[Free RPG Day 2025] The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock

Now in its eighteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2025 took place on Saturday, June 21st. 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. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock is a preview and adventure for Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told published by Goodman Games. It comes with a bit of backstory and is the subject of a forthcoming crowdfunding campaign. This crowdfunding campaign brings back and updates Dungeon Crawl Classics #51: Castle Whiterock, originally published in 2007. Further, Dungeon Crawl Classics #51: Castle Whiterock received its own preview for Free RPG Day, in 2007, in the form of Dungeon Crawl Classics #51.5: The Sinister Secret of Whiterock. Now both Dungeon Crawl Classics #51: Castle Whiterock and Dungeon Crawl Classics #51.5: The Sinister Secret of Whiterock were written for use with Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, but both Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock and Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told are written for use with two separate roleplaying games. These are the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.

Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock is an adventure for Second Level Player Characters for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and is an adventure for First Level Player Characters for Dungeon Crawl Classics. It is written for use by the Judge in Dungeon Crawl Classics and the Dungeon Master in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, so there is a lot of technical phrasing and terminology for both games throughout the adventure. This begins with a conversion guide between the two roleplaying games, which covers Level ranges and attribute, saving throw, difficulty class, and damage descriptor equivalents between the two, as well as an explanation of how Advantage and Disadvantage are handled in both. It is an interesting read which explores the differences between the two and how they handle various aspects of similar game play.

The scenario, Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock, opens with news that a beacon of light has been seen shining out of a suddenly revealed watch tower, known as Swornlight Tower, over Galena Pass in the Ul-Dominor Mountains. The Player Characters may be simply travelling through the pass and want to investigate or look for refuge; they may have been sent by the Merchant-Lord, Nigel the Bald, to look for some missing merchants; or a monastic order of scholars, the Order of the Dawning Sun, seek to claim the watchtower, and so employ the Player Characters to clear it out of any dangerous creatures which have made their home within the walls.

The adventure begins with the Player Characters outside a crack in the rock below the watchtower. They can either explore the crack or make the difficult climb up the rock to the top of the exposed watch tower. Inside, they will find signs that the watchtower has long been abandoned, covered with rock and debris, some of it filling the windows and flowing into rooms, as well as signs of recent occupation. This is by a lone monk of the Order of the Dawning Sun, who will be more than felicitous in his welcoming the adventurers, apologising for the traps he has laid to protect himself against intruders, and offering them food and ale. The Player Characters may have some idea that there is something wrong in the watchtower, depending upon their means of access. If they climb to the top and descend down through the floors, they will discover hints that something weird is going on, whereas if they enter from below via the crack, they will certainly pick up hints from the monk’s demeanour… There are some nice moments of horror in the tower and the monk is ever so slightly creepy.

Ultimately, the secret of Swornlight Tower will be revealed to the Player Characters in the antechamber below the tower following a tough little combat puzzle. This also sets them up for the scenario’s final confrontation and if successful, prepares for further exploration of Castle Whiterock when Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told is published. There is potential that the Player Characters may suffer a curse during the adventure, but lifting it lies outside of the scope of the Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock.

Rounding out Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock is a pair of appendices. The first contains stats and descriptions for the monsters and NPCs in the adventure. The second details the two new magical items available in the campaign and two handouts which help lay the groundwork for the final confrontation and the puzzle before it.

Physically, Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock is cleanly and tidily laid out. The look of the scenario feels like a blend of the two layout styles used by Goodman Games, one for Dungeon Crawl Classics and one for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. The cartography is very clear though is done in an overhead view rather than the isomorphic view normally used for Dungeon Crawl Classics. The artwork has some creepy moments that are very appropriate to the scenes they accompany.

Castle Whiterock: The Dying Light of Castle Whiterock can be run on its own, inserted into a Judge’s or Dungeon Master’s own campaign, or it can be run as a prequel to Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told. Either way, this is a creepy, slightly horrifying scenario that works as intended, but better as a prequel to Castle Whiterock: The Greatest Dungeon Story Ever Told.

Unseasonal Activities: Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game

It is not Christmas until Hans Gruber has fallen from the executive floor of Nakatomi Plaza to his death on the ground below. In Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game, you do not only get to make sure that Hans Gruber falls from the executive floor of Nakatomi Plaza to his death on the ground below every Christmas, but also very time you play Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game. Published by The Op Games, Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game is the board game adaptation of the 1988 anti-heist thriller directed by John McTiernan and starring Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Alexander Godunov, Bonnie Bedelia, and Reginald VelJohnson. Designed for two to four players, aged fifteen and over, and playable in sixty to ninety minutes, Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game is an asymmetrical board game in which one player takes the role of New York detective John McClane and up to three other players take the role of the Thieves attempting to rob the Nakatomi corporation of $640 million in bearer bonds. For the players who control the Thieves, the game is co-operative. The game is played in three acts on three different sections of the board, the board unfolding to reflect this, and both John McClane and the Thieves having different objectives to achieve in each act. In general, John McClane is trying to achieve his objectives to get to the next floor and the Thieves not only trying to stop him, but also work together to unlock the vault holding the bearer bonds. John McClane wins if he get to Act III and kill Hans Gruber, but the Thieves win at any time if John McClane dies—by running out of Action Cards, or they break into the vault.

Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game comes with a double-sided board game, eight Action Cards for John McClane, forty Action Cards for the Thieves, twenty-five Lock cards, a John McClane Player Board, Lock Tracker Card, figures for John McClane, Hans Gruber, and seven Thieves, a Combat Die, and then various cubes, tokens, and tiles, plus the rulebook. The board depicts three different floors of Nakatomi Plaza, one for each act. Each floor is marked with spots where Objective Tokens can be found for both John McClane and the Thieves. Both will have to search for these in order to complete objectives which vary from act to act. In Act I, John McClane must ‘Find the Machine Gun’, ‘Find the Radio’, and ‘Acquire the Shoes (that don’t fit)’. In Act II, he must ‘Find the Detonators and Explosives’, ‘Drop the Detonators and Explosives down the Elevator Shaft’, and ‘Kill a Thief, and throw him out a window’. In Act III, he must ‘Scare the Hostages off of the Roof’, ‘Swing on the Fire Hose’, and of course, ‘Kill Hans Gruber’. Complete the objectives in each act and John McClane and the game can progress to the next.

Whereas the Thieves have one objective that does not vary from act to act and then objectives that do. The ‘Draw Blood’ objective does not vary from act to act, the Thieves constantly attempting to punch or shoot John McClane. In Act I, their other objectives are to ‘Track McClane’ and ‘Capture 3 Hostages’. In Act II, they ‘Shoot the Glass’ and ‘Fire the Rocket’. In Act III, they are ‘Open the Sixth Lock’ and ‘Trigger the Roof Explosion’. Most of John McClane’s objectives will grant him specific bonuses, whereas the Thieves’ objectives grant extra attempts to unlock the Vault. All of the objectives match things that happen in the film, whether done by John McClane or by the Thieves.

The John McClane player receives a deck of Action Cards per act, but the cards he plays are carried over into the next act, whereas those he discards are not. Thus, he needs to be doubly careful in what cards he decides to play, whether for effect in the current act or subsequent acts. An Action card will give him options to Move, Sneak, Punch, Shoot, Support, Shove, and Recover. All movement and attacks are orthogonal, not diagonal; any damage done to a Thief kills him, whilst John McClane loses an Action Card and further fulfils the Thieves’ ‘Draw Blood’ action; Shove lets John McClane push a Thief; Recover allows the John McClane player to draw from the discard pile; and Support lets John McClane talk to Sergeant Powell to further fill the ‘Find Radio’ objective, granting a combat bonus when completely filled up. An Action will give John McClane one or more actions, and these can be done in any order. In a round, the John McClane will draw five Action Cards, play three of them and discard the other two. In addition, John McClane can freely use the vents to move around each floor.

The Thief players draw from a shared deck of Action Cards and have five Actions. These are Lock, Move, Punch, Shoot, and Reinforcements. The Reinforcements Action enables the Thief players to return a Thief figure to play if one has been killed. However, this is at the loss of all other actions and it hinders the Thieves’ action to unlock the vault. The Lock Action enables a Thief to cover up a numbered space on the current Vault Lock. The Vault Lock is represented by a series of Lock Vault Cards. Each Lock Vault Card shows a row of four numbers, these being the odd numbers from one to nine. These are arranged in a series of grids, which get increasingly larger as the Thieves crack each Lock, from two-by-four all the way up to four-by-four for the sixth and final Lock.

Each turn, the Thief players will be working together to try and crack the code on each Lock. To do this they try and match the numbers on their played Action Cards to the numbers on the grid. This is done with the highest and lowest on the Action Cards they collectively play to not only match the numbers on the current Lock Vault Cards, but do so for adjacent numbers. These can be horizontal or vertical, but they have to be orthogonal. How they do this plays slightly differently depending on the number of players. With one Thief player, he will draw a separate Action Card, look at its number and place the card face down before playing an Action Card from his hand, also face down, and then turn it over to reveal whether he has a solved part of the Lock Vault Code. With multiple Thief players, the Thief players take in turns to be lead thief. If two Thieves, the lead Thief player will draw an Action Card from the Action deck and show it to the other player before placing it face down. They both then play cards from their hand alongside the face down card. If there are three Thieves, the lead Thief player selects a card from his hand, shows it to the other two Thieves, and then play cards from their hands alongside the face down card. The key here is that the beyond the lead Thief showing the other Thieves the first Action, none of the Thief players communicate with each other. When the cards are revealed, the highest and lowest numbers on the cards are hopefully matched on the Lock Vault Code, whilst the card with the middle value is used to determine the actions for the Thieves that turn.

