Rebellion & Repulsion

It is 1775. It is an Age of Reason. It is an Age of Rebellion. It is an Age of War. New philosophies of logic, mathematics, and science appearing in the writings of Descartes, Hobbes, and Newton are being read and embraced and are supplanting centuries old beliefs rooted in myth and superstition. In the Thirteen Colonies, the first shots have been fired and the Patriot militias defeating the British Army at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, igniting tensions between Colonies and the Crown in London and setting them aflame. Great Britain and her Thirteen Colonies in North America are now at war. It is also an Age of a Secret War. For as many embrace the new ways of thinking, some still reject it, for they know the truths about the world, whether that is learned from a master or a mistress or because they have confronted it in all of its terrifying reality. Monsters are real. Magic is real. There are some men and women who would use their knowledge of magic and monsters for ill, there are monsters native to the New World and some came with the colonists from the Old, and perhaps there is a deeper, darker threat that only the most ambitious and most foolish would treat with. Whatever your politics—Loyalist, Nonassociator, or Patriot—these threats may be the biggest danger to the future of the Thirteen Colonies whether they remain in the grasp of the Crown or break free of its regime and achieve independence. This is the setting for Colonial Gothic.

Originally published in 2007, Colonial Gothic returns to its original roots after Flames of Freedom with a streamlined and revised version of the original rules. Published by Rogue Games, Inc. can be a roleplaying game of ‘High-Action’ a la the film The Patriot or the comic book, The Rebels; ‘Occult & Mystery’ inspired by H.P. Lovecraft or Edgar Allan Poe; or of confrontations with the ‘Supernatural’ like the films, Sleepy Hollow, Brotherhood of the Wolf, and Pirates of the Caribbean, with the latter being the default, but still cinematic. The core rulebook covers character creation, rules, magic, and some of the dangers that the Player Characters might face.

A Player Character is defined by seven Abilities—Brawn, Nimble, Vigor, Reason, Resolve, Vitality, and Sanity. Of these, all but the last two vary in value between ‘+0’ and ‘+4’, although they can be as high as ‘+10’. Vitality and Sanity are derived factors, Vitality representing a Player Character’s ability to suffer damage and Sanity his mental well-being. He also has a Background, Side, Profession, Action Points and Hooks, and skills. The Background options include Frontier Colonist, Rural Colonist, Urban Colonist, Freedman, Freed Slave, Former Indentured Servant, Immigrant, Native, and Tribe-Adopted. His Side can be Loyalist, Nonassociator, or Patriot. Neither Background nor Side impart any bonuses or skills, instead providing roleplaying details only. His Profession further explains his background, grants a Vitality Bonus, gives some starting skills, and three items of equipment. They include a wide range of Professions such as Alchemist, Barber, Clergy, Clerk, Farmer, Gambler, Lawyer, Libertine, Militia, Publican, Robber, Student of the Occult, Witch Hunter, and more. Hooks are categorised as either Educational, Emotional, Magical, Metaphysical, Physical, Situational, or Supernatural, and are statements such as ‘I will pay my taxes to the American government to forge my freedom rather than pay them to a king I will never see’ or ‘My faith is all I have in the face of a greater evil’. These are tagged in play in order to spend Action Points.

To create a character, a player assigns six points across Brawn, Nimble, Vigor, Reason, and Resolve. He then selects a Background, Side, Profession, Hooks, and skills. All of the Backgrounds, Sides, and Professions are all really nicely detailed and for the Native and Tribe-Adopted Backgrounds, Colonial Gothic provides very decently done descriptions of the peoples of the Indigenous nations.

Name: Simon Teahan
Background: Former Indentured Servant
Side: Patriot
Profession: Student of the Occult
Brawn 0 Nimble 1 Vigor 1 Reason 2 Resolve 2
Vitality 12
Sanity 50

Skills
Astrology (Reason) 0, Herbalist (Reason) 0, Lore (Reason) 1, Magic (Resolve) (Clarity’s Embrace) +0, Magic (Resolve) (Veiled Aegis) 1, Study (Astronomy) 1

Hooks
‘The bastard British deserve every kicking they get’
‘I owe my master for the knowledge I know, but I will become greater than him to defeat his evil’

Equipment
The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, The Divine Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trimegistus, The Hieroglyphic Monad

Mechanically, Colonial Gothic involves the rolling of two twelve-sided dice. The typical Target Number is twelve and to this a player add the Ranks for his character’s Skill and its associated Ability. Modifiers apply to the dice rather than the Target Number. Rolls above the Target Number can generate Degrees of Success, whilst rolls below the Target Number can generate Degrees of Failure. It is up to the Game Master to decide what that might be narratively. Combat uses the same mechanic. Initiative is a simple test using Nimble and actions include Attack, Casting Spell, Hiding, Loading a Weapon, Searching, Withdrawing, and so on. Rolling the exact Target Number in combat inflicts only the base damage for the weapon, whilst Degrees of Success will add to the base damage. When a Player Character suffers damage, he suffers a ‘-1’ penalty to all actions for the first ten points suffered, and then ‘-1’ for each five points after that. Damage is deducted from Vitality. Fear is resolved as a Resolve test and if failed, the Player Character loses Sanity and suffers a ‘-2’ penalty until he can rest. Losing Sanity can result in the Player Character also suffering from a phobia, which when it is in effect, imposes a greater penalty. Both Vitality and Sanity recover at a rate of one point per day, and a Phobia can be overcome, but should a Player Character’s Sanity be reduced to zero, the Phobia becomes permanent and his Sanity is permanently reduced by one.

Colonial Gothic is a set in a world in which magic is real and practiced by mages, sorcerers, witches, and shamans. Two forms of practice are detailed, Alchemy and Magic, both exclusive to the other, so that if a practitioner studies one, he cannot study the other. Mechanically, an Alchemist gains ranks in the Alchemical Arts, whilst a Mage gains ranks in different spells. The Arts include the Alchemicall Revanaunt by which the alchemist can create a zombie; the Arte of Blackpowder, the creation of various types of gunpowder; the Arte of Elixirs such as the Philosopher’s Tincture which sharpens wits; and the Vitae of Rekyndlyng for restoring a person to life. Alchemy requires investment in equipment and reagents, and it takes time to complete as well as gather any ingredients needed, whilst failed tests tend to concoct tinctures and elixirs that have negative rather than positive effects. The casting of spells is quicker, but still takes several rounds depending upon the spell. Spells also have a cost in Sanity to cast. Of the two, more detail is accorded to alchemy including its history and aims, making it easier for the Game Master to make it an aspect of play.

