Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

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Published by Magpie Games, Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game is a roleplaying game based on the award-winning Root: A Game of Woodland Might & Right board game, about conflict and power, featuring struggles between cats, birds, mice, and more. The Woodland consists of dense forest interspersed by ‘Clearings’ where its many inhabitants—dominated by foxes, mice, rabbits, and birds live, work, and trade from their villages. Birds can also be found spread out in the canopy throughout the forest. Recently, the Woodland was thrown into chaos when the ruling Eyrie Dynasties tore themselves apart in a civil war and left power vacuums throughout the Woodland. With no single governing power, the many Clearings of the Woodland have coped as best they can—or not at all, but many fell under the sway or the occupation of the forces of the Marquise de Cat, leader of an industrious empire from far away. More recently, the civil war between the Eyrie Dynasties has ended and is regroupings its forces to retake its ancestral domains, whilst other denizens of the Woodland, wanting to be free of both the Marquisate and the Eyrie Dynasties, have formed the Woodland Alliance and secretly foment for independence.

Between the Clearings and the Paths which connect them, creatures, individuals, and bands live in the dense, often dangerous forest. Amongst these are the Vagabonds—exiles, outcasts, strangers, oddities, idealists, rebels, criminals, freethinkers. They are hardened to the toughness of life in the forest, but whilst some turn to crime and banditry, others come to Clearings to trade, work, and sometimes take jobs that no other upstanding citizens of any Clearing would do—or have the skill to undertake. Of course, in Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game, Vagabonds are the Player Characters.

Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game is ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’, the mechanics based on the award-winning post-apocalyptic roleplaying game, Apocalypse World, published by Lumpley Games in 2010. At the heart of these mechanics are Playbooks and their sets of Moves. Now, Playbooks are really Player Characters and their character sheets, and Moves are actions, skills, and knowledges, and every Playbook is a collection of Moves. Some of these Moves are generic in nature, such as ‘Persuade an NPC’ or ‘Attempt a Roguish Feat’, and every Player Character or Vagabond can attempt them. Others are particular to a Playbook, for example, ‘Silent Paws’ for a Ranger Vagabond or ‘Arsonist’ for the Scoundrel Vagabond.

To undertake an action or Move in a ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ roleplaying game—or Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game, a character’s player rolls two six-sided dice and adds the value of an attribute such as Charm, Cunning, Finesse, Luck, or Might, or Reputation, to the result. A full success is achieved on a result of ten or more; a partial success is achieved with a cost, complication, or consequence on a result of seven, eight, or nine; and a failure is scored on a result of six or less. Essentially, this generates results of ‘yes’, ‘yes, but…’ with consequences, and ‘no’. Notably though, the Game Master does not roll in ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ roleplaying game—or Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game. 

So for example, if a Player Character wants to ‘Read a Tense Situation’, his player is rolling to have his character learn the answers to questions such as ‘What’s my best way out/in/through?’, ‘Who or what is the biggest threat?’, ‘Who or what is most vulnerable to me?’, ‘What should I be on the lookout for?’, or ‘Who is in control here?’. To make the Move, the player rolls the dice and his character’s Cunning to the result. On a result of ten or more, the player can ask three of these questions, whilst on a result of seven, eight, or nine, he only gets to ask one.

Moves particular to a Playbook can add to an attribute, such as ‘Master Thief’, which adds one to a character’s Finesse or allow another attribute to be substituted for a particular Move, for example, ‘Threatening Visage’, which enables a Player Character to use his Might instead of Charm when using open threats or naked steel on attempts to ‘Persuade an NPC’. Others are fully detailed Moves, such as ‘Guardian’. When a Player Character wants to defend someone or something from an immediate NPC or environmental threat, his player rolls the character’s Might in a test. The Move gives three possible benefits—‘ Draw the attention of the threat; they focus on you now’, ‘Put the threat in a vulnerable spot; take +1 forward to counterstrike’, and ‘Push the threat back; you and your protected have a chance to manoeuvre or flee’. On a successful roll of ten or more, the character keeps them safe and his player cans elect one of the three benefits’; on a result of seven, eight, or nine, the Player Character is either exposed to the danger or the situation is escalated; and on a roll of six or less, the Player Character suffers the full brunt of the blow intended for his protected, and the threat has the Player Character where it wants him.

Root: Talon Hill Quickstart is the Free RPG Day 2022 from Magpie Games for Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game. It includes an explanation of the core rules, six pregenerated Player Characters or Vagabonds and their Playbooks, and a complete setting or Clearing for them to explore. From the overview of the game and an explanation of the characters to playing the game and its many Moves, the introduction to the Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game in Root: Talon Hill Quickstart is well-written. It is notable that all of the Vagabonds are essentially roguish in nature, so in addition to the Basic Moves, such as ‘Figure Someone Out’, ‘Persuade an NPC’, ‘Trick an NPC’, ‘Trust Fate’, and ‘Wreck Something’, they can ‘Attempt a Roguish Feat’. This covers Acrobatics, Blindside, Counterfeit, Disable Device, Hide, Pick Lock, Pick Pocket, Sleight of Hand, and Sneak. Each of these requires an associated Feat to attempt, and each of the six pregenerated Vagabonds has one, two, or more of the Feats depending just how roguish they are. Otherwise, a Vagabond’s player rolls the ‘Trust to Fate’ Move.

