[Fanzine Focus XXXIV] The Beholder Issue 2

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 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 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. As new fanzines have appeared, there has been an interest in the fanzines of the past, and as that interest has grown, they have become highly collectible, and consequently more difficult to obtain and write about. However, in writing about them, the reader should be aware that these fanzines were written and published between thirty and forty years ago, typically by roleplayers in their teens and twenties. What this means is that sometimes the language and terminology used reflects this and though the language and terminology is not socially acceptable today, that use should not be held against the authors and publishers unduly.

The Beholder was a British fanzine first published in April, 1979. Dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it ran to twenty-seven issues, the last being published in July, 1981. It was popular and would be awarded ‘Best Games Fanzine’ at the Games Day convention in 1980. After the final issue of The Beholder, the editors would go on to release a number of anthologies which collected content from the complete run of the fanzine such as Beholder Supplement Glossary of Magic, which collected many of the magical items which appeared in the fanzine and collated them into a series of tables for easy use by the Dungeon Master, and Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2, the first of several scenario anthologies.

The Beholder Issue 2 was published in May 1979—the same month as Margaret Thatcher was first elected Prime Minister. Its contents follow the same pattern as set by The Beholder Issue 1—a new Class, some new monsters, spells, and magical items, along with a competition dungeon. There are other articles and not all of them for Dungeons & Dragons. The new Class is ‘The Loner’, which mixes the abilities of the Thief, the Ranger, and the Monk, so inspired by Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. The aim is to create a Player Character who has a broad range of skills and abilities and is thus capable without being a specialist, suited for play with small groups or solo play. Members of the Class will not join groups numbering more than five and cannot be Lawful in Alignment. He does not wear armour or use a shield, but his natural Armour Class improves as he gains Levels. For the most part, the Class’ abilities make sense, such as combining the Hide in Shadows and Move Silently skills of the Thief Class into Stalk, Track from the Ranger, Resist Cold, and so on, but there are aspects which make less sense. For example, Infravision, Wilful Healing, and eventually, Fly. Overall, the Class does not feel particularly coherent.

The only article not about Dungeons & Dragons is ‘Traveller’, for the roleplaying game of the same name. The article opens with a compliant that the Science Fiction roleplaying game is not as complete as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. However, it does offer an interesting use for the Computer skill, which it points is not useful until the Player Characters obtain a spaceship. This the ‘Programmable SMG’. When attached to its tripod, a program on a cassette can be inserted to provide one of four firing modes—continuous, fire at any movement, fire at any humanoid, or fire at anyone in a police uniform! The last cassette is highly illegal. It highlights the state of technology, what was thought technology could be in 1979, and the state of technology in Traveller was then, it is very clunky. Other additions include different types of grenade, such as High Explosive, Smoke, and Vapourisation, the latter being the equivalent of the disintegration. Lastly, the article notes that lasers are either very powerful or very weak, depending on the armour worn by the target. Reflec armour makes it impossible for the target to be hot, but anything else almost guarantees it. Instead, the author points out that lasers do not work in the rain, so either change the weather or if indoors, turn on the sprinkler system!

‘Monster Summoning’ describes six monsters. They include the ‘Catilae’, like a centaur, but replace the horse body with that of a centaur; the ‘Albatross’, which if killed inflicts a nasty, nasty curse; the ‘Vampirebat’, which is exactly what you think it is; and the ‘Ohm’, a terahedron—or three-sided pyramid—shaped creature with an eye and a tentacle in each face. Given the name, it should be no surprise that electricity runs through the Ohm, making it glow, and of course, hitting it with a metal weapon inflicts damage on the attacker. It feels reminiscent of the Modrons, in shape at least, which would later appear in the Planescape setting. Other monsters include the ‘Juvah’, a river or swamp dwelling creature like an Umber Hulk, but covered in a liquid that deludes its victims into thinking that they have not taken any damage; the ‘Snapdragon’ is the plant, but with dragons; head; and the ‘Mofe’, a humanoid of foam whose attacks deplete the victim’s Intelligence. None of the monsters are very interesting or sophisticated, but they are typical of the sort that might be found in a fanzine, being more  designed to test and surprise the players and their characters than anything else.

‘Thoughts on Combat’ offers suggestions to make combat in Dungeons & Dragons more interesting and sophisticated. These include bringing in player skill by getting each player to write down what their characters are going to do and sticking to it, adding critical hits and fumbles, and altering the bonus to Armour Class from Dexterity for heavier armour types. It does not go into details, merely giving suggestions. The ‘New Spells’ has four spells. These are Fuse, Block Transformation, Water Walking, and Locator, which are all self-explanatory bar Fuse, which enables a delay effect to be added to an object.

The Competition Scenario in The Beholder Issue 2 is ‘Petrarch’s Tower and the Vaults of Experimentation.’ At ten pages long, it is the longest piece in the issue. This is written for Third Level Player Characters of which eight pre-generated ones are provided, including one named ‘Westphalia’! The setting for the scenario is the Tower of Petrarch and the caves below it. The tower stands on a ledge over the Pass of Petrarch, inaccessible except by flight or through the tunnels below. The Wizard Petrarch discovered the entry into the ‘Three Thousand Steps of the Abyss’ that now lead into the Vaults of Experimentation five centuries ago, but it has been several centuries since he was last seen and the nearby authorities fear what might be found in them. Consequently, they have hired mercenaries—the Player Characters—to clear the tower and confirm that Petrarch is actually dead. The adventure is divided between the tower and the caves/tunnels below, there being more of the latter than the former. The dungeon contains some interesting rooms, like the room that Ogres have turned in a bowling alley using paralysed victims as the bowling pins, but this is very much a funhouse style dungeon with little in the way of a connected theme. The scenario ends with notes on adapting it to a Dungeon Master’s campaign and a competition points table which lists all of the points for achieving various objectives. Unfortunately, the adventure overall is too random and lacking in theme to be really interesting.