Besides a good list of equipment that includes weapons and alchemical apparatus, the Game Master is supported with advice on running Colonial Gothic. It primarily focuses on how to use the history of the period and how to use horror in play. Its default is a ‘secret’ history, but does not discount using alternative history either. It advises that the Game Master be respectful of the history whilst using it as a source of ideas. That said, it does not suggest where to look for that history and it highlights one absence from Colonial Gothic—and that is the lack of a bibliography, which would have served as a pointer for the Game Master wanting to do some research herself. This is not an issue that affects the roleplaying game’s advice on horror, which covers various types including folk, Mythos, and supernatural, as well as how to use it in play. This is all combined with a good section on creating adventures and an even better one on creating interesting and memorable villains.

Rounding out Colonial Gothic is ‘Lurking in the Shadows’, an extensive list of threats that the Player Characters might face. As well as breaking down their various possible abilities and traits, they are categorised as either Infernal, Natural, Otherworldly, and Undead. Infernal creatures such as the Boo-Hag and the Headless—as per Sleepy Hollow—have Taint, representing their evil presence in the world, but which can only keep them in this world for a short time. Oddly, the Byakhee, the Jersey Devil, and the Werewolf are included in the Natural section. The chapter includes several entries of Indigenous origins including the stone giants known as A-sense-ki-wake of Abenaki lore and the Mestabeok of the Atikamekw legend found in central Quebec. This is a decent selection of monsters which includes the familiar and the unfamiliar.

Physically, Colonial Gothic is decently presented with a good mix of artwork. It is an easy read although it needs a slight edit in places and it does feel slightly odd to have the roleplaying game’s mechanics explained before Player Character creation.

Colonial Gothic includes excellent sections that are full of historical detail, such as the examination of alchemy and the descriptions of the peoples of the indigenous nations, yet in terms of the history of the period it is set in, it is lacking. Much of that is saved for the Colonial Gothic Guidebook and the Colonial Gothic: Atlas, but some background details could have been included as well as a bibliography for the benefit of the Game Master or player for whom the roleplaying game does not share their history. Whilst the system is straightforward enough, it lacks examples of play, combat, and character creation. There is also no scenario to help the Game Master get started or show her what a Colonial Gothic adventure looks like.

Overall, Colonial Gothic is a solid roleplaying game that is easy to pick up and play, the revised rules being slicker and quicker to grasp. The rules are backed up with some solid character options and historical details. However, unless the Game Master is knowledgeable about the period and ready to write her own scenarios, she will need to make further purchases and possibly conduct some research of her own.

[Fanzine Focus XXXV] Lowcountry Crawl: A Southern Gothic RPG Zine

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.

Lowcountry Crawl: A Southern Gothic RPG Zine does something different and interesting. Published in 2019 by Technical Grimoire Games, best known for Bones Deep, it takes a campaign to the Southeast coast of the United States, specifically during the early half of the nineteenth century. This is a land of shifting, disappearing and reappearing Barrier Islands running along the coast, of marshes low and high, of sandbars, and the thick Pluff Mud which often rings them, hindering progress between them. Or at least the idea and the romance of them, rather than being specific. It incudes tables to create them and populate them with interesting features, a complete mini-point-crawl, and details of often eerie creatures to be encountered along the Barrier Islands and magical gewgaws and knickknacks to found and even bought. It is inspired by the region and its mythology, but it is ahistorical rather than specific. What this means is that the fanzine avoids the complexities and sensitivities of the history, whilst still acknowledging that they exist, and has rightly employed a sensitivity reader in order to do so. What remains is a moody, sense of isolation and strangeness lost in mist-soaked islands.

The fanzine begins with an ‘Island Generator’ that with a roll of twenty-sided die four times lets the Game Master create islands of her own, including their size, environment, and name. It is quick and easy, so that together with an explanation of the possible environments—sandbar, marshland, rocky, forested, structures, and other—the Game Master can have her string of islands with a handful of rolls. The ‘other’ option includes anything odd or weird that the Game Master deems, but an accompanying table suggests haunted islands, prison islands, cannibal islands, and more.

The centrepiece of Lowcountry Crawl: A Southern Gothic RPG Zine is ‘Island Crawl: An Adventure For LVLs 1-2’. This details four Barrier Islands, running from north to south, from the last major settlement on St. Erasmus down to Wildys, once a hunting reserve belonging to a foreign sorcerer, but now gone to seed and populated by exotic and magically augmented creatures. In between, Backwater Bay on Aloyin is rife with pirates, including Captain Seymour Foy, whose ship is pulled by a chained kraken, upsetting the other pirates, and Fort Assumption, a former military installation, then former plague hospital, still said to be manned by the spirits of those who died there. There are only a handful of locations per island, but they are nicely detailed, just enough to intrigue the Game Master, but with room aplenty for the Game Master to add her own content.

Travel and time across the islands is nicely handled. Each day is divided into six four-hour increments called watches. The trail between one location and another can be traversed in a single watch, but getting across country takes longer. Accompanying detailed locations are a pair of splendid encounter tables, one for ‘Coastal Encounters’, one for ‘Inland Encounters’. Every entry consists of two elements, the encounter itself, and an ‘Omen’, a harbinger of what the Player Characters are about to encounter. For example, whether the chest they discover is an actual buried chest or a mimic, the indication of metal and wood above the mud, and the smell of salt, timber, and rust presages its discovery. These signs add to the atmosphere and mood of the Barrier Islands, enforcing their sense of difference and separation, and perhaps worrying the Player Characters as they begin to recognise the Omens and what they mean.

The ’Creatures’ article has just the six entries. They include the Boohag, a scrawny, mean-tempered old by day, bloody red skinless spirit by night, that like La Llorona, rides sleepers at night to steal their breath; the Plat-Eye, a shifting shadow with one large eye that sometimes takes the form of a dog and attempts to lead you astray and away from any treasure it guards; and Tommy Rawbones, a maniacal skeleton with tattered skin and too many teeth which particularly lies the taste of liars and children. Another mysterious denizen of the region is the ‘Low Tide Merchant’, which wanders the Barrier Islands at low tide, carrying an assortment of strange and useful items, that if he likes you, will let you purchase, such as an island map or ghost flintlock (one shot, kills anyone, but they return to haunt their killer!). Not all of the goods will truly benefit the purchaser, or in the case of spells, work quite as accurately as they are supposed to, so buyer beware when it comes to perusing the wares that he carries in his burlap sack.

Lastly, ‘Magic Items’ describes some six magical items particular to the Barrier Islands. These include ‘Sticking Chaw’, a chewing tobacco as black as tar with the stench of sulphur that when chewed makes the teeth black and creates a wad that can be spat at a distant target to encase and bind a target like a Web spell or a Raccoon Baculum, a very reliable love charm that enhances Charm effects which is made out of the phallic bone of a raccoon!

