Dirt & Danger

Dust & Blood: Two Scenarios of Gaslight London is a duology of scenarios for Cthulhu by Gaslight, the expansion for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition which explores the place of the Cthulhu Mythos in the last decades of the Victorian era. Its two scenarios take the Investigators into the grimier and grimmer side of Victorian life. The first, ‘Ashes to Ashes’, is a short, one session scenario, suited to both a new Keeper and new players, but with an intriguing set-up that veteran players and history lovers will still enjoy. Its running length also means that the scenario can be used as a demonstration or convention. Whilst ‘Ashes to Ashes’ is new, the second scenario, ‘Signs Writ in Scarlet’ is not, having first appeared in Sacraments of Evil, the 1993 anthology for Cthulhu by Gaslight, Second Edition. It is a much longer, more open world sandbox affair best suited for the more experienced Keeper and her players. Of the two, ‘Signs Writ in Scarlet’ is easier to add to an ongoing campaign and could be run as an indirect sequel to ‘Ashes to Ashes’. ‘Ashes to Ashes’ could also be used as a campaign starter. Both scenarios are supported by a plethora of maps and handouts, as well as ten pre-generated Investigators. Four of them are specifically designed to be used with ‘Ashes to Ashes’, but the introduction includes advice on how to use the ten of the pre-generated Investigators with the two scenarios.

‘Ashes to Ashes’, the first of the two scenarios in Dust & Blood has one of the more interesting set-ups for any Call of Cthulhu scenario, let alone for Cthulhu by Gaslight. A set-up that outside of Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend is little known and a set-up that asks, “How did the Victorians get rid of their rubbish?” In Tudor times, the infamous gong farmers dug out and collected the ordure from privies and cesspits, but by the end of the Victorian era, extensive sewage systems had been built to prevent pollution and outbreaks of disease. That though, still left the household rubbish to be dealt with and that included tonnes of coal dust from each household. ‘Dustmen’ were employed by ‘dust yards’ to collect this dust and brought back to the dust-yard where it would be picked through by dust-sifters and fillers for anything valuable, including catskins, cinders, cork, oyster shells, and rags.

In ‘Ashes to Ashes’, the Investigators are employees at Lange’s Dust-Yard, either dustmen who collect the dust, totters who are rag-and-bone-men, dust-sifters, fillers, or workers on the destructor crew. All of these occupations are Lower Class roles, whilst the yard’s clerks are lower Middle Class roles. The scenario suggests minimum skill values for all of these Occupations and provides several NPCs who can be replaced by an Investigator if a player wants to take a particular role in the scenario. This gives the option for the players to create their own Investigators as well as choosing from the provided pre-generated Investigators. Also discussed are ways in which a Middle Class Investigator can be included, but at its core, ‘Ashes to Ashes’ is set in a working class environment which intentionally enforces the society of the time’s limits on where the Investigators can go, what they can do, and where they can be seen.

Given its length, it should be no surprise that ‘Ashes to Ashes’ starts with a bang. Or rather, with a bag. A bag that seems to be squirming. Has a pet been put out with the dust and the rubbish by mistake? It turns out not to be so, but something much stranger—a monstrous figure made of grey dust that that attacks the Investigators and other workers at the dust yard. This encounter begs the obvious question, “Where did the grey man and the bag he was in, come from?” The subsequent investigation quickly leads to a house at the posh end of the district that the dust yard works. Here the Investigators are confronted with a situation quite typical of Call of Cthulhu made all the more challenging by it being very much out of their Class and the location being very much not their place. It is a chance for them to see how the other half lives and the consequences of that. ‘Ashes to Ashes’ is a very likeable scenario, made all the more so by its genuinely different set-up and straightforward plot, made all the more difficult by the differences of Class.

The second scenario, ‘Signs Writ in Scarlet’, is longer and more demanding for both the Keeper and the players. It takes place over the course of three weeks beginning in October, 1889, and takes the Investigators down the streets and up the alleys of a Whitechapel scarred by the Jack the Ripper murders of the year before. In fact, the scenario is modelled on the murders and the reaction to them, but tells a story of its own rather than exploiting them or associating them with the Mythos. The district is beset by a new series of murders, this time of men rather than women, but found in similar circumstances in the fog and their flesh carved with curious symbols. The Investigators are either hired by the East End Citizens Committee, get intrigued by the newspaper reports, or are called in by Scotland Yard for their expertise, and so begin to look into the deaths. The scenario has twin parallel tracks that the Investigators will need to follow, one attending the many days of the coroner’s inquests held for each of the murder victims, the other working the streets and trying to gather clues via legwork. Both the coroner’s inquests and the deaths give the scenario a tight timeline and structure. What it means is that the Keeper will need to switch back and forth between the two investigative strands, one static, one free roaming. Players and Investigators will have more freedom of choice in the latter rather than the former, but the former is not without its incident and scope to ask questions.

The freedom of the street investigation is complicated by the fact that the Investigators are not the only ones looking into the deaths and searching for the culprit. Some of the groups conducting their own investigations have their own agendas and will not take kindly to the Investigators’ involvement. ‘Signs Writ in Scarlet’ has many more moving parts than ‘Ashes to Ashes’, is more detailed and involving, and has more NPCs for the Keeper to maintain a track of. The scenario also has two endings because it is not so much a matter of finding out who the murderer is, but a matter of finding out why. Investigating further will lead to some horrible revelations, although it is possible that the scenario will end in a bloody massacre should the players and their Investigators not continue their enquiries. This possibility and the complexity of the scenario are why it warrants more experienced Keeper and players.

The scenario update is not extensive, but it does include an option for use with Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos which links the perpetrator to the character of Sweeney Tood, first seen in the penny dreadful serial The String of Pearls. This does feel like the overegging the scenario, given how judiciously it makes use of the Jack the Ripper legend, but otherwise the scenario benefits from some careful staging advice. If ‘Ashes to Ashes’ is grimy, then ‘Signs Writ in Scarlet’ is grim, but richly detailed and a classic worth updating and reprinting given that it has been out of print for over three decades.

Physically, Dust & Blood: Two Scenarios of Gaslight London is as well presented as you would expect for a Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition supplement. The illustrations are also good, those for ‘Ashes to Ashes’ actually having a lighter feel then those for then ‘Signs Writ in Scarlet’.

One quibble with the writing is that in places it favours American terminology first rather than British terminology. For example, in ‘Ashes to Ashes’ , the description of the disposal of household waste opens with “Recycling of household garbage (or rubbish as it is known in England)…” rather than, “Recycling of household rubbish (or garbage as it is known in the USA)…” Obviously, Call of Cthulhu and Cthulhu by Gaslight are published by an American company and their largest audience is American, but what it feels like is that an explanation is being given to non-American readers about a setting that is not American. Whereas the explanation should be for the American reader because it is not an American setting. Similarly, for the storeys of a house, the scenario uses “First (Ground) Floor” and “Second Floor” rather than “Ground (First) Floor” and “First (Second) Floor”. Again, this is a quibble, but given that Cthulhu by Gaslight is set in Victorian Britain and both scenarios are set in London, this phrasing is inconsistent, reads oddly, and is just slightly jarring.

Dust & Blood: Two Scenarios of Gaslight London provides very solid support for Cthulhu by Gaslight with something new and something old. The new gives a new angle from which to explore the Mythos in the Victorian era, whilst the old examines the Victorian attitude to murder following a public panic. In all honesty, two scenarios feels just two slight and it is easier to add one to an existing campaign than the other, which limits its use. Nevertheless, both scenarios in Dust & Blood: Two Scenarios of Gaslight London are very welcome support for the Keeper of Cthulhu by Gaslight, one new and inventive, one old, but a classic.

