[Fanzine Focus XXVIII] The Undercroft No. 14

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another 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. For some fanzines, the system of choice changes over time.

Published since July 2014 by the Melsonian Arts Council, the frequency of issues of the fanzine, The Undercroft is no longer as regular as it once was. After a four-year gap between the publication of The Undercroft No. 10 and The Undercroft No. 11 in August, 2020, it was something of a surprise to see the publication of The Undercroft No. 12 the following October. In addition, although previous issues provided support for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, the more recent issues have moved away from providing direct support to providing not only support for the Old School Renaissance in general, and thus any fantasy retroclone. The Undercroft No. 11 even went as far to provide support for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition! There was no support for that roleplaying game in The Undercroft No. 13, and nor is there in The Undercroft No. 14. Rather the content consists of three articles, all written to compatible with the retroclone of your choice.

The first of the three articles in The Undercroft No. 14 is Daniel Sell’s ‘GUN!’. This presents all of the rules and guns you would ever need for your fantasy roleplaying game, from gunpowder cannons to wheellocks, matchlocks, and flintlocks, along with rules to using them. The core rules are for matchlocks which can be fired once per battle, suffer double range penalties beyond short range, have a chance of misfiring, damp conditions increase the chance of misfiring, but at short range, they ignore five points of armour. They may also be used as clubs. Thus they have a limited use. Weapon types include pistols, arquebuses, arquebus à aroc, muskets, petronels (a firearm larger than a pistol which can be fired from horseback), and more. It even goes into the weirder combinations—the key gun, mace gun, the axe gun, the shield gun, and more, noting that most are unwieldy in either role. It adds the airgun, the duck gun, and other models and oddities, and overall, the article is well researched. There is a certain tone upon the author’s part of, “Really?”, at some of the ridiculous designs that have been created over the course of the gun’s development, but overall, a decently comprehensive article whose content is easy to drop into any Dungeons & Dragons-style game.

The second entry is not an article, but a scenario. In Brian Wille’s ‘Gold from the Ceiling’, the Player Characters are making their away from one town to the next in the autumn on muddy and literally shitty roads when there is a very bright light which streaks across the sky and lands somewhere to the north. As everyone knows, stones which fall from the sky are said to be made of precious metals, so with funds running low and the possibility of easy money not that far away… Of course, everyone knows this, which means there is a not so much a gold rush on as a ‘stones which fall from the sky’ rush as all and sundry race to the nearest town and then north to be first to get the precious metals. That is not the only complication on the way in what is a bit of a caper adventure—and then there is the stone itself and what it contains, which turns out to be a ‘Hideous Creature From Another World’ which is not happy! There is treasure to be found, but the Player Characters will definitely have to fight for it. This is a fun adventure and should a session or two’s worth of play.

Benjamin Foster is the author of the third and final article in The Undercroft No. 14. ‘Wandering Things of Threads and Patches’ which presents descriptions of fourteen interesting NPCs to be encountered almost anywhere. They include Payam Sadiq, Bearer of the Sacred Toad, whose duty it is to bear the supreme being, a forty-four-pound toad, on his back and show him the wonders of the world. Payam both loves and hates the Sacred Tranquil Toad, follows his every whim (which only he knows as the Sacred Tranquil Toad never speaks), and has to deal with the consequences when the Sacred Tranquil Toad casts a random spell because it has got angry. The hulking, be-monocled, Markduk, White Ape Enumerator, threatens everyone with accountability and proceeds to take their census, whilst Benyamin Asari, Retired Coachpainter, is a renowned decorator of coaches and sedans, whose style has fallen out of favour as lesser practitioners copied his style—which he wishes would come back in fashion. He help you analyse that pattern of movement of coaches though… All fourteen come with lists of possessions, wants, and hates, but no stats. This makes it easy for the Game Master to adapt them to the retroclone of her choice, and in the process 

Physically, The Undercroft No. 14 needs a slight edit in place, but is otherwise neat and tidy, and enjoyably illustrated. The cover, like The Undercroft No. 13, wraparound in full colour, is weird and creepy. 

The continued move to fewer, but longer articles does mean that The Undercroft No. 14 feels slighter as with the previous few issues. However, even with just three articles in the issue, The Undercroft No. 14 contains a good mix—two generally useful articles, including lots of memorable NPCs, and a scenario, all three of which are easy to adapt and use in a Game Master’s campaign. The Undercroft No. 14 is the best entry to date in the current format of longer, fewer articles.