Lowcountry Crawl: A Southern Gothic RPG Zine is a thoroughly engaging fanzine, but it is not complete. There are a couple of issues that it does not address. For example, it uses the terms ‘Haint’ and ‘Root Doctor’, but it never explains what these are. In this way, it feels underwritten and waiting for more detail. It also feels underwritten in that the Game Master will need to develop the included ‘Island Crawl: An Adventure For LVLs 1-2’, especially given that it lacks hooks or objectives.

Physically, Lowcountry Crawl: A Southern Gothic RPG Zine is very nicely done. It is fantastically illustrated and the cartography is very good.

Lowcountry Crawl: A Southern Gothic RPG Zine was published the same year as Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying and it would actually make a fantastic setting for that roleplaying given that both have the Player Characters engage with the local folklore. In addition, two other roleplaying supplements have been published since that explore the folklore of the United States of America—Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game and Holler: An Appalachian Apocalypse. Could either of them be extended out of the mountains and forests as far as the coast? Then again, Lowcountry Crawl: A Southern Gothic RPG Zine need not work with a fantasy Old School Renaissance retroclone. For example, Into the Odd would work very well with it, as would any Pirate-themed roleplaying game.

Lowcountry Crawl: A Southern Gothic RPG Zine is sadly the first and only issue. It is a pity, because it promises and hints at so much with an eerie mystery and salt-soaked mud flats just waiting for the tide to rush in. With no more issues to come, it is perhaps the Game Master’s task to do more for it with her own content than the publisher will.

Miskatonic Monday #214: The Strawman

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 Strawman

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: A Keith Applegarth

Setting: Modern day Pennsylvania

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Fifteen page, 4.68 MB Full Colour PDF (plus extras)
Elevator Pitch: The scarecrow doesn’t just scare crows

Plot Hook: A serial killer lose in one valley?
Plot Support: Five pre-generated Investigators, seven maps, thirteen NPCs, and one Mythos monster.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Can be adapted to other time periods

# Huge scope for development by the Keeper

# Homichlophobia

# Formidokophobia

# Fundophobia

Cons

# Needs a good edit

# Uninteresting maps

# No handouts

# No narrative structure

# No clues

Conclusion

# Potential for classic Americana Scarecrow horror

# Severe lack of development in terms of investigation and narrative leaves the Keeper literally ‘Clueless’

Crow Recall

With Everyday Heroes, publisher Evil Genius Games did for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in 2202 what d20 Modern did for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition in 2002. That is, facilitate and handle roleplaying in the here and now, in the world we see outside our windows, on our television screens, and at the cinema. It went even further though by doing something not actually included in the rulebook. This is providing access to a number of source and scenario supplements all based upon a surprising range of films. In fact, a range of films which nobody expected to see turned into roleplaying material despite their popularity in the hobby. These consist of The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure, Escape From New York™ Cinematic Adventure, Highlander Cinematic Adventure, Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure, Pacific Rim Cinematic Adventure, and Total Recall Cinematic Adventure. These showcase at least, what Everyday Heroes can do and are, equally, six good reasons to play Everyday Heroes. Each entry in this Cinematic Adventure series draws on the core film it is based upon as well as extra source material, to provide background material for the setting, new options for Player Characters, advice for the Game Master, and a full-length adventure, ready to play.

The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure is the first cinematic adventure sourcebook for Everyday Heroes. This draws specifically upon the 1994 film, The Crow, starring Brandon Lee, and the 1989 comic series by James O’Barr, as well as the 1996 sequel, The Crow: City of Angels. The later sequels are lesser source material for the supplement. This does mean that together, the subject for two halves of the book, scenario and sourcebook, does carry a number of subject warnings and like the comic book and film, is intended for a mature audience, dealing as it does with death and loss, drug addiction, torture, suicide, and other adult subjects. The world of The Crow and thus The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure is one in which the spirits of the dead are real. Their task is to guide the souls of the recently dead to the afterlife that is the underworld, to guard the gates to the underworld, and also return with messages and omens. Yet there are some spirits who escape the Underworld and find a way back to the world of the living—they are the Reborn. If a Reborn has been returned by a Crow spirit, then he too is called ‘The Crow’, but there are many other spirits of the dead—the Butterfly, the Cat, the Moth, and others. Each type of spirit is drawn to particular types of deaths and brings those who suffer them back as Reborn and even bestows particular types of quests related to both the deaths and the types. Guided by their spirits, Reborn walk the Earth again, not as one of the living, but the living dead, tasked with enacting revenge upon those who caused their death and fulfilling the quests set by the spirit. The Reborn find the world as dark and as tragic as they left it, the strong thea desire for a better world no more than a fleeting hope...

The primary new options given in The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure are for the Player Characters. These Hero Options include a number of new Backgrounds, such as Abused, Cult Escapee, Near-Death Experience, and Suicide Survivor. Already, these showcase the dark side of the setting. The new Professions include those from the seamier and rougher side of life, including Charity worker, Chop Shop Jockey—someone who cuts up stolen vehicles for their parts, stage Magician, Occultist, and Snitch. Many of these are directly inspired by characters in the film, including the Kid and Pawn Shop Owner. Two Classes after given. The Reborn is a Wise Hero who begins with a Spirit Bond, a Reborn Body, and the ability to Vanish at will. The Reborn also has Powers, such as Death’s Power to substitute the Reborn’s Wisdom bonus for the Strength or Dexterity modifier, Share Experience of his past life with another or Force Experience on another. These require the Reborn’s player to spend Focus to activate. The Reborn also has a Mask of Death associated with his Spirit. The Spirit grants its Reborn with benefits such as skill proficiencies and enhancements to the powers it also grants. For example, the Butterfly Spirit has Charming Presence, which allows a reroll on a failed Charisma check, Glamour to change appearances, Serenity to calm someone, and Sweet Nectar to heal others. All of these powers require the expenditure of Focus and they are the gift of the Spirit that the Reborn can use. In some ways they are also the gift of the Game Master, since the Spirit is not under the control of the Reborn and his player, but is instead an NPC. This allows the Spirit to become a character in its own right rather than just an extension of the Reborn. In addition, each Spirit comes with full stats as a Tiny Monster, and a discussion of its character, the souls it is drawn to, and both the type of quests it gives and some sample quests. Eight Spirits are detailed in this fashion in The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure, including the Butterfly, the Cat, the Crow, the Mastiff, the Moth, the Owl, the Snake, and the Spider.