A Talagaad Tally

Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Player’s Guide and Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game – Game Master’s Guide introduced the Old World, the prequel setting to the venerable Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition. Based on the Warhammer: The Old World, the miniatures combat rules from Games Workshop, Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game is published by Cubicle 7 Entertainment and focuses on a setting that is torn by internal strife, whether political, between the Elector Counts, or religious, between the Sigmarites and Ulricans and others, rather than on the assaults and attacks by the forces of Chaos and on the Chaos within, though this does not mean that Chaos is no less of a threat to the Empire. It is also very specific in its setting. This is the fortified, if ramshackle river port of Talagaad, perched between the Talabec River and the towering walls of the Taalbaston—the giant crater in which the nearby city of Talabheim sits, which stands on the Wizard’s Way, the road that crosses over the bridge known as the and up over the walls of the Taalbaston and is the only legal route into the crater. Control of Talagaad is important since it is a source of much wealth, whether from the taxes levied on the goods going to Talabheim and from lower prices paid for goods being smuggled into the city. Consequently, the town is rife with crime and corruption, petty and otherwise, whether committed by its ordinary citizenry, criminal underclass, or even its excise officers. This is the subject of Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game – Talagaad Adventures.

Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game – Talagaad Adventures is an anthology of five adventures that can be run with any type of Player Characters, though a good mix is recommended in terms of capabilities and status. As in the case of the latter, it will enable the Player Characters to interact with all levels of society. It is suggested that the Player Characters have two adventures under their belt, so the Game Master may want to run the Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game – Starter Set at the very least. The adventures themselves are tied into ‘Grim Portents’ and ‘Dark Threads’ at the Talagaad and thus to the various Contacts that the Player Characters have. However, the adventures do not explore those ‘Grim Portents’ as such, the plots that will bring the Player Characters together and push them to act. Rather they connect to them, but do not develop them directly. Further, the five together do not form a campaign, and they can be played in any order, though it is suggested that the last scenario in the anthology, ‘The Siege of Klepzig’ be run last as a climax to the quintet. What this means is that the individual scenarios in Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game – Talagaad Adventures can be run on their own or woven into the Game Master’s campaign

The adventures take place in and around Talagaad, but also up and down the River Talabec and back again. ‘Something Fishy’ begins in Talagaad with the Player Characters inadvertently caught up in the assassination of the town’s town crier in the Fischmarkt. The Talabheim 11th State Troops are sent into to keep the peace as much as investigate and by investigate, pin the blame on the Player Characters! Sergeant Dunkel suggests they have links with the Redgrins, a brutal criminal gang that claims part of the docks as their turf. With Dunkel on their tail, the Player Characters will need to investigate the victim himself and his associates, survive a blunt interview with the Redgrins, and get the killer to confess. The scenario has a grubby, greasy feel to it and it climaxes in a big showdown between the villain of the piece and a horde of vengeful ghosts dragged up from the riverbed, the Redgrins, and the Talabheim 11th State Troops with the Player Characters caught in the middle!

In ‘The Hungry Towers’, the Player Characters are sent upriver to two villages standing opposite each other on a tributary of the Talabec River where a longstanding feud between the lords of Taggenfeld and Silberwald, the von Taglich family and the Fasthner-Ludenhofs respectively, has broken out once again. As a result of the feud, huge towers have been erected on opposite banks of the river and manned in fear of war between the minor baronies. Although they have letters of introduction, the Player Characters have to deal with stubborn nobles and their advisors, try to get to the bottom of the situation, and make it clear to either side, that everybody is going to lose in the unnecessarily tense situation. Multiple paths to resolving the situation are suggested, including suing for peace, revealing a bigger danger, siding with once faction or the other, and even inciting a rebellion. This is a thoroughly entertaining scenario, a mini-Cold War playing on the pettiness of the Empire’s nobility, and giving the Player Characters agency aplenty to resolve the situation.

If ‘The Hungry Towers’ feels like a mini-Cold War scenario, ‘Oars in the Water’ is more like Heart of Darkness. A contact of the Player Characters asks them to go down river to Ahlenhof and return with a river trader, Sibylle Reiss, who writes that she fears being attacked by a band of river pirates. As they travel back aboard her vessel, The Limping Lass, it is soon clear that Reiss is being tracked by another vessel, though her pursuers are no ordinary pirates. They are instead, fanatical Sigmarite cultists and they will do anything to stop The Limping Lass from reaching Talagaad. This includes attempting to sink her, attacking her crew when she is beached to make repairs, blocking the river, and more. However, as they travel upriver, the situation grows ever more tense and Reiss is forced to take desperate actions, ones that threaten reveal her secrets. The scenario brings out some of the tensions in the Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game setting and takes to monstrous extreme.

The Player Characters and the whole of Talagaard gets to party in ‘If the Leaves are Green’. If ‘Oars in the Water’ twists the classic Warhammer trope of travelling by river, ‘If the Leaves are Green’ firmly tweaks the classic Warhammer trope of a carnival or festival. In the harvested fields outside of Talagaard, the townsfolk enjoy the Mittherbst festival at which the Priests of Ulric welcome the approach of winter as the Rhya’s faithful give thanks for the recent harvest. As darkness falls, the Hounds of Taal, fervent worshippers of the god of nature, begin a ceremony, having donned masks of beasts and imbibed potent wine, and it is at this point that Beastmen stream into the firelight, slashing and biting and headbutting and then grabbing and retreating! As the town guards rush out to rescue any survivors, it is clear that they are not going to do anything about those kidnapped until daylight. After all, who can blame them? Who would be foolish enough to rush into Beastmen-infested woods in the middle of night? Only the Player Characters, of course. Their motivation should at least that one of their contacts has been taken, and what results is a harrowing race through the night to track down the various bands of fleeing Beastmen and get to them before they carry whatever foul plans they have for their captives! If successful, the Player Characters will have proven themselves mighty heroes, but the scenario does not ignore the costs of defeat either.

The quintet comes to a close with ‘The Siege of Klepzig’. The Player Characters are conscripted or volunteered into haphazard force of professional soldiers and militia to help defend a village which stands in the path of an army of Orc and Goblin raiders of the Red Eyez Tribe bearing down from the nearby Barren Hills. The scenario is a classic military muddle under siege with the added complication of claims to Klepzig from rival noble families, and the search for some secrets. The scenario is solidly written, but does not feel as exciting as the previous ‘If the Leaves are Green’. Instead, of desperate acts of heroism, this more desperate acts of survival under siege, and perhaps if the Game Master wants a more rousing finish to the anthology, she might swap the order of the scenarios. Essentially, if there are opportunities for grim and glorious storytelling in ‘If the Leaves are Green’, then ‘The Siege of Klepzig’ is definitely more grom than glorious.

Physically, Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game – Talagaad Adventures is well presented. The illustrations are also good and the maps clear and easy to use, although there could have more of them.

Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game – Talagaad Adventures is a solid selection of scenarios for Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game that is going to serve as great additions to a Game Master’s campaign. At their best, they explore the Old World in unexpected, exciting, and entertaining ways.

