmar is a starter scenario, one that can be used as the beginning adventure for a campaign set in the City of the Black Toga.
Masks of Lankhmar [https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/161925/DCC-Lankhmar-Masks-of-Lankhmar?affiliate_id=392872] begins with the Player Characters in a cellar in the middle of a fight. This is not with each other, although they have all just discovered that they are in the cellar for the same reason. That is to break into the treasure vault of wealth caravan master, Igrik of the East, and steal a treasure known as the ‘Key of the Unwitnessed Sisterhood’, whilst Igrik of the East is holding a masque party to show off his acquisition. The fight is with members of the Slayers’ Brotherhood, hired to provide security, but once dispatched, the Player Characters have a moment to reflect and explain how they got there. This allows a moment of invention upon the part of the players before they decide to team up and continue the robbery together. This proceeds apace with the Player Characters facing a number of obstacles which are not too difficult to overcome before making their escape from the mansion of Igrik of the East. Between them and the exit though, are members of the Thieves’ Guild, which takes a dim view of freelancers like the Player Characters, especially if they are robbing the same place as the guild sanctioned thieves! Like the ways in which they got into the mansion of Igrik of the East, numerous options are suggested as to how they leave, each player being free to choose one or devise his own. Both of these are really fun montages of scenes as first their way in and then their out are played in the classic style of heist film.
What the Player Characters steal from Igrik of the East, ‘Key of the Unwitnessed Sisterhood’, is not so much a treasure, but a clue to an even bigger treasure. This is one of the Gilded Masks worn by the Unseen Sisters, the priestesses of the Mysteries of Djil. This cult absolved its worshippers of their sins with a single kiss in return for donations and as its coffers filled and it grew more popular, the jealousy of other temples in the city along with various nobles also grew, until a century ago, they banded together, convinced the city Overlord to outlaw the Mysteries of Djil, sacked its temples, and drove its priesthood from Lankhmar. The clue points to the Temple of Djil on the Plaza of Dark Delights, now the site of a slum tenement. There are options here for the Judge to run scenes where the Player Characters go to a scribe to get a translation and learn some more about their next target and then be accosted by one of Nehwon’s foremost wizards, Sheelba of the Eyeless Face, to obtain one of the Gilded Masks of Djil for him. These two scenes can be omitted if the Judge wants to run a shorter game or is running Masks of Lankhmar as a convention scenario, but for a campaign game, these scenes are almost obligatory. In both cases, they introduce NPCs which can play a role in the campaign again and again, the sage as a useful source of information that the Player Characters can consult, Sheelba of the Eyeless Face as a lurking patron…

The second part of Masks of Lankhmar takes place in the Plaza of Dark Delights and the Temple of Djil that spires above it. Here they run the gauntlet of the local gang and the downtrodden slum dwellers, before getting into the temple itself. This is quite small, consisting of just six locations, a mix of puzzles and traps rather than combat encounters. The latter will come when more members of the Thieves Guild turn up, having followed the Player Characters to the temple. The ending of Masks of Lankhmar very much depends on who has possession of the Gilded Masks of Djil—the Player Characters, the Thieves Guild, or they have escaped themselves. Yes, the Gilded Masks of Djil are sentient! Whomever they end up with, there will be a chase across the city, probably over its rooftops in true Lankhmar fashion.

Physically, Masks of Lankhmar is as well presented as you would expect a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game to be. The artwork is decent and the maps excellent, but the text could have been better organised in places.

Masks of Lankhmar is a linear adventure, but it is a solidly plotted one, with the focus entirely on the Player Characters and their actions. However, outside of that plot, there is little room for the Player Characters to act beyond its confines, bar the entertaining moments when the players get to describe how their characters get in and out of the mansion of Igrik of the East. Part of that is due to when Masks of Lankhmar was published, before the release of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set, so there was little for the Judge to work with. Now that is not the case. Part of it is also due to its short length and part of it is due it beginning en media res, so a lot of the planning and interaction associated with a heist takes place off-camera, before the adventure proper starts.

Masks of Lankhmar is an entertaining and fast-paced and atmospheric introduction to the City of Sevenscore Thousand Smokes. It would work well as a convention scenario and it would work well as a campaign starter that can be played in a single session or fleshed out using the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set.

It does not matter what you are doing. Working construction, cooking barbeque just like any dad, going to school on your skateboard, playing football for your champion team, on shift as a paramedic, or even just being a good dog, you always remember where you were when the invasion began. Not just Space Aliens are invading your hometown, but also Spider Robots, Sentient Plants, Giant Tentacles, and the Junk Blob! All of these Threats can be defeated, but only with the right scientific knowhow, and thus the right scientists. Unfortunately, the invasion has damaged buildings across the town and the fallen rubble has trapped every scientist in the town. With authorities busy elsewhere dealing with the Threats, it is up to you, ordinary men, women, and children, to rescue the scientists and defeat the invading Threats. All it takes is the right tools, a bit of co-operation with each other, and above all, speed. This is the set-up for Last Defense!, a game of planetary and hometown defence that is noticeable for three things. First, it is co-operative. Second, it is played in real-time. Third, it has a time limit. That time limit is twenty minutes. A time limit that never changes from one game to the next.