The other option is the Soothsayer, a Smart Hero. The Soothsayer has Talents and Plans. The Talents include ‘As Foretold’ which enables the Soothsayer to substitute one of two twenty-sided his player rolls at the start of each adventure, whilst ‘Blessing of Fortune’ lets him grant a four-sided die as a bonus to other Player Heroes. The Soothsayer’s Plans include Bend Fate, Clairvoyance, Read the Omens, Witness Your End, and more, all of which are enhanced as the Soothsayer rises in Level. In addition to the two new Hero types, The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure lists several new Feats, divided between General and Multiclass Feats. The former includes Knife Fighter, Pyro, and Ritual Lore, whilst the latter includes Soothsayer Training and Advanced Soothsayer Training letting a Player Hero with another Class gain its mystical abilities. Similarly, the Spirit Servant Multiclass Feat enables a Player Hero who is not a Reborn to acquire a Spirit companion.

The only new rules in The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure are for Ritual Magic. Although several sample rituals are included, the rules in the main are narrative-based. Mechanically, Ritual Magic consists of deciding upon the effects of the spell, researching it, learning it, and then casting the spell. The guidelines are nicely supported with a good example. Conversely, where the rules and advice on handling Ritual Magic in The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure are more than enough for the Game Master to include them in play, the advice for the Game Master for running a scenario or campaign in the style of The Crow comes up short at just two pages. There is advice here on setting the mood, having more than one Reborn—and thus more than one quest—is in play, on playing Spirit allies, and running Ritual Magic (again!), and handling prophetic dreams. However, what the advice does not cover is the setting for scenarios set in the world of The Crow or the types of villains that the Player Heroes might be attempting to enact revenge against. The advice is followed a handful of scenario hooks.

Approximately half of The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure is dedicated to its adventure, ‘Prayers of the Past’, which even comes with its own soundtrack! The scenario is intended for Player Heroes of Fifth and Sixth Level and can be adjusted to be played with just one player, although the ideal number is five. It can also be run with just the one Reborn Player Hero or multiple Reborn Player Heroes. The set-up involves a Zero Session where the Player Heroes decide upon and play out what happened to the Reborn they are either playing or their Player Heroes know, which can can take a single scene or be developed into a longer session, so that the prequel to the scenario proper plays out as a series of prequels rather the one. Hooks are provided if the players cannot come up their own.

Each of the multiple Session Zeroes takes place in a different city before ‘Prayers of the Past’ draws the Player Heroes back to Detroit and the events of The Crow, coming together at Club Trash in a bloody orgy of revenge and violence. It is a solidly grim affair which works as a one-shot or even a campaign starter, overall, effectively drawing from the source material to create a situation and story which fits within that source material. Safety tools are strongly recommended throughout, if necessary, as the scenario is very much intended for a mature audience. In addition, the staging advice for Game Master is also decent throughout, and in fact, actually better in places than the scant advice given for the Game Master in her own chapter.

Lastly, ‘The Cast’ chapter provides stats and details of a variety of NPCs and more. The NPCs are divided into three categories. The first are general, including ordinary characters as well as spiritual ones, and there are suggestions here too, as to which NPC types to use to portray various characters from both The Crow and The Crow: City of Angels. These NPC types are drawn from both the Everyday Heroes core rulebook and The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure. The second category consists of NPCs for the scenario, ‘Prayers of the Past’, whilst the third consists of protagonists from both The Crow and The Crow: City of Angels. This includes Eric Draven, Darryl Albrecht, Sarah, and others. The more consists of five pre-generated Player Heroes, including a Soothsayer, an Omen of Disaster (a Reborn with a Moth Spirit bond), an Omen of Vengeance (a Reborn with a Snake Spirit bond), an Omen of Love (a Reborn with a Butterfly Spirit bond), and an Omen of Pain (a Reborn with a Crow Spirit bond). These support the scenario being played with multiple Reborn,

Physically, The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure is cleanly, tidily presented. Unfortunately, the sourcebook is not illustrated with images from the films, but the artwork in their stead is decent. However, the book does need another edit in places.

The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure is not a sourcebook for the world of The Crow—either the comics or the films. There is some background, more sufficient to do what The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure is designed to do rather than be exhaustive. What The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure is designed to do is present the means and tools for a Game Master to run and her players to roleplay a scenario or campaign in the style of The Crow and within the world of The Crow—and this, bar the underwhelming advice for Game Master—it succeeds at. The Crow™ Cinematic Adventure is a solid first entry in the series of Cinematic Adventures for Everyday Heroes, expanding it into the realms of the mystical and with new Player Hero options and a good scenario, bringing world of The Crow to the gaming table.

Friday Fantasy: Night of the Bog Beast

Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #8: Night of the Bog Beast is a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, the Dungeons & Dragons-style retroclone inspired by ‘Appendix N’ of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. Published by Goodman Games, scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics tend be darker, gimmer, and even pulpier than traditional Dungeons & Dragons scenarios, even veering close to the Swords & Sorcery subgenre. One of the signature features of Dungeon Crawl Classics and its post-apocalyptic counterpart, Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, is the ‘Character Funnel’. This is a scenario specifically designed for Zero Level Player Characters in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #8: Night of the Bog Beast is not such a scenario, but is instead designed for use with Second Level Player Characters.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #8: Night of the Bog Beast not only draws from the ‘Appendix N’ of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, for its inspiration, but also of the American Gothic, the fear of the swamp with its mud and mud, leeches and slugs, DC’s Swamp Thing and Marvel’s Man-Thing comic books, the ‘back woods’ nature of the bayou, zombies and possession, gods of the ‘Old Country’, and just a tinge of the Mythos. The result is a muddy, marsh, muck-strewn mish-mash of pulp horror that is likely going to the players off ever going near swamp ever again, let alone their characters. Designed for Second Level Player Characters, this is a tough adventure and if they are not careful, the Player Characters will get killed. There are some nasty monsters and encounters in this adventure, let alone the environment.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #8: Night of the Bog Beast is a hexcrawl—actually within a hex. That hex depicts part of the Twilight Marsh through which the Player Characters are travelling when they stop at the riverside village of Goz-Blight. Here several families of subsistence farmers, fishermen, and hunters scratch out a living, and they will make the Player Characters welcome hoping that they will help them out with the village’s situation. Goz-Blight was attacked the night before by some strange plant-like figures which shambled out of the swamp and abducted one of the villagers, something that has never happened before. It is not the first time that one of the villagers disappeared—a little girl disappeared a few weeks before, but she was found fortunately, but they fear that it will happen again. Of course, it does, but this time the Player Characters are on hand to stop the abduction attempt and face down the marshland monsters! Hopefully, this combined with the folktales and legends of the swamp, will be enough to intrigue the players and their characters to want to investigate.