Cthulhoid Choices: Ripples

Call of Cthulhu is the preeminent roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror and has been for over four decades now. The roleplaying game gives the chance for the players and their Investigators to explore a world in which the latter are exposed, initially often indirectly, but as the story or investigation progresses, increasingly directly, to alien forces beyond their comprehension. So, beyond that what they encounter is often interpreted as indescribable, yet supernatural monsters or gods wielding magic, but in reality is something more, a confrontation with the true nature of the universe and the realisation as to the terrible insignificance of mankind with it and an understanding that despite, there are those that would embrace and worship the powers that be for their own ends. Such a realisation and such an understanding often leave those so foolish as to investigate the unknown clutching at, or even, losing their sanity, and condemned to a life knowing truths to which they wish they were never exposed. This blueprint has set the way in which other games—roleplaying games, board games, card games, and more—have presented Lovecraftian investigative horror, but as many as there that do follow that blueprint, there are others have explored the Mythos in different ways.

Cthulhoid Choices is a strand of reviews that examine other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror and of Cosmic, but not necessarily Horror. Previous reviews which can be considered part of this strand include Cthulhu Hack, Realms of Crawling Chaos, and the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game.

—oOo—

Something terrible happened to the town of Shingleford in 1962. The enigmatic, if friendly, Peddler came to town and sold the people what they wanted. Trinkets. Trinkets which unknowingly twisted their resentments into Curses and as they became exhilarated by the eldritch power granted by their Trinkets, their owners cast Curses on others and spread the influence of the Peddler. Fortunately, due to the efforts of a troop of River Scouts led by Hilda Buckle, under the eye of the Watcher, these Curses and the influence of the Peddler were stopped in 1962. Unfortunately, it was not without loss, for it led to the deaths of several of the River Scouts. Sixty years later, the Peddler returns, spreading Curses once again, poisoning the river and the lands on either side of its banks. It is another group of teenagers, who discover the old River Scouts clubhouse, abandoned after the events of 1962, who turn it into a den and are then visited by the ghost of a young girl who told them of how she helped lift the Curse in 1962. Other ghosts asked them to read the River Scout Pledge and provide protection for the Clawfoot and Shingleford once again, presenting them with Sashes that will help them defeat the Curses.

This is the set-up for Cryptid Creeks, a roleplaying game of eldritch investigative horror, that takes its inspiration from films such as The Goonies and Stand by Me, television series like Gravity Falls and Stranger Things, and graphic novels such as The Lumberjanes. Although a roleplaying game of eldritch investigative horror, and thus adjacent to it, Cryptid Creeks is not a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror and does not involve the Cthulhu Mythos. Published by Hatchlings Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is described as ‘Cosy Horror’, meaning that it is suitable for a family audience, much like its earlier roleplaying game, Inspirales. Cryptid Creeks is also ‘Carved from Brindlewood’, which means that it is a Powered by the Apocalypse system roleplaying game, but one using the lighter, more investigative-focused variant of Brindlewood Bay. Ripples: Cryptid Creeks Curse Collection is the first supplement for Cryptid Creeks.

Ripples: Cryptid Creeks Curse Collection is primarily a collection of eight Curses, mysteries and situations, that the River Scouts can investigate, determine a cause, and ultimately resolve. Three of those are set in the present, but of the rest, Ripples takes the River Scouts—the characters and their players—somewhere interesting, and that is the past. These five Curses are the ‘Ripples’ of the title and they take place over the course of the summer of 1962. They explore what happened that fateful summer when the Peddler was stopped for the first time and the River Scouts were disbanded. They are triggered by certain situations and also tell the stories of the River Scouts who lost their lives in the effort to defeat the Peddler and whose sashes the Player Characters in the modern day were given and wear as River Scouts. They are essentially flashbacks in which the players roleplay not their usual characters, but the River Scouts of 1962.

Each Ripple is introduced by a Seed, of which three are given for each Ripple. The playthrough of a Ripple requires some changes to the play of Cryptid Creeks to take into account the fact that events of each Ripple have not yet taken place and thus not yet had an effect on present of the modern day. Thus, there is no River Phase or associated Riverbank Stops and Playbook Moves tied to the River Scouts’ Clubhouse Collection and the Sash of Ages are unavailable. Instead of the River Phase, the ‘Bond Move’ allows a one-to-one moment with another Scout to gain a Clue or Advantage on a subsequent roll. Similarly, the ‘Guidebook Move’ replaces the ‘Hilda Move’ to gain advice on the current situation. The most radical change is the inevitability of character death, since the players are roleplaying the original River Scouts who in the future will become the Clubhouse Ghosts. However, such deaths take place offscreen and River Scouts cannot recall exactly how they died, but once they do, the dead characters become Ghosts, not just for the rest of the Ripple, but all subsequent Ripples. This sets up a challenge in that Ghosts cannot communicate with the living, only themselves, and can only impart information gained from an investigation via a haunting.

Of the five Ripples, ‘The Cryptid Creek’ must be run first and ‘The Curse of ’62’ must be run last, but the others can be played in any order. ‘The Cryptid Creek’ handily takes the Navigator and her players through the process of going back into the past and into what is the very first encounter with the Watcher and the Curse he suffered at the hands of the Peddler. ‘The Curse of the Old Hackitt House’ explores a haunted house and how its owner became a figure of both fear and fun; ‘The Curse of the Lich Root’ examines how and why the flora around Shingleford changed and warped following the events of the town gardening competition in 1962; and in ‘The Curse of Heartwood Locket’, the River Scouts make a new friend as they find out why the forest became strange and seemed to strike back at the loggers working it in 1962. Lastly, ‘The Curse of ’62’ confronts the River Scout with the terrible events that led to the deaths of the remaining Clubhouse Ghosts and the temptation of Hilda Buckle aged twelve, which will set in motion of the events and involvement of the new River Scouts in the modern day.

The five Ripples are not the only Curses explored in the supplement. The other three are all set in the modern day. Children run wild in ‘The Wildren’s Curse’ and the River Scout must find out if faeries are involved or there is another cause; the people of Shingleford are beset by waking dreams in ‘The Curse of False Awakenings’ and the River Scouts must find a way to shift between the realities of ‘The Night’, ‘The Library’, and the ‘Waking World’ to locate the cause and deal with it; and lastly, ‘The Curse of the Rogue Playthings’ has the River Scouts chasing after an beloved, but beloved toy, now awakened, that is breaking into houses and toy shops to steal other toys. Of the three, ‘The Curse of False Awakenings’ is the most challenging to run and play, yet feels like a more traditional weird mystery. The other two provide inventive ways in which different aspects of childhood can be explored. Lastly, ‘Ripples’ closes with short, but entertaining piece of fiction.

Physically, Ripples is tidily organised. It is light on artwork, but what is there is good. What stands out is the layout, which is not only well done, but includes pages colour-coded to each Ripple or Curse. For example, ‘The Curse of the Old Hackitt House’ involves a haunted house, so its pages are dark grey, but ‘The Curse of the Lich Root’ involves plants and so has light green pages. It is a small detail that adds a difference between the various Curses and Ripples.

The Ripples are a fantastic idea, enabling the Navigator and her players to journey back into the past and explore the events that set up the here and now. They work better played before—as a prequel—the events of Cryptid Creeks or doing the campaign itself with the flashbacks worked into the main story. This is not to say that they cannot be played after a Cryptid Creeks campaign has been finished, but the ramifications of the original River Scouts’ actions and deaths will be not as great if run as a sequel. Any Navigator wanting to run Cryptid Creeks should definitely look at Ripples: Cryptid Creeks Curse Collection as a possible addition to her campaign because it will add depth, back story, and just for one last summer, bring the Clubhouse Ghosts to life.