Lastly, The Beholder Issue 2 ends with ‘Magic Jar’. This describes some seventeen magical items. Much like those in the first issue of the fanzine, there are some fun entries here. For example, a Dispel Scroll has a specific spell written backwards on it. When read out it negates the nearest incident of that spell, whether that is a Player Character or an NPC elsewhere! The Automatic Sword functions like a permanent Dancing Sword, and will serve anyone who places five gems in the slots in the hilt. However, replace the gems with ones of a greater value and it will change master, so it is very mercenary! Spell Potions bottle spells and when the seal is broken, the spell infused into the potion is unleashed.

Physically, The Beholder, Issue 2 is a bit scruffy in places, but readable. The layout is tight and that does make it difficult to read in places. The illustrations and the cartography is not actually that bad. Of course, every issue of the fanzine was published when personal publishing was still analogue and the possibilities of the personal computer and personal desktop publishing were yet to come. In the case of The Beholder that would never be taken advantage of.

The Beholder has a high reputation for content that is of good quality and playable. The Beholder, Issue 2 does not yet match that reputation, let alone alone meet its own high standards in this second issue. The monsters still fail to excite and again, the given scenario is playable, but without any real purpose except to see if one playing group is better than another. That said, the design of it is better than the Competition Scenario in The Beholder, Issue 1 and this sort of dungeon dates from a time in player lives when play was enough rather than necessarily requiring a good reason. Overall, The Beholder, Issue 2 still feels like a typical fanzine of the period, not quite yet developing into the highly regarded fanzine to come.

[Fanzine Focus XXXIV] The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder

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 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 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. However, not all fanzines written with the Old School Renaissance in mind need to be written for a specific retroclone.

As beautiful as pieces of artwork that medieval illuminated manuscripts are, we have a fascination not with their actual words and their artistry of the copied work, as great as they, but with what lies alongside that artistry. For alongside the texts, medieval monks, in the laborious process of copying one manuscript after another, medieval monks would essentially add doodles in the margin, but doodles of a wholly illuminated and weird world full of strange creatures doing equally as strange things. Knights riding snails. Banditry rabbits. Headless duellists. Menacing snails. Magical beasts. Essentially, medieval scribes liked to fill the margins of their illuminated manuscripts with pictures of strange creatures doing strange things. Yet what if this monkish marginalia was not just the work of the imagination, but drawn from real life and such creatures as the monks drew to alleviate their boredom, were all too real. And if all of it was real, what could you do with it? This is a question answered by The Medieval Margin-agerie.

The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder is a sequel to The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 1, and likes its predecessor, takes our fascination with the marginalia of medieval monks and turns it into something gameable. Published by Just Crunch Games, following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it describes itself as “a zine of the grotesque, the weird and the bizarre for OSR games”. Although designed for use with the Old School Renaissance, it is not retroclone specific, but will work with most. In particular, the contents of The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2 will work very well with those of A Folklore Bestiary, published by The Merry Mushmen, and in tone, if not necessarily straight mechanics, with Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance retroclone designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing.

The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder restricts itself to just six entries—three fewer than in The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 1 ! Each is categorised under ‘What’, ‘Where’, ‘Why’, and ‘How’. Thus, ‘What’ is the creature, ‘Where’ is the creature found, ‘Why’ does the creature act the way it does, and ‘How’ might it be encountered and faced. This is followed by the stats. What is also noticeable about the second issue is the change in tone from the first issue. It should be noted that the various entries in both issues all represent the Medieval imagination, which is as prurient as our own, so there is content in the fanzine that is suggestive of the sexual and the scatological. Where the tone in The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 1 avoided being unnecessarily prurient, instead being a little smutty or saucy a la the Carry On films, the tone of The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder is just that bit more racier, a bit more dirty. It is though, only a slight shift, the more noticeable shift being how weird some of the entries are. What The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder does suggest is several uses for its various entries, building upon those given in The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 1. These include being summoned, accidentally or on purpose, as part of a demonic pact, such creatures slipping into out world when the walls between worlds are thin, or their appearance being the response of the natural world to an abundance of order.

The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder opens with ‘The Mysterious Caped Baboon’. This is a small, grey caped and eye-mask-wearing baboon whose posterior changes colour between red, blue, and white depending on his mood. He also wields a polearm with amazing skill, is incredibly pious, and is an assassin for hire—but only for assignments which he thinks the church will approve. ‘The Mysterious Caped Baboon’ can obviously be hired by the Player Characters, or he might have been hired to assassinate one or more of them! ‘The Black Lion of Saint Buffoonitus’ is a black lion—actually a demon—who prowls the countryside consuming churchmen and appreciating the local flora and fauna. It got its name from Saint Buffoonitus, a former magus and infamous idiot, who summoned it as joke, and after doing so, refused to banish it before running off on endless pilgrimages to escape the very annoyed Lion and its soul-scarring pleas to be freed. As fearsome as the Lion is, he can be spoken and is willing to speak, especially if the Player Characters are in a position to banish it or take revenge on Saint Buffoonitus!