Forearmed with the knowledge gained from the villagers of Goz-Blight the Player Characters punt themselves out into Twilight Swamp where the bulk of the adventure takes place. Across the giant hex the author has scattered some classic swam-life encounters, all presented for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. There are pools of leeches, floating logs which turn out to be alligators—or rather Devilgators here, a cabin hoisted aloft by the trees (or is that bird’s legs?) that is home to a witch, a mouldering mansion ready to slip into the marsh, an overgrown cemetery, and more. For the most part, the monsters are there to harass the Player Characters and the monsters and NPCs who can speak, to be interacted with in order to gain allies, or least some clues towards discovering who or what is behind the attacks by the plant-like swamp figures.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #8: Night of the Bog Beast is short, but well presented. The artwork is decent and the cartography clear, though the handouts are perhaps a bit plain.

There one or two issues that the Judge will need to take account of when preparing Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #8: Night of the Bog Beast. The hexcrawl has a number of repeated encounters, some of which could and should have been different. The Judge may want to adjust those as necessary. More problematic is the set-up, which could have more direct in presenting what the primary NPCs know to the Player Characters and so making the situation more obvious and thus provide them with a stronger reason to get involved. The information is all there, but the Judge will need to put more effort into preparing this for when she roleplays the NPCs who will provide it to the Player Characters. The other aspect of the scenario the Judge will want to look at is if it will be too tough an adventure for Second Level Player Characters.

Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #8: Night of the Bog Beast is a leech-infested, muck-strewn, hammy horror scenario which not only wears its many influences on its very swamp sleeve, but serves them up in a gloopy gumbo of American Gothic.

Friday Fantasy: Claus for Concern

Almost like films on the Hallmark channel, Christmas brings with it festively-themed scenarios for Dungeons & Dragons. Typically, they involve Santa Claus getting kidnapped or Santa’s grotto or toy workshop at the North Pole being invaded, and the Player Characters having either to rescue him or deliver presents down all of the chimneys in the world and into children’s stockings everywhere. And the whole affair is wrapped in a kitsch swathe of red, green, and white, whether that is wrapping paper, bows, candy cane sweets, baubles, and whatnot, all of which is being invaded by someone who is monstrously grey and wants to spread misery rather than joy, but who only needs to be shown some love and the error of their ways so that they once again enjoy the bonhomie of Christmas. It is both a well-worn cliché and extremely American. Claus for Concern: A Holiday One-Shot for Christmas is no different. Published on the Dungeon Masters Guild, it is a scenario for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.

Claus for Concern: A Holiday One-Shot for Christmas is designed to be played by Player Characters of between First and Fifth Level. However, it will require some scaling up and down to be suitable for the extremes of that range, whereas as written it is designed for Player Characters of Third to Fifth Level. It is intended to be completed in one session, but depending on the players could last as long as two. Although there are maps—drawn by Dyson Logos—for both the players and the Dungeon Master, it is a pity that there are no ready-to-play pre-generated as that would have supported the scenario as a one-shot and would have made it easier to set up and run.

The scenario begins with the Player Characters being approached by several Kringle Elves looking shell-shocked. They implore the Player Characters for help—they have escaped from Santa’s Workshop after it has been invaded by Frost Goblins, Ice Sprites, and Snowy Bugbears, and both Santa Claus and his wife Myra Claus are missing. They implore the Player Characters to come to their aid, return with them to the North Pole, investigate what has happened, and save the Workshop—and in the process, Christmas! What follows is a linear affair. The Player Characters arrive at the North Pole, make their way through the gingerbread and candy-styled North Pole Village, its byways scattered with various gift-wrapped presents (which the Player Characters are free to open), and into the Santa’s Workshop. It is not until they begin to descend into the workshop below the Player Characters encounter any opposition. Technically, what the Player Characters are doing is descending an inverted tower, so the stairs are actually backwards on the map, but everything they find is festively themed, but smashed to bits. Someone definitely does not like Christmas.

Ultimately, the Player Characters will encounter the villain of the piece—a very icy ‘Christmas Witch’. She is a fairly tough opponent and the scenario does warn the Dungeon Master that there is the danger of a ‘Total Party Kill’ if she is not careful. She has a very frosty feel and that follows through on her choice of spells. In addition, the scenario follows through on the ice theme in terms of its monsters. These include Mimics as both presents and Christmas trees, Snowy Bugbears armed with Frosty Morningstars and Icicle Throws, Ice Sprites, Frosty Winged Kobolds with Icicle Spears and Chill Wind from their buffeting wings, and others. Stats are also included for Santa Claws and Myra Claws. The invention also a stocking full of magical items, all themed, such as Rudolph’s Nose of Everlasting Light, Fruitcake of Greater Healing, Red Fur-lined Coat, and Santa’s Holiday Bag of Holding, the latter which might just be a Bag of Holding.

Physically, Claus for Concern: A Holiday One-Shot for Christmas is a neat and tidy affair. Bar the cover it is not illustrated, but as you would expect, the maps are excellent. The scenario is well written, but as a consequence of being linear, there is one moment where if the Player Characters cannot get through a door—which they need to in order to reach the climax, the monsters break it down from the other side. Which undermines player and character agency.

To be clear, Claus for Concern: A Holiday One-Shot for Christmas is Christmas cliché from start to finish. It is a turducken stuffed with mince pies, studded with bow-tied candy canes, slathered with bread sauce, soaked in egg nog, and covered in brandy and set alight whilst pulling two Christmas crackers with an equally festively anointed turducken Dungeons & Dragons Christmas cliché. However, it is a decently done cliché and perfectly playable, and there is even some invention involved that makes it stand out from the traditional Dungeons & Dragons Christmas fare, not least of which is the almost pun of a title. So if a Dungeon Master and her group want to play a Dungeons & Dragons Christmas-themed scenario, then Claus for Concern: A Holiday One-Shot for Christmas is definitely what they want for Christmas.

Cheerfully Clichéd Chills

The Cursed Library: A book of scary one-shot short stories is an anthology of scenarios for use with Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. Published by Parable Games, this is a fast-playing, dramatic, and generic horror roleplaying game which combines simple, thematic mechanics built around archetypal characters and a simple propriety dice mechanic, combined with a Doom Clock which escalates the tension and a wide selection of classic, nasty monsters. The Cursed Library contains five scenarios inspired by horror films old and new, ranging from The Thing and Children of the Corn to Alien and Bone Tomahawk. Consequently, each of the scenario has a very film-like feel and structure, and the film-like feel even starts before a scenario gets down to explaining the plot and the set-up to the Director by preceding it with a certificate from the ‘Shiver Board of Classification’. This lists the expected playing time, number of players, horror subgenre, film age rating, content warning, suggested ability levels for the Player Characters, and a watchlist. The latter is a list of three films that the Director can watch to understand both the tone of the scenario and its inspiration. The film age rating uses the ratings used by the British Board of Film Classification and of the five scenarios in The Cursed Library, one is rated ‘12’,whilst the other four are all rated ‘15’.

The help and structure in The Cursed Library does not end with either the ‘Shiver Board of Classification’ or the end of the scenario itself. Each scenario begins by explaining what the Director knows, the set-up for the Player Characters, the types of character that fit the scenario and their archetypes in Shiver, and then after the scenario there are suggestions as to how to expand the story, helps and hints to better run the scenario, and of course, each scenario comes with a list of Doom Clock Events and new weapons, equipment, monsters, and NPCs. Every scenario in Shiver is played against the clock as it ticks down to midnight, primarily due to the actions of the Player Characters, and at ‘Quarter Past’, ‘Half Past’, ‘Quarter To’, and ‘Midnight’ certain events will happen. Each of the six scenarios provides four such events suited to both subgenre and the story. The new weapons, equipment, monsters, and NPCs are all potentially useful for the Director if she wants to use them in scenarios of her devising.

The Cursed Library: A book of scary one-shot short stories opens with ‘The Lost Ship’, inspired by The Thing, The Void, and Event Horizon. There is a dash of The X-Files in there too as the Player Characters are members of a Special Ops team assigned to locate the USS Morningstar, a United States Navy research vessel operating in the Artic which has lost communication with the outside world. When the scenario starts out in Barrow, the first response is to think of a vampire attack as in 30 Days of Night, but ‘The Lost Ship’ is actually a tale of cosmic horror than bloodsuckers. The scenario has a pleasing sense of frigid isolation as the Player Characters locate and descend into the bowels of the ship and things seem to come out of the walls and floor at them. The monsters too are fantastically otherworldly too and that is ultimately where the Player Characters will have to deal with the threat currently contained within the hull of the USS Morningstar. This is an action-packed opener which gets the anthology of to a good start.

The second scenario combines Stranger Things, People Under the Stairs, and The Haunting and sets it all on Halloween. ‘All Hallow’s Eve’ is a set in any small town with creepy old house where no one lives, in which many a teenager is challenged to see how long they will last inside its walls. The ultimate bragging rights go to the kid who can stay the whole night. This year it is the turn of the Player Characters—as teenagers from the local high school—to test their resolve, but this time when they cross the threshold, the front door not only closes, but locks too! The scenario combines two puzzles in one—how to get out of the house and what happened to the original owners. Thus the Player Characters are on the hunt for clues to both, forcing them to explore the house and in the process encounter all manner of classic haunted house elements. Animated suits of armour, Ouija boards, demonic toys, things in the bathtub, and more. The horror in the scenario tends towards being creepy rather bloody, but the Director can dial either up or down as necessary, and there are some fun suggestions as to what do with the outcome of the scenario. These include having the front door open to somewhere else rather than their hometown when the Player Characters finally get all the keys necessary to unlock it or secrets being revealed that lead the Player Characters to investigate the original owner’s background. This is a fun scenario in which both players and the Keeper play up the clichés and enjoy its gothic Americana.

‘Dark Prospect’ is set on the frontier of the Wild west in the town of Hope’s hallow. Inspired by The Blob, Bone Tomahawk, and The Descent, the fortunes of the town rest on the mines in nearby Deadwater Peak, so when all news dries up of the miners, the local sheriff—backed up by the mine owner’s $2 reward (each)—raises a local posse and rides into the mountains, up to the mine, and from there descend into the depths. Compared to the other scenarios in the anthology, this is a smaller, much tighter, and more linear affair, and more physical too.

Inspired by Alien, Event Horizon, and Starship Troopers, the fourth scenario, ‘Protocol’ is a Science Fiction thriller set in outer space. The crew and passengers of the CCV Pilgrim respond to a distress call from a nearby planet and discover a downed vessel with the majority of its crew missing despite there being signs of their being alive when the ship went down. The clues point elsewhere and if the Player Characters follow them they discover another crashed starship, this with its own definitely missing crew and still the mystery of what happened to the crew of the ship that sent the distress call. ‘Protocol’ very much takes its cues from the xenomorphs of Alien and works hard with them. It all ends with a desperate race to get back to their shuttle and back off planet as the true nature of the threat is revealed…

The final scenario in the anthology is ‘Mr Husk’. Inspired by just Children of the Corn and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, this is a rural slasher Folk Horror scenario. It is the seventies, and the Player Characters are driving through the flat Midwest with nothing to see but cornfields, when their vehicle breaks down. Stranded in the middle of nowhere, the Player Characters are going to need help, but what they find at the nearest farm is horror in the barn. With limited locations, but wide-open spaces of the cornfields, there is room here for stalking the Player Characters as they try and hide and get away from the farm and what is going on there (Clue: It is not cannibalism!) This is the shortest of the scenarios in The Cursed Library and the most flexible, instead having set Player Characters, it suggests a range of character types including Vietnam veterans, travelling salesmen, a band going from gig to gig, and even some low budget film makers looking to shoot some film… ‘Mr Husk’ brings the collection to a close with a swing of the scythe.

Physically, The Cursed Library is much like the core rulebook for Shiver. The artwork is excellent for the most part, done in a style similar to that of Mike Mignola and his Hellboy comic, and very much showcases the type of horror stories that Shiver was designed to handle. The writing is clear, but does need a stronger edit in places and the cartography is too plain for each scenario’s needs.

From its choice of subgenres to its choice of plots, The Cursed Library is one big book of horror clichés and familiar plots. However, that is far from being a bad thing. After all, Shiver is designed to deliver fast-playing, dramatic, and generic horror in which the players roleplay horror archetypes in various subgenres, and that is what The Cursed Library delivers. Its stories are not so much horror clichés as horror archetypes, just like the Player Characters, and they complement each other. The five scenarios in the anthology will be familiar to many, after all, they are film-inspired, but knowing and playing into that familiarity is part of the fun with a generic horror roleplaying game. Both player and Director alike need to load up on popcorn and fizzy drinks, lean into the clichés of the subgenres in five horror scenarios in The Cursed Library: A book of scary one-shot short stories, and together, they will have a blast.

—oOo—

SHIVER: Double Feature, the next expansion for Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown is currently being funded on Gamefound.