Relatives at Risk

Nephews in Peril: A Collection of New Mysteries in BRINDLEWOOD BAY is a companion volume to Brindlewood Bay: A Dark & Cozy Mystery Game. Published by The Gauntlet, Brindlewood Bay upended the traditional concept of murder mystery scenarios in roleplaying and changed what we play. In the traditional murder mystery scenario, the Keeper has the answers to hand—the victim, the suspects, the culprit, the means, and the motive—and the players and their characters have to deduce which of these is correct. In Brindlewood Bay, there is no set solution, but there are plenty of suspects and motives, and it is up to the players and their characters to hypothesise who the culprit is and why he committed the murder, and put it to the test. If passes, the murder mystery is solved. If not, the players and their characters must continue their sleuthing. Plus, the players are doing this with elderly female amateur detectives as their characters, such as Jessica Fletcher and Miss Marple, for example. Brindlewood Bay changed how we thought about investigative scenarios in roleplaying and how we played them. Besides the rules, Brindlewood Bay: A Dark & Cozy Mystery Game also detailed numerous murder mysteries, the Dark Conspiracy behind them that threatens the future of the quiet New England tourist spot, and a little about the town itself. Nephews in Peril: A Collection of New Mysteries in BRINDLEWOOD BAY presents the Keeper and her players—and their Mavens—with even more of this.

Nephews in Peril: A Collection of New Mysteries in BRINDLEWOOD BAY gives the Keeper a total of twenty new Mysteries, seven of which are of a new type of Mystery, which change the way in which Brindlewood Bayy is played—ever so slightly, and details more of Brindlewood Bay itself. It does not waste any time beyond simply listing the contents and describing the first mystery. After all, the Brindlewood Bay Keeper already knows what she is getting as far as the content goes. Each follows the same format as the core rulebook, with sections labelled, ‘Presenting the Mystery’, ‘Moments’ for various particular scenes, ‘Suspects’ complete with their quotes, ‘Locations’ with a guide on how to ‘Paint the Scene’ at each, ‘Clues’, and ‘Void Clues’, the latter connecting the mystery to the Dark Conspiracy playing out behind the scenes in the town. Also included is a ‘Complexity’ value, which represents the number of elements of the solution that the players and their Mavens need to discuss and hypothesise before they can make the ‘Theorise Move’ without a penalty. Some of the Mysteries do include elements that only come into play once parts of the Dark Conspiracy have been revealed, so the Keeper will need to pick which ones she wants to run and when. Further, some also have special rules, such as that for Brindlewood County Charity Poker Tournament which the Mavens can enter in the first mystery, ‘Dead Man’s Hand’.

The mysteries vary in tone. So, ‘Dead Man’s Hand’ takes place at a charity poker tournament, whereas ‘Lies and Dolls, or A Very Brief Tenure’, in which a corpse is discovered at the Museum of Brindle-Dolls, home to a collection of historic, locally-made dolls, and is thus a bit creepy. There is a sequel to ‘The Great Brindlewood Bay Bake-Off’ , with the Mavens again judges, but this time at Faversham’s Favourite Fudge competition at a farmer’s market in a neighbouring town, in the process, expanding the world of Brindlewood Bay, if only a little. The title of the latter, ‘Fudge, Jury, and Executioner’ is in the running for the best named mystery in the book, although ‘The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soulless’ and ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Murder’ are almost as good. There are classic locations for murder mysteries too such as auctions, high school reunions, and carnivals, but also odder ones too, such as at a high school wrestling tournament. One of the most potentially fun is ‘A Throng of Vice and Liars’, set at the Mavens’ own headquarters, The Candlelight Booksellers which is hosting fantasy author, Herb L. L. Paxton, currently facing some criticism about how long it is taking him to finish the sixth volume of what was originally planned to be a trilogy. It very knowingly and amusingly pokes at fandom and fantasy, both onscreen and on the page.

Seven of the Mysteries are ‘Sweeps Week Mysteries’. These are designed emulate the type of stunt episodes of a television series in the USA in the eighties and nineties, typically involving a weird plotline or celebrity guest star, intended to attraction higher advertising revenue. In Nephews in Peril, ‘Sweeps Week Mysteries’ are intended to be played late in Dark Conspiracy campaign, as Mysteries after the campaign has been completed, or as one-off Mysteries. ‘Sweeps Week Mysteries’ emphasis the supernatural rather than murder, and to account for this, instead of solving a murder, the Mavens are answering key questions about the mystery. Further, there are limitations on the mechanics, most notably negating the effect of several Maven Moves, removing the Occult Move, and the replacement of the ‘Theorise’ Move with the ‘Answer A Question’ Move. Where in normal murder mysteries, there are Suspects, here there are Side Characters, and where in normal murder mysteries, solving a mystery would be enough, here the Mavens get rewards. These can come in the form of new Moves, recurring Side Characters, decorations for the Cosy Little Place, and so on.

The ‘Sweeps Week Mysteries’ start out with the amusingly named ‘The Hex Files’, which finds the Mavens on a road trip to Who Dunnit? Con, a mystery book convention in California when they discover an overturned car in a ditch outside of Devilwood, New Mexico—a New Mexico which looks surprisingly like Vancouver—and it so happens that there are bodies of two dead FBI agents in the vehicle with files about missing persons on the road on their person. ‘Dressed to Kill’ shifts the mystery to the Peak District in the United Kingdom, whilst in ‘Let the Night One In’, the Mavens are invited to visit another famous crime writer, this time living in an isolated town in the Canadian north in deep winter when the sun never rises and people are going missing… There is a good mix of mystery types to these ‘Sweeps Week Mysteries’ and they show off the flexibility of the Brindlewood Bay mystery format, though with some mechanical changes.

The third part of Nephews in Peril is devoted to ‘The Village of Brindlewood Bay’. This expands greatly upon the setting presented in the core rulebook that add a mixture of new and old businesses, old and new locations. So, there is Historic Brindlewood Congregational Church, The First Well Historic Restoration Trust, and Minuteman Memorial Statue versus the Foam coffee house and Nerdcore, which caters to nerd culture including players of Sorcery: the Coalescence! Each entry includes a description that explains what it does and its role in the community, details of its proprietors and employees, and with ‘Pose a Question’, a reason why a Maven might visit. The sense of Brindlewood Bay as a place is further developed in the last part of the supplement is ‘A Cozy Little Place’ which gives advice for the Keeper in bringing the town to live and playing up its cosy nature, developing each Maven’s attachment to both her home and community. The aim is to provide a counterpoint to the rash of murders that beset the town and the growing realisation that something else is going on with the Dark Conspiracy. The advice is optional, but if used it can enhance the setting of Brindlewood Bay.

Physically, Nephews in Peril is clean and cosy, and thus in keeping with the main rulebook. It is well written and engaging, but the illustrations by Cecilia Ferri are stunning, veering between showing the Mavens joyously having the time of their cosy lives, not just in Brindlewood Bay, but around the world.

Although entirely optional, Nephews in Peril: A Collection of New Mysteries in BRINDLEWOOD BAY can be both expand the play of Brindlewood Bay: A Dark & Cozy Mystery Game and continue its play even after the Dark Conspiracy at its heart has been confronted and thwarted and the campaign is over. Nephews in Peril: A Collection of New Mysteries in BRINDLEWOOD BAY simply gives you more. More mysteries and more cosiness and more of Brindlewood Bay itself, but also a slightly different way to way to play which remains faithful to the inspiration for the roleplaying game itself.

Friday Fantasy: Brought to Light

Brought to Light enables you to visit the great city of Eversink not once, but four times. The city stands at the mouth of the Serpentine River where it flows into Bay of Coins, cut through by canals crossed over by numerous bridges from one plaza to another, filled with flotillas of boats and gondolas, spoiled by outpourings of human and other waste waiting to be flushed out to sea, all to the sound of merchants, high and low, hawking their wares, and the chants of the priests. This as its cellars and basements continue to sink into the mire, despite the best efforts of the engineers of The Guild of Architects and Canal-Watchers. Eversink is a city of feuds and rivalries and secrets, some secrets hidden in the rooms of buildings swallowed by the swamp upon which the city stands and a city of laws and traditions so complex and convoluted that no city official can expect to remember them all. The only crime that agreed upon and widely known is that of Sorcery, for hand-in-hand with Sorcery comes Corruption, and if a Sorcerer chooses not to internalise it, he must instead externalise it and that spiritually scars the surrounding terrain and brings the attention of the Inquisitors for it scars the blessings of the city’s patron goddess, Denari—and that may be Eversink’s ultimate secret. This is the setting for Swords of the Serpentine, the swords and sorcery roleplaying game of daring heroism, sly politics, daring thievery, incriminating secrets, feuding houses of the nobility, rampant corruption, and bloody savagery, set in a fantasy city full of skulduggery and death, that uses the GUMSHOE System and is published by Pelgrane Press.

It is also the setting for Brought to Light, an anthology of one-shot scenarios for Swords of the Serpentine. All four were originally run as demonstration scenarios at Gen Con and all four run the gamut of the roleplaying game’s tiers of play, from Fledgling to Sovereign. Which means that they showcase a range of Player Character types, campaign set-ups, and power levels in the setting of Eversink. Each scenario is structured the same way. This includes its adventure premise, setting, tone and hints for running the game—including inspirations, plot summary with a plot map, a breakdown of both the primary adversaries and the heroes, and how to start the scenario. This is followed by map of the scenario’s various scenes and the scenes themselves, the scenes further broken down skill by skill and how they apply and what the Player Characters will learn and lastly six pre-generated Player Characters specific to the scenario. Each scenario also includes a handout.

The anthology opens with ‘Ragamuffins’. Written for the Fledgling tier, it casts the Player Characters as urchins surviving as best they can on the streets of Eversink. Opening in exciting fashion with a rooftop chase, the Urchins find their home in Sag Harbour, the worst district in the city, has been robbed! This includes a precious MacGuffin that makes them feel safe in their hovel. The culprits are their regular bullies and the Urchins have to track down both and what the pair has done with the item, which ultimately leads to a horrible conspiracy underground. ‘Ragamuffins’ mixes grime and children’s own adventure in engaging fashion.

‘Murder Most Foul!’ takes the classic country murder mystery and gives it an Eversink twist, making it a locked-room—or rather locked-mansion—mystery. Master Pietro Contrari is the most famous and most successful freelance detective in the history of Eversink, having solved over nine hundred murders in thirty-five year career! He is holding a sixtieth birthday party at his mansion and the Player Characters’ patrons want to know the secret of Contrari’s success and so have got them invitations. The Player Characters are, of course, no slouches when it comes to investigations, and of course, there will be murder. Which sounds like a fantasy version of 1976’s Murder by Death. So, there is a ball at which everyone can circulate, a murder that Master Pietro Contrari is bound to solve, and a whole mansion to explore and investigate. This is a mansion crawl in which three investigations are running in parallel—one that of Contrari into the death, the second of the Player Characters into the death, and the third of the Player Characters into Contrari himself—with the first being separate from each. The scenario even ends with a, “But tell me inspector, what I don’t understand is…” scene in which the Player Characters get to turn it back on the master detective. This is an entertaining pastiche of all the genre clichés.

‘Smuggler’s End’ is another classic murder mystery style investigation, but here the Player Characters are members of the City Watch instructed by a very rare letter from the Triskadane, the city’s highly secret, anonymous rulers, to solve the death. The body is that of nobleman with a rakish and criminally connected reputation, now dressed in rags and seemly dumped on the streets of Sag Harbour with a knife in his back. How did the victim get there and who killed him? Add into the mix a sister whose haughty manner is going to make the players hate her, let alone their characters, who wants the body back for burial and will get it back in two days, and what you have is classic police style procedural in which justice crashes into city politics.

Politics rears its ugly head again in the fourth and final scenario in the anthology. ‘Takedown’ switches the Tier up to Sovereign and has the Player Characters take command of their greater resources rather than go toe-to-toe in direct combat—whether that is physical, verbal, or sorcerous—as they are constantly harried and harassed by their enemies. Again, the Player Characters are instructed by Triskadane, the city’s highly secret, anonymous rulers, to investigate and act against Judge Lorenzo Spina, Lord High Magistrate of Eversink—one of the most power, visible figures in the city. As creepily conveyed by a child, the Triskadane has foreseen that he poses a severe threat to the city. The scenario does not have a structure so much as it considers what actions the Player Characters might take and how their various Investigative and General abilities can be applied to the investigation, what they will learn in the process, and how Spina is likely to retaliate once he becomes aware of their activities. So, bar the initial one, there are no other scenes and the investigation and play process will be much more open. Tonally, ‘Takedown’ is much darker than the other scenarios and it probably the one on its own which could be expanded from a direct four hour affair into a mini-campaign. It is effectively a freeform played at the table and so requires greater input by the Game Master.

Physically, Brought to Light is very well laid out, nicely illustrated, and the individual organisation of the scenarios eases the Game Master’s job. However, as much as their portraits impart a feel for the pre-generated Player Characters, none of them have any ready background that is accessible to the players. Each does have some background—it is given in the breakdown of the heroes at the start of each scenario. So, whilst useful for the Game Master, she has to find a way to impart that to the players of these characters. Another issue is the lack of maps. All of the scenarios are to be run theatre of the mind, but in some cases, such as the mansion in ‘Murder Most Foul!’, map could have been useful given its location-based play.

The problem with Brought to Light is that not that it is a collection of bad scenarios; quite the contrary. These are all good, entertaining scenarios. Rather that it consists of one-shots, convention scenarios, and whilst they can used as the basis or starting points for ongoing campaigns, they are not easy to add to a campaign. Which ultimately means that Brought to Light is not as flexible as a more general anthology of scenarios might be. Nevertheless, Brought to Light is a good showcase for Swords of the Serpentine, capturing not just some of its possible set-ups, but also the feel and flavour of Eversink, its grottiness and grandeur, corruption and capriciousness, power and pettiness, and more.

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Pelgrane Press will be at UK Games Expo which takes place from Friday, 29th to Sunday 31st of May.

Miskatonic Monday #400: Rewind – A 1980s Anthology

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. 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.

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With a trade dress that is a nod to the Blockbuster chain of home video rental shops, the Keeper and her players are going to know where they with Rewind – A 1980s Anthology. This is a collection of connected scenarios that throws them back into the nostalgia of the eighties, Reagan’s America, and the films to rent from the local video library. It consists of five individual scenarios, plus a prequel that can also be played as a flashback, each of which is inspired by a particular set of films from the period. They take place in and around the fictional Butcher Creek, a wholly unremarkable town that has been absorbed by a nearby larger city and had what was its major employer for decades shut down its operations. As a consequence, like so many towns and cities in Reagan’s America, it is suffering from a post-industrial combination of malaise, decline, and loss of identity. This lends its scenarios a certain sense of scuzzy desperation as cults take advantage of the townsfolks’ desperation and hopelessness to bring their plans to fruition and entities from beyond infiltrate the town.