Then it gets really weird with the ‘The Urns of Homuncules’. These are a pair of clay pots, plain apart from the letter ‘H’ scratched into their bottoms along with a fingerprint. Each also contains a mall, two foot tall, mishappen homunculus. Both are excellent thieves. Consequently, they are prized possessions for anyone who wants things stolen or planted, but does not want to go to the thieves’ guild. Indeed, any thieves’ guild would be very happy to own the urns. Not just to deploy the homunculi to its own ends, but also to deny that skill to anyone else. So far, so not weird. What is weird is the method of their creation. The process involves the owner of ‘The Urns of Homuncules’ defecating into one of the urns and urinating into the other, but at the same time (the accompanying illustration has to be seen to be believed!). The resulting creations are revolting as is their scatological and urological means of attack. There is an accompanying table to determine whether the creation goes right, since after all, it is a very messy business. ‘The Urns of Homuncules’ is fantastically weird and unpleasant, but also very silly.

The ’Froth-Tailed Stalking Monkey’ is also weird, but fortunately lacks the creation process. Take a cockatrice’s body, replace its head with that of grinning monkey’s, and make the tail very, very fluffy. It has an amazing ability to mimic voices and its means of attack is not a death stare, but a glossolalia stare. It makes its victims babble constantly, forcing them to spill secrets in the process, but in a language only it understands. So, it is sometimes sought out for the secrets it knows. The other reason why anyone would go looking for it is that each one of its tail fronds is guaranteed cure for any poison! That said, the ’Froth-Tailed Stalking Monkey’ is an evil creature and will often work with Rabbandits (see The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 1), gleefully using its mimicry skill and secrets learned to undermine the social order and sow paranoia in a village, eating the victims of any resulting murderous chaos, and then letting the Rabbandits loot everything!

‘The Melancholy Ploox’ is weirder, but not as fun. It consists of a head with a pair of bat’s wings and a pair of cat’s legs that jut out of its mouth. It is also deeply boring. So boring that its melancholia actually infects both people and the land, and its poetry is so bad that it actually hurts anyone listening to it. The last creature in The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder is ‘The Satyrica’. This is a Satyr-like beast, but with a goat’s head and then a lion’s head in its midriff. They are satirists and wits, driven out of the forests by Satyrs for their barbed comments and jokes which are capable of reducing listeners to tears. Tyrants or the pompous could also be the target of its insult-based comedy, but the ‘The Satyrica’ can actually be a good friend if you have no object to its gentle, near constant mocking. In general, ‘The Satyrica’ avoids combat, but it can deliver a stand-up routine that is so devastating that a target is physically hurt and avoids the creature for weeks!

The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder comes to a close with two tables. One is ‘Signs & Spore of Marginalia Manifest’, which is random signs left behind, whilst the other is its very own ‘Interesting Things to Find on the Body of the Dead’.

Physically, The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder is superbly presented, as if an illuminated manuscript itself done on parchment. The artwork is, of course, taken from the source material and so perfectly in keeping with that source material.

The entries in The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 1 are undoubtedly odd and weird. The entries in The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder are even odder and weirder. Very much weirder and odder, and if the contents of the first issue might be too much for some campaigns, then it is a case of being even more so with this second issue. There is still a lovely sense of verisimilitude to these creatures in being drawn from the vivid imaginations of monks and scribes, who thought up and created a weird world of monsters and beasts outside of the walls where they had been cloistered. Yet there is also the sense that the author has had to work harder to create the half dozen entries in The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder, that he is out-weirding himself in the process, and you have to wonder if he can do it again with a third issue. Thus, The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 2: Marge Harder takes the charmingly weird and wonderful of The Medieval Margin-agerie – Volume 1 and ratchets it up even further, adding in a dose of silliness in the process.

[Fanzine Focus XXXIV] Grogzilla #2

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 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 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. However, there are still fanzines being published which cover a variety of different roleplaying games, such as Grogzilla. This is published by D101 Games, best known for the OpenQuest roleplaying game and the Glorantha fanzine, Hearts in Glorantha. It is undeniably a showcase for what the publisher does and is full of ideas and bits and pieces, some of which are silly, some useful, and some interesting.

Grogzilla #2 – Son of Grogzilla! was published in October, 2021, as part of ZineQuest #3 and following a successful Kickstarter campaign. Its tone is distinctly less silly than Grogzilla #1, and its pages contain a good mix of the playable and the interesting. The issue opens with ‘A Slight Return’, a scenario for Monkey: The Role-Playing Game, the action-packed storytelling roleplaying game based upon the Chinese Classic, The Journey to the West, and of course, the television series, which tell of the heroic journey of the Monkey King and his companions, Pigsy, Sandy and Tripitaka through the vibrant world of Chinese folk religion. Monkey: The Role-Playing Game is a lot of fun and allows the players to both roleplay the Monkey King and his companions, or create characters of their own. ‘A Slight Return’ is designed to be run with the latter rather than the former. It is an introductory scenario, which can be used as a one-shot or a convention scenario. It opens with the Monkey King having made a mess across all of Creation in his rebellion against the Heavenly Authorities. It is the job of the Player Characters as disgraced minor Immortals and the appointed inter-Ministry clean-up crew, to tidy everything up and put it back as it was. The Player Characters will find themselves cleaning up the trickster’s poo left on the Register of the Dead, rescuing someone sent to Hell, fix a mountain whose top he lopped off, and more. It is a fun, picaresque little adventure and should be fun to both play and run.