[Fanzine Focus XXIX] One of Us #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 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 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 choice is the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

One of Us #1 is a post-apocalyptic fanzine for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. Published by Starry Wisdom Press in January, 2021, it casts the Player Characters as drifters, grifters, ne’er-do-wells, and desperate cast asunder following the Big Mistake, a war of some kind that was perhaps a decade or two ago. This places it roughly in the desperate, dirty decade of the thirties or even ‘Golden Era’ of the fifties. The Player Characters are specifically carnies, members of a travelling carnival, indentured to the mysterious being known as The Madame. In exchange for wondrous powers and “a more perfect self,” The Madame calls upon the carnies to procure for her, magnificent artifacts, as the carnival crisscrosses the dusty and dangerous remains of a once robust and proud land. Their efforts and their presence do not go unnoticed—cannibal hobos, shadowy cults, and uncouth hecklers will do everything in their power to prevent your caravan from carrying out its mission.

One of Us #1 is primarily about the Classes and Races of the setting—all of which come from the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. This includes the Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings. The fanzine opens with ‘OCCUPTATIONS Now Hiring!’, a table of Occupations suitable for backgrounds and of course, Zero Level characters, all of them for a modern set period. All Classes can use two Signature Weapons from First Level. These are two weapons a Player Character or NPC can use without a penalty, whereas other weapons suffer a step down in die type as a penalty. The first of the Classes is the Strong-Person, which uses ‘Table G: Giants’ for critical hits, ‘Titan’s Might’ means a thirty-sided die is used for Strength checks, Strength of Will grants a Might Die used for all attacks and Strength checks, and Hidden Reserves allows Personality to be temporarily expended to gain an additional Might Die. The second Class, the Acrobat can ‘Roll with the Punches’ and has a better base Armour Class, Cat’s Grace which means the Acrobat can avoid damage too, and as a ‘Land Sailor’, is fast on land and in the air due to climbing, flipping, and leaping over obstacles. The Acrobat is also Ambidextrous and has a ‘Tumbling Die’ which is used for acrobatics and Mighty Deeds for ranged attacks. The Natural Wonder is the third Class and is one of ‘The Madame’s Perfect Children’ and so has Luck like a Halfling, has mutations due to ‘Atomic Singularities’, but due to ‘Mother’s Milk’, is fortified against radiation. An accompanying table provides the mutations.

The three Classes—Strong-Person, Acrobat, or Natural Wonder are all obvious in their inspiration, being archetypal Carnival types, and all well done in their design. Other Classes from both the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game can be imported with little changes, but the Wizard becomes the Mystic, the Cleric the Revivalist, and the Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling The Stranger From A Strange Land. Backed up with a short selection of equipment, these are thematically interesting Classes which should also be fun to play.

Quite what The Madame is never defined in One of Us #1. She could be a demon, the devil herself, a god, or she something in between. She does serve as a Patron for the Player Characters and so can be invoked and there is the danger of suffering Patron Taint. What she wants is trinkets and gewgaws which together will free her from the bondage which confines her to her magical caravan. And this really is the extent of the setting notes and background given in One of Us #1, and that really is the big issue with the fanzine. It is full of brilliant content that suggests possibilities of a type and style of game or campaign, but does not explore either or suggest scenario ideas. Or indeed, give a Character Funnel or scenario, either of which would have shown the Judge what the designers intended. Hopefully that will be provided in the pages of One of Us #2.

Rounding out One of Us #1 is a half dozen monsters particular to the Dust Bowl. These include the Rag Creep, a thing wrapped in rags soaked in grain alcohol, psychedelic desert flower, and camphor to sooth their radiation-burned skin; the Witherer, the spirit of an old woman who haunts water sources who begs others to help her find her lost children and then feeds on their goodwill and hope; and the Dust Preacher, a preacher in his former life not only failed to protect his flock, but made demands of them in return for his protection. Now it demands a tithe of its own Hit Points to gain one-shot actions such as second attack or a static lightning blast! All six monsters are nicely detailed and fit the setting.

Physically, One of Us #1 is well presented with excellent artwork. One of Us #1 is a superb little read, combining elements of horror and the fantastic against a backdrop of broken Americana. One of Us #1 is incomplete though, and more background and some scenarios and scenario hooks would be very, very welcome.

1981: Attack of the Mutants!

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

Yaquinto Publications was a publisher of board games—in particular war games—and roleplaying games between 1979 and 1983. Its most successful was The Ironclads, which simulated combat between the first armoured ships, or ironclads, during the American Civil War and won the Charles S. Roberts Award for ‘Best Initial Release of 1979’. It also published a number of roleplaying games such as Man, Myth & Magic and Timeship—both now published by Precis Intermedia. However, perhaps the publisher’s most interesting innovation was its packaging design for a line of board games known as the ‘Album Games’. Essentially, titles in this series were packaged in what were double-LP record albums. The game board would be presented on the inside cover, and where the record or records were sleeved were stored the rules, counters, and other components for the game. In later entries in the series, a spacer was used which made each Album game an inch or so thick. This made the game less like a record sleeve (each Album game carried a disclaimer on the cover stating it was a game only and that no phonograph record was to be found inside) and the spacer could be used for storage. Over the course of twenty-titles, the Album series covered fantasy, Science Fiction, historical wargames, and family games, including a game based on then extremely popular soap opera, Dallas.

Published in 1981, Attack of the Mutants! is a two-player board which depicts the last moments of Humanity following the Big Melt-Down of 1993. In the Science Building at Central State Tech, kindly old Professor Applewhite, assisted by his daughter and research assistant, the wholesome, clean-scrubbed Penny, has discovered Dynamic Ultimate Place and is about to open a gate to another, safer world. This is only just in time, for outside the building, clamouring to get in is horde (or four) of multi-armed/bodied/headed and/or tentacular mutants, all intent on smashing their way in, taking their revenge on mankind’s last survivors, and if not that, capturing the bright, but eligible marriage Penny! As the absentminded old professor races to activate the device, doors have been locked, barricades put up, Kamigawa 4697J Janibots armed with appliers, saws, files, and laser welders have been posted as guards, and the surviving members of the ROTC—including Leon ‘Buck’ Bukaw, who just happens to be Penny’s recently found, first love, stand ready to take the fight to the mutants as they smash down one door after another and spill into the next room or corridor, getting ever closer to the Tech Room and the means of mankind’s survival!

What you get with Attack of the Mutants! is a three-part board, twenty-five by twelve inches in size. One side depicts the main play area of the Science Building with its various corridors and rooms—including a summoning circle! On the other side is the Combat Display and the game’s various tables, whilst in between them in the crease of the packaging is a turn tracker. The game requires two six-sided dice, one per player, which do not come with it, but are easy to find. The game comes with over a hundred, small but on thick card, counters. On the Human side, these consist of the eight survivors and twenty-four Janibots, whilst the more than fifty Mutants consist of the Mutant Leaders (black), Radioactive Mutants (red), and ‘normal’ Mutants (green). There are also counters to indicate broken doors, barricades, and turn order. All of the Human and Mutant counters have a number on them to indicate their combat strength. This is either four or five for the Humans and three for the Janibots, whilst each of the Mutants has two combat values—one against Humans (which is either three or four) and one against the Janibots (two or three).

The Humans are all illustrated with their respective faces, whilst the Mutants and the Janibots are done as single colour silhouettes. Notably all of the characters—whether Human or Mutant—are named. So the Humans include Joey Cabelli and Percy Fitzwalter as well as Penny and her father. The Mutants include Amos, Ozzy, Rusty, Bud, Bodine, Hoss, and others. This adds an element of individuality to the game and in play can lead to some storytelling and table talk as the game proceeds and the players come to identify more and more with their counters and their characters. For the Human player, this is helped by the thumbnail descriptions given in the Designer Notes.

Set-up is simple enough. The Human player sets up first, placing Professor Applewhite and Penny—the two Techs—in the Tech Room, then stationing the other Humans and the Janibots throughout the Science Building. He also places a number of barricades which are impassable by the Mutants. These can be placed anywhere on the board, so their placement will vary from game to game. The Mutant player then places his forces around the four sides of the Science Building, making sure that there is one Mutant Leader on each side.

A turn consists of six phases. In the first two phases, the Mutants move and attack. This will also mean that they have to smash down doors, requiring a die roll, the more Mutants involved, the greater the chance of success. If there are Mutants on both sides of a door, they can open it. Once a door has been smashed, the Mutants can freely back and forth through the doorway. In the second two phases, the Humans move and attack. Humans do not have to smash down doors, even if they are members of the ROTC. Movement for either side is one space only and Janibots cannot move unless accompanying a Human.

Combat, in both the Mutant Combat Phase and the Human Combat Phase is handled on the Combat Display on the other half of the board. In groups of five against five, the Humans and Mutants face off against each other, their respective players rolling a die simultaneously, trying roll equal to, or less then, their respective Combat Values. If they do, their opponent is eliminated. Although the Humans and Mutant Leaders have higher chances of defeating their opponents, lucky rolls can lead to both sides killing each other! Combat continues until one side defeats the other in a location, and involves a lot of dice rolls and thus a lot of luck.

The final phase is the ‘Glow and Go’ phase. For each red or Radioactive Mutants in play, the Mutant player rolls a single die. If a six is rolled, the Radioactive Mutant succumbs to the effects of his radiation sickness and dies. His counter is removed from the game.

Play continues until the end of turn ten. To win a decisive victory, the Human player must have one Tech and three Human Guards in the Tech Room at the end of the game. If he has at least two Humans—Guards or Techs in the Tech Room, it is a Marginal Victory. Similarly, to win a decisive victory, the Mutant player must one Mutant Leader and three other Mutants in the Tech Room at the end of the game. If he has at least two Mutants, of any type—Leader, Radioactive, or Ordinary, it is a Marginal Victory. Anything else is a draw.

In addition to the basic rules, Attack of the Mutants! includes options for adjusting the balance between the Humans and the Mutants, facing Overwhelming odds, Humans and Mutants running away because of the latter, and adding hidden movement. This hidden movement is done on a separate and reduced game board, repeated in black and white rather than colour, and on the reverse of that is an alternate scenario where the Mutants have come from another world and are escaping into ours via the newly opened gate. Can the world be saved from this invasion from a doomed world? The sheet also includes some developer’s notes which provide more background about the Science Building and the Humans defending it.

Physically, Attack of the Mutants! is decently done. The cover of the album is brilliantly gaudy pastiche of the schlocky Sci-Fi horror ‘B’ movies and cheap paperbacks the game is inspired by, and the game board is clear and simple to see and play on. However, it does get a little cramped with all of the counters in play and then the constant movement of them from the main board to the Combat display and back again needs to be done carefully so as not to shift counters already there. It is accompanied by Robert Crumb-like cartoon illustrations that capture the horror and the desperation of the setting. The counters are also bright and easy to read, but the rules booklet and the developer’s notes are plain and unillustrated. However, they are easy to read and understand.

In addition, Yaquinto Publications published a second version of Attack of the Mutants! This was a simplified version that came as a two-page cardboard folder and was designed as an introductory version, intended to, “…[I]ntroduce people to the general concept of Adventure Gaming.” This was packaged with orders from the publisher and was also available via Game Workshop mail order in the early nineteen eighties. This version would have been many a player’s first introduction to the concept of Album Games, and may well have spurred them to purchase a full copy of Attack of the Mutants!, and potentially, other titles in the line.

Attack of the Mutants! is a two-player wargame, a tower defence style game long before there were such things. It is intended as an introductory level game, easy to learn, and providing a decent degree of playability and challenge, but little in terms of the type of simulation which might be found in a more traditional type of wargame. It is also designed to be fun for players new to the hobby and for those who have some experience of it. The introductory level means basic movement and combat, the latter involving a lot of dice rolls, but the results can often be wild and chaotic, which would fit the game’s theme. It also means that there is little in the way of tactics or planning as the two opposing sides clash again and again, although if he can, the Human player might want to target the Mutant Leaders as that would prevent a decisive victory for the Mutant player. Conversely, the Mutant player just needs to kill Humans, and if he can get to the Tech Room, kill one Tech to prevent a decisive victory for the Human player. All of which not only makes it sound bad, but also makes it sound bad because it is an old design. Nothing could be further from the truth, because forty years on and Attack of the Mutants! is easily comparable with a game like Zombies!!!, and if you were comparing the two, Attack of the Mutants! is more focused, has a shorter playing time, and is self-contained. Remake Attack of the Mutants! today as Attack of the Zombies! and would anyone raise an eyebrow?

Attack of the Mutants! is simple in its design, but it is intended to be an introductory board game. It is also chaotic, but that fits the theme of the last few Humans holding off the hordes of Mutants, making a last desperate stand with a Janibot by their side or scrambling to get back to the Tech Room and through the gate just in time to escape. As the game progresses and the Humans and Mutants fight, their stories can emerge in play and they become just a bit more than counters with names on, all helping us to engage with the theme of Attack of the Mutants! And what a gloriously cheesy theme that is—rampaging Mutants, stalwart heroes with jaws made of granite, a heroine ready to scream at the right moment, and mankind’s last stand!

Attack of the Mutants! not only succeeds as a fun way to introduce people to the general concept of adventure gaming, but as a very light, highly thematic game full of glorious clichés and fifties ‘B’-movie bravado. Ameritrash it might be, but by god, it’s American Ameritrash!