All six scenarios are quite short, designed to be played in approximately two hours—equal to the running time of a video cassette—though some have scope for a longer playing time. Although there are suggestions as to adjust to a lower number of players, the ideal number for all six scenarios is five players. Each scenario is inspired by a different series of films released on video during the period and as a consequence, each has a both a different theme and a different cast of pre-generated Investigators. This gives Rewind – A 1980s Anthology a portmanteau structure and a disparate nature, so that there is no one strong hook that a standard campaign for Call of Cthulhu would have. Rather than be run as a traditional, dedicated campaign, Rewind – A 1980s Anthology might instead be run as what are initially one-off scenarios, in any order, set in the same place with the players making connections with elements of the previous scenarios as they roleplay through them. In addition, none of the scenarios conclude in a satisfactory conclusion or with questions answered. Only the finale does.

The anthology opens with the prequel, ‘I Can’t Stand It’. Inspired by Hillstreet Blues, it is actually set in the late seventies, and casts the Player Characters as ‘cowboy cops’ who act first and complain about the paperwork afterwards. A routine callout to a notoriously seedy motel leads to a late night hostage situation, followed by a car chase and deadly motor vehicle collision, and a revelation that will have repercussions in later scenarios. The film Repo Man is the inspiration for the first part of the campaign, ‘Best Damn Car in the Yard’, in which a rough team of repo men who are given the emergency task of recovering a stolen bright green 1970 Plymouth Barracuda with black graphics. Their hunt for the missing vehicle leads them into a confrontation with local mobsters and probable arrest, at which point one of the surviving cops from ‘I Can’t Stand It’ might tell them about the events back in 1978 and so allow the Keeper to run the prequel as a flashback.

‘Insert Coin for Credit’ is inspired by Tron and Weird Science. The Investigators are teenagers who like to hang out at Butcher Creek’s Sure Shot arcade and get to try their hands at a few arcade classics before the mystery begins. This is around a strange game that two other teenagers are obsessed with—and increasingly so, becoming violent in their attempts to play it. At the same time, the Investigators begin to suffer strange dreams and become obsessed themselves. When the arcade game disappears can they track it down and discover what it really is? The Investigators are employees of Trajan’s Pizza in the third scenario, ‘Special Delivery’, which is inspired by Terminator, Alien, and other slasher/stalker films. First, one of their number begins to suffer seizures and then they all do. As they occur again and again, investigating that evening’s pizza deliveries leads to death, mystery, and indications that something not of this Earth is stalking them.

Karate Kid/Cobra Kai and Kung-Fu Hustle are the inspiration for ‘Dojo Nights’ which casts the Investigators as students at the town’s dojo. This is the most combative of the scenarios in Rewind – A 1980s Anthology as the students face off against each other several times in the course of the scenario. Their sensei is desperate to recover some books taken from him to repay a debt, a process which could get them into trouble, and definitely will when they return the books and he becomes obsessed and wants to control all of his students. The ‘Finale – Gotta Die of Something, Kid’ potentially brings all of the survivors from the previous five scenarios together, giving the player multiple options as who they might roleplay for the climax of Rewind – A 1980s Anthology. Also returning are the remaining foes from the previous scenarios so the players could also roleplay the Investigators in those scenarios too, the Keeper keeping the action going by switching back and forth between the different groups and foes. As the townsfolk rise in a brainwashed stupor, the surviving Investigators need to stop each of their foes’ final plans before a showdown with the source of the threat for everything that has been happening in Butcher Creek.

Physically, what is striking about Rewind – A 1980s Anthology is the use of different trade dresses. Most obviously, its cover is a reference to the Blockbuster chain, but inside the guide to Butcher Creek is done as an insert to Yellow Pages, the commercial telephone directory, and the scenario backgrounds are themed. ‘Fight to Live’ takes place in and around a dojo, so is decorated with dragons and Chinese Hanzi script, ‘Special Delivery’ is a done as an Italian pizzeria, and so on. It is very cheesy, but it does not always work. The Yellow Pages guide is a bit too vibrant and uses a lot of different fonts that make it difficult to read. In addition, the NPC stat blocks, done as Blockbuster-style membership cards are slightly too small to read with ease and the anthology also needs a good edit.

Rewind – A 1980s Anthology is ambitious, but unlike a traditional campaign for Call of Cthulhu, there is insufficient scope for the players, let alone the Investigators in the individual scenarios, to really gain any idea of what is going on or to really affect what is going on until the finale of the campaign. The Investigators do not come to fully realise who or what the antagonist is and what they are trying to do, and there are no real ways of their finding this out. There is even an organisation in the campaign which probably does know, appearing as it does at the end of several of the scenarios, to offer to help by cleaning up after the Investigators’ activities. It is not explained who they and they certainly do not explain to the Investigators what is going on either. Individually, the scenarios are thematically engaging and pack a decent amount of action and social interaction within their two-hour running times, but as a whole, Rewind – A 1980s Anthology leaves much of the mystery out of the grasp of Investigators and their players.

Friday Fantasy: Adventure Anthology 2

Since it first appeared in 2019, Old School Essentials has proven to be a very popular choice of roleplaying game when it comes to the Old School Renaissance. Published by Necrotic Gnome Productions, it is based on the 1981 revision of Basic Dungeons & Dragons by Tom Moldvay and its accompanying Expert Set by Dave Cook and Steve Marsh, and presents a very accessible, very well designed, and superbly presented reimplementation of the rules. There is plenty of support for Old School Essentials from third-party publishers, but Necrotic Gnome also publishes its own support, including scenarios such as Halls of the Blood King, The Isle of the Plangent Mage, The Incandescent Grottoes, and The Hole in the Oak. These are full length, detailed adventures and dungeons, but for the Game Master looking for shorter scenarios from the publisher, there are two options. These are Old-School Essentials Adventure Anthology 1 and Old-School Essentials Adventure Anthology 2. Each contains four adventures of varying difficulty and Level, with many of them being very easy for the Game Master to insert into her own campaign, and working well with Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy and Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy.

Old-School Essentials Adventure Anthology 2 contains—just as Old-School Essentials Adventure Anthology 1 did before it—four adventures by noted contributors to the Old School Renaissance. The first two consist of dungeons designed for Player Characters ranging from First to Third Level, whilst the third is an adventure for Fourth to Sixth Level Player Characters and the fourth is an uncommon inclusion, a mid to high-Level adventure for Old School Essentials, in this case, Sixth to Eighth Levels. All four are dungeon-style adventures and relatively short, with only one of them possessing more than twenty locations. They are all self-contained, so easy to run as one-shots or add to a campaign. Either way, none of should should take longer than two or three sessions to complete at the very most.

All four dungeons are neatly organised with an overview and explanation of the adventure at the start along with a ‘Random Happenings’ table rather than a random encounters table, followed by details of the main denizens and some general notes. The ‘Area Descriptions’ come after this and each adventure is accompanied by a very nice map from Glynn Seal.

The anthology opens with ‘Barrow of the Bone Blaggards’ by Chance Dudinack. It is designed for Player Characters of First to Third Level and opens with a simple set-up. In recent weeks caravans have been attacked by skeletal brigands on the road near a single barrow in the woods, built one hundred years ago to inter the dead from a historic battle which took place nearby. Nobody has had any reason to go near the barrow in living memory, but now its circular stone entrance is open and ghostly, lively music emanates from inside. In classic Dungeons & Dragons-style play, the Player Characters would enter the dungeon, discover lots of undead and that the villain behind it all was a Necromancer. So it is with ‘Barrow of the Bone Blaggards’, but the scenario gives a classic roleplaying situation a twist or two. One twist is that the Necromancer is both a villain and an idiot and the other is that the undead raised by his efforts are not in his thrall, but instead freewheeled. They eat and they drink—despite the food and drink falling and running out of their bodies, and they want to be alive again, which why they have taken prisoners. Add in some undead NPCs and an angry Pixie and the Game Master has some fun NPCs to portray, though some of the general Undead could also have been named too. Of course, the skeleton and zombie warriors are Chaotic in Alignment, but giving a horde of them motivation is a delightful touch. There are other elements which are just as good that the players really will enjoy discovering and overall, this really is a really well done dungeon with lots of detail and flavour.

Nate Treme’s ‘Shrine of the Oozing Serpent’ is also for Player Characters of First to Third Level and also has a similar set-up. The local duke offers a reward to whomever can slay the creature that is attacking travellers on the King’s Road. The local people claim to have seen a black blob slithering through the marsh to a Gnome Shrine of Mulvis that a decade ago was destroyed by Sootmurk, a legendary grease dragon. The dungeon combines religious fanatism of Deep One-like creatures called Gloops with Gnomish mechanical inventiveness and a Gnomish shrine to a demon and their dead and a temple to an emollient serpent! Despite being designed for low Level Player Characters this is a tougher adventure than the previous ‘Barrow of the Bone Blaggards’, not least because Sootmurk is a six Hit Dice beast! The dungeon has an interesting combination of themes, but they feel constrained within the limited space of just twelve locations as if it should be a much bigger dungeon.

‘Cathedral of the Crimson Death’ by Diogo Nogueira is designed for Player Characters of Fourth to Sixth Level. The Purifying Church of the Crimson Flame—which venerates the deity Bahal, the Flame of Purification—has for a decade, stood as a refuge and a place of hope for the lands around it that have been ravaged by the Deathless Plague. Sufferers are inflicted with incurable, rotting wounds that ultimately turn them into the Undead. The priests and acolytes of the church could not truly heal the sick and as they laid more and more of the Undead to rest, they lost their way and instead of offering succour to the sick, imprisoned and tortured them, before putting them to the flame to purge them of the plague. When the sick stopped coming, the Church’s newly founded, but soon reviled Crimson Knights went out looking for them. Perhaps the Player Characters have been sent to put an end to the cruel reign of the Church or come simply to plunder it in the last days of civilisation or are fleeing the hordes of undead that wander the land…

A Cleric is an absolute must in this horror mini-dungeon, which is effectively, a quite straightforward strike mission. Go in, rescue what prisoners survive and slaughter everything and everyone else. Since everything else is evil and tainted by demons, this is perfectly acceptable in what is a serviceable, combat focused dungeon.

Lastly, ‘The Ravener’s Ghat’ is a dungeon for Player Characters of Sixth to Eighth Level designed by Brian Yaksha. Unlike the other adventures, this one comes with two maps, one a standard two-dimensional affair, the other one done in three dimensions which very nicely gives depth and detail to the location where it is set. This location is a temple in a flooded valley where a scholarly Rakshasa, known as the Ravener, was worshipped as the herald of monsoons and a divine servant of the Monsoon God. Like all Rakshasa, the Raverner was demonised and turned into a man-eater by changes in fickle divine dynasties and in his newfound evil, stole the offerings to the Monsoon God and enveloped the lands in permanent monsoon rains. The Ravener’s priests trapped him inside, shackling to the waters of the floods, and only recently, after time uncounted, has the veil lifted on the Ravener’s Ghat. Perhaps a holy order wishes to prevent the Ravener from being woken, perhaps wisdom may be learned from one of the priests, or simply, the party wants to plunder the ancient temple before someone else does.

This is an engaging dungeon with multiple factions, including elevated Baboons and Crocodiles as well as treasure hunters and rival servants of the Raverner, and a design inspired by the folklore and architecture of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. The Player Characters are free to approach the temple in whatever way they want and listen to whichever faction they want, many of them are sympathetic and do not necessarily wish them ill. Ideally, the Player Characters will end up facing the Raverner himself, a monster despite what he once was. Depending upon the faction that the Player Characters have allied themselves with will likely determine if that confrontation is challenging or even more challenging. Its probable location and cultural theming do make it more difficult to add to a campaign than other adventures in the anthology, but this does not stop it from being a very nicely done dungeon. It packs in plenty of detail and flavour and factions so that it is not all about combat, but also exploration and interaction. If the Game Master has a suitable setting for this adventure, one inspired by Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, then she should definitely add this dungeon to her campaign.

Physically, the Old-School Essentials Adventure Anthology 2 is very cleanly and tidily laid out and organised as you would expect for a title for Old-School Essentials. Notably, the content is split between columns of content and almost sidebars where the monster and NPC stats are highlighted in coloured boxes. Colour is used to spot effect throughout, whilst the maps are excellent. The full colour artwork is also good. One issue is that the adventures do not use map excerpts for each location description, so the Game Master will need to refer back and forth to the maps.

The Old-School Essentials Adventure Anthology 2 is not as good as Old-School Essentials Adventure Anthology 1. This is not to say that its dungeons and adventures are bad, but only two of them stand out being either interesting or inventive. Of the four, ‘Barrow of the Bone Blaggards’ is the most fun and the easiest to use and the one that the players are likely to enjoy, whilst ‘The Ravener’s Ghat’ is well written and packs in a lot of theme and flavour.

Goodman Games Gen Con Annual XI

Since 2013, Goodman Games, the publisher of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic has released a book especially for Gen Con, the largest tabletop hobby gaming event in the world. That book is the Goodman Games Gen Con Program Book, a look back at the previous year, a preview of the year to come, staff biographies, community content, and a whole lot more, including adventures and lots of tidbits and silliness. The first was the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book, but not being able to pick up a copy from Goodman Games when they first attended UK Games Expo in 2019, the first to be reviewed was the Goodman Games Gen Con 2014 Program Book. Fortunately, a little patience and a copy of the Goodman Games Gen Con 2013 Program Book was located and reviewed, so since 2021, normal order has been resumed with the Goodman Games Gen Con 2015 Program Guide, the Goodman Games Gen Con 2016 Program Book, the Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book, and Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying, and Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston.

With both Goodman Games Gen Con 2018 Program Guide: The Black Heart of Thakulon the Undying, and Goodman Games 2019 Yearbook: Riders on the Phlogiston, the series had begun to chart a new direction. Each volume would contain a mix of support for the various RPGs published by Goodman Games and the content published by the Goodman Games community, but the major feature of each volume would be a tournament scenario, staged the previous year at Gen Con. Unfortunately, events caught up with the eighth entry in the series, Goodman Games Yearbook #8: The Year That Shall Not be Named, as the Covid-19 pandemic forced the world to adjust, which of course, included Goodman Games. The result was that the traditional Gen Con Program Guide became a ‘Yearbook’ and this trend has continued since with the Goodman Games 2021 Yearbook and the Goodman Games 2022 Yearbook. However, it has shifted ever so slightly again with a name change the book in the line, Goodman Games Yearbook #11.