Monkey: The Role-Playing Game is also the subject of the second entry in the fanzine. ‘The Ten-Minute Monkey Setup’ is designed to work with ‘A Slight Return’ or any time that a Game Master is running Monkey: The Role-Playing Game at a convention. It is written in response to a comment from the doyen of Games on Demand, Lloyd Gyan, that the designer’s explanation of the background to Monkey: The Role-Playing Game prior to running it at a convention was too long. It distils the background and set-up to just two pages as well as suggesting what to leave out. Clear and concise, it is the sort of thing that every roleplaying game should have.

‘Summerset: The Heart of Angland’ introduces a setting for 13th Age, the roleplaying game from Pelgrane Press which combines the best elements of both Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition and Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition to give high action combat, strong narrative ties, and exciting play. The setting takes place in Summerset, between the Red Castle in the north and Glasteenbury in the south, the most magical area in all of the Kingdom of Angland. It combines Arthurian legend with elements of the War of the Roses and the dark Satanic mills of the North some six centuries after the Romanous Empire withdrew from the country, five centuries after King Arthur I united the peoples of Angland, and five years after the end of The Rose War between the Nobles of Lankshire and the Nobles of Yirkshire in the Grim North. It gives a short history of the setting, a guide to its leading notables—they are the Icons of Angland which the Player Characters will be associated with, for good or ill, and its various locations. There is actually quite a lot of detail here and this is a solidly decent introduction to the setting. All that is really missing is a page or so of hooks that the Game Master could develop into scenarios.

The second scenario in Grogzilla #2 is ‘More Metal Than You’ll Ever Live to Be!’. This is designed for use with three to six Player Characters of Second and Third Level, for use with either Crypts & Things or Swords Against the Shroud. However, it would work with any number of other retroclones. It describes a crypt that was once the metallic body of the dead insect god, Anack’doska, hollowed by his evil cultists, who then developed amazing arms and armour before turning on themselves and wiping out the cult. There is said to be a great still left within the complex. Located under a volcano means that the tunnels and caves have a sulphurous quality and scattered throughout the complex are a number of metallic statues and ‘constructs’. The dungeon is serviceable and playable, but nothing more than that. It is the least interesting entry in the fanzine.

‘Welcome to Slumberland’ is the first of three entries in Grogzilla #2 devoted to Slumberland, a proposed roleplaying game of ‘Sleepy Horror’ using the mechanics of Liminal. It has a roughly Elizabethan feel and distinct North of England tones combined with a rural distrust of outsiders and especially anyone from the South. In Slumberland, the Player Characters are Wanderers, rootless adventurers sent by a Merciful Monarch, Queen Nell, to the edge of her Queendom to help the residents of Slumberland. The mistrustful inhabitants refuse to accept the interloping Wanderers as ‘locals’, restricting where they can sleep or what residence they can own, until they have earned some ‘Respect’. This is done by carrying various tasks and jobs too dangerous for ordinary folk. In other words, doing the typical adventuring things. ‘Respect’ is included as a new stat in Slumberland, representing the Wanderers’ interaction with the locals, whilst ‘Rest’ replaces Will in Liminal. A Wanderer with a high Rest is calm and collected, but with a low Rest is irritable and unpredictable, yet is at an advantage when interacting with the Dreaming, the magical realm that pervades Slumberland.

‘Welcome to Slumberland’ includes a guide to the area, its places, including the River Slumber, which sends anyone who falls into it asleep and an Underworld of failed routes under the mountain now filled with monsters. Important things include Tea and Slow Gin, and horrors include undead horrors like the Barrow Wrongs and night horrors found under the bed and in the closet. There is also a lengthy guide to Slumberish, the dialect of the region. ‘Welcome to Slumberland’ has an intentionally odd bucolic feel, set in Tudor England, but it does veer into regional stereotypes at times.

‘The Slumberland Hack’, the middle article presents the changes to the Liminal rules to run Slumberland as a setting. This includes rules for Rest, weapon and armour as Slumberland is a fantasy setting, and new skills, concepts like the Royal Guard, Spy, Templar, and Field Magician, and Limitations such as ‘Servant of the Crown’ meaning that the Player Character has sworn an oath to serve Queen Nell and takes it very, very seriously. The new Limitation, ‘Royal College Field Magician’ grants access to a handful of spells, which cost Rest to cast, whilst ‘Order of the Solemn Temple Liturgist’ provides divine powers. Of note is the magic spell, Slumber. Which specifically affects a target’s Rest and can put a mob to sleep. Overall, the changes make sense, though there is no mechanical explanation for ‘Rest’.

‘The Tunnel to Slumberland’, the third article dedicated to Slumberland, is an introductory scenario designed to get the Player Characters there. Every thirty years the monarch of the Realm is obliged to send aid to the North, ‘Agents of Mercy. In this case, it is the Wanderers, or Player Characters, who are sent north from Crystal City by good Queen Nell. Their route will be via a tunnel to avoid Spider Wood which has been taken over by the Darkness. Built by Dwarves and managed in part by Master of Royal Works in the north, Bob Dibner, the southern tunnel entrance is in Cheese Gorge. The adventure is a series of linked encounters in the tunnel and will get the Wanderers to the North at the least. After that, the Game Master will need to develop her own adventures.

