[Fanzine Focus XXXII] Crawling Under A Broken Moon Issue No. 2

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

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

Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 2 was published in in August, 2014 by Shield of Faith Studios. It followed on from Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 1 which introduced the post-apocalyptic setting of Umerica and Urth, which would go on to be presented in more detail in The Umerican Survival Guide – Core Setting Guide, now distributed by Goodman Games. The setting is a world brought about after a rogue object from deep space passed between the Earth and the Moon and ripped apart time and space, leaving behind a planet which would recover and it inhabitants ruled by savagery, cruel sorcery, and twisted science. It wastes no time in getting down to business with the issue’s single Character Class. This is ‘The Mutant’, a Racial Character Class, genetically ‘gifted’ due to exposure to a nanovirus, cosmic radiation, or dimensional rift. The Class has two features. One is the Survival Die. This works much like the Action Die in Dungeon Crawl Classics, but it is used only for non-combat tasks when attempting to survive in the wastelands. The other is the Mutation. This can be Hybridisation, which means that the Mutant is more than human, Physiological, which means that the Mutant’s body is twisted and different, or it can be both. This is rolled for, followed by subsequent rolls to determine the details. For example, the first roll is for Hybridisation, to see if it is animal, mineral, or vegetable. Further tables get to the exact details, which if the Mutant is a Vegetable Hybrid, and if flower-like, there is a chance of being very beautiful and having increased Presence, having a pollen attack that causes sneeze, a fragrance that attracts the wandering monsters, and a probability of falling immediately asleep at night or in darkness. The tables give some fun results, but once past that, the Class is not quite as interesting in play. In comparison to Technologist Class given in Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 1, the Mutant does not have quite so much to do.

The Mutant theme in the issue continues with ‘Cirque de Bizarre’, which is all about making mutants out of ‘normal’ monsters. It uses the tables from ‘The Mutant’ Racial Character Class and applies the results of the chosen animal. It then applies the results to two sample creations, the Falcon Wolf and the Mighty Tarasqu-Ape. These are decent mutated creatures and nicely show off the versatility of the ‘The Mutant’ Racial Character Class’ creation tables.

‘Weapons of the Wastelands’ continues the article which appeared in Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 1. It gives rules for grenades, breaking them down into four eras—primitive, Western-era, Modern-era, and Futuristic—as the previous article did for guns in general. This covers clay pot bombs and Molotov cocktails as well as modern and fusion grenades, plus various different things which can be put into a grenade, such as Greek fire, mustard gas, and even a MicroNuke! This is a decent expansion to the previous article.

The last two articles in Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 2 are connected and together present a massive alien cyberintelligence and its minions. ‘Twisted Menagerie’ details the servants, beginning with the Zombie Monks of the Cyberhive, which travel between communities, singing hymns in machine code, distributing small, but useful technological devices, and collecting corpses for conversion. Once converted, they are used to serve in the Floating Tower of the Cyberhive or to spread the Cyberhive’s influence and monitor those its servants come into contact with. The other servants are the Robo-Lich, capable of casting certain spells and used to monitor Zombie Monk operations, and the truly monstrous Mutitan, a writing mass of body parts from humans, animals, and mutants, which can spawn Mutitanling and warp the effects of spells. The Floating Tower of the Cyberhive is detailed in ‘An Interesting Place to Die’. It stands suspended over a crater of boiling mud and caustic vapours, and contains zombification chambers, organ chambers where wizards are converted in Robo-Liches, a Fabrication Chamber where Zombie Monks manufacture the various technological devices given out as gifts, and more. Oddly, neither the Zombie Monks or the Robo-Lichs will attack the Player Characters unless they are aggressive, but there are weird trap-like rooms scattered throughout the facility. It turns out that the Cyberhive is actually testing them and if they succeed, they are given actual missions, perhaps building towards a Patron relationship. The Cyberhive is presented as neither benign or evil, but an interesting faction in Umerica and Urth that the Player Characters can interact with.

Physically, Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 2 is serviceably presented. It is a little rough around the edges, but overall, it is a decent affair.

The problem with Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 2 is that much of its contents have been represented to a more professional standard in the pages of The Umerican Survival Guide – Core Setting Guide, so it has been superseded and superseded by a cleaner, slicker presentation of the material. Yet there is still much to like about Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 2, full of interesting details and aspects about the setting and there is a certain charm to reading about the world of Umerica in serial format.