Goodman Games Yearbook #11 looks back at 2023 for the publisher and opens on a more reflective, even mournful note than is usual for the regular annual or Gen Con Program Guide. In turn, various members of the Goodman Games team look back at the year past, starting with Joseph Goodman, noting the year’s highlights, changes, and so on. Joseph Goodman examines how he has made the switch from running the publisher fulltime rather than as a ‘hobby’ job and made a concerted effort to look at the trends in the hobby, whilst Jen Brinkman discusses the shift to Goodman Games having its own dedicated warehouse in Fort Wayne, Indiana, along with Harley Stroh. (This move has its own article later in the book, ‘News Flash: Goodman Games Moves To Our Own Warehouse!’, which also introduces the warehouse mascot, ‘Bricky’.) Michael Curtis and Chris Doyle look at the development and output of Goodman Games for Dungeon Crawl Classics and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, respectively, whilst Brendan Lasalle gives a short history of Xcrawl and the success of the Xcrawl Classics Kickstarter campaign as well as overview of the activities of Goodman Games Road Crew for the year. This is the cadre of Judges who run games for Goodman Games at game shops and conventions, and are in many ways the public face of the company, and it is further supported by both ‘Ten Years of Road Crew Art’ and ‘2023 Poster Design Contest’, both of which look back at Goodman Games’ art. Rick Maffei talks about the end of the Goodman Games YouTube series, Talking TSR, and the start of the new series, The 50 Greatest Classic Adventures of All Time. These look like great series, the one worth going back to and the other beginning of.

The reflections come to a close on a sad note, with Goodman Games Yearbook #11 remembering the deaths of three stalwarts of the hobby, noted for their contributions to the hobby and in one way or another, the Old School Renaissance. They are in turn, Russ Nicolson, who was previously interviewed in Goodman Games Yearbook #8: The Year That Shall Not be Named; Jennel Jaquays, noted designer of The Dark Tower and The Caverns of Thracia, both originally published by Judges Guild and since republished by Goodman Games; and James M. Ward, best known for the creation of the first Science Fiction roleplaying game, Metamorphosis Alpha: Fantastic Role-Playing Game of Science Fiction Adventures on a Lost Starship.

The first gaming entry in Goodman Games Yearbook #11 with ‘DCC Gen Con Funnel Experience Adventure: The Forsaken Vault of the Crimson Oracle’. Written by Brendan LaSalle, this is a ‘Funnel Experience’, intended as a means to introduce new players to Dungeon Crawl Classics using Zero Level characters. For the Player Characters, it begins with the appearance of a giant colossus, bursting up through the earth, in West Mauldeen, a remote farming village, opening a maw into which tip the remains of the village and its inhabitants—both living and dead! Awoken and thrown from their beds, the ordinary survivors find themselves in a cavern filled with the dead and the buildings they once lived in, facing a demon! The scenario is short, direct, and deadly, but has some really entertaining encounters, such as with ‘Gallyjacks’, Dwarves and Humans being ridden by one-inch-tall humanoids called Prizetakers (who come from the City of the Prize-takers) as if they pirate ships and from which they can launch boarding parties on the Player Characters; a surprisingly helpful goat; and a dying ‘giant’ head, which might be helpful if a way can be found to save him. There are opportunities too, for quite a lot of treasure to be found. The scenario is a lot of fun and will work as a demonstration scenario as well.

Both Dungeon Crawl Classics and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition are catered for with ‘Two More Old School Traps’ by Chris Doyle and converted by Mihailo Tešić. Inspired by Original Adventures Reincarnated #8: Grimtooth’s Old School Traps, the two traps here are detailed and dirty, nasty affairs. The first of the two, ‘The HyStairical Trap’, is also inspired by DCC #106, Trials of the Trapmaster’s Tomb and is a set of stairs that is trapped not once but three times. First, by a pressure plate that releases oil to make the stairs slippery, second by a pressure plate that releases laughing gas, and third, a pit which is really hard to avoid given the effects of the first two! ‘Whole Lotta Pit Traps’ is quite simple, five pit traps on top of each other and each one deadlier than the one above…

The scenario for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in Goodman Games Yearbook #11 is William Fischer’s ‘Chains of the Conflagrator’. This is an expansion to Jennell Jaquay’s Original Adventures Reincarnated #7: Dark Tower, very much a classic, but highly thematic dungeon. It is designed for four to six Ninth Level Player Characters and intended to be played in a single session. They encounter Argun the Conflagrator, an ancient red dragon who terrorised the lands far to the south of Mitra’s Fist, the location for the ‘Dark Tower’. He has been long been imprisoned by cultists dedicated to Set and asks the Player Characters to free him. The main part of the scenario takes place in his lair where the Player Characters must survive the volcano environment and find a way to free him. It is a big and enjoyably bold encounter and adds a pleasing side quest to a classic game, but which could also be added another dungeon without any difficulty. It is supported with several new monsters devoted to Set.

Marc Bruner takes us back to ‘Dinosaur Crawl Classics’ in The Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book with ‘The Return Of Dinosaur Crawl Classics!’. This presents a new Character Class for the setting which is based on that of Dinosaur Planet: Broncosaurus Rex. This is the Protoceratops, a highly intelligent ceratopsian, which is also curious, peaceful, and psionic. They record knowledge on stone using their highly dextrous beaks, are good translators and negotiators and so serve as diplomat, and have psionic powers such as Rustling Brush which camouflages the user and Strengthen Bonds of social connections, new abilities also given here. There is a quick guide to converting the psionics from Mutant Crawl Classics to ‘Dinosaur Crawl Classics’. This is a solid addition to the setting, but just like its original inclusion in The Goodman Games Gen Con 2017 Program Book, it really makes the reader wish that it was a proper setting with a book of its own. It is followed by ‘From The Vault: New Mutations

For Your MCC Campaign’, in which Erica Barlow, Julian Bernick, James Pozenel, and Skeeter Green give yet more mutations for Mutant Crawl Classics, including Acid Generation, Bio Boost, Salvage Savant, and Warp Reality.

Throughout, as is the norm for all entries in the series, Goodman Games Yearbook #11 includes photographs from various conventions that the publisher and its representatives attended over the case of 2024. This, of course, includes Gen Con 2023, but also includes Gameholecon, Garycon, and many more. They are not as profusive as in more recent issues of the program guide and are threaded throughout the supplement rather than in blocks. This makes the events themselves and Goodman Games’ presence feel a little more peripheral than in past years, which is obviously not the actual case. ‘DCC Day’ is, of course, special for Goodman Games and so gets its own article with ‘DCC DAY 2023’ highlighting the great releases on the day. The publisher’s presence at Gen Con is dominated by the Goodman Games booth, which always has a physical presence. For Gen Con 2023, this was with a Wizard Tower Dice Tower Podium and its creation—as have the creation of other features have been charted in previous volumes of the Gen Con Program Guide/Yearbook—is enjoyably detailed by Wayne Snyder in ‘Building The Wizard Tower Dice Podium’. Lastly, the Goodman Games community and their contributions are highlighted in ‘The 2023 Goodie Awards: Our Annual Thank You To The Community!’. This brings the program guide to a close by bringing many names in the community to the reader’s attention and what they give. It brings the Goodman Games Yearbook #11 to a fitting close.

Physically, the Goodman Games Yearbook #11 is a slim affair, in keeping with the current reduced format of the series. It is well presented, a pleasing read, and full of very good artwork.

There are really two strands to the Goodman Games Yearbook #11—community and content to game with. Although it feels very much like there is more of the former than the latter, both are engaging and entertaining, capturing another year of Goodman Games and giving some fun gaming content too.

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Goodman Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 30th to Sunday June 1st, 2025.