Coriolis Campaign II

The Third Horizon is a place of mystery and mysticism. The location of the thirty-six star systems that comprise the third wave of colonisation from Earth via a series of portals built and abandoned long ago by an alien species now known as the Portal Builders, it stands isolated once again following an interstellar war between the First Horizon and the Second Horizon that closed the Portals. The identity of the Portal Builders remains a mystery, as does the identity of the recently arrived faceless aliens known as the Emissaries who rose from the gas giant Xene. Compounding that is the fact that one of the Emissaries claims to be an Icon and ordinary men and women have been seen to use abilities said to be the province of the Icons themselves. Are they heretics, evolving, or the result of Emissary meddling? Then what secrets are hidden in the dark between the stars and the portals? This is the situation in the Middle East-influenced Science Fiction roleplaying game, Coriolis: The Third Horizon, originally published in Swedish by Free League Publishing, but since published in English. It is also the situation at the start of Mercy of the Icons, a campaign trilogy for Coriolis: The Third Horizon, that will explore them in detail and reveal some of the secrets to the setting.

By the end of the Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost, the first part of the campaign, the Player Characters discovered starting revelations in the wake of the disappearance of the Emissary. These were the identity of the organisation behind the death and disappearances of mystics from aboard the Coriolis station, the so called ‘The Mysticides’, and more information about who the Emissaries are and that they in danger after receiving a vision of the Second Horizon. It seems that despite the Third Horizon having been long isolated from both the First Horizon and the Second Horizon, the former is attempting to make long lost contact and manipulate events in its favour, whilst the latter is trying to prevent it. The action having shifted from Coriolis station to tracking across the world of Kua below, the first part of the campaign ends with the Player Characters wanting to get off planet knowing that some of the most important figures in the Third Horizon are in danger.

To continue playing the campaign, it is recommended that at least one Player Character be combat capable. In addition, a Player Character with the Data Djinn skill is definitely going to be useful and whilst a Mystic character is not mandatory, the presence of one will add an extra dimension to the campaign. The Player Characters do not necessarily need to have their own starship, but should have access to one. That said, they may able to recover their own spaceship, which they lost access to in Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost, and carry one from there. One way in which the Player Characters can acquire a ship from the start of the campaign is in playing The Last Voyage of the Ghazali, a prequel scenario to the Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost. It is worth running Last Voyage of the Ghazali before Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost, but it should be noted that the connection between The Last Voyage of the Ghazali and Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost is never really explored from the perspective of the Player Characters. However, it becomes much more important in Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade and then Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons. As with Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost before it, the Atlas Compendium is likely to be useful in running the ongoing campaign

The second part of the campaign, Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade, published following a Kickstarter campaign, is divided into three very different parts. The first part, ‘The Uharan Echo’, is really divided into two highly contrasting halves. It opens with the Player Characters having been hired to investigate the possible reappearance of the Zafirah, the destroyer lost during the rescue operation conducted during The Last Voyage of the Ghazali. This requires that they run a blockade from the long way round into Uharu system via the Taoan-Uharu portal, before the Player Characters literally dive on the wreck submerged in the chemical waters of a moon, perhaps prefiguring the tone of Coriolis: The Great Dark. This gives it a claustrophobic, unworldly feel that escalates as they reach the wreck where it lies on a cliff, ready to tip over and fall into the depths below, and begin to search the ship. Inside they make a startling discovery, a second wreck, that of one of the strange Butterfly Ships that the Player Characters encountered at the end of the first part of the campaign. The inside of the Butterfly Ship is nothing like the Player Characters will have seen before and is almost ‘alien’ in its creepiness. The scenario ends in a rush as the Butterfly Ship begins to collapse and force the wreck off the cliff, and then attacking the portal itself, which disrupts the whole of the Uharu system. The unexpected discovery of the Butterfly Ship is a fantastic payoff to the Player Characters’ encounter at the end of Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost.

The second half is a radical shift to the first, taking place back on the Coriolis station where the Player Characters find themselves the centre of attention, feted as heroes after the events in the Uharu system. After recovering in hospital, the Player Characters are approached by multiple factions wanting to employ them whilst also being the guests of honour at a grand banquet to celebrate the end of the year or Cyclade. They are dressed to the nines and effectively paraded through the scenario, but there are plenty of opportunities for the Player Characters to interact with the great and the good along the way, with plenty of opportunities to roleplay and with some good Manipulation rolls potentially learn what each faction wants. What each faction wants and knows is nicely detailed, as is the support they will provide the Player Characters, what they will do if the Player Characters do not enter their employ, and what they will do if the Player Characters betray them. There are also plenty of other scenes too that the Game Master can add to contrast and display the varied reactions to the Player Characters’ being treated as the heroes of the hour.