Last Defense! is designed to be played by between two and six players, aged eight and up. It also requires an app to play, as this acts as the game’s timer—hence the twenty-minute time limit. Published by Funko Games, it is designed by the Prospero Hall team, which has a track record of taking intellectual properties—some of them decades old such as E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Jaws: A Boardgame of Strategy and Suspense—and turning them into playable games. Last Defense! is not based on any intellectual property, but instead takes its inspiration from the Science Fiction ‘B’ movies of the nineteen fifties. The game is easy to learn and play.

The game consists of a game board, six character cards and figures, two dice, thirty-two tool cards, thirteen rubble tokens, thirteen scientist tokens, five Threat movers, five Threat cards, and the rules pamphlet. The board depicts various locations in the town, such as a school, bank, farmers’ market, hospital, megastore, plaza, and rest area. The six characters cards depict a BBQ Dad, Construction Worker, Good Dog, On-Call Nurse, Skateboarder, and Soccer Champ. Each character card has a full illustration, the character’s starting location, and a list of what a player does when it is it his turn. The character figures match their illustrations on their cards, and whilst not very detailed, do stand out in play on the board. The Tools die is numbered between one and three and indicates how many Tool cards a player draws when rolled on his turn, whilst the Move dice is numbered between two and four, indicating how many spaces he can move on his turn. The Tool cards depict a variety of objects, most notable of which are the Flare cards, which can be used to distract an invader and get past it. The rubble tokens hide the tools needed, such as a hard hat and a pair of pliers, to move the rubble and free the trapped scientist. The scientists include meteorologists, astrophysicists, biologists, chemists, and more. The five Threat cards and Threat movers (or standees) consist of Giant Tentacles, Junk Blob, Sentient Plants, Space Aliens, and Spider Robots. Each Threat card indicates which scientists known how to defeat it. For example, an astrophysicist and meteorologist will defeat the Space Aliens, whilst the biologist and engineer will defeat the Giant Tentacles.
To win Last Defense!, the players need to explore the rubble, reveal the tools necessary to free the scientist trapped by the rubble and get the tools to the location, then transport the rescued scientist to the plaza space in the middle of the town. If the right pair of scientists is in the plaza, they will defeat one of the Threats, whether a player is there or not. Only four of the five Threats will be invading the players’ hometown, but which ones varies from game to game. Once all four Threats are defeated, the players win the game. Otherwise, they lose.
Last Defense! is set up with the characters in their starting locations, the tool cards shuffled, and several sets of Token Stacks created. Each Token Stack consists of a rubble token placed on top of a scientist token, both face down. The app guides the players through this process, step-by-step, and then when everything is ready, it indicates which of the locations on the board have people trapped by rubble on them. A Token Stack is placed on these, with more being added when a Threat moves to a location. Both the four Threats invading and when they move are randomly determined by the app, which periodically announces threat movement.
On his turn, a player rolls both dice. He draws a number of Tool cards equal to the roll on the Tool die and moves as many spaces as he wants, up to the number rolled on the Move die. If he enters a location with a token stack, he can turn over a rubble token, revealing the tools required to free the scientist trapped by the rubble. If he has the right tools, he can free the scientist and transport him to the plaza. If a player ends his move on the same space as another player, he can give a Tool card to that player or take a Tool card from that player. A player can hold a maximum of five Tool cards. Instead of a scientist, a player might uncover a helicopter. This can be used to transport a player directly to another location on the board. If a threat occupies a location, a player cannot move into a location or end his turn on a location occupied by a threat, unless he can distract it with a flare or the location is special to the player, such as the school for the soccer champ or the shopping mall for the skateboarder.
If a player is in a location when a Threat appears in or moves to a location, the player is sent to the rest area and starts his move from there next turn, but leaves any scientists he had behind in that location. A new Token Stack is added to that location. In this way, the appearance or movement of a Threat impedes movement around the board, although what it can do is actually impede overall player progress as it can prevent them getting already revealed scientists to the plaza to stop the threats. Scientists on a location with a Threat on it cannot be reached unless the player has a Flare Tool card or the location is special to the player.
Play proceeds like this until the Threats are defeated and everyone wins or time runs out with one or more Threat left undefeated and everyone loses. Play is fast and energetic, the board game’s real time nature requiring a player to act rather than overthink his actions lest time be wasted, rolling the dice, drawing cards, moving, and then handing the dice to the next player. All the while, the players are listening to ominous nature of the app soundtrack, waiting for its news reporter to interrupt with some breaking news as to where a Threat has appeared or moved too.
Physically, Last Defense! is a very well done board game. All of the artwork is bright and breezy and the rules are clearly explained, and quick and easy to learn. The components are also of high quality. The app includes a link to a video to learn how to play, but once a game begins keeps everything moving, reminding the players as to their time limit. One player will need to keep an eye on the app as the game progresses.
Last Defense! is a simple, straightforward co-operative game. It is easy to lean by both younger players and a family audience. As a family game, it is bright and breezy, fast playing, and tense. For board game veterans, Last Defense! is solidly playable, but does not offer much in the way of depth or replay value. There is an option for a more advanced game, but this does not add anything in the way of complexity or extra options. Any player wanting special ability like that provided for each of the characters in Pandemic will be disappointed.
Last Defense! is a solid family game that mixes modern, co-operative play with play against the clock that adds just about the right sense of jeopardy. Its twenty-minute play time means that it does not outstay its welcome, and whilst veteran players will find it a little too light, this is still game that they can play with their family.

I needed a bit of a break before tackling this one.

I covered Gary Gygax's Dangerous Journeys: Mythus on Tuesday. I also wanted to go over the second (or third) volume of his Mythus game, the book of magic called, easily enough, Dangerous Journeys: Mythus Magic (1992).   I will not go into as much detail on this one for the same reasons I actually find this book more interesting, it is largely a collection of spells and rituals.

Gary Gygax's Dangerous Journeys: Mythus Magick (1992)

Gary Gygax with Dave Newton. 384 pages. Color covers. Black-and-white interior art.
Published by Games Designer Workshop.

We open this book and it is described as "the Colossus (or more appropriately, the Merlln) of all magick books!" Well...it is certainly large and very in-depth.

I will start in the middle and mention that a full 270 pages of this book are "Castings," so Spells, Cantrips, Rituals, and the like. They are interesting in a very academic sense. If you are going to play this game (ve con Dios) and play any type of spell caster, then this is a must-have book.  IF you are the type like me and love reading about different sorts of magic and magical systems, then this is a very interesting book with some RPG applications. I am not about to try to convert these to any form of D&D mind you. It just would be easier to convert something like Judika Illes' "The Element Encyclopedia of 1000 Spells." And at least Illes writes in a way that can be plainly understood. 

The spells range from the useful (Heka Bolt, Find Traps) to the oddly named (Acclumséd—make someone clumsy) to the largely unneeded (Candlemake Formula—make 10 beeswax candles. Still need 10 BUCs of supplies; might be cheaper to buy them.) That's fine; it's hard to come up with 1,400 different spells. All of these spells are split up by vocation. So, at least, we have that going for us. 

Returning to the beginning, we get a repeat of the material from the core book on what Heka is. Or rather, I should say the core book summarizes what is here. 

We learn more than we ever wanted about the sources of Heka. To be fair, there is some material that people might find useful in their games. However, I will point out that a lot of this can be found by going to other sources. No, I am not saying that Gary copied anything here! These are some classical ideas (crystals, times of day, times of the year, places) that have more or less magical energy. Gary takes these ideas and codifies them for his game. Again, similar information can be found in other sources that are a bit more approachable. Bard Games' "The Complete Spellcaster" comes to mind. Still, this is much easier to read than, say, Isaac Bonewits' "Authentic Thaumaturgy."

There are chapters on Heka Users, Replenishing Heka, and the Structure of Magick. Look. I like reading this stuff, but there is more here than any RPG needs. 

This covers the first 30 or so pages. We learn that Heka (and it's pronounced "HEE-ka" not "Heck-Ah") is the sum of your Heka-producing K/S STEEPs, and every casting level has a base Heka cost and sometimes extra costs.

Remember all of those Spell Points and Mana systems for AD&D that started appearing on the internet (and before if your town had a good-sized gamer population)? Well, this is that dialed up to 17. If you play a caster, then your books are going to get used—a lot.

After all the spells there are sections on how to create new castings. Useful, for this game, but not others. It would be easier to create your own. There is even a section for on the spot creation. I think someone got a glimpse of Ars Magica or Mage and realized that for 1992 this was already an old and clunky system.

There are chapters on non-human Heka using HPs and Heka-based powers.

The last Chapter covers various magic items, which makes it a good read. 

There is a huge Bibliography that dwarfs Appendix N. What stops it from being truly useful are a complete lack of publication dates and publishers. I mean, yeah I can figure them all out (and have more than a few in my own library) but it seems...well, sloppy.

We also get a tome sheet for all the spells you can cast.

So, maybe even more than the Core Rules, I enjoy reading this book for the content, and I hate it more than the Core Rules in terms of playability.  There is just so much dense text here geared toward such low returns. People point to D&D Basic and Expert (B/X) as a masterpiece of word economy. In just 128 pages total there is everything you need to play to last years. That's not hyperbole, that is a documented fact at this point. Something that Mythus can't do in 800 pages (so far). This is yet another example of how a good editor is worth their weight in gold. 

If we look at this game as a Fantasy Heartbreaker, we can be amused and laugh a little at some of the ridiculousness of it all, and then brush of our heavily marked characters sheets and try to play a session. No one though in 2024 is going suggest playing a regular game of this though. Fun for an experiment while one of the regular players is away and you put the campaign on hold.

If we look at this though as something that was supposed to be the Magnum Opus of the father of RPGs, then we can't help but come away a little confused and maybe even a little sad about it.  What went wrong here? How did this get out of Gary's hands and into mine? Was it hubris? Was it something else? Was there so much desperation here to keep this from looking anything like D&D that good ideas were thrown out in favor of bad ones? I honestly have no idea. But here is the score right now, Gary made two games (or 1½), D&D and AD&D, that are nearly universally loved to this day. Then he made Cyborg Commando and Dangerous Journey, which are nearly equally reviled. 

I was going to spend some time figuring out Larina's spells, but honestly, I really can't anymore.

A Note About Mythus: Epic of Ærth

I had this book once upon a time and I will readily admit I enjoyed it. For fluff it was great stuff and reminded more of the Gygax of old. Yes I also remembered there were some questionable bits in it, but nothing I can recall off the top of my head. It was enough that I unloaded years ago at a game auction.

Ærth in the Mythus books reminded me a lot of the sort of Earth one sees in games like "Man, Myth, & Magic (1982)" or "Lands of Adventure (1983)." A mythical Earth that only exists in some sort of dreamtime.  Mind there is nothing wrong with this as a game world. In fact arguments could be made that these sorts of Earths are great for gaming. Obviously, I am a fan of the idea and would 1000% do a "Crisis on Infinite Ærths" one day.  If trying to get those three to work together didn't drive me insane first.

At the end of this I find this is where I am at. Mythus does not give me anything that Man, Myth, & Magic didn't also do 10 years before. Even as a Fantasy Heartbreaker, it doesn't live up. But I keep coming back to it, hoping to find something here that I missed. 

Sadly, due to the lawsuits that did come from TSR, Game Designers' Workshop was forced to close in 1996, leaving games like Traveller, Twilight2000, and Dark Conspiracy adrift for a number of years.

Today is the Spring Equinox, an in-between time of light and dark, winter and summer—the perfect time to talk about Fairies and Elves. My reading of this has already been fruitful, with two more monsters added to my Basic Bestiary: the Trollkönig and Rübezahl. I am sure there are more to come. Many of the Faerie Lords you will find in my Basic Bestiary can also be found here, in one form or another. So let's get into it.

Fairies and Elves

by Editors of Time-LIFE Books, 1984 (144 pages) 
ISBN 080945212X, 0809452138 (US Editions)

There is a certain Euro-centrism to this book and that is to be expected, though there are plenty of creatures that are similar to Elves and Fairies around the world. This gets better with other books and we saw this in the Wizards and Witches and the Lore of Love books.

Like all the books, this one is hardcover with canvas-like covering (this time green) illustrated by John Atkinson Grimshaw.  This volume has four chapters. Also like all the books this one is lavishly illustrated with both new and classical pieces. 

Chapter One: Lands Behind Enchantment's Veil

We are introduced to the worlds of the faeries and their myriad of names; the Daoine Side, the Tylwth Teg, and the Tuatha Dé Danann. Sometimes, they are also divided into camps of light and dark, like the Seelie and Unseelie or Liosálfar and Döckálfar. And all have multiple spellings. But all are immortal, or nearly so, and are members of a world long since gone by the time humans, or at least Christian humans, enter their lands.  But for a time, a brief time the Fair Folk and humans could live side by side and these tales would enter into the legends of a later time. 

Here, the fairies were more similar to humankind, with an air of regalness and otherworldliness, and of course, there were tales of their magic. One how the mere touch of the Queen of the Seelie court cured a young knight of his curse. Other tales on how trees would spring magical fruit or fountains of ale and wine. 

Some lived on the land, but many lived under it or even under the sea like the chieftan O'Donoghue. These lands, regardless of where they were had the same otherworldliness about them. 

A World in Miniature 

The great peoples of the fairies reduced in nature and size, so when the lands they had lived in were settled, it was believed that they had shrunk and were living, somewhat literally, under our noses. 

Chapter Two: Guardians of Field and Forest 

Here, many different types of fairies are discussed, and we move further afield than just Northern Europe. We meet the changeable Leshy, who could grow from diminutive size to that of a giant. Sylphs, some as small as mice, would flit about in the air. Hobgoblins like Robin Goodfellow, also known as Puck, were tricksters, but others like Churn-milk Peg were malicious. Willow fairies from Czech legends were as common as German wood nymphs and the mountains of Rübezahl.  Nearly every type of natural setting had a multitude of faeries of all shapes, sizes, and dispositions. 

And that was the problem. Wander too far off into a fairies' home territory and one ran the risk of becoming lost and not finding their way home for years, if ever.

Not all faeries were human in appearance, either. The Kelpie was an underwater horse that drank the blood of swimmers, for example. 

Others fit a theme. Russia's Father Frost was the lord of Winter, except in Denmark where that role was taken by the Snow Queen, and in Scotland it was the dreaded one-eyed hag, the Cailleac Bheur that ruled over winter and the cold. 

All faeires were considered to be part of and guardian of their locales or area. From the dread three Faerie Lords and Ladies of Winter mentioned above to the tine Brown Man, who was content just to protect one small house.

The Myrtle Tree's Sweet Tenant

This is the tale of a dryad of the Myrtle tree and her love of a human prince, and the women who were jealous of her and the extent they would go. To match with the theme the tree from which the dryad came from was in the prince's palace courtyard. She would come to the young prince at night for lovemaking and disappear before sunrise.  This infuriated the women he had been pledged too and must choose among them a wife. They stripped the leaves from her tree and broke of branches.  Out came the dryad and the women turned on her, stabbing her and breaking her bones. The prince distraught, gathered the bark, the leaves, and the bones and tried to fix the myrtle tree, but could not. He stayed in his chambers, distraught. The rains came and new tree grew and when it had bloomed, the dryad stepped out again. The Prince married her and cast his former mistresses into his dungeons.

Chapter Three: Of Fairy Raids and Mortal Missteps

The last chapter had a happy ending, but that was not always the case when it came to fairy and human interaction. Princesses were abducted by fairy kings. Faerie maidens seduced otherwise virtuous knights, and faeries of all sorts made sport with the poor wives and daughters of locals. Sometimes though the mortals were the ones looking for trouble, stepping into faerie rings to become lost or seeking out their feasts, or, as in the case of the infamous Goblin Market, find their wares. 

Faeries were notorious for stealing children, leaving ugly, mal-formed changelings in their place. Sometimes the babes could be found and rescued, other times, most times, they could not.  

Tam Lin 

It wasn't always the maidens that had to fear from the intentions of faeries, often mortal men were the target. Such was the case of Tam Lin the son of the Earl of Roxburgh. He had caught the eye of the Fairy Queen. He would have been lost forever had it not been for the courage, strength, and love of a mortal woman named Janet, who was able to turn Tam Lin away from the Fairy Queen. 

Chapter Four: The Heart's Far-Carrying Call 

Love between a mortal and faerie was never an easy path to take. Swan maidens could love a mortal, but only if the mortal hid their feather cloaks from them. Lamias craved the love mortal men, but equal craved the flesh of their children. Tales abound that if a mortal man ever struck his fairy bride she would leave him forever; maybe good advice for mortal brides as well!

Though not all tales ended bad, but all had a common theme; the road to true love is a hard one. We saw that in Lore of Love as well. Such is the next tale.

Trials of a Charmed Passion 

Sir Launfal was a knight in King Arthur's court. By chance, one night, he spied a fairy lady of such beauty that all thoughts of mortal women left him. She also saw him and would visit him whenever he wished for her by name, Tryamour. The Queen, though, became jealous and asked him who it was that had given him so much happiness. He then insulted his Queen by saying she was not as beautiful as the fairy lady's lowest handmaiden. An insult, of course, and one that nearly got him burnt at the stake. But Tryamour comes to the court, and all agree that there is no way that Sir Launfal is lying or insulting. They ride off together, leaving the mortal world.

Again, like Wizards and Witches, the theme here is that once there was magic in the old world, but now it is gone. Though that theme is less overt here and more of a given. Faeries, creatures of magic, were once part of this world and now they are not.

Again the stories tend to bleed into each other and there is the feeling of half being told a story and half reading a factual account of things that had happened. The effect is an engrossing one. 

It reflects what I have felt games like D&D have been missing. While yes, there is a Feywilde and lands of Faerie in many versions of the game, there is no real magic to them, if you know what I mean. There is nothing about them that brings them to life. There are few, if any, Faerie Lords and Ladies, and no reasons for them to do what they do. This is a book I'll come back to for more ideas and certainly more names and ways to use them.

Next time: Here there be Dragons! (for real this time)

 This week is Gary Con, so I thought while I am celebrating 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons, I would also spend some time with Gary Gygax's other two games he made after leaving TSR, where he created D&D. This week, I am coving Dangerous Journeys: Mythus.

A bit of background for those not 100% up to speed. Back in 1985, D&D brought in a lot of money, but the publisher, TSR, was in debt of $1.5 million. These reasons have been explained better and in more detail elsewhere; suffice to say that by the time the dust settled (almost), Gary Gygax had been kicked out of the company (but not yet the industry) he helped create.  He spent some time doing some novels with his New Infinity Productions where he also published his near-universally reviled Cyborg Commando. No, I am not going to review that one. Plus I don't own it.

After a little time away he returned to RPGs in 1992 with his new game, "Dangerous Dimensions," or DD for short. Well, TSR was not going to have any of that and threatened to sue (in fairness, it is from a playbook that Gary helped write), and his new game became Dangerous Journeys, and Mythus became the fantasy setting. 

Dangerous Journeys would be his new core system with Mythus, the Fantasy RPG. There was a mention of the supernatural horror game Unhallowed, which would have been fun. Plus, I would have loved to have had a fantasy RPG and a supernatural horror RPG that used the same system. 

Eventually, more pressure from TSR would kill Dangerous Journey, leaving only Mythus produced.

But what is Dangerous Journeys, and what is its setting, Mythus?

Gary Gygax's Dangerous Journeys (1992)

Gary Gygax with Dave Newton. 416 pages. Color covers. Black-and-white interior art. Some full-color art plates.
Published by Games Designer Workshop.

First some clarifications.

Dangerous Journeys is the system being used here. Mythus is the Fantasy RPG that uses the Dangerous Journeys system/rules.  Mythus is also divided into Mythus Prime, which is a basic game and Mythus Advanced, which is the advanced or full game. This book covers both the Mythus Prime and Mythus Advanced games.

This game was designed to address some of the perceived shortcomings of AD&D, though Gary could not come right out and say that. He had to be a bit oblique about it.  This book is huge and there is lot going on. 

Welcome to the Mythus Game

This introduction introduces us to the game and some RPG ideas like what an RPG is, what a Gamemaster is, and so on. None of which I think are needed here to be honest, its a bit much. But the meat is the Game Premise and, in some ways, the most interesting to me. Mythus takes place on Ærth, a world like our own but 1000 years in the past, so at the time of publication, 992 CE. Here, the myths of old are real, and we know about them because of Ærth's connection to Earth. So elves, dragons, and vampires are stories here, but there they were/are real. The trouble I am having with Ærth as presented is there is very little to differentiate it from our Earth save for window dressing. This is disappointing really since I feel there is something here if given the chance to grow a little. The maps and hints throughout the book are tantalizing but not enough.

Here we are also introduced to the next two books in the line "The Epic of Ærth" and "Mythus Magic." Of those two, I only have the Mythus Magic book. We are also introduced to the concept of the Basic and Advanced games. 

Your character in the game is a persona, or Heroic Persona, or HP. This game uses regular d6s and d10s for all the rolls. There are also d3 and d5 rolls here, but most will d%.

Mythus Prime Rules

Note: There is also a "Basic Set" sold separately as "Mythus Prime" that is a 144-page book. It is essentially the same as this section, with some expansions. 

This is the "Basic" game designed to get people started in the Mythus game. It is like the Advanced Mythus game in many ways but obviously simpler. I am not going to delve too deep here. I have read it many times over the years and I like some of the ideas here. But I can talk about them when I cover the Advanced Rules. This does cover the next 45 pages or so. Reading the chapter Creating your Heroic Persona, though, is a good one since the Advanced Mythus points back to it for character creation. There is more in the advanced game.

HPs (remember, Heroic Personas) have three Traits: Mental, Physical, and Spiritual. It is not a bad division, really, Tri-Stat would later do it to much success. In this Basic section all the steps are outlined by an example. So choose SEC (Socio-Economic Class), Traits, Vocation (not a class...), choose K/S (Knowledge/Skills), and STEEP points (Study, Training, Education, Experience, Practice); get your finances and possessions., and round off your character.  Compared to the flipping through pages, one has to do with AD&D 1st ed. This is an improvement, but compared to other games from around 1992, like, say, Vampire the Masquerade, it already felt dated. Still better than World of Synnibar, released the year before.

All characters get three K/S for free, Perception (Mental), Perception (Physical), and Riding/Boating.

There is a chapter on rolling and success. I go into that in detail with the advanced game. The same is true of the chapter after the next on Combat.

The third chapter is on Heka, or the force of Magic in the Mythus world.  Now this was an interesting one to me. In the 90s I was dying for a new magic system. It is interesting but wildly crunchy. Heka is determined by your HP's magical K/S. Again, more on this in a bit. 

Improving Skills & Abilities is after Combat, and the rules here as simple enough. you spend APs (accomplishment points, our XP stand-in) to improve. This one also gets more complicated in the Advanced Game.

A Chapter on Playing your HP, moving to the Advanced Game and some Gamemaster advice.

I like the idea of a simpler game to introduce the more complicated one, but I can't help but feel that the real game, the one that would been more successful, isn't somewhere in between. I mean we all did the same with Basic and Advanced D&D.  Feels like the same mistakes are being made here for completely different reasons.

There is a brief adventure for the Basic game, High Time at the Winged Pig, at the end of this section. To be honest, it's not really all that interesting, especially given that this is the same guy who gave us B2 and the TGD series. I mean the HPs meet in a tavern. Fine for 1974-1977, but 1992? We deserve better than this really.

Advanced Mythus

Now 55 pages later, we are now in the Advanced Mythus game.

We are referred to the Basic Mythus game often, but the steps for character creation are pretty much the same.

1. Determine Socio-Economic Status. It may not be the best way to run a game since no one will go here first anyway. People choose a concept and/or a class first. This, though, does have effects on what your HP can and can't do. A table of the percent of the population of every SEC level is also presented. Not sure if it is here for illustrative purposes or if you are supposed to have your character population conform to it. I should point out though that frequency distribution for "rolled characters" will never match the SEC Populations table, no matter what you do. This is why I wonder why it is here.  A lot depends on your HPs SEC. If the acronyms get to be too much, remember this is a Gygax game, and there will be a lot more. Now personally, I am not a fan of so much to be dependent on my HPs SEC (damnit now I am doing it), I mean I have my Taxes for that. I want to make kick-ass characters. Honestly, I'll just choose my vocation and then find an SEC that fits it.

2. Generate numbers for Traits/Categories/Attributes. We have the same traits as before, Mental, Physical, and Spiritual. These are divided into two categories each. Mnemonic/Reasoning (Mental), Muscular/Neural (Physical), Metaphysical/Psychic (Spiritual).  Each of these six has three Attribute scores: Capacity, Power, and Speed. So a total of 3+6+18=27 numbers to describe your character, I mean HP. That seems a bit excessive. Granted, we only need to roll up 18 of those (OR assign 6 in the point spread) and the others are derived. These scores range from 6 to 20, with 8-11 as the average. The maximum of any human attribute is 30 for physical (cap, pow, or spd) and 40 for mental or spiritual (cap, pow, or spd). There are two ways to get these numbers. The first is a point distribution method. You get a range of numbers to divide among the 6 categories the split them up for the cap, pow and spd scores and then add them up for Mental, Physical and Spiritual. The second is a 2d6+8 rolled for all 18. Again, examples are utilized here which helps. These numbers are used to determine "Critical Levels," "Effect Levels," "Wound Levels," and "Recovery Levels." They will also be used to determine an HP's Heka. 

3. Calculate STEEP for the HPs Knowledge/Skill areas. Players are encouraged to look over the vocations to see what areas they need to increase here. The same basic vocations are here, but a lot more are added. Now, vocations are not classes. Classes are picked in other games and then the skills are given. Here you start with the skills. While there are vocational packages that feel like classes, you could in theory ignore them and build a vocation of your own. There is an Appendix (E) here for that.  STEEP scores are 00 to 91+ with 00 as "no knowledge" and 91+ as Ultra-genius. There is a K/S of "Witchcræft," and it is sadly presented as nothing but pure evil. Even Demonology here is not so vilified.  Yes. I am taking this as a challenge.

4. Choose the HPs K/S sub-areas. This goes along with the various vocations. In the advanced game, there are three additional automatic skills, Etiquette/Social Graces, Native Tongue, and Trade Phoenician, which is the "Common" of Ærth.

5. Determine Personal information. This can be random or chosen.

6. Calculate the HPs Resources.  This is random based on SEC. The unit of currency is the BUC or...Basic Unit of Currency. So 50' of rope costs 10 BUCs. I am not sure if this is clever or irritating. 

This all covers about 70 pages. I glossed over a lot of it. 

Core Game Systems

These are our core rules. Rolls are made with the K/S areas. The six difficulty levels all have a multiplier to the HPs STEEP. They are Easy (x3), Moderate (the default x2), Hard (x1 [one would think a x1 would be the better default]), Difficult (x0.5), Very Difficult (x0.25), and Extreme (x0.1).  So if I want to read a scroll and my K/S in Dweomercræft is a 20 then if this were an Easy Challenge, then my chance to succeed is 20 x 3 or 60%. Moderate is 40% (20x2); if it is Very Difficult, then 20x0.25 or 5%, and 2% for Extreme. While so, a lot of the math is front-loaded on figuring out those K/S scores. These are roll-under abilities (roll under or equal). So, rolling 96% or above can be considered an automatic or even a special failure. 

We get guidelines for combining efforts, for rolling a K/S vs another K/S and so on.

There is also something called a Joss Factor (JF) which work like luck or hero points. At least...I think they do. There is not much here about it at all. If there are rules about how to regain Joss (and WHY is it called that?? Oh, I found an "in game" reason that explains nothing.) I have not found them. 

Spending APs is also covered for Traits and K/S areas. For this, advanced K/S descriptions are given. 

Combat is largely an application of the appropriate K/S areas. Combat is done in units called Critical Turns (CTs) of about 3 seconds each. The initiative is a d10 roll.  Armor reduces damage so HPs can take a lot of damage.  Combat can target hit locations, given the names with damage multipliers of: Non-Vital (x1), Vital (x2), Super-Vital (x3), and Ultra-Vital (x4). This is to account for creatures that might have different sorts of vital parts. It feels weird, but given what this game was trying to do, I can see the utility here. 

There is an insanity and madness mechanic, but as I have said before, I am never very fond of these. 

Heka & Magic

Heka was the god of and the word for magic in ancient Egypt (or Ægypt in this book). Now I will freely admit, this is also one of my favorite sections. It is a wonderfully complicated system that would have made Isaac Bonewits proud. We get a few spells, but there are more in the Mythus Magic book (Thursday).

More on Personas

This covers anything that can change in an HP, like a change in SEC to becoming a vampire. This also covers some basic monsters.  There are some examples of NPCs, or er...NHP? Oh, actually, they are OPs, or "Other Personas."  The "monsters" are divided into three categories: Evil Personas (EPs), Monstrous Personages (MPGs), and Mundane Personas (MPs).  Other than being descriptive, there is no real difference between these that I can tell, save for name/label. Maybe if they had different point spreads.  There are also Friendly Personas (FP), which are what they sound like. 

Magickal Items

Pretty much what is says on the tin. There isn't a lot of stuff here.

Condemned as Galley Slaves

An adventure for new HPs. 

Appendices follow.

So. This game. 

Let's be honest. It is not good. It's actually kind of embarrassing how bad it is. Not to say there are not good things in it.

There are a lot of things I do like about it, though. I love the idea of Ærth, and Necropolis is still a fun adventure. The Mythus Magic was also a lot of fun, and I am looking forward to going over it again on Thursday. That said, I love some of the fluff here and there are things I could use, but it is a lot od shifting wheat from chaff here. 

Larina ferch Siân of Ærth

The over-heavy-handedness of the "Witchcræft is pure evilTM!" and the inclusion of "wicca" vis-à-vis through the Wisewoman/Wiseman vocation (or Mystic, the book is not very clear on this) is just too tantalizing to pass up, even if character creation in this system has been universally reviled.  I think I will try the character today and some spells on Thursday.

I did find some character sheets online, but I am going with the one in the back of the book.  I considered doing the point spread, but I opted to roll up a new character instead. The numbers I got were a bit higher, but not very different from the point spread or the sample character. It also works out since I wanted a character similar to her AD&D stats.  

I admit that rolling up the characteristics and getting my derived scores was much faster than I expected. But then I got to the K/S area, and things ground to a halt. It is not that it is hard, just tedious.

Note: For all the talk that this is a Class-less system, the Vocations are classes in all but name really. 

So, our basic K/S skills are figured out as follows:

• Etiquette/Social Graces: SEC Level (6) x 5 = 30
• Native Tongue (Welsh/Keltic): 30 (above) + MMCap (16) = 46*
• Perception (Mental): 2d10 + MRCap (15) = 31**
• Perception (Physical) 2d10 + PNCap (12) = 28
• Trade Language: SEC (6) x 3 +MMCap (16) = 34
• Riding: SEC (6) x 5 = 30

* In some places it says SEC x5 for language others SEC x3.
** The formulas are reversed for these in the book. 

Now, I have to pick my Vocational K/Ss. I picked Wisewoman for Larina since that fits well, but be sure I'll be bumping up her Witchcræft. Since this is a spiritual Vocation, I can choose which perception to use, so I chose Perception (Mental). I think I could figure out how to knock together a "White Witch" option per Appendix E, but instead, I am just going to tweak the Wisewoman a bit.

For this, I just shifted the same K/Ss around and kept the same number of STEEP points (248).

Crap. Forgot to adjust for age. Not going to do it. Say I rolled the appropriate number, and those above are the adjusted ones.

Attractiveness: Got a 16. Not bad. Should adjust for age or other factors I am sure, but not going too.

Joss: Rolled a 62, so 10 Joss factors. 

Not rolling for birth rank, despite some fun things for a 7th child of a 7th child. This character is way established in my mind as the 1st born daughter. 

She is from Cymru (Wales), and her birthplace was near Gŵry (Gower).

Quirks: A bit of roleplaying fun here. A lot like Qualities and Drawbacks in point-buy games. I'll choose two as long as they don't change any trait numbers (good or ill). I am not recalculating all of this. I'll take Psychic Awareness and Heka Channeler. For "Conter Quirks" I'll take Obsessive/Compulsive and Low Tolerance to Alcohol. 

Connections: She gets two of these, so I am giving her access to the local Druid Hierarchy and an Apothecary; both of these are due to her parents.  

Results below.

Larina ferch Siân of Ærth

Ok. That was fairly tedious, but in the end, I got a character that I think will be fun to use IF I ever play this game.  I'll figure out her Heka and do spells on Thursday.

I need a mental break now.

 News came out last night that former TSR writer and game designer Jim "Drawmij" Ward had passed.

Jim was responsible for some of my favorite books—not just the amazing "Metamorphosis Alpha" and later "Gamma World," but also "Gods, Demigods and Heroes" and "Deities & Demigods," to which I owe a lot of virtual ink here at The Other Side.

Jim was always very nice to chat with. I wanted to make sure I included his point of view on the whole Cthulhu Mythos issue in D&DG when it would come up since there was always so much misinformation about it. He had been sick for a bit, so while last night news was not a shock, it is still a loss.

I got the chance to chat with him a couple of times at the Troll Lords Games booths at various cons. He was always nice.  I was disappointed when he began hitching his wagon to Justin LaNasa, but I had assumed he just wanted to make games and saw this as a chance.

Of course, that doesn't matter now. I had been hoping to see him again at Gary Con in a couple of days, even if I knew that chance was very, very slim.

It has been a bad three months for loosing people in this hobby for me. So if there is any advice I can give at this time, if there is someone out there you want to talk with, do it now. Don't wait for "oh we can meet up this summer" or "Oh, I catch them at the next con." No. Do it now.

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

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

—oOo—
Name: Tiger in Human SkinPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Agata Brig

Setting: Swindon, Lovecraft Country
Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-one page, 1.47 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: The circus always leaves chaos in its wake...Plot Hook: When a monster crosses your path...
Plot Support: Staging advice, four NPCs, one Mythos monster, and a piglet.Production Values: Plain.
Pros# Begins en media res
# Easy to slot into an existing campaign
# Easy to adjust to other times and places# Coulrophobia# Achondroplasiaphobia# Tigriphobia
Cons# Needs a slight edit# Linear# Easy to spot the villain
# Feels as if the background could been more accessible for the Investigators

Conclusion# A circus came to town and left a monster in its wake# Linear push to get the Investigators to the showdown without any real investigation