Breaking open the vault is key for the Thieves to win and whilst it is mainly going on in the background of the film, in Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game, it is moved to fore. It becomes central to play with the secret, semi-co-operative aspect of its play as the Thief players try to communicate effectively with each other using the Action Cards, emphasising how disruptive John McClane becomes in upsetting their plans and distracting them. At the same time, they want to be working towards their own objectives for the bonuses they grant and attempting to stop John McClane from achieving his as well as inflicting as much damage on him as possible.

Meanwhile, as the game progresses, John McClane goes from New York cop in the dark to action-hero-in-the-know as he works out what is going on and gains more and better Action Cards with each subsequent act after the first. At the same time, John McClane’s player needs to be aware of how many Action Cards he has still to play. Lose them all and he will be killed and the Thieves will win.

Physically, Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game is well presented. However, despite being a licensed board game, that only extends to the intellectual property and not the images of the actors. This means that the John McClane, Hans Gruber, and Thief figures are bland in addition to being small, and the artist has had to illustrate the Action Cards in greyscale with lots of silhouettes in black and grey shadows. Yet this works surprisingly well, making Die Hard a black and white film instead of colour and giving it film noir atmosphere. The rulebook is large, but not lengthy, explains everything well and gives good advice what both the John McClane and the Thief players have to do.

There is a lot to like about the Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game. It actually feels like you are playing Die Hard with John McClane having to find the radio and talk to Sergeant Powell and feeling better for doing so; the Thieves being able to shoot out the glass in Act II, making it difficult for John McClane to move around because of his lack of shoes, which has to find (and will be too small); finding a machine gun; and lastly, shoot, punch, and shove Hans Gruber off the roof! On the other side, the Thief players constantly have to think about stopping John McClane at the same time as breaking open the vault and the rules for the latter add further uncertainty because they cannot communicate with each other as effectively as they would like. This comes to the fore with three players as the Thieves and ideally Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game should be played with all three.

Yet as much as the Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game feels like you are playing film it is based on; it feels too much like you are playing the film it is based on. There is no variation in the game from one playthrough to the next. The objectives are always the same and once you have played through it once as John McClane and won and then played through it as the Thieves and won, it becomes less of a game and more of a puzzle because of that lack of variability. Ultimately, despite the incredible theming in Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game which is going to get you cheering as John McClane succeeds and groaning as one more film quote is made, this is a board game you probably only want to play at Christmas.

Companion Chronicles #17: The Adventure of the Phantom Bell

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

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What is the Nature of the Quest?

The Adventure of the Phantom Bell is a scenario for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition.

It is a full colour, eighteen page, 3.0 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy, though it does need a slight edit.

Where is the Quest Set?

The Adventure of the Phantom Bell is a scenario for Pendragon, Sixth Edition. It can be set in any year, though ideally in early spring or late autumn.

Who should go on this Quest?

Knights of any type are suitable for The Adventure of the Phantom Bell, though they should at least be household or mercenary knights in service to a liege lord. Awareness,

First Aid, Folklore, Hunting, Play Instrument, Sing, Bow, and Horsemanship skills will be useful as will combat skills.

What does the Quest require?

The Adventure of the Phantom Bell requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition Core Rulebook and the Pendragon: Gamemaster’s Handbook.

Where will the Quest take the Knights?

The Player-knights are tasked by their liege lord to attend to Greenway, a remote village where several people have gone missing. He suspects that Picts or Saxons might be responsible, but wants the disappearances investigated and put a stop to. The disappearances have been happening at regular intervals, so the Player-knights only have a few days before another one occurs. The scenario is linear is nature, the players have a choice of routes, a short one and a long one, with the former being more challenging. Taking the short gives the Player-knights more time in Greenway before the next person goes missing. Either way, the scenario tightens up a little as the impending disappearance grows near, and moves towards a confrontation with those responsible. This is nicely handled with the various possible situations being covered in a nasty combat with a surprisingly tough opponent.

The presents one or two interesting dilemmas to the Player-knights that test their Personality Traits in different ways. Some of these do stray into ‘Your Pendragon May Vary’ territory, so the Game Master is free to use them or not, as is her wont.

Throughout the scenario, the Player-knights will encounter a fair and mysterious hunter, ‘Eanswith, the Swan Maiden’, who will aid them on their journey to Greenway, in giving clues as to who—or what—might be responsible for the abductions, and if necessary, aiding them in killing it. Unfortunately, she is not only an intriguing figure for the knights and their players, but also for the Game Master. Simply put, she is not portrayed strongly enough and her motivations and interactions with the Player-knights are underwritten. The Game Master will at least want to develop a little more dialogue so that her portrayal can be easier.

Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?