By the end of the banquet (or not long after), the Player Characters will themselves having taken up one faction or another as a patron. It is possible to maintain links with some of the other lesser factions, but in the main, they will be working for and supported by a single patron throughout the next part of the campaign. What the different factions want is explored in further detail as the campaign shifts again in tone and structure. ‘The Cyclade Dance’, the second part of Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade is more open in structure, being built around a mission generator and a series of events that the Game Master can weave the Player Characters’ progress around. The Player Characters will not be present for every event nor do they have to play through all of the suggested adventures. Some of the events will take place off screen and the Player Characters will only learn about them afterwards, but they do serve to keep them updated as to ongoing events across the Third Horizon. Sixteen missions are detailed to varying degrees with the final four being more detailed and necessary to continue the campaign. The missions focus on the investigation of the Nazareem’s Sacrifice cult, originally a Firstcome faction, but long since reviled for its nihilistic and brutal practices, including alleged human sacrifice, performing dark rituals, and making unholy pacts with evil spirits and djinn. The Nazareem’s Sacrifice has long been driven underground in the Third Horizon, operating in secret, but has become more active in recent years. For the majority of the factions in the Third Horizon it is seen as the primary threat. The types of missions begin with the Player Characters hunting lone agents and cultists to Tier I and infiltrating Nazareem’s Sacrifice cells, through Tier II and exploring ruins associated with the cult, to Tier III and actually conducting a strike mission against active cells. Throughout, the Player Characters will have been gathering information that will ultimately set up the Tier III mission. However, not every mission involves Nazareem’s Sacrifice directly and one of the creepier missions is ‘Curse of Rusah’ in which the Player Characters explore the Ash Belt in the desolate Odacon in search of a rumoured lost weapon. The encounter verges on cosmic horror and has a creepy, weird feel that echoes the earlier exploration of the Butterfly Ship. The last mission, ‘The Fire of the Icons’, is the assault upon a Nazareem’s Sacrifice temple and it holds some weird encounters of its own, that again verge on being horrifying.

The last part of Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade is ‘In the Shadow of the Zenith’ returns the Player Characters to the Coriolis station, and Kua, it hangs over, for a more direct finale. Against a backdrop of a hastily called election to the Council of Factions in the face of continued political polarisation and growing distrust by the electorate, the Player Characters’ patron asks them to locate a defector who has valuable information. Coriolis station is packed with pilgrims and refugees and this only adds to the tension as the Player Characters locate and search safehouse after safehouse and then, as they locate the defector and learn the truth behind the election, its results are called, the previous administration is denounced, martial law is declared, and rioting breaks out in response. It is against this backdrop that the Player Characters race to get off the station and the Emissaries make an open move that brings Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade to a shattering conclusion.

Physically, Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade is a good-looking book. The artwork is excellent, but the writing does need an edit in more than a few places, and it does feel as if the English translation of the campaign has been rushed. The campaign is light on handouts and there are very few physical clues. This is not an issue, but the campaign does feel as if a few more maps would have been useful, certainly ones suitable for use by the players and their characters.

The Mercy of the Icons campaign is a demanding campaign to play and run. There is a lot of information for the Game Master to take in and impart that to her players, and in Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade that comes to the fore as politics plays a big role in the story and there is a lot going on in the background as the events of the foreground where the Player Characters play out. Even if the players have characters who do not have as much interest in the politics of the Third Horizon as others, for example, agents and journalists versus merchants and ship’s crew, they are still going to need the same background since they are going to be dealing with the same factions. And whilst the Nazareem’s Sacrifice are definitely evil, the other factions are definitely shaded in a lot of grey. Nevertheless, Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade very effectively pushes the plot on, gets the Player Characters’ involved, and reveals more of the secrets and the horrors of the Third Horizon.