Overall, Slumberland is fun if slightly silly, British readers of a certain age being able to spot the jokes and references. There is a lot more to be revealed about Slumberland—if it ever appears—but this trio of articles is an enjoyable, if slightly messy introduction. Were it not for the use of the Liminal rules, Slumberland feels as if it could be slotted into the Midderlands setting from Monkey Blond design.

The last article in Grogzilla #2 is one last bit of silliness. ‘The Secret of the Grogdice’ is inspired by Grogmeet, the annual convention organised by The Grognard Files, a North of England podcast dedicated to the games of the late seventies and early eighties. Specifically, it is what the author uses his ‘Grogdie’—a six-sided die given to Game Masters for the event, which has The Grognard Files icon on the number six face of the die—for in play. Essentially, it provides a quick and dirty table to roll on for spicing up play. It does not actually require a Grogdie and would work with any die with a different face to the usual six.

Physically, Grogzilla #2 is clean and simple. It is easy to read and the illustrations are decent. It is a little rough around the edges in places and it does need an edit in others.

Grogzilla #2 has a lot of playable content. The scenario for Monkey: The Role-Playing Game is excellent and a lot of fun, whilst with ‘Summerset: The Heart of Angland’ and ‘Welcome to Slumberland’ the fanzine introduces a pair of interesting settings that do leave the reader wanting more. However, it is disappointing to see neither of them yet fully developed, so the Game Master is on her own until they are. Nevertheless, Grogzilla #2 is an entertaining read that captures a certain Englishness.

[Fanzine Focus XXXIV] The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2

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 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 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. Then there is also Old School Essentials.

The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2 continues the description of the ‘Lost World’ setting begun in The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 1, detailing a plateau only whispered of lying deep in the southern jungles for use with Old School Essentials. Unfortunately, the first issue of the fanzine was an unbalanced affair, dividing its attention between some evocative Classes for Player Characters and NPCs residing on the plateau and a adventure to get Player Characters from the lands of civilisation to the north onto the plateau. The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2 presents the various social groupings atop the plateau. These consist of ten tribes, six humanoid tribes, and four kingdoms. The ten tribes are hunters and gatherers, and fairly small. Each is given a page that lists their (Present Social) Structure, Relationships, Weapons, and Cultural and Ethnic Aspects. The Present Social Structure breaks down their numbers, the Relationships notes connections to other tribes, and the Cultural and Ethnic Aspects. The descriptions vary wildly in length and thus detail. For example, ‘The Aasai’, skilled hunters and trap makers, is only accorded half a page, and note the tribe is dominated by a shamanic council, number roughly thirty, and its members paint their hair red, stretch their ears, and make statues to various dinosaur deities. The Hazda tribe is give three quarters of a page. They are skilled scouts and explorers and know the plateau very well, its members include eight scouts, and they believe that after death, the soul transforms into a tree, so worship the whole jungle across the plateau as their ancestors, believe that the world was created by a giant Megaloceros known as Ksitu and build bone towers in their camps to him, and use a flower extract as eyedrops to increase tribe members’ physical and spiritual perception. There is this constant fluctuation from one tribe to the next in terms of content and detail or lack of it, including the relationships between tribes. In too many cases, it is simply stated that a tribe is in an ethnic conflict or has problems with another, but not why. There is a lot of variation between the tribes, but too many feel underdeveloped, especially if the Game Master and her players want to use them in conjunction with the character Classes given in The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 1.

The six humanoid tribes are all treated as monsters rather than Player Characters and NPCs which could use the Classes given in The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2. Like the human tribes, they are given a page that lists their Social Structure, Relationships, Weapons, and Cultural and Ethnic Aspects. Added to this is a table of names. This is done for each of the six humanoid tribes, leaving the Game Master why something similar was not include for the ten other tribes? There appears to be greater numbers of them, and they include Neanderthals, what could be apes, and what could be Orcs. Unlike the description of the ten tribes, which includes an illustration, few of the descriptions of the humanoid tribes do. This is a fundamental failing, because these are essentially monster tribes in the Kalunga Plateau setting and the Game Master has no idea what they look like.

‘The Four Great Kingdoms’ presents a similar treatment of the organised kingdoms in the south of the plateau, one of which is found underground. Each is given a two-page spread, which lists its Crops and Livestock, Language, Social Structure, Economic Structure, Religion, Population and Hierarchy, and war Technology. The entries are longer, but typically most of the second page is taken with a single large illustration. To call them kingdoms is a misnomer, since each only has the town. That said, why not name that town and mark it on the map? Also, why is there no description of the towns? No simple description of what the kingdom is? No mention of the relationships between the kingdoms or between the kingdoms and the various tribes—both human and humanoid? For example, the Anuunaki have vertical farms in the black dirt walls of cliffs, where they also having breeding huts for the pterodactyls which they ride, but this is listed under Crops and Livestock. Okay, yes, the pterodactyls are technically livestock, but surely one of the leading facts about the kingdom is that it raises pterodactyls which are then ridden? That should be upfront and not buried in a section on farming, and ignores the fact that the entry on the Anuunaki does not tell the reader what they are used for. It does show in the accompanying illustration, but that is not the point. So, whilst there is a lot of good description given for the four kingdoms, the fundamentals are still missing and the information is poorly organised.

Although the four kingdoms described, there are no guidelines on creating either Player Characters or NPCs from any one of the four. This partly negates their use until more information is provided, but certainly space could have been made in the pages of the fanzine given that so much space is devoted to artwork that takes up almost whole pages.

Lastly, in ‘Creed’ examines some of the gods and spiritual beings attracted to the plateau and worshipped there. That worship is more formalised in the Southern Kingdoms, but in each case gives the entity’s Spiritual Form, Physical Form, Behaviour, Interests Over the Plateau, Offerings, Shaman’s Clothes, and Symbol Made on the Floor. The latter describes how the symbol is made, for example, that of Agwessu, ‘Master of the Lakes and the River’, must be made with the powder of dried fish scales, but not why. Where the tribes see them as animistic beings, the shaman of the southern kingdoms call them ‘Baghvãs’ and allow them to manifest in their own bodies. Besides the main pantheon, there is a list of minor ‘Baghvãs’ too. What really is not explored is what the shaman gets out of all of this.

Physically, The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2 is well presented. The artwork and the cartography are both decent. The fanzine is overwritten and slightly heavy going, and in need of a good edit.

The problem with The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 2 is not just that its contents vary between the not very interesting, the poorly explained, and the unanswered questions, but that it avoids the interesting parts of the setting. The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 1 described how the Plateau was once home to an alien civilisation whose presence was destroyed when an enormous sphere hit the planet. The sphere still remains, buried deep in the earth under the plateau that its impact threw up. What ruins remain are regarded by the current inhabitants of the Plateau as having been built by the gods. This, plus the combination of dinosaurs and the Lost World, is what is interesting about The Kalunga Plateau as a setting. Yet two issues in and none of that is explored or examined, leaving the would-be Game Master waiting for what is essentially, the good bits. Hopefully, some of that will be explored in The Kalunga Plateau – Issue 3, but in the meantime, The Kalunga Plateau as a fanzine is beginning to feel like a partwork in which all of the interesting and playable content has been saved for much later issues.

[Fanzine Focus XXXIV] Book of Misery Vol. 1

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 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 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. A more recent Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game that fanzines are being based upon and inspired by is Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance retroclone designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing.

Book of Misery Vol. 1 is a fanzine for Mörk Borg written and published by Gizmo in December 2022. It contains a mix of options for both players and the Game Master. This includes new Classes, weapons, monsters, and dungeons that can be easily brought into play and all done in the artpunk style that Mörk Borg is notorious for. It opens with the first of six new Classes, a mixture of rebels, dissidents, revisionists, and weirdos. ‘The Thinking Thinker’ is weak, but has an enormous Presence and head—whether from a spillage of alchemical liquids, an experiment that gave him an extra brain, or a vestigial twin that was devoured in the womb and absorbed into his brain—and might be equipped with The Calculated Method Book that allows a daily reroll or a letter opener, which is no good against anyone wearing armour. The ‘Nihilistic Conqueror’ is a warrior driven to spread wrath and destruction, perhaps because he believes that his gods will despise him for his cowardice if he does not fight, he wants to see everyone he dislikes pay a blood price for having the gall to exist, or simply has anger issues. He is tough and charismatic, and armed with something like a sharpened axe capable of piercing heavy armour or be accompanied by Huginn, a trusty raven friend capable of pecking enemies when not spying all around.

The ’Hag of a Bygone Age’ is a nun who worships a dead god or has been abandoned by her god, but she has abandoned it. Weak and clumsy, her faith gives her great charisma, and she knows a single prayer, written in a dead language. These can be very powerful, such as causing the undead or those without flesh to crumble into dust or as her eyes roll back in her head and she speaks in tongues, the strength of those around her to wither and even inflict damage. ‘Man’s Best Friend’, is exactly what it suggests, an agile dog with keen senses that can roughly sniff out the number of enemies nearby or locate an object or with ‘Cujo Syndrome’, which after having been bitten by a sewer rat, his foaming teeth are infectious! The ‘Sewer Baby’ was raised in a sewer and the toxic sludge cemented his physical age, whilst being raised by rats taught him to be cunning. His childhood memories are twisted and terrible, but accompanied by a faithful rat companion, he is also capable of spitting acidic sour milk or staring at people so hard that they run away. Lastly, the ‘Ashen Warrior’ is a unique character type for Mörk Borg—a hero! Wearing heavy armour and armed with a mighty claymore, the Ashen Warrior does not have a quirk, power, or trait, but simply has Bloodlust, which grants him extra damage after killing ten enemies in combat.

Overall, this is an entertaining and interesting mix of Classes. They include the usual range of the revolting and wretched, but balance that against an actual heroic Class and a Class that can be happy in the form of ‘Man’s Best Friend’. All six could find a home alongside those given in Mörk Borg and supplements for it.

There is not one ‘Crit Fail Table’, but two. One for attacking and one for defending. Both are decent and do exactly what they are intended to do. As does ‘More Weapons’, which gives seven more weapons like the Sharpened Throwing Finger, the Stabby Sticky, and the Claymore. These are followed by twelve monsters! These include the ‘Cosmic Phase Spider’, the ‘Piskie’, ‘Undead Lightning’—a combination of the machine and the dead which pulsates lightning, ‘Carapace Man Spider’, ‘The Red Spawn of Rot’, and more. There are other monsters detailed elsewhere in the fanzine.

‘Gran’s Tea Hut’ is an encounter in the woods with a quaint little hut, the home of an old lady who sells tea. Depending upon their behaviour towards her, she will serve them tea with either positive or negative effects. If things go really bad, her granddaughter, a mighty warrior woman will step in to protect her grandmother.

The first of the three scenarios in Book of Misery Vol. 1 is ‘Howling Caverns’. A fall into a pit of sludge and waste from which a single narrow tunnel leads to a number of caverns, mostly filled with the dead or dying. There is an encounter with a sacrifice attempt, which is not going the way that most of them do, and that really is it. There is very little in the way of plot beyond the Player Characters falling into the pit and having to find a way out, so the Game Master may want to create something. Otherwise, easy to add as an encounter as a sinkhole in the wilderness or a pit in another dungeon, but not very interesting. The second scenario, ‘A Dungeon Most Pointless’ lives up to its name. The dungeon consists of nine locations, unconnected except for the fact that they are on the same map. It is not even clear if any of the rooms are actually connected and even then, one of the locations is outside of the dungeon. With no overview, no reward, or even anything in the way of a hook or a plot, the most redeeming quality of ‘A Dungeon Most Pointless’ is that you can flick the pages over very fast to get past it. The third scenario, ‘The Putrid House’ is not as long as ‘A Dungeon Most Pointless’, but it is infinitely better and proves that the author can create a decent dungeon. It starts with the Player Characters waking up in the dungeon, unsure of how they got there. To get out, they must fight past troughs of mould and fungi, maniacs, and more. It has a dark, dingy, and desperate feel and is quick and easy to run.

The editorial does not come until the last page, the inside of the back cover. It acknowledges the inspirations for the issue come from a wide variety of sources and persons.

Physically, Book of Misery Vol. 1 adheres to the artpunk style of Mörk Borg. For the most part it works, but some of the founts selected do make the titles difficult to read.

Book of Misery Vol. 1 is a mixed bag. The scenarios, for the most part, are simply disappointing. The monsters are okay, but nothing really stands out. However, and fortunately, ‘Gran’s Tea Hut’ is enjoyably charming in its simplicity, plus the six new Classes are generally interesting and playable.

[Fanzine Focus XXXIV] Crawling Under A Broken Moon Issue No. 4

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. 4 was published in in December, 2014 by Shield of Faith Studios. It continued the detailing of post-apocalyptic setting of Umerica and Urth which had begun in Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 1, and would be continued in Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 2, which added further Classes, monsters, and weapons, and Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 3, which provided the means to create Player Characters and gave them a Character Funnel to play. The setting has, of course, gone on to be presented in more detail in The Umerican Survival Guide – Core Setting Guide, now distributed by Goodman Games. The setting itself 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. Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 4 focuses a particular aspect of the Cleric Class in the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, but obviously for the Umerica and Urth setting. This is the Patron, the particular deity or entity that that the Cleric has sworn to worship and serve, and in return gain access to a number of spells that only a member of his faith can cast.

The first of the three Patrons described in Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 4 is actually a throwback to Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 2. ‘The Earth Brain of the Cyberhive’, which is fascinated understanding how living beings conceive and react to Life and Death, the Cyberhive actually being fully detailed in the previous issue along with its Zombie Monk and Robo-Lich servants. Its fascination with life and death is not reflected in all of the spells it grants. Defensive Upgrade providing temporary cybernetic armour to one or more targets and Control+Alt+Delete enabling the caster to control computers and robots, but Create Cybomination actually creating reanimated undead with cybernetics. ‘The Mighty Kizz – The intergalactic god of Rock and Roll’ is the uber masculine god of awesomeness dressed in black leather, jagged spikes, and chains and never without Soulbreaker, his massive, flaming battle axe guitar, in his hands. He does not demand that his worshippers be musicians or even play an instrument, but rather that they obtain a state of ‘Enlightened Awesomeness’ and apply it to everything they do, because if something is worth doing, it is worth being ‘Awesome’ about it, especially if it entertains him! The results of his Invoke Patron check is particularly entertaining, such as summoning a stampede of spectral fans or causing a wall, floor, or ceiling to transform into a wide mouth with bright red lips, sharpened teeth, and lengthy tongue that attempts to lick up all enemies and devour them! The entertaining them continues with the spells Kizz my Axe, Mosh Pit, and Aspect of KIZZ. The Mighty Kizz is obvious in its inspiration, but it is over-the-top, wild-haired fun.

The third of the Patrons is ‘Theszolokomodra – the 1000 headed multi-dimensional Hydra’. Also known as the Unknowable Serpent Sage, the Observer of Realms, the Many-headed Master of Secrets, its actual purpose is inscrutable, but Theszolokomodra does is known to study the views from thousands of dimensional portals that surrounds its glittering Thronemound. Worshippers become hosts to its Servitor Worms and gain the benefits of Theszolokomodra’s knowledge such as a glimpse of the future, a question asked of the Game Master answered truthfully, whilst the spell Tactical Display drops stat blocks over the heads of enemies that the caster can read, Wraith of the Worm makes the host’s Servitor Worm target the host enemies with a bolt of gut-twisting pain, and Dimensional Maws calls forth several of Theszolokomodra’s jaws to chomp at the caster’s enemies.

The Patron theme continues with ‘Patron Objects’ and its first entry with The Solar Saber. This is an intelligent techno-magical weapon, originally created to kill Cyber-Sorcerers. It has to be wielded by a worthy—and thus Lawful—user, and it will only do its fullest damage against Cyber-Sorcerers, otherwise its damage is reduced or even negated. Three points of Luck have to be sacrificed to bond with it, and it has to be invoked to use, but can taint the wielder too, so effectively the equivalent of a mini-Patron that the Player Character is wielding!

Lastly, the ‘Twisted Menagerie’ describes the Rocker, a Heavy Metal Elemental, which is the mindlessly devoted servant of Kizz. Just as silly and knowing as Kizz himself, they congregate in small groups, wear black tee shirts, and really only spring into action when there is music and then they slam dance each other and anyone caught in their own personal mosh pit!

Physically, Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 4 is serviceably presented. It is a little rough around the edges, as is some of the artwork, but overall, it is a decent affair. The problem with Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 4 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.

Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 4 is a fairly light affair and upon first glance, it feels a bit one-note, dealing with just the one aspect of the setting. That feeling never goes away, even despite the fact that the three Patrons are really quite fun and the inspiration for The Mighty Kizz is obvious. Plus, ‘The Earth Brain of the Cyberhive’ really does feel as if it should have been included in Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 2, and it does feel like perhaps each of the three Patrons could have had a monster or their own or a Patron Object, just to develop them a little further. Perhaps there should have just been the one Patron in this issue and there should have been something else to balance it.

Jonstown Jottings #89: Eyes’ Rise

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

—oOo—

What is it?

Eyes’ Rise is a supplement for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha which details the sandbox setting of the village of Five Eyes and its surrounds and its factions, as well as the River Folk of the River of Cradles.

It is a thirty-one page, full colour 2.80 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy and it is lightly illustrated. It needs a slight edit.

There are notes on how to use it with QuestWorlds.

Where is it set?

Eyes’ Rise is set in the Grantlands along the banks of the River of Cradles after the Lunar Empire has been driven out of Pavis and fled the area.

Who do you play?
Eyes’ Rise does not require any specific character type. The main hook for the supplement has the Player Characters hired to protect the village, so combatants will be useful.

What do you need?
Eyes’ Rise requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary.

What do you get?

Eyes’ Rise presents a settlement facing an uncertain future. This is the village of Five Eyes, a former River Folk settlement renowned for the nearby ancient carvings on the cliffs which look like eyes and from which the village takes its name. Following the Lunar invasion, the village was selected as town and administrative for the surrounding grantlands. Circumstances that begin the Dragon Wise forced the Lunar Empire to flee the area, leaving the would be town partially completed, but without protection or direction as to its future and in danger of imminent collapse and abandonment by the remaining population. The villagers need to find a way to finish building the fortifications which will protect them from raids by bandits, grow the population, train the militia, and establish it as a viable stopping point along the river. In the immediate future, the villagers need to find a way to protect the village and train the militia. This is where the Player Characters, hired for their services. (Other reasons are given for visiting Five Eyes, but this is the primary one.)

Both the village and its inhabitants are described in some detailed, including detailed backgrounds, with eight of the Grantlanders or newcomers and three Riverfolk given full stats as well as a number of outsiders. The former includes five teenagers that the Player Characters will have to train into a serviceable militia. The latter includes a scholar, a bandit, and more. Each NPC is given one or more aims or motivations and several have reasons why they might hire the Player Characters.

A last part of Eyes’ Rise is devoted to the River Folk, their society, culture, governance, and religion. There is the means too to create Riverfolk characters. This is useful to create characters local to Five Eyes and up and down the River of Cradles.

Eyes’ Rise is essentially the set-up for a mini-campaign. This can be one of simply providing protection to the village, but there is scope too for the Player Characters to settle here and use Five Eyes as a base of operations or a home. How either will play out is outside the scope of the supplement, as it does not provide details of the threats facing the village and its inhabitants. The Game Master will need to create these and build in events and happenings to keep the campaign moving and the Player Characters involved. There is thus potential here for a campaign in the style of Seven Samurai or The Magnificent Seven, or given the upheaval of recent events in the region for a bunch of vagabonds, deserters, mercenaries, and the like to redeem themselves and hopefully keep the village safe.

Is it worth your time?

Yes—Eyes’ Rise can form the basis of a solid mini-campaign though one that the Game Master will need to further develop to make her own.

No—Eyes’ Rise is not developed enough for the Game Master to use easily and it is set well out of the way.

Maybe—Eyes’ Rise has potential as a campaign, but not without a high degree of effort.

Miskatonic Monday #272: The Mask of the Black Sun

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. 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.

—oOo—

Name: The Mask of the Black Sun

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Alexander Nachaj

Setting: Jazz Age Canada

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twelve page, 2.11 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A stolen case leads to stolen mask

Plot Hook: When a monster crosses your path...
Plot Support: Staging advice, ten handouts, four NPCs, and one Mythos monster.

Production Values: Tidy.

Pros

# Very straightforward investigation
# Easy to slot into an existing campaign
# Easy to adjust to other times and places

# Easy to run as a convention scenario

# Plays to the Private Detective tropes

# Masklophobia

# Kinemortophobia

# Foniasophobia

Cons

# Needs an edit

# Very straightforward investigation

# Uninteresting villains and motivations
# No maps

# No floorplans

# Plays to the Private Detective clichés

# Handouts are text handouts, even for the photographs

Conclusion

# Unsophisticated, very straightforward investigation

# Plays to the tropes and clichés of the Private Detective genre and is easy to adapt