The Adventure of the Phantom Bell is a relatively easy and straightforward adventure to run and play, and ultimately, insert into a campaign. It needs a bit more development, but that should not be beyond the skills of any good Game Master.

Miskatonic Monday #358: Desperate Measures

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

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Name: Desperate Measures

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Keith Craig

Setting: Modern day Lincoln, Nebraska

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Fifteen page, 1.30 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch:“Can calm despair and wild unrest / Be tenants of a single breast, / Or sorrow such a changeling be?”— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H.

Plot Hook: How can a woman turn up dead when she died seventeen years before, less than a year old?

Plot Support: Staging advice, one NPC, two handouts, and two Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Detailed, but uncomplicated plot

# Easy to add to a campaign

# Easy to relocate

# Would work easily with with Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game

# Standard Mythos cemetery monsters, but not a funeral home in sight!

# Pedophobia

# Ososphobia

# Athazagoraphobia

Cons

# Needs an edit
# Needs some Sanity losses

Conclusion

# Short, sharp modern day investigation

# Easy to prepare and run

Achtung! Ardennes

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It is pitches the Allied Agents of the Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance into a Secret War against those Nazi Agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. They are willing to risk their lives and their sanity against malicious Nazi villains and the unfathomable gods and monsters of the Mythos themselves, each striving for supremacy in mankind’s darkest yet finest hour! Yet even the darkest of drives to take advantage of the Mythos is riven by differing ideologies and approaches pandering to Hitler’s whims. The Black Sun consists of Nazi warrior-sorcerers supreme who use foul magic and summoned creatures from nameless dimensions to dominate the battlefields of men, whilst Nachtwölfe, the Night Wolves, utilise technology, biological enhancements, and wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) to win the war for Germany. Ultimately, both utilise and fall under the malign influence of the Mythos, the forces of which have their own unknowable designs…

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear is the seventh release for Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20, and the second campaign following on from Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis. It shifts the action forward by three years as previous releases for the roleplaying game are set earlier in the war, even during part of the Phony War, in 1939, 1940, and 1941. It is set in the Ardennes, in the weeks and days leading up to the Battle of the Bulge in late November and early December of 1944. It is also a sequel of sorts, to Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Führer Train, which the Game Master can run as prologue to the main campaign, although that will be with pre-generated Player Characters, or Agents. The campaign, presented in eleven parts, requires experienced Agents with a good range of skills, including ideally, an Occultist with the ability to cast magic. At several points in the campaign, there are scenes of mass combat, so the Game Master may want to check the rules for handling such incidents in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide. The campaign also differs from more traditional campaigns of Lovecraftian investigative horror in four ways. First, it is heavily directed. Being a military-style campaign, the Agents will find themselves being either ordered to investigate and act by their superiors or being asked for help by the forces of local Resistance, rather than directing or leading the investigation themselves. Second, the campaign environs are limited to under the canopy and under the ground of the forests of Ardennes. This gives it much more of a localised feel than the traditional globetrotting campaign, which is what Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis is. Third, the campaign develops into two parallel plot strands, one of which explores the relatively recent—in Mythos terms—history of the Ardennes as the German factions in the Secret War—Nachtwölfe and Black Sun, dig and in some cases, quite literally, bulldoze their way into the region’s prehistoric past. Four, the Agents will find themselves making alliances with some very strange bedfellows…

The set-up for the campaign echoes that of the Ardennes Offensive launched by Nazi Germany at the end of 1944 to stop further Allied advances and attempt to bring them to the table to negotiate. The desperation of Germany extends to its two factions in the Secret War—Nachtwölfe and Black Sun, and despite having been rivals for years, the need to defeat the Allies has driven them to do the unthinkable, that is, to co-operate. Their plan is known as Operation Brute Stärke, or Brute Strength, a secret coda to Hitler’s Operation Watch on the Rhine. The Agents are operatives for the British Section M sent to a field base ten miles behind Allied lines. There, Major Archibald Strang, codenamed Hunter, will brief them about the disappearance of Resistance leader Marta Archambaud—as detailed in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Führer Train, about the sightings and co-operation of Nachtwölfe and Black Sun, and the lack of intelligence about the region coming from Majestic, the American equivalent to Section M. Could the Americans be up to something? Major Strang would appreciate anything that the Agents can learn, but their primary orders are to investigate Nazi activities behind enemy lines in conjunction with the Resistance.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear starts with a good introduction to and explanation of the campaign and its background, along with some decent staging advice. The campaign proper begins with the Agents being sent behind enemy lines to ascertain enemy activity in the region. After making contact with the Resistance, they will be led to a remote farmhouse that serves as their base of operations for the campaign. In comparison to the missions to come, it is an intentionally quiet opener, but the Game Master is given several adventures to enliven the Agents’ stay at the farmhouse or visits to the nearby village. These can be used throughout the campaign, although the timeframe does tighten up near the end. The majority of the missions call upon the Agents to investigate archaeological sites, castles, ritual sites, and so on, often hiding entrances to cave networks that lead deep underground to the discovery of the Elder Thing undercity of Karvarteeli, which the Nazis have been surveying and plundering. The Agents will often find the Nazi efforts in disarray, the enemy either under attack by or having been attacked by eldritch forces. The often-brute force method of the Nazis have unleashed the dread servants of the Elder Things—the Shoggoth! Later in the campaign, it will become apparent that the Shoggoth—or at least the means to manufacture them—are what the Nazis are after, as well as the fact that not all of the Shoggoth are loyal to their former masters. There is even the possibility that the Agents might be able to communicate with the rebels, with one of the more horrifying moments in the campaign being faced by a Shoggoth holding a German soldier up like a puppet and having penetrated its brain, using him as a communications device!

In addition to investigating Nazi activities, the Agents are asked by their Resistance contact, Gaston Moreau, a Druid and secret follower of the goddess Arduinna, to help him in the ongoing fight between the Ardui, Ardenne Forest’s native Celtic deities, and the Crimson Brothers, a cult of evil monks, led by the Cowled Sorcerer, who want to free the Sleeping Horror, Chartotharkis, a godling imprisoned within the catacombs of a nearby ruined abbey. This is the second strand to the campaign, with the missions alternating between the two over its eleven missions, including the Agents actually meeting the Goddess Arduinna and the Ardui in person in their Sacred Grove (though this does involve a fair amount of exposition). The primary aim of the Ardui followers is to prevent the Crimson Brothers from succeeding and securing possession of three artefacts sacred to the Ardui—The Cauldron Which Never Empties, Flesh Drinker Sword, and Trident of the Dark Lake. One problem here is that the Agents cannot succeed in this. The Crimson Brothers do get hold of all three despite the Agents’ efforts and only in the final confrontation do they have a chance to reclaim all three.

The addition of the Ardui is not out of place in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear as Achtung! Cthulhu has always had a folkloric and pagan element whose traditions have run parallel to that of the Mythos and which an Agent Occultist has been able to draw upon to be able to cast spells of his own. Often based upon Celtic and Viking traditions, as well as Hermetic traditions, the presence of the Ardui in the campaign brings this aspect of the roleplaying game to the fore and enables the Agent Occultist to interact more directly with those he owes fealty to—especially if he follows Celtic traditions.

The final confrontation with the Crimson Brothers also suggests an interesting interaction with the Nazis as an option. This is to form a temporary alliance with them in order to defeat the Crimson Brothers. It is suggested that this will add extra spice and roleplaying opportunities, the latter in a campaign where roleplaying and interaction with NPCs and the enemy is underplayed in favour of exploration, stealth, and combat. Of course, that is the nature of a more action-focused and combat driven roleplaying game like Achtung! Cthulhu. Nevertheless, it also highlights the underwritten nature of the campaign’s enemy NPCs in terms of roleplaying and their portrayal. Ultimately, if the Agents can help defeat the Crimson Brothers and prevent the summoning of Chartotharkis, they will gain the aid of Ardui in the final confrontation with the Nazis.

Penultimately, the Agents do have a chance to rescue Resistance leader Marta Archambaud, who was captured as detailed in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Führer Train. This is a big battle, potentially one of the most confusing ones to stage in the whole campaign as it involves a lot of forces. However, much of the battle takes place just slightly offstage to the Agents, so the Game Master could simply narrate it or she cut back and forth between the action. This would work well if the players were given control of the different forces on the Allied side. This also involves the Americans and forces from Majestic, the only time they appear in the campaign and even then, the mystery of what the Americans and Majestic are up to in the region, alluded to as a potential issue at the start of the campaign is never really explored—here or in the rest of the campaign. The campaign itself will come to a climax in a Nazi base atop a mountain, complete with cable car, so it ends more in the style of Where Eagles Dare than the style of the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that pervades the rest of the campaign.

Each mission follows the same format. Each starts with an introduction and a brief summary, before breaking the mission down scene by scene. There are typically details of encounters along the way, scene Threat spends for the Game Master, lists of adversaries, details of Truths that can come into play, and perhaps most importantly, the ‘Key Intelligence’, which summarises the important information that the Agents will learn as result of their completing the mission. Throughout there are also ‘GM Tip’ sections which give further information and advice. Some of these can quite extensive.

Rounding out Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear is set of six appendices. These in turn list all of the spells and spellbooks; treasures, artefacts, and tomes; arcane and esoteric technology; both allies and adversaries of the Ardennes; and handouts. The ‘Treasures, Artefacts, and Tomes’ in particular provides the details of artefacts sacred to the Ardui—The Cauldron Which Never Empties, Flesh Drinker Sword, and Trident of the Dark Lake, whilst the ‘Arcane & Esoteric Technology’ includes numerous Elder Thing devices which the Agents can recover, such as the Sensory Augmenter, Stasis Field Projector, and Ultrasonic Wardstone. For the Nazis, there are detailed write-ups of the Grendel Earth Mover, which Nachtwölfe used to bulldoze into the ruins and cavern systems of the Ardennes, and the Panzer VII Sabre Tooth Tiger, with which Nachtwölfe and Black Sun aim to stop the Allied advance on Germany. The handouts consist primarily of maps of locations where the action of the campaign takes place. All together the six appendices take up a fifth of the book.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear is cleanly and tidily laid out. The illustrations and the maps are excellent. However, there are two omissions in terms of the campaign’s items and NPCs. None of the new items and certainly none of the NPCs, whether an ally or an adversary, is actually illustrated. This is a less of a problem for the various items, but for the NPC, it is more of a problem, especially for the campaign’s main villains. It does not help that their physical descriptions are limited, leaving a lot for the Game Master to do in trying to impart to her players what their Agents’ foes look like.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear is a big bruising campaign, played out on an ever-bigger scale even though it is geographically limited to the Ardennes forest. The authors admit the campaign is linear and that is certainly true. This is very much a campaign where the players and their Agents are not going to direct the action, rather the reverse, being directed on missions and then fighting out the action. Once at a location, the Agents will have more agency, but on a strategic level, none at all. This has the possibility of frustrating players and it is not helped by the occasional heavy doses of exposition and travelogues before their Agents can get to the action. In effect, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear is more a series of connected big scenes and confrontations in which the Agents get to battle it out with ever bigger threats. If the players are happy uncovering ever nastier secrets and punching out ever nastier Nazi threats, then there can be no doubt that Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear delivers that and delivers that very well, but any Game Master or player wanting more will be disappointed.

A Murderous Miscellany

There have been times when it was very hard to find any support for SLA Industries and times when it was hard to support SLA Industries. The roleplaying game set in a far future dystopia of corporate greed, commodification of ultraviolence, the mediatisation of murder, conspiracy, and urban horror, and serial killer sensationalism, has had a somewhat roving publishing history, but back in 2020, when the publisher, Nightfall Games, just as it was preparing SLA Industries, Second Edition, COVID-19 struck. In response, the publisher released Ex-Mass, a PDF supplement of support that fans of the roleplaying game could play quickly and easily with relatively little preparation. This was followed up with a new series, Progress Reports, which provided further support for the World of Progress, in the form of BPNs, campaigns, threats, and more. By 2022, Nightfall Games had managed to publish SLA Industries, Second Edition and would continue to publish further Progress Reports through the COVID-19 lockdowns and beyond. Today, Nightfall Games has classified the first, Ex-Mass, as a Progress Report, and collected it into a slim volume of its own, Progress Reports Codified – Zero to Five. They are each separate in the supplement, so they come complete with their editorials as they originally appeared, so they feel just a little like time capsules from a very strange time.

Progress Reports Codified – Zero to Five opens with what was Ex-Mass, but is now SLA Industries 2nd Edition: Progress Report Issue Zero, a short piece which offers a Hunter Sheet, ‘Copycat Jack’, in which the Operatives are tasked with tackling a vandal, dressed like a cartoon version of Halloween Jack, who has gone from being a nuisance to a danger. The scenario is built around Halloween as a festival and event on the Contract Circuit, which is popular across the whole of Mort, and is short, but escalates in a surprising, though in both an annoying and a challenging way. Accompanying this is a short history of the battle taxi, which does feel too short, but still informative. A picture or two, would have been useful too, but it is a nice little article.

SLA Industries 2nd Edition: Progress Report Issue One, steps up and provides the Game Master with a campaign. This is ‘The Uptown Funk’, which gets down and dirty and into the Mort’s sex trade—one of several adult themes which run throughout the supplement. Involving a private member’s club and extortion, this is as dark and seedy as you would imagine, and has a nasty sting in the tale for one Player Character. Accompanying it is ‘Family Ties’, an updated scenario that originally appeared in Role Player Independent Volume 1, Issue 12. It opens with the Player Characters working for the Department of Investigation to investigate the death of an Operative. It haphazardly (by intent) shifts into a hunt for a serial killer. The hunt is made all the more challenging by the nature of the serial killer, although it will help if one of the Operative is an Ebon. The scenario is nicely detailed and the updating has been handled well. Rounding out the issue are two NPCs, a Shaktar Operative who is not a warrior as is traditional for his people, but a medic—and one with an embarrassing secret, whilst the other is Wraithen sniper with a sense of humour. Full stats are provided and they can be used as replacement Player Characters too.

SLA Industries 2nd Edition: Progress Report Issue Two expands in size and content, focusing now on new additions for the then new second edition of SLA Industries. Here it is upon the Carrien and the Cannibals and their activities, previously explored in detail in the superb Cannibal Sector 1. First, the idea that the Carrien each might collect trinkets and keep them in boxes is weird and quirky, but ‘Sector Treasures’ shows that they do and provides tables for what might be found in their trinket boxes. Second, the Harridan is a new type of Cannibal, previously unseen, which has been penetrating Inner Downtown where it has been leading cults dedicated to Rawhead. Her description is accompanied by four BPNs that if played through, reveal more and more about the Harridan. ‘Old Meg Rattlebones’ has a folkloric feel, with children in a Downtown Sector telling tales of a hideous witch lurking at their bedroom windows at night, her entry foiled by a cat skull placed on the windowsill. Of course, the authorities have been ignoring such bedtime stories and now it is too late! There are more BPNs in ‘The BPN Cookbook’, ten hooks that the Game Master can develop into fuller missions. ‘Red Head’ is one of several pieces of dark fiction the Progress Reports and Progress Reports Codified – Zero to Five that shows how bad or at least, how bleak, life on Mort is.

SLA Industries 2nd Edition: Progress Report Issue Three carries on from SLA Industries 2nd Edition: Progress Report Issue Two with the second half of ‘The BPN Cookbook’, adding a further six missions for the Game Master to develop. However, the most interesting entry here is ‘Vevaphon: The End’ which explains why the Vevaphon is no longer in SLA Industries, having been introduced in the Karma Sourcebook, published by Wizards of the Coast in 1994. This is an in-game explanation that also charts the rise of the Doppelganger Institute that developed the Vevaphon and not only its fall from grace with the failure of the programme, the efforts of SLA Industries to disavow its sponsorship of the programme and destroy all the remaining Vevaphon. It is an engaging colour piece that is backed up with a campaign seed that begins with a Hunter Sheet for a rogue Manchine and leads into revelations about the last of the reviled and sad creatures. It also enables the game Master to use the Vevaphon in her own campaign. The issue also describes The Pit, the premier, most famous and infamous, night club in Mort, open to SLA Operatives, and a detailed scenario, ‘Beyond the Wall, which needs expanding, but takes the Player Characters on what is supposed to be a milk run into Cannibal Sector 1 to provide protection for a documentary crew. Of course, it goes wrong and the Player Characters find themselves stranded and long way from the wall that separates Mort from Cannibal Sector 1. The issue comes to a close with some good NPCs, including a very pushy Soft Company salesperson, an overly helpful young ganger, and more!

SLA Industries does focus on Cannibal Sector 1, so it is good to see coverage of Cannibal Sector 2 in SLA Industries 2nd Edition: Progress Report Issue Four. However, its description of a former industrial site dedicated to provision of water to Mort is not nearly as interesting as the wealth of information and background given in Cannibal Sector 1. There is much more development required here before the Game Master can use this in her campaign, but she is helped by the addition of stats for common threats and some mission ideas. Overall, a good introduction to the area. ‘Conflict Aliens – Cyclones’ introduces one of the species that SLA Industries is in long term conflict as part of the ongoing wars and their response which would ultimately result in a bioengineered virus being unleashed upon Mort. This is the ‘Cyconaviridae’ virus, which quickly transforms the infected into an enhanced member of a collective that together methodically and quietly works to further spread the infection. It is accompanied with some scenario hooks such as having a viral outbreak amongst a Shiver outpost at a Bridgehead in Cannibal Sector 1 or an accidental outbreak in Downtown. There are no specific BPNs attached to the ideas, but the ideas are very workable if the Game Master wants to bring the horror of infection and loss of personality into her campaign. More light-hearted are ‘Making a Killing’ and ‘Cannibal Run’, although neither sound it! The former discusses the trade in BPN Coins, rewards from SLA Industries for completing missions that Operatives can purchase and if they want, subsequently sell to the thriving market of civilian collectors. It provides another revenue stream for the financially strapped Operative and adds yet more flavour to the World of Progress. The latter, ‘Cannibal Run’, makes entire sense given that one of the SLA Industries authors is a very dedicated racing fan and provides some suggestions races might be run in Cannibal Sector 1. The Game Master will need to develop them further and flesh events with more detail, but the concept is perfect for the Operative with a high Drive skill.

Progress Reports Codified – Zero to Five comes to a close with SLA Industries 2nd Edition: Progress Report Issue Five. It opens on a sombre note, highlighting the sad death of Morton T. Smith, one of the earliest contributors to SLA Industries, at the age of 53. Likewise, it ends on a typically bleak note with ‘The Murder of Croaks’, the last fiction in the issue and the anthology. The issue consists of the single scenario, ‘Here Piggy, Piggy!’. This exposes the Operatives to corporate shenanigans at Bonk!, a soft company specialising in advertising. The ventilation tunnels of the Bonk! Offices have become infested Landorian Bullet Pigs and the managing director has already been attacked. The Operatives are assigned by the Department of Sanitation to clear out the contamination and present the invoice to those responsible! This is an entertainingly detailed scenario with an emphasise on interaction and investigation whose possible outcomes are explored in similar detail. This includes advice on sponsorship and the use of catchphrases in game. Overall, this is a real change of tone from the horror and combat typical of other BPNs and is a really fun scenario.

Physically, Progress Reports Codified – Zero to Five is very well-presented. It needs a slight edit in places, but the artwork is as good as to be expected for a SLA Industries supplement, the writing is decent, and it gets away with not needing an index with its relatively short page length.

Even if the Game Master has the individual issues of the Progress Reports, it is still great to have them in print and all in one place in Progress Reports Codified – Zero to Five. This is a great looking book that really is replete with highly gameable content as well as content that the Game Master can further develop herself. Elsewhere, ‘Vevaphon: The End’ is a terrific piece of world building that also neatly explains a change in SLA Industries, Second Edition, whilst ‘Making a Killing’ adds colour and flavour. Progress Reports Codified – Zero to Five is a miscellany that every SLA Industries Game Master is genuinely going to find useful and want to have with so much playable material in its pages.

Solitaire: SoloDark

SoloDark brings the means to solo adventures to the rules of ShadowDark, the fantasy roleplaying game which combines elements of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition with those of the Old School Renaissance. He will control both the fate of his characters and those of the NPCs and monsters they encounter in the course of their adventures. Like solo rules for other roleplaying games, it uses an Oracle to generate answers to questions, whilst also making changes to accommodate for the fact that there is only the one player. These include creating between two and four Player Characters instead of just the one that solo play suggests, having group initiative and play in Chaos Mode meaning that it rolled at the beginning of every combat round, and that Luck is earned on any roll of a natural twenty. Perhaps the biggest change is that light sources last ten rounds of game play rather than an hour of real time. Both the presence and absence of light have a significant influence on game play in ShadowDark. Once a torch or lantern goes out, there is always a rough scramble to get a new one lit and in the meantime, there is the fear of the dark and the fear of something attacking out of the dark, since random encounters are suddenly more frequent!

Surprisingly, as SoloDark only runs to ten pages, two of those are devoted to a list of possible sources for further play. One-part sources of help and advice, one-part recommended locations—both dungeons and wildernesses—to play, and one-part suggested resources whether the player needs a monster, NPC, treasure, or encounter, that he can grab and add to his game straight away. Thus, there are links to The Arcane Library where the roleplaying game’s designer runs through some sample solo play and Me, Myself and Die! also offering solo play sessions such as with Free League Publishing’s Dragonbane. In addition to referencing ShadowDark for monsters, NPCs, treasures, encounters, dungeons, and wildernesses, SoloDark also points to Knave, Masks: 1,000 Memorable NPCs for Any Roleplaying Game from Encoded Designs, Ensorcelled Loot from Philip Reed Games, and City Encounters for Swords & Wizardry by Mythmere Games. Plus, dungeons like Dying Stylishly Games’ The Gardens Of Ynn and wildernesses such as The Hexanomicon #1. Overall, this provides not only a solid, useful set of references, but also highlights other authors too.

The next part of SoloDark is not quite so useful, being a table for creating dungeon names such as the ‘Palace of the Draconic Hunter’ or the ‘Asylum of the Fungal Sorcerer’. If there an associated set of tables to generate dungeons in SoloDark, the table might have been more useful. What is useful is the Oracle. This the means by which the player will generate yes and no answers to his questions and there is short simple advice on best practices, such as keeping questions plausible, rely on game rules, asking positive questions, and limiting the number of questions. To use, it the player determines the odds, rolling with advantage or disadvantage depending on the difficulty of getting a ‘yes’ answer. It is possible to roll a critical or a fumble on the Oracle check, leading to extreme results, but the results can be quite nuanced, allowing for a ‘yes, but…’ or ‘no, but…’ answer. If the player needs further clarification, including if he rolls an unexpected twist, the following table of ‘Prompts’, which encompasses a wide array of verbs and nouns, is there to provide more nuance.

Physically, SoloDark is decently presented and written. Lightly illustrated, the artwork is excellent.

SoloDark requires more experience of ShadowDark and running solo sessions of any roleplaying, let alone ShadowDark, than is included in its pages. There is no example of play and perhaps there should have been. Of course, the point of including a suggestion to check a YouTube video is there to alleviate that need, but its inclusion would have been nice and given SoloDark some permeance rather than just saying, look at this or look at that. Still the suggestions are useful and in some cases do show how the designer uses SoloDark and how other players play their games. For the more experienced player, none of this should be an issue and SoloDark should get them delving almost as soon as he has characters ready to play. SoloDark is free and a more than decent aid to venturing into the dark alone.