The six pre-generated Vagabonds include Fineas the Champion, a Pug would-be hero who has become tired of war; Saga the Chronicler, a Possum fearless scholar whose curiosity drives them to uncover the secret of the past (and Talon Hill in particular); Shariyen the Envoy, a Bat diplomat who wants to end conflicts; Jeurgin the Heretic, a Rabbit healer and preacher wanting to found and build a faith in the Great Tree; Dona the Seeker, a Mole explorer who wants to dig into the ruins of Augustine Castle in Talon Hill; and Aurélien the Exile, a Lizard former knight who seeks revenge for being betrayed many years before. Most of these Vagabonds have links to the given Clearing in Root: Talon Hill Quickstart and all are complete with Natures and Drives, stats, backgrounds, Moves, Feats, and equipment. All a player has to do is decide on a couple of connections and each Playbook is ready to play.
As its title suggests, the given Clearing in Root: Talon Hill Quickstart is Talon Hill. Its description comes with an overarching issue and conflicts within the Clearing, important NPCs, places to go, and more. The situation in Talon Hill is different to that of most Clearings. A sprawl of modern buildings below the crumbling Augustine Castle atop a great tree, its core Conflict concerns a dynastic feud which has the potential to affect all of the Woodland. Although foxes dominate the Clearing, it is ruled by the Kingfishers, an old Eyrie family which once sat on the throne of the Eyrie Dynasties. The current possessor of the silver laurel crown is Lord Thurgud II of Talon Hill. His claim though, is disputed by his sister, Theodora, a successful general, and Gaius, an ambitious merchant who believes has a stronger claim via a more traditional means of determining the succession. All three believe Augustine Castle to hold several Eyrie symbols of power, possession of which would strengthen a claim to both wear the silver laurel crown of Talon Hill and potentially, the Eyrie Dynasties. This has led to standoff between the three factions and their forces over access to Augustine Castle, but if a way could be found into the crumbling ruins, perhaps they could found and one faction or another favoured…? Elsewhere in Talon Hill, the local band of smugglers, thieves, and cutthroats known as the Moonlight Syndicate is looking to expand beyond its agreement with the local Knight Sergeant of the Guard which keeps it in balance, and a rash of murdered birds have appeared on the streets of the clearing who appear to have been killed in a manner previously used by a Lizard Cult as part of its sacrifices. Has the Lizard Cult returned or is there another faction operating in Talon Hill? There is advice on how these Conflicts might play out if the Vagabonds do not get involved and there are no set solutions to any of the situations. For example, the Moonlight Syndicate will ultimately expand its operation and come to run law enforcement in Talon Hill. If there is an issue with any one of the four Conflicts, it is perhaps that the one involving the Moonlight Syndicate and the local Knight Sergeant of the Guard is a bit too similar to Conflicts found in other Clearings. However, the Conflict involving the disputed claim to the silver laurel crown and the Eyrie Dynasties pulls Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game and the Vagabonds into the backstory to the current situation of the Woodland, and potentially, pushes its story forward.

Physically, Root: Talon Hill Quickstart is a fantastic looking booklet, done in full colour and printed on heavy paper stock. It is well written and the artwork, taken from or inspired by the Root: A Game of Woodland Might & Right board game, is bright and breezy, and really attractive. Even cute. Simply, just as Root: The Pellenicky Glade Quickstart was for Free RPG Day 2020 and Root: The Bertram’s Cove Quickstart was for Free RPG Day 2020, so too Root: Talon Hill Quickstart is physically the most impressive of all the releases for Free RPG Day 2022.

If there is an issue with Root: Talon Hill Quickstart it is that it looks busy and it looks complex—something that often besets ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ roleplaying games. Not only do players need their Vagabond’s Playbooks, but also reference sheets for all of the game’s Basic Moves and Weapon Moves—and that is a lot of information. However, it means that a player has all of the information he needs to play his Vagabond to hand, he does not need to refer to the rules for explanations of the rules or his Vagabond’s Moves. That also means that there is some preparation required to make sure that each player has the lists of Moves his Vagabond needs. Another issue is that the relative complexity and the density of the information in Root: Talon Hill Quickstart means that it is not a beginner’s game and the Game Master will need a bit of experience to run Talon Hill and its conflicts.

Ultimately, the Root: Talon Hill Quickstart comes with everything necessary to play and keep the attention of a playing group for probably three or four sessions, possibly more. Although it needs a careful read through and preparation by the Game Master, Root: Talon Hill Quickstart is a very good introduction to the rules, the setting, and conflicts in Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game—and it looks damned good too. For the Game Master who is already running a Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game campaign, the Root: Talon Hill Quickstart provides another Clearing that she can add to her campaign with the others available in the proper quick-start for the roleplaying game as well as releases for previous Free RPG Days.

Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

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Epic Encounters: Bridge of the Duergar Cult is a scenario part of the Epic Encounters series. Published by Steamforged Games for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, the Epic Encounters line is a series of boxed adventure sets which include a scenario and both floor plans and miniatures for use with the scenario. Steamforged Games divides its Epic Encounters series in three Tiers of Play—Lower, Middle, and Higher—which determine the standard Difficulty Check value that a Player Characters has to roll and Damage Level (or die type) suffered by a Player Character throughout the scenario. For Bridge of the Duergar Cult, there is no set Tier of Play, which means the scenario can be easily adjusted to suit the Level of the Player Characters. However, the high Challenge Rating of the end of level boss makes the scenario unsuitable for the lower Tier of Play. In addition, the scenario includes numerous motivations for the Duergar to explain their actions and hooks for the Player Characters to get involved. This immediately gives Epic Encounters: Bridge of the Duergar Cult a pleasing flexibility when it comes to the Dungeon Master adding it to her campaign.
Epic Encounters: Bridge of the Duergar Cult reveals that the stone-willed and brutally logical and darkly cruel Duergar have plan to extend their domination of the Underways and give their hatred of the surface world a physical reality. Under the leadership of the Duergar king, Roarie mac Nessa, they want to raise an ancient and terrible demon from the Abyss and then have it lead them into war across the Underworld and beyond… The ritual will be performed in the Temple of Medb, dedicated to the first ruler of the Duergar. Yet before anyone can enter the temple and prevent the ritual before it can be completed, they must cross the great Bridge of Cathbad, the formidable piece of engineering that is the last bastion of defence before the temple doors. Epic Encounters: Bridge of the Duergar Cult focuses upon these two locations—the Bridge of Cathbad and the Temple of Medb—and their defenders and their defences. Both are suspended over the abyss and require full on assaults by the Player Characters.
The Duergar are stalwart defenders. First, the Player Characters will need to overcome a phalanx of Duergar soldiers supported by archers; make their way across a bridge which shifts under their feet, its iron tiles trapping their ankles and impeding their progress; and the while being sniped at by Duergar Mages. The Player Characters will find that the environment favours the Duergar—stone giving them strength, knowledge of the defences an Armour Class bonus, and the magic that has seeped into the stone granting the Deep Dwarves Mages a definitive advantage. That is the least of the defences—at least on the bridge. Once in the Temple of Medb, the Player Characters are beset by a great gale which threatens to gust them over the edge and into the Abyss; by fire, blood, bile, and even gold, which jets out of the broken network of pipes which just from the temple walls; and by Duergar berserkers willing to throw themselves at the Player Characters, and then both themselves and the Player Characters into the Abyss to defend the temple to their great mistress. Throughout all of this chaos and battle sits Roarie mac Nessa, waiting, watching, and preparing to face those who would stop his plans. He himself has a Challenge Rating of eight, and is likely too tough an opponent for the lower Tier of Play.
Physically, Epic Encounters: Bridge of the Duergar Cult is cleanly and tidily presented. The artwork is excellent and the layout of the various NPCs and monsters easy to use. The two maps—one each for the Bridge of Cathbad and the Temple of Medb—are dark, if clear. These are slightly small for use with miniatures, but do look great. One problem with both maps is that neither is numbered. So, it is not obvious where particular locations are, which makes them a little difficult to use for the Dungeon Master.
Epic Encounters: Bridge of the Duergar Cult lives up to its title of being a genuinely ‘epic’ encounter. Its two great battles will challenge any group of Player Characters, though perhaps the rewards for all of that effort may be disappointing for some playing groups. Epic Encounters: Bridge of the Duergar Cult is a really good addition to any Dungeons & Dragons campaign set in the Underworld. If the Player Characters have been actively campaigning against the Duergar, then it can work as the culmination of the campaign, otherwise it can be slipped into the campaign as an epic sidequest. 

Two more weeks of gallery updating before the big August 27 seventh anniversary open house, and everyone is welcome to come by to see everything in progress. The gallery is open on August 13 from noon until 5:00 pm: there’s … Continue reading →

Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

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Goodman Games provided two titles to support Free RPG 2022, one of which was more highly anticipated than the other. As you would expect, the highly anticipated titles was Danger in the Air, an adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Yet as highly anticipated as Danger in the Air was, the other release should not be dismissed out of hand. The other release asks the question, “What do adventurers do between adventures?” Well, in the case of The Three-Wizard Conundrum, they get themselves involved in more adventures, of course! As the scenario opens, the party of brave adventurers is unwinding in a tavern, when they receive word that not one, not two, but three mighty wizards are in town, each looking for a band of capable adventurers to retrieve a fabled Ring of Wizardry. In return, they will pay a decent reward and let the Player Characters take whatever other treasure they recover. However, the task must involve great peril, for otherwise the wizards would have already found and obtained the ring for themselves.
The Three-Wizard Conundrum is an adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition designed to be played by a party of Third and Fourth Level Player Characters. It is delightfully simple affair, really divided between the nicely detailed descriptions of the three scenario’s antagonists—Humboldt of Hightower, Dunbar the Arcane, and Rialto the Resplendent—and the three area dungeon that they send the protagonists to. All three wizards will approach the Player Characters and make them an offer if they will climb Cleft Mountain and once near its summit, descend into the depths of a deep gorge, the result of a great divine battle in ages past which has left magic reliable in the area. Hence their reluctance to descend into their depths themselves. This is reflected by the ‘Wild Magic Effects’ table which is rolled upon any time that a Player Character attempts to cast a spell and fails.
The Player Characters have the chance to check up on the three wizards and may learn a secret or two about the wizards before they climb the mountain and descend into its depths. There is more going on than meets the eye—though not much more given the length of the scenario—and ultimately, if the Player Characters survive they will have made an enemy or two, or three, or more. However, they are unlikely to have grabbed much in the way of treasure and extremely unlikely to have been paid, and for a very good reason. The whole situation is a scam, a fairly dark scam, which will keep both Dungeon Master and her players and their characters on their toes. The other reason that the lack of treasure is unlikely to be a bother is that The Three-Wizard Conundrum is an in-between adventure, a side trek affair, which slots very easily into any campaign.
Physically, The Three-Wizard Conundrum is superbly presented. The cover is excellent and internal artwork good. It does a careful read through to quite grasp what is going on, but the scenario is well written.
The Three-Wizard Conundrum is a really fun little adventure which should provide one or two sessions’ worth of play when the Dungeon Master slots it into her campaign. Although not specifically written for it, the scenario has all of the knavery and insouciance of Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth series of stories, which of course, Goodman Games is publishing as an adaptation of for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Overall, The Three-Wizard Problem is a delightful in-between adventure which would slots into any Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition campaign or can be adapted to The Dying Earth Sourcebook for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. In the meantime, can we have more scams from Humboldt of Hightower, Dunbar the Arcane, and Rialto the Resplendent please?

Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

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One of the perennial contributors to Free RPG Day is Paizo, Inc., a publisher whose titles for both the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Starfinder Roleplaying Game have proved popular and often in demand long after the event. For Free RPG Day 2022, the publisher again provides a title for each of these two roleplaying games, A Fistful of Flowers for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Second Edition, the other being Skitter Warp for the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. As in past years, this is an adventure involving four of the cheerfully manic, gleefully helpful, vibrantly coloured, six-armed and furry creatures known as Skittermanders—Dakoyo, Gazigaz, Nako, and Quonx. They were introduced in the Free RPG Day adventure for 2018, Starfinder: Skitter Shot, in which as the crew of the starship Clutch performed salvage tasks in the Vast beyond the Pact Worlds and then came across a derelict luxury liner, before being boarded by pirates and forced to crash land on a nearby world and survive as detailed in the Free RPG Day adventure for 2019, Starfinder: Skitter Crash. The foursome returned for Free RPG Day 2020 in Starfinder: Skitter Home—not to have adventures, but to have fun!
Starfinder: Skitter Warp is designed to be played by four Player Characters of Fifth Level. In addition to the core rules, the supplements Starfinder Alien Archive 2 and Starfinder Drift Crisis will be useful in running the adventure, but neither are required. The scenario returns to the planet Varkulon 4, the setting for Starfinder: Skitter Crash. In that scenario, a confrontation with a pirate ship combined with a strange natural phenomenon—now identified as the annual cosmic event known as a Drift cyclone—forced both ships to crash. The Player Characters must fight off the surviving pirates, repair their own ship, and make friends with the members of a scientific outpost, the Helix Lyceum, staffed by the slug-like Osharus. As a result of their efforts, the Player Characters acquired the salvage rights to the interesting debris which the Drift cyclone deposits on Varkulon 4. As Starfinder: Skitter Warp opens, the quartet of Skittermanders have returned to the world to collect more salvage—and once again, they are affected by a Drift cyclone.
The Drift cyclone is an annual cosmic event which occurs where the barrier between the Material Plane and Drift is thin. Varkulon 4 regularly passes through this region and so the crew of the Clutch is used to navigating its way around the phenomenon, but this year the ship is caught up in a miasma of planar energy which wreaks damage on the ship and as desperate message from the scientific outpost warns, on the planet below. Starfinder: Skitter Crash is primarily set up as a series of tasks built around events. So first, the Player Characters must repair their ship—which involves multiple tasks, such as using the Computer skill to plot the fastest route out of the miasma or the Athletics to rush to the engineering deck to heft power cables through access ports to reach power junctions—and then fending off an undead spaceship! Once the Player Characters reach the Helix Lyceum, they discover what is going on Varkulon 4—the planar energy unleashed by the Drift cyclone has transformed both planet and its inhabitants. The latter have transformed into either the best or the worst versions of themselves, so the majority of the scientists and inhabitants of the Helix Lyceum have become angelic and good, but those outside the scientific outpost have become demonic and evil, which includes friends of the Player Characters. Not only that, but the demonically transformed are now hellbent on smashing the Helix Lyceum and its inhabitants!
In the second half of the scenario, the Player Characters must defend the Helix Lyceum, including guiding civilians to safety, constructing defences, and holding off an attack by planar energy-transformed demons. These tasks can be done in any order, but get increasing difficult no matter which order they are dealt with. In addition, they are designed so that they have to be done with all four Player Characters rather than them splitting up and dealing with the tasks separately. This feels forced and some advice to handle what happens if the players decide their characters split up to deal with these tasks, would have been useful. Perhaps having the Player Characters realise that they cannot face a situation alone and they come to the rescue of each other? Once the Helix Lyceum is safe, the Player Characters can go out and track down their friends and hopefully save them and deal with the cause of the demonic outbreak which is attacking the Helix Lyceum.
Starfinder Skitter Warp is short and linear, no surprise given the format for Free RPG Day and the fact that it is intended as a demonstration adventure. Ideally, it should provide a session or two’s worth of entertaining play. Where the scenario differs from the previous scenarios involving the Skittermanders, is in the quartet of pre-generated characters provided for the players to roleplay. In the previous entries in the series, the four Player Characters are the Skittermanders—Dakoyo, Gazigaz, Nako, and Quonx. In Starfinder Skitter Warp, three of the Player Characters are Skittermanders. These are Dakoyo, Gazigaz, and Quonx. They are joined by Nakonechkin Ginnady, the male Vesk who is the others’ boss. It is great to see him play, his presence having been felt in the previous scenarios. However, this leaves the problem of what has happened to the fourth Skittermander, Nako. In the previous titles in the serious, he has always been a Player Character, but in Starfinder: Skitter Warp, he is shifted from being a Player Characters to NPC and discovering what happened to him is part of the scenario’s plot. Yet what if a player has roleplayed through the previous scenarios as Nako and wants to play him again? The obvious choice is to make Nakonechkin Ginnady the NPC, but Starfinder: Skitter Warp does not explore this option.
Physically, as with previous entries in the series, Starfinder: Skitter Warp is very nicely laid out and presented. The artwork is excellent, the writing clear, and the maps—placed inside the front cover—easy to use, if a little small. All exactly as you would expect for a scenario from Paizo, Inc.
If a group has played Starfinder: Skitter Shot, Starfinder: Skitter Crash, and Starfinder: Skitter Home before it, then doubtless they will be pleased to return to playing the humorous, if not silly, Skittermanders with Starfinder: Skitter Warp. Players new to Starfinder and the Skitterfinders may find the rules of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game slightly more complex than they expect and they certainly will not have the same sense of attachment to the Skittermander quartet as someone who has played the previous entries in the series. Even someone who played the previous scenarios may feel a sense of disconnect with the normally Player Character Nako being made an NPC.
Starfinder: Skitter Warp is a simple, straightforward scenario with a sense of both energy and urgency. Engagingly presented as you would expect for a title from Paizo, Inc. Starfinder: Skitter Warp is too deep into the story of the Skittermanders to quite work as an introduction to the Starfinder Roleplaying Game and ultimately, it is fans of both that will enjoy this scenario the most.

Hmm.  These questions can sometimes be a little cringe. BUT I am going to take it at face value.

I rather like my Ordinary World setting for NIGHT SHIFT.  The supernatural is real, but it largely wants to be left alone.  I just kinda like the idea that vampires work the morgue night shifts, werewolves are postal carriers, and the scary old lady down the street really is a witch.

Who knows. It might be fun!

Something a little different today, although I am not moving on from Pathfinder just yet. Today I want to explore the amazing reference that is the Echelon Reference Series from Keith Davies.  There are a bunch of these, but I am going to focus my attention on the witch.

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

Echelon Reference Series: Witch Spells Compiled (3pp+PRD)

2 PDFs. $33.99. 186 pages (PF) and 544 pages (3PP).

Yes. 730 pages total. This compiled collection covers both spells from various Pathfinder products and the 3rd Party Pathfinder products.  There is no fluff. Very little art.  Here is how each book breaks down.  There is a cover page, and OGL statement of Open Content page, a table of contents, and two pages on what this book is.  For the Pathfinder book there is three pages of OGL. For the 3rd Party book there are seven pages for the OGL. There is a hyperlinked index for both and hyperlinked table of contents.

The rest is solid text of spells.

And by spells. I mean every single witch spell ever published by the date of this book.  The 3rd Party book for example has nearly 30 pages of cantrips, 50 pages of 1st level spells, 60 2nd level spells and so on. 

The spells are given an editorial clean-up so that they all look similar and can flow well. 

What these books lack (and were never trying to cover) is all the fluff or explanatory pieces that might go with the background of a spell.  For example "Air Bubble" mentions a firearm can be loaded within an Air Bubble, but makes no attempt to explain anything more.  This is perfectly within the scope of this product.

The number of spells break down as follows:

Witch 3pp
Cantrips: 123
1st level: 200
2nd level: 251
3rd level: 221
4th level: 188
5th level: 163
6th level: 142
7th level: 131
8th level: 122
9th level: 109
Total 1,650

Witch Prd
Cantrips: 15
1st level: 83
2nd level: 107
3rd level: 88
4th level: 70
5th level: 51
6th level: 39
7th level: 40
8th level: 28
9th level: 22
Total 543

That's insane really. 

He also has these per level and for every spell casting class in Pathfinder.

You might ask if you buy this does that get rid of the need to buy other Pathfinder spell books? I say no since there is nothing here but the spells.  Other products often have the spells, explanatory notes, monsters, feats, and items that might go with them.  These books are a fancy SRDs. Highly organized and very useful ones at that.

If you are like me this is a treasure trove.

As mentioned with the nominations for the Dallas Morning News Best of DFW Awards last week, it’s awards season in the Dallas area. The big surprise this week is that the Texas Triffid Ranch was just nominated for the Dallas … Continue reading →

When did I start Game Mastering?  Right away to be honest.

It would have been with the D&D Basic Set edited by Tom Moldvay. I am sure I ran my younger brother and sister through some adventures.  I know I had made my own dungeons then and still have a couple of the maps. One, in particular, had a red dragon in one room and a green dragon in another.  No idea how they got through the doors.

I would like to think I got better.

Going back to some Pathfinder tonight. I can't help it there is a lot of great Pathfinder content out there. 

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

Character Options: Witches

PDF. $1.49. 7 pages. 1 page cover.  ½page OGL. 5½ pages of content.

This PDF gives us what I consider the "usual bag" of options for the Pathfinder Witch class. NOTE that is not a slight on this book or even a bad thing.  It is very, very often exactly what people want.

There are 10 new Patrons with their bonus spells. There are 10 new hexes as well.

There are three (3) new archetypes as well. These include the Devoted Witch (I might call this a Divine Witch or Witch Priestess), Green Witch (largely the same as mine in feel), and the Storyteller Witch which is a lot of fun.  It is closest to my "Good Walker" witch.

So for just under $1.50 you can get all of this. Not at all bad really. If you need some new witch options then this is a good choice.

I took advantage of the latest Christmas in July Sales at DriveThruRPG to get myself some Print on Demand deals.

I wanted a new Dragonlance hardcover to replace the one my son absconded with when he was little. I have also been wanting copies of City System and A Paladin in Hell for a while now.  Cult of the Dragon and Minsc and Boo's Journal of Villainy are gifts for the aforementioned son.

While that was getting printed and shipped to me my youngest was 3D printing my Sagarassi minis.  

They are a little hard to see, here is a close-up.

Yeah, still a little hard. Here is what they will look like painted.

I am pleased with how the prints turned out.

Ok. This one is up for some debate.

D&D and its variants of the time were all my "First" RPG.  I played them like they were all one game.  

My Second RPG?

That one was a bit fuzzier.  I know where I bought it though. It was from the Mail Order Hobby shop.  I know this because I am sure I bought them both at the same time because they were not available at my local book store.

It was either Chill or Traveller.  

For my "street cred" I will say Chill, but in my gut, I think it was Traveller. I do know that I did not get a chance to play either of them until much later in life. 

I still rather enjoy both games.

We are back to Pathfinder today, but honestly, with a name like this how can I possibly say no? 

Incantations from the Other Side: Spirit Magic

PDF. $9.99. 38 pages. 1-page cover. 1 credits page. 1-page table of contents. 1 page for OGL and index. 34 pages of content. Landscape page orientation (sometimes this cuts off art).

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

This book is divided into four major sections, each with a different author from the cover.  Each covers a different type of magic.

The Spirit World by Scott Gable introduces us to the book and the three types of spirit magic we will cover here. 

Vodou by Scott Gable. This is our first and is familiar by name. It involves working with various spirits, the Loa, many listed later in this section.  There seems to be some campaign setting specifics here. This is not a surprise because in our world Vodou, Vodun, and Voodoo are very location specific. This is mentioned in a sidebar here. 

There are some new spells, but beyond that there is plenty of information on how these spells are supposed to be used.  This section will not replace any of the works of say C.J. Carella on the subject, but it works great for Pathfinder.

The Middle World by Uri Kurlianchik. Covers the magic found in the tales from Russia and the Slavs. This includes a number of "House spirits."  Again we are treated to some familiar names; the Leshy, the Domovoi, but here they are spirits and not fae creatures exactly. Here we also have a few spells associated with the various creatures.

The Arcanum by Clinton Boomer. Lastly we have the Arcanum. This one covers "Starry Patrons" but there is a solid "from beyond the stars" feel to these. You can read these as Lovecraftian horrors, but they seem more aloof and alien even than that. 

This book succeeds in giving us a very different felling magic system that still works with the rules of Pathfinder. Since the publication of this book there have been more book on magic for Pathfinder, so it would be interesting to see how this works with these new works.

The art is full color and quite good.

The Monster Manual II for the 3.0 version of 3rd Edition appeared in 2002, just before the big transition to 3.5.  Like its namesake from 1st Edition, this MMII brings us some new monsters, but it also gives us a number of updated old favorites. 

Monster Manual II (3.0)

For this review, I am considering both the PDF from DriveThruRPG and the hardcover version I bought back in the early 2000s.

In the the 2 years since the Monster Manual was printed the designers of the 3rd Edition game had gotten a lot of feedback from players and also have seen the designs that other monster books have been able to do.  They knew what the players and the DMs were saying about monsters.  So the MMII has two overt purposes. The first, and the obvious one, is give us more monsters to use in out games. The second, and likely more helpful one, is to help clarify how the monster stat blocks are used and can be altered.  I want to discuss the second one first.

The first section of the book covers the monster stat blocks. How to read them and what sorts of details you are likely to find in them.  This is largely similar to the list to the MMI but there are a lot of additions, like the table of typic creature damage types by type and size.  Each creature type is broken down into what makes that type different than the other types with much more detail than in the MMI.

There are new guidelines on advancing monsters. This really is the reason to get this book. It expands greatly on the rules and lets you know how to do it with an example.

On the back side of the book, there are also new templates to apply to monsters to make other monsters.

In the middle, we have the reason that most people pick up the book, the monsters.  There are over 130 monsters listed here and some are new, others are old favorites.

We get some 1st Ed. MM1 favorites like the banshee, the catoblepas, the sylphs, the water weird (though now expanded into elemental weirds), and ixitxachitls.  There are a good number of Fiend Folio monsters too in the hook horror, grell, death knight (as a template), meenlock, dune stalker, Son of Kyuss, and needleman er needlefolk.  

The Daemons return, but this time they keep their 2nd Edition name of Yugoloths. Actually, I am good with that. Yugoloth always was cooler sounding than daemon anyway.  There are more demons and devils too and even some weird Lovecraftian beasts like the Moon Beast and more.

This addition to the Monster Manual line feels like it was more completing the MMI than it was a second book. I consider it a must-have book for any 3.x DM  with even a slight interest in monsters.

The art is great throughout and you can see the design is leaning into what will become known as "dungeon punk" later on.

Is this one of my favorite monster books? No. But it is a great work-horse book that has great designer information and a few really great monsters on top of that.

That one is a little harder to figure out.  I feel like that in the late 70s and early 80s D&D was all over the place. I knew of it as far back as 77 or 78. I didn't read any of it until 1979 though.

I borrowed the Monster Manual from my classmate Geordie Herald. I got a copy of Holmes' Basic from someone. My first real DM was Jon Cook. 

In truth, there was this critical mass of D&D in my town in the late 70s. I DO remember I almost didn't get involved with it due to my interest in video games. But reading mythology and "The Hobbit" and watching all sorts of horror movies I think made my involvement in the game at the time rather inevitable.

All roads lead to the Keep on the Borderlands it seemed.

Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

—oOo—

Curse of the Dread Marsh Crew is an adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Loke BattleMats, a publisher best known for its maps for roleplaying games, such as The Towns & Taverns Books of Battle Mats, The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats, and The Dungeon Books of Battle Mats, the scenario takes place in the same setting as the Box of Adventure 2: Coast of Dread. It involves pirates, a cemetery, a curse, and undead in short encounter which easily be played in a session. It comes with four pre-generated Player Characters of Second Level as well as a doubled-sided map and a sheet of counters, both on heavy cardboard. The adventure involves a good mix of combat, interaction, and a big puzzle, and is highly thematic, but in terms of its plotting, it needs a bit work.

In Curse of the Dread Marsh Crew the Player Characters are members of the privateer, Dread Marsh, who have been sent on a mission by the ship’s quartermaster, Axell. They were to acquire the Emerald Eye, a great gem, said to be held in the tomb of the legendary pirate, Foxbeard, which is in the Windward Cemetery. As the scenario opens, with Axell’s advice, they have successfully entered the tomb and exited with the Emerald Eye in hand. Yet as soon as they make their exit, the tomb entry slams shut, a mist surrounds the cemetery, and their very flesh begins to rot. It appears that they have been afflicted by the ‘Curse of the Black Mark!’

So the Player Characters begin the scenario being dead! Which brings with it a host of problems—terrible speech, looking and smelling like a zombie, a vulnerability to Radiant damage, and being unable to benefit from any type of Rest, as well as being unable to leave the cemetery. Their first problem though, is that the cemetery watchman along with his dog, Snuffles, arrives to keep an eye on the place overnight. Fortunately, he is short-sighted and so will not spot that they undead so easily. This is not the only difficulty the Player Characters will face as a torch and pitchfork-wielding mob will turn up from the nearest village, but for either encounter, there are plenty of options detailed, so the players can approach them in numerous ways, not necessarily via combat. Similarly, the two locations of the scenario—Windward Cemetery and Foxbeard’s crypt—are both nicely detailed.

In the second part of the scenario, arcane symbols light up around the entrance to Foxbeard’s Crypt. These are part of puzzle which must be solved before the Player Characters can get back into the crypt, but surely, they would have solved that when they broke into the tomb the first time? Inside, they face Foxbeard himself, wanting revenge for their having stolen the Emerald Eye, as well as members of his undead crew. Also, why did Foxbeard not rise and take his revenge when they were they broke into the tomb the first time? The obvious solution would be for the Player Characters to have been brilliant when they originally plundered the tomb and not disturbed the dread pirate in his final resting place  and then forgotten the solution to the puzzle as a result of their suffering from the ‘Curse of the Black Mark!’ The Dungeon Master may instead come up with a solution of her own, but either way, it is a problem in terms of the narrative.
All the while this is going on, the Player Characters are under the effects of the ‘Curse of the Black Mark!’. If they kill anyone in the cemetery—and there is a warning to found if they search the cemetery—the Black Mark on their hand will grow. Kill too many persons and the Black Mark will grow and grow until they are permanently transformed into one of the undead. There is a means to lift the curse to be found, but that means entering the tomb of course.

The four Player Characters include a Fighter, a Rogue, a Warlock, and a Wizard, all Second Level. All come with a back story, a thumbnail portrait, and a tracker for the ‘Curse of the Black Mark!’. The latter s nicely done as a hand, but there are no other mechanical effects as the Black Mark grows. It might have been fun if there had been to help enforce a sense of impending doom if there had been.

Physically, Curse of the Dread Marsh Crew is decently presented. The scenario booklet is general, well written and laid out. It lacks a card cover and so is flimsy. The double-sided map is done on sturdy card and in full colour. One side depicts the cemetery and the entry to the tomb, whilst the other shows the tomb proper. Both maps are easy to use with either the included counters, or with miniatures if the Dungeon Master and her players have them. The counters are decently done, but do need to be cut out carefully.

Curse of the Dread Marsh Crew is potentially a lot of fun and it takes the classic combination of pirates and the undead and does something different with it. The scenario also contains some nicely scenes as a consequence, such as making friends with a dog when you appear to be undead and persuading a baying mob that you are actually alive. Whilst the scenario can be played straight as written, it does have some plot holes which the Dungeon Master will have to fix to really bring out the fun to be had in Curse of the Dread Marsh Crew.

Now for something a little different. Pathfinder is great, but it is not the only 3.x-based game out there not named Dungeons & Dragons.  For a while there I did a lot stuff for D20 Modern and I still like to pick up material for it.  Though today I think a 5e-based Modern might be the way to go.

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

Witchology 101

PDF. 60 pages, $2.99. 1 page cover, 1 title page, 1 page introduction, 3 pages table of contents. 3 pages Creative Common license, 1 page OGL.  Rest content.

This book is punching way above its weight class, to be honest.   The organization is a bit odd, but nothing I can't navigate. 

We get a Glossary at the start, which I guess works to help people unfamiliar with some of these terms.  An introduction to a Who's Who of magical people and places. This includes the various school of magic as if they were actual schools. Each school gets its Latin motto, its center of studies, and titles. It is a pretty cool idea really.  Spells by school are listed with their appropriate colleges. 

There is a whole implicit setting here that can be used in conjunction with any Modern d20 game that also has magic, say like Urban Arcana. It can also be used with other modern games that are built on a d20 system.  I am not 100% sure, but I bet it would work with Mutants and Masterminds for example.

This is a d20-based rule book so there are some features of that. What am I saying? There are Feats! Quite a few in fact. There are spells, some new, some we have seen before (this is fine).  Also to my pleasure, there are new creatures or some reskinned ones. This is a must I think.

It has a Creative Commons License and the OGL. I am not really sure if you can mix the two.  But that does not detract from my enjoyment of it.

So for just under $3 you get 50 pages of solid content. There is no art to speak of, but that is fine really.

Solid work.

I have to admit, I am a big fan of the "Rule of 2" we use for NIGHT SHIFT.

From the rules:

The rule of 2: this is my name for a sub-system in D&D that has never been precisely codified, but is buried deep in the bones of the game. Any time a situation needs to be adjudicated in D&D for which there is not another system, throw a die, and on a result of 1 or 2, it happens. Listening at a door (and not a thief)? You hear noise on a 1 or 2. Looking to notice a secret door (and not a dwarf or elf)? Roll a d6 and you find it on a 1 or 2. Surprise? 1 or 2. The only thing that changes, for the most part, is the type of die--rangers, for example, use a d8 surprise die--and some character types may adjust the probability (elves noticing a secret door without searching is a 1 on a d6).

A nice simple rule that covers a bunch of situations. 

Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

—oOo—

Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks is a scenario fo Iron Kingdoms: Requiem, the version of the Steampunk and high fantasy setting best known for its miniatures combat game, Warmachine: Prime, for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Privateer Press, Iron Kingdoms: Requiem and thus Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks—and Iron Kingdoms: An Echo in the Darkness before it for Free RPG Day 2021 bring the setting and intellectual property full circle, both having been first seen in The Longest Night, Shadow of the Exile, and The Legion of the Lost, the trilogy of scenarios published for use with the d20 System in 2001. The three would later be collected as The Witchfire Trilogy.
The Iron Kingdoms is noted for three things. First, its interesting mix of races—Gobbers, Ogrun, and Trollkin alongside the traditional Humans, Elves, and Dwarves. There are no Halflings or Gnomes, and even the Elves are different to those of more traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy. Second, the prevalence of technology, in particular, the use of firearms and Steamjacks and Warjacks, steam-driven robots with magical brains, used in heavy industry and on the field of battle. Third, the tone of the setting is fairly grim, there being an island to the west, Cryx, where the sorcerers have long experimented with combing the undead with Steamjacks and Warjacks, and have long planned to invade the Iron Kingdoms.
Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks is not a quick-start for Iron Kingdoms: Requiem, but a scenario, so the Game Master will need access to a copy of Iron Kingdoms: Requiem as well as Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, to run the scenario. It is designed to be played by between three and seven Player Characters of First to Fourth Level, but is optimised for five First Level Player Characters. As the scenario opens, a new branch of the Strangelight Workshop, the premier organisation in the Iron Kingdoms dedicated to investigating the supernatural, which has opened up a new branch in the city of Merin in the nation of Ord. It is looking for candidates and the Player Characters have decided to apply for whatever reason. Several motivations are provided to that end. A large sign above the door to the new branch reads ‘Post Delivery Outpost #113’ and the scenario feels reminiscent of Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal as well as possessing an enormous dollop of Ghostbusters.

The Ghostbusters feel starts with the equipment that the Player Characters are assigned. This includes antispectral ammunition for targeting ghosts, charged gauntlets to deal lightning damage to or grapple with ghosts, a Handheld Lumitype to take ‘spectragraphs’ of ghosts, and Strangelight Goggles and Strangelight Projectors, which gives the scenario a very technological feel.

The scenario is built around a job board on which are pinned three little jobs, each with a little commentary by the branch clerk, Emil Todmann, a constantly scowling if friendly ex-postman. These are quite colourful and should influence the order in which the Player Characters tackle them. They are free to do them in any order, but ideally should be run in the order that they are presented. In the first gig, ‘Branston Gunwerks’, the Player Characters, now newly-minted ‘spectral investigators’, are directed to a manufactory which is beset by gremlins doing all sorts of damage. They need to get into the building and in and amongst the machinery to ferret out the Gremlins who are having way too much fun in the Gunwerks. It is an action orientated opener which should be fun.

The second gig is ‘210 Aurora Street’ which takes place a few streets away from the branch office. There the occupants of a house have been beset by a spirit known as ‘Headless John’. The Player Characters have a chance to do a little research before he makes an appearance. When he does, they are free to approach however they want, so they can fight ‘Headless John’ or persuade him to move on. The latter is a less bruising option as ‘Headless John’ is quite a tough opponent, but again, this is another decent little encounter.

The third and final gig is ‘The Red Mare of Lime Gate’. A burning figure astride a red horse has been setting warehouses in the dock alight and Emil Todmann warns the Player Characters that this is an unknown entity and needs to be careful of what it might be. This is a slightly more complex scenario and there is plenty of opportunity for the Player Characters to conduct some investigation—interacting with the locals, examining some of the warehouses, and so on, before the spectre strikes! Ideally before then the player Characters will have picked up some clues that something is not right here and so it proves in a rousing finale to the scenario. Its secret is not the only one to be revealed in the scenario, as there is another in the scenario’s epilogue, which is entitled ‘End of Watch’ and has a double meaning. Both the finale and the epilogue can be played out in a few different ways, all of which are covered in the scenario.Physically, Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks also comes with plain and simple, decent maps of each location for the scenario’s three gigs, as well as ‘Post Delivery Outpost #113’, full stats for all of its monsters and NPCs—from Gremlins to Emil Todmann, and full descriptions and stats for all of the equipment that the Player Characters are assigned as newly hired members of the Strangelight Workshop. Many of these are illustrated, as appropriate.
Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks contains three very different ‘gigs’ or encounters and offers players a very different style of play to that of traditional Dungeons & Dragons in Iron Kingdoms. It involves a more investigative and technological mode of play and thus has a more modern feel. Iron Kingdoms: A Strange Light Breaks is an entertaining Ghostbusters-style scenario which is not fun to play, but definitely deserves a sequel.

A couple of PDFs tonight. Both giving me some new feats for the Pathfinder 1st Edition Witch.

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

Witch Feats
from Island Of Bees

PDF. 5 pages, PWYW, suggested $1.00. No cover. No OGL.

This one is oddly presented and I had to go back and make sure I had the right file. But once I got into it then yes it is the right PDF.  The cover to the right is not in the file (as a cover) and it jumps right into the content. The art takes up half of every page, so not really 5 pages, but 2.5 pages of content (more like 2). The art is good, very visually striking and I like it (our cover girl here is on page 4 for the Witch Brew), but there is one of what looks like a young girl in a Civil War-era Union uniform with a rat familiar.  It is good and I rather like it, but it looks very out of place, to be honest.

While presented as feats, these are really patron pacts.  So you get these if you take the feat. The text is mostly fluff. The advantage to this is you could use them with Pathfinder 2nd Ed or D&D 5th Ed warlocks too. It's just not what I thought it might be.

Fantastic Feats Volume XXVII - Witches
from Ennead Games

PDF. 5 pages. $1.25. 1 page for cover, 1 page for Preface/Table of Contents, 1 page for the OGL. 2 pages of content.

This file has seven witch feats presented in the traditional manner for the Pathfinder 1st Edition RPG. There are some interesting ones here too. The Stable Spell gives the witch more control over the damage she can do while Unstable Spell adds some randomness. Aura of Menace should be taken by all witches I think!

Certainly some fun ideas here.