[Fanzine Focus XXVI] Black Pudding #6

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

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

Black Pudding is a fanzine that is nominally written for use with Labyrinth Lord and so is compatible with other Retroclones, but it is not a traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style  fanzine. For starters, it is all but drawn rather than written, with artwork that reflects a look that is cartoonish, a tone that is slightly tongue in cheek, and a gonzo feel. Its genre is avowedly Swords & Sorcery, as much Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser as Conan the Barbarian. Drawn from the author’s ‘Doomslakers!’ house rules and published by Random Order via Square Hex, Black Pudding’s fantasy roleplaying content that is anything other than the straight-laced fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons, but something a bit lighter, but still full of adventure and heroism. Issues one, two, and three have showcased the author’s ‘Doomslakers!’ house rules with a mix of new character Classes, spells, magic items, monsters, NPCs, and adventures. Black Pudding #4 included a similar mix of new Classes, NPCs, and an adventure, but also included the author’s ‘OSR Play book’, his reference for running an Old School Renaissance game, essentially showing how he runs his own campaign. Black Pudding #5 was more of a return to form, a mix of new character Classes, spells, magic items, monsters, NPCs, and adventures. It did, however, begin to suggest a campaign setting.

Black Pudding No. 6 continues where Black Pudding No. 5 left off. Previous issues of the fanzine have always been entertaining, but primarily felt like collections of new Classes, character sheets, monsters, and NPCs from the author’s ‘Doomslayers’ campaign, but without really presenting what that ‘Doomslayers’ campaign actually is. Now Black Pudding No. 5 did contain its own collection of new Classes, character sheets, monsters, and NPCs from the author’s ‘Doomslayers’ campaign, but it also included something more. This included the mini-sandbox, ‘Standing Stones of Marigold Hills’, but was really seen in ‘Adventures in the North’. This was a small region taken from Yria, part of the ‘Doomslakers’ campaign, beset by arctic temperatures, Ice Witch matriarchs, Ice Wights, and more! Parts of Black Pudding No. 6 carry on directly from ‘Adventures in the North’, but there is new setting material too. Further, Black Pudding No. 6 marks another shift, this time in terms of rules, so that it covers Old School Essentials as well as Labyrinth Lord.

Black Pudding No. 6 is not without its new character Classes. These begin with ‘The Fat Lady’, as in, “It’s not over until the fat lady sings.” This Charisma-based Class should ideally be clad in armour with literal breast plates and winged helmets, and is all about singing, first to increase her Strength, to heal, to inflict damage, and influence people. Combine this with the Barbaribunny Class from Black Pudding #1 and the Referee will quickly find herself running What’s Opera, Doc?! ‘The Demodyn’ is a wee demon person who constantly radiates heat, can cast Burning Hands daily and any fire spell from a scroll, and ultimately, open a portal to the Infernal Plane daily. The third Class is the Beastfriend, who possesses a supernatural affinity with wild creatures and can calm, befriend, and ultimately call them to come to the aid of the Beastfriend. 

One of the best on-going features in Black Pudding is ‘Meatshields of the Bleeding Ox’, a collection of NPCs ready for hire by the Player Characters (or in a pinch, replacement Player Characters). As before, there is a decent range of NPCs given here, such as Malloid the Mage, a Fifth Level Magic-User who knows many things, but if not, can ask the Kosmik Halo that constantly whirls about his head; Totterdun of Udderpeak, a Second Level Dwarf from a poorly regarded family of Dwarves, who likes to work, to get the job done as agreed—and no more, and then getting paid; and the Weird Boatmen, several Zero Level creatures who have access to the Boat of Safe Passage, who speak little, but for a price will safely take you across any body of water in complete safety. Where in previous issues there have just too many entries in this ongoing series, here they are kept to just eight and that feels just the right number.

The monsters in the issue a Monstrous Toad with a mucoid skin—the mucus can be collected and boiled to make a frog and toad repellent, and an unpleasant personality who enjoys giving out insults; Iggy the Husker, a pig-man-thing which can be summoned to hunt and dine on man; and the Nightstalker, a dog-like creature which nightly waits in the shadows to hunt those that be Powers That Be committed a bad act and should be punished. Only the victim can see it and he or she cannot ignore it lest their rolls be made at a disadvantage, the Nightstalker making a single claw and gaze attack nightly, the former inflicting deep scratches, the latter the random loss of Attribute points! The monsters here are more singular than is usual and perhaps all the more memorable for it.

‘Adventures in the North’ is continued from the previous issue and as well as adding soft, lumpy, and magical Snowmen who might come to the aid of of unwary travellers in the region, perhaps with healing magic, perhaps with messages written in the snow, it provides a table of things to be found upon the Frozen Victims of the Ice Witches. Found along the road to the north is Trence the Troll’s Roadhouse, owned by a hard man said to have troll’s blood in his veins and be capable of walking naked in the snow for miles, and claim that the weather was no more than, “a bit chilly”. For a good enough tip, he might impart some important piece of information that will help the Player Characters whilst they are in the north, but otherwise he will remain as cold and as tightlipped as his welcome—and he certainly will not explain why he has his mother in the cellar! Beyond lies the Domain of the Snow Witches, which Dembellina Rue, the Matron Prime rules with a cruelly icy grip and breeds goblins from filth and refuse. The two parts—in this issue and the previous one, provide a nicely done and particularly wintery north (barring the Ice Camels which feel silly), that can easily be dropped into a Referee’s campaign.

The feature article in Black Pudding No. 6 is ‘Underground Down Below: An Old School mapcrawl adventure for PC levels 3-6 or so’. This is a wilderness style adventure, but located underground, an underground into which the Player Characters have been cast, perhaps randomly, perhaps not. Down below, the Player Characters will find animated cave mouths capable of chomping them to bits, a shrine to the war goddess Hilda built from dung; mounds—some home to grumpy ants, some ambulatory and home to Granny Naga, other of soft stone upon which to fall asleep and fall prey to their hungry denizens; the remains of a once great, but long dead empire; a mighty palace crumbling under the care of decrepit, aging staff who await the return of their long lost leader; and walking villages home to tiny people who will also try to eat the Player Characters, though their attacks are like insect bites. If attacked the villages flip over and hide under thick shells.

There are almost forty locations in the ‘Underground Down Below’, all of them odd, even creepy. This feel is aided by the map and the intentionally scrappy presentation which pulls apart the map and provides a closer view of each location to accompany the description. This is necessary in part because the main map is cramped on the page, but this is not the real issue with the locale. Although there is plenty of ideas and imagination here, unless the Player Characters are cast down into it at random and thus need to find a way out, it does lack a hook or two for them to want to visit. This may necessitate the Referee combing through the various locations to derive such a motivation from them, which given the format is not as immediately easy as it should be. Overall, there is a lot of imagination to work with here, excepting motivations, and so ‘Underground Down Below’ is not as good as it could be.

‘A Trolling We Will Go’ provides a ready-to-play location, a play upon the idea of rolls being found under bridges. The Troll itself, an Urnt Troll, is a combination of the classic goat-hating Troll and the Dungeons & Dragons Troll, complete with powers of regeneration. The location is built and illustrated around a set of random tables which provide random finds, the Urnt Troll’s treasure, Trollish reactions, and more. Again, this is nicely detailed and easy to drop into a campaign.

Elsewhere in the issue, ‘A Curious NPC Approaches the Party’ provides a ready source of NPCs and their goals, whilst ‘Unfinished Puddin’’ adds numerous untested and undeveloped rules, such as Saving Throws being based directly on a character’s Attributes, better Armour Class for a barbarians if they actually wear less armour, and a more narrative-based Initiative order. All of these are workable to some degree, but adding these will change the retroclone of the Referee’s choice. Lastly, ‘Armour Class Hack: AC is Negative Only When Protection is Magical’ provides another alternative to Armour Class, this one limiting non-magical Armour Class to zero (or twenty, if ascending). Beyond magical armour is required and magical armour should be special, much like weapons can be special. This is a nice touch and has the potential to make armour much more interesting than it typically is in a Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying game.

Physically, Black Pudding No. 6 adheres to the same standards set by the previous issues. So plenty of good, if cartoonish artwork to give it a singular, consistent look, accompanied by similar cartography. As with previous issues of the fanzine, the potential and obvious problem with Black Pudding No. 6 is that its tone may not be compatible with the style of Dungeons & Dragons that a Labyrinth Lord or Game Master is running. The tone of Black Pudding is lighter, weirder, and in places just sillier than the baseline Dungeons & Dragons game, so the Referee should take this into account when using the content of the fanzine.

The highlight of Black Pudding No. 5 was that it contained content from the author’s ‘Doomslakers’ campaign and the hope of Black Pudding No. 5 was that this would continue in future issues. It has, but only to the extent that the ‘Adventures in the North’ article started in Black Pudding No. 5 is completed in this issue. It would have been great to see yet more, but this is not to say that the content in Black Pudding No. 6 is poor. The issue benefits from having fewer Classes and NPCs, in their stead there being a good encounter at a bridge, some interesting rules ideas to test out, and a potentially fun underground wilderness. It is this underground wilderness, ‘Underground Down Below’, which ultimately disappoints, only needing a little extra development and support to be more immediately useful. Black Pudding No. 6 is not quite as entertaining as previous issues, but its content is not without promise.