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 how another Dungeon Master and her 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. 7 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, 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, Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 4, which detailed several Patrons for the setting, whilst Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 5 explored one of the inspirations for the setting and fanzine, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 6 continued that trend with another inspiration, Mad Max. 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, but leave its inhabitants ruled by savagery, cruel sorcery, and twisted science.
Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 7 continues heavily from one of the major post-apocalypse genre’s touchstones for the inspiration for its content, which was the Mad Max series of films. Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 7 continues to draw from that inspiration, but provides content beyond the notions of vehicular combat between radically customised vehicles across the post-apocalyptic landscape. So alongside new vehicles and rules for them, it adds a new Class that continues the mechanical feel of the previous issue and details a major location within the setting of Umerica and Urth.
The new Class is ‘The Cyborg’. This Class is adept with any and all missile weapons and one-handed or built-in weapons, and because it has artificial body parts, it is more difficult to damage. This reduces the amount of damage it might suffer from any source and also from critical hits. However, damage suffered to the mechanical body parts cannot be healed, but must be repaired. What this means mechanically, is that any damage suffered is divided into two parts—‘Meat and ‘Non-Meat’—but together still represents the total amount of damage suffered. Although this combines to give an advantage and a disadvantage to the Cyborg, it also increases the record keeping for the player. The ‘Juryrig’ ability and its associated die enable the Cyborg to repair itself—or at least its ‘Non-Meat’ bits—and other bits of technology and even find salvage. At First Level and then every third Level after that, the Cyborg can upgrade itself, with ‘Advanced composites’, which decreases the amount damage that the Cyborg will suffer to its ‘Non-Meat’ bits, ‘Targeter System’ that give a bonus to all ranged attacks, and ‘Armoured Plating’ which increases its Armour Class. All of the Upgrades can be selected more than once, but the bonuses gained are marginal. This is a pared down version of a Cyborg Class which could have been much more complex than it is.
If Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 6 dealt with automobiles, ‘Trains, Planes, and Mobile Suits’ in this issue deals with the rest—and more. First trains, dividing engine types into small and large and adding a handful of cars as well as traits to add to them like ‘Refrigeration’ and ‘Super Hauler’. Driving a train is treated like driving a vehicle, though with minor adjustments and a ‘Locomotive Wipeout Results’ table should the engineer lose control of the train. Added to this are rules for ‘Gyrocopters and Ultralights’ a la Mad Max 2, which are more complex. They have their own cruising height and the higher an altitude a gyrocopter or ultralight is at, the harder it is for its pilot to target ground targets and for anyone on the ground to hit him, whilst there is a lower chance of turbulence at higher altitudes and lower penalties to the aircraft’s Handle Modifier. Crashing from higher altitude increases the damage taken, of course. The Handle Modifier is used for the Vehicle Control roll and if the roll is failed, gyrocopters and ultralights, have their own ‘Aerial Wipeout Results’ table. gyrocopters and ultralights also have their traits, such as ‘Auto Rotate’, ‘Bomb Rack’, and ‘Glider’.
Unlike trains and ground vehicles, aircraft are not easy to pilot and pilots must use a much smaller Action Die whilst learning to fly and getting in sufficient practice. The same is true of the last type of vehicle covered in the article, which are mechs and other robo-vehicles. These are also divided between light and heavy mechs and have their own traits, like ‘High Maintenance’ and ‘Mecha’, the latter means that it can move in an anthropomorphic fashion. All of this mixes and matches a lot of different apocalyptic genres, but the inclusion of trains suggests a post-apocalyptic where societies have been founded and begun to recover or construct old technology and thus create infrastructure and a semblance of civilisation. Of course, there are regions still recovering or still lawless, so the other vehicles are perhaps better suited those.
That sense of growing civilisation is more fully explored in ‘The Citadel of Scrap’, an entry in the ‘Interesting Places To Die’ series. This describes an actual metropolis, best known for some of the best-preserved artefacts from the twenty-first century, surviving infrastructure and railway hub, and being run by a triumvirate magocracy formed of the cybersorcerers, the Three Royals, who together have built the tallest building in the city, the four storey Growling Tower, to encase the Pit of the God in gears and metal, whilst each hopes to be the one powerful enough to control the god when it awakes. Each of the city’s various districts are described, including the Trash Mines in The Ruins, where a greetings card factory has been found and Forgotten Home, an immaculately maintained replica of twenty-first century living where the inhabitants live in denial of the Broken Moon. Included is a small table of job opportunities—there could have been more, and whilst ‘The Citadel of Scrap’ further develops the world of Umerica and Urth. A map of the city would have been useful.
‘The Rail Wastes’ is a companion piece to the earlier ‘Trains, Planes, and Mobile Suits’, a set of short tables of encounters that take on the railway lines or in the ‘rail wastes’ that run parallel to the line through unoccupied or barren territory. Which means that can happen whilst the Player Characters are aboard a train, whilst ‘Spare Change’ covers the coinage and means of exchange in Umerica and Urth, including ‘cp’ or ‘charm pieces’, ‘sp’ or ‘shells and powder’, and ‘gp’ or ‘Gasoline/Petrol or Gas Promissory Note’. It keeps it simple and again builds on the setting’s growing civilisation.
Lastly, the regular ‘Twisted Menagerie’ presents in some detail three new monsters: the Autogiest, the Bounder, and the Discarded. The first is a conglomerate spirit of those who have died in violent car wrecks and joined together to punish the living, searching the wastelands for a suitable vehicle to possess and then it goes on a rampage as an undead car fiend, attempting to run down anyone it finds. Although the body, that is, the vehicle can be destroyed, this only frees the spirit to hunt for another vehicle. It must be exorcised to truly defeat it. Each Autogiest has its own, random special ability. The Bounder is the mutated descendant of kangaroos kept in North American zoos, which can be ridden—often by nomads—and can have its very Australian-themed special abilities. Lastly, the Discarded is an agglomeration of old, broken, or unwanted cyber implants which together hunt those who discarded them! These are all fun additions to the setting.
Physically, Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 7 is serviceably presented. It is a little rough around the edges, as is some of the artwork, but overall, it is another decent affair. Of course, the problem with Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 6 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 by a cleaner, slicker presentation of the material.
Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 7 is a companion piece to Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 6, continuing the mechanical theme with more vehicles and the Cyborg Class. Yet it also develops the setting itself with the description of ‘The Citadel of Scrap’, providing context for many of the articles in this and previous issues. Plus, the articles in this issue complement each other, with their focus on trains and infrastructure and that major settlement, so beginning to bring the world of Umerica and Urth to life.
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