Your SHIVER Slasher Starter

Summer camp is a tradition. A chance for the parents to take a break from their children and a chance for the children to meet other children, enjoy the outdoors, engage in outdoor activities and have some fun, whilst for the camp counsellors, it is a chance to get away from their parents, take some responsibility, and maybe have fun with their fellow camp counsellors after their charges are all in their bunks. Summer camp is also a tradition of blood and tragedy, terror and death, as some seemingly random, unrelenting Slasher sneaks out of the surrounding woods and stalks the occupants of the camp, stabbing them, cutting them, hacking them, and putting them to death in murderously inventive ways. That is, until there is one ‘Final Girl’, a survivor who will somehow put an end to the Slasher’s rage-fuelled rampage, and then go on to live a life of happiness and love, untroubled by the trauma inflicted upon her by the monster that pursued her and her friends that night… Or perhaps not.

Camp Blood is a summer sleep-away camp located on the shores of Camp Blood, surrounded by the woods, with a dark history. In the sixties, its attendees, children and camp counsellors, were stalked by a Slasher known as Lopsy, and of the staff and camp counsellors, only three survived. Now, a decade later, they have returned to Camp Blood and led by camp counsellor, Cindy Beyers, have opened it up again and welcomed another group of children for another summer of exciting and educational activities which will definitely make the counsellors’ young charges learn and grow into better adults. Of course, after a month of Cindy Beyers recounting the legend of Lopsy at every fireside ghost story telling session, everyone is tired of hearing about the Slasher and looking forward to going home! Just one more sleep and summer will come to an end…

This is the set-up for ‘Return to Camp Blood’, the scenario in the SHIVER Slasher Starter Set, one of two themed starter sets published by Parable Games for SHIVER – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. The other is the SHIVER Blockbuster Starter Set. More specifically, the SHIVER Slasher Starter Set ties in with the campaign supplement, SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder, in which the Player Characters suffer an attack by a Slasher and the survivors and their descendants will go on to suffer further attacks by different Slashers down the decades, from the twenties to the noughties, each decade highlighting a different style of Slasher film. What this means is that the SHIVER Slasher Starter Set can be run as one-shot, a classic Summer Camp Slasher horror film in the style of Friday the 13th, Sleepaway Camp, and Cheerleader Camp, but it can also be slotted into the full SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder campaign. This can be done as a flash forwards-style prequel to the full campaign, which then switches back to the beginning, if the Director does not have SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder or it can be simply inserted into the campaign if she does.

The SHIVER Slasher Starter Set contains two books, the ‘SHIVER Starter Rulebook’ and the ‘Return to Camp Blood’ scenario book, a set of seven pre-generated Player Characters, and a complete set of SHIVER dice. The ‘SHIVER Starter Rulebook’ is a concise version of SHIVER – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown rulebook and contains all of the rules necessary to run and play ‘Return to Camp Blood’. Player Characters in SHIVER can advance up to Tier Ten, but the ‘SHIVER Starter Rulebook’ only goes up as far as Tier Five. The SHIVER dice are of course, required to play, and one advantage of the SHIVER Slasher Starter Set is that once the scenario has been played through, the gaming group has another set of dice to continue playing the roleplaying game.

The seven pre-generated Player Characters in the SHIVER Slasher Starter Set match the roleplaying game’s seven Archetypes—the Warrior, the Maverick, the Scholar, the Socialite, the Fool, the Weird, and the Survivor—and each emphasises one of the six Core Skills and gives access to several Tiers of Abilities. The six Core Skills—effectively both skills and attributes—are Grit, Wit, Smarts, Heart, Luck, and Strange. Grit represents a character’s physical capabilities; Wit covers physical dexterity; Smarts is his intellect and capability with investigation and technology; Heart is his charisma and charm; Luck is his good fortune and the random of the universe; and Strange is his capacity for using magic, psychic powers, and so on. A Player Character also has a Luck Bank for storing Luck—one for all Archetypes, except for the Fool, who has space for three; a current Fear status—either Stable, Afraid, or Terrified; and a Lifeline—Weakened, Limping, Trauma, and Dead—which is the same for all Archetypes.

Mechanically, SHIVER uses a dice pool system of six-sided dice, their faces marked with the symbols for the roleplaying game’s six Core Skills—Grit, Wit, Smarts, Heart, Luck, and Strange. To these are added Talent dice, eight-sided dice marked with Luck and Strange symbols. When a player wants his character to undertake an action, he assembles a dice pool based on the action and its associated Core Skill plus Talent dice if the character has in that Core Skill. Further dice can be added or deducted depending on whether the Player Character has Advantage or Disadvantage, an Ability which applies, or the player wants to spend his character’s Luck, and on the character’s Fear status. The aim is to roll a number of symbols or successes in the appropriate Core Skill, the Challenge Rating ranging from one and Easy to five and Near Impossible. If the player rolls enough, then his character succeeds; if he rolls two Successes more than the Challenge Rating, it is a Critical Hit; and if a player rolls three or more dice and every symbol is a success, this is Full House. In combat, a Critical Hit doubles damage and a Full House triples it, but out of combat the Director can suggest other outcomes for both. If Luck symbols are rolled, one can be saved in the Player Character’s Luck Bank for later use, but if two are rolled, they can be exchanged for a single success on the current skill roll, or they can be used to turn the Doom Clock back by one minute.

A failed roll does not necessarily mean that the Player Character fails as he can use other means to succeed at the task if he rolls enough successes in another Core Skill for that task, though this requires some narrative explanation. However, a failed roll has consequences beyond simply not succeeding—each Strange symbol rolled pushes the Doom Clock up by a minute…

Combat uses the same mechanic with monsters and enemies—and the Player Characters when they are attacked—using the same Challenge Rating as skill tests. It is Turn-based, with the Director deciding whether each Player Character is acting First, in the Middle, or Last, depending upon their situation and what they want to do. Players are encouraged to be organised and know what their characters are capable of, the surroundings for the battle, and so on, in order to get the best out of their characters. With every Player Character possessing the same Lifeline (the equivalent of sixteen Health Points), combat can be simply nasty or nasty and deadly, depending upon the mode. Death is a strong possibility, no matter what the mode, and depending on the scenario, death need not be the end though. A Player Character could become a ghost and continue to provide help from the afterlife or even become an antagonist!

Fear in SHIVER uses the same Challenge Rating system and mechanics. A Fear Check is made with a Player Character’s Strange Dice, and if the player fails the check, the character becomes Afraid, and if Afraid, becomes Terrified. If Afraid, a Player Character loses one die from all Core Skills, and two if Terrified. This is temporary, and a Player Character can get rid of the effects of Fear by escaping or vanquishing the threat, steadying himself (this requires another Fear Check), or another Player Character uses an Ability to help him.

Narratively, SHIVER is played out against a Doom Clock. This is set at eleven o’clock at night and counts up minute by minute to Midnight and the Player Characters’ inevitable Doooommm! However, at ‘Quarter Past’, ‘Half Past’, ‘Quarter To’, and ‘Midnight’ certain events will happen, these being defined in the scenario or written in by the Director. Every scenario for SHIVER includes its own Doom Clock events. In general, the Doom Clock will tick up due to the actions of the Player Characters, whether that is because of a failed skill check with Strange symbols, a failed Fear Check, abilities for the Weird Archetype, Background Flaws, or simply interacting with the wrong things in game. What this means is that dice rolls become even more uncertain, their outcome having more of a negative effect potentially than just failures, but this is all in keeping with the genre. However, just as the Doom Clock can tick up to ‘Midnight’ through the Player Characters’ actions. It can also be turned back due to their actions. Rolling two Luck on skill checks, reaching Story Milestones, finding clues and important items, and certain Abilities can all turn the Doom Clock back.

‘Return to Camp Blood’ is the scenario in the SHIVER Slasher Starter Set. It casts the Player Characters as Camp Counsellors at the recently reopened, on another site (but nearby to the old one where the infamous massacre took place) Camp Blood. They have been serving as the camp lifeguard, assistant cook, and teachers of archery, nature, and crafts, and there is a camp roster of characters who can be linked back to the massacre at the original Camp Blood. There is a good explanation of its set-up and advice on how to run the scenario. It opens with the Player Characters sat round the campfire, chatting about their experiences over the summer, which sets up some nice little flashbacks that can be played through, such as stopping another counsellor picking on a young camp attendee or going in search of a missing member of staff. Not only does this allow the players to try out the mechanics of the roleplaying game before the action starts, it gives them their characters the opportunity to earn some merit badges—no matter the outcome—that can then be used by a player as a one-time bonus during the rest of the scenario.

After hearing Cindy Beyers relate the story of how Lopsy attacked the original Camp Blood one more time, the action proper begins! The Player Characters are sent to check on some missing counsellors who have sneaked off like any true teenagers in lust at summer camp must. Of course, this being a horror scenario in the Slasher genre, the missing counsellors are going to be found, in the burnt out ruins of the original camp, and of course, dead, and with signs of terror on their faces! That is when the Player Characters’ own terror begins as arrows fly out of the darkness and they are stalked back to the new camp, and back and forth, Slasher known as Lopsy seemingly having returned to wreak havoc just as he did a decade before. Initially, the Player Characters have a chance to hide, but this is a Slasher horror film and Lopsy is not going to let anyone hide for long! In keeping with the genre, the Player Characters will be flushed out and go on search of a means to stop the unrelenting stalker. Ultimately, the Player Characters will be forced to face the Slasher in a final confrontation, and that is when ‘Return to Camp Blood’ pulls its twist. It is a fitting twist, one that perceptive or knowing players might work out a little earlier as there are hints in the scenario, but ups the ante and makes for a big battle when during which the merit badges earned earlier are going to come in really handy.

In addition to the advice on the set-up and running of ‘Return to Camp Blood’, the Director is presented with a variety of endings she can use, Doom Clock events the players and their characters can trigger, and a compendium with depictions of all of the Camp Blood Badges, equipment that can be found and used in the fight against Lopsy, including Snuffles the bunny (who deserves star credit), and stats for the various enemies, which of course, includes Lopsy. There is advice too on how to portray him and what he does in combat.

Physically, the SHIVER Slasher Starter Set is a good-looking box. The inclusion of the roleplaying game’s tables on the inside lid of the cover means that the Director has an easy rules reference and screen, whilst the dice do sit in their own niche in the bottom of the box. The books themselves are well-presented with excellent artwork done in a style similar to that of Mike Mignola and his Hellboy comic. The writing is clear, but could have done with an edit in places.

The SHIVER Slasher Starter Set is a solid introduction to SHIVER – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown, whether or not the Director wants to run the SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder campaign. If she does, then it is a worthy addition, fitting into a decade not covered in the sourcebook and campaign. If not, the scenario is still fun and the players can enjoy the clichés of the genre and the twist that ‘Return to Camp Blood’ gives them.

Achtung! Ardennes

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It is pitches the Allied Agents of the Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance into a Secret War against those Nazi Agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. They are willing to risk their lives and their sanity against malicious Nazi villains and the unfathomable gods and monsters of the Mythos themselves, each striving for supremacy in mankind’s darkest yet finest hour! Yet even the darkest of drives to take advantage of the Mythos is riven by differing ideologies and approaches pandering to Hitler’s whims. The Black Sun consists of Nazi warrior-sorcerers supreme who use foul magic and summoned creatures from nameless dimensions to dominate the battlefields of men, whilst Nachtwölfe, the Night Wolves, utilise technology, biological enhancements, and wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) to win the war for Germany. Ultimately, both utilise and fall under the malign influence of the Mythos, the forces of which have their own unknowable designs…

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear is the seventh release for Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20, and the second campaign following on from Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis. It shifts the action forward by three years as previous releases for the roleplaying game are set earlier in the war, even during part of the Phony War, in 1939, 1940, and 1941. It is set in the Ardennes, in the weeks and days leading up to the Battle of the Bulge in late November and early December of 1944. It is also a sequel of sorts, to Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Führer Train, which the Game Master can run as prologue to the main campaign, although that will be with pre-generated Player Characters, or Agents. The campaign, presented in eleven parts, requires experienced Agents with a good range of skills, including ideally, an Occultist with the ability to cast magic. At several points in the campaign, there are scenes of mass combat, so the Game Master may want to check the rules for handling such incidents in the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Gamemaster’s Guide. The campaign also differs from more traditional campaigns of Lovecraftian investigative horror in four ways. First, it is heavily directed. Being a military-style campaign, the Agents will find themselves being either ordered to investigate and act by their superiors or being asked for help by the forces of local Resistance, rather than directing or leading the investigation themselves. Second, the campaign environs are limited to under the canopy and under the ground of the forests of Ardennes. This gives it much more of a localised feel than the traditional globetrotting campaign, which is what Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis is. Third, the campaign develops into two parallel plot strands, one of which explores the relatively recent—in Mythos terms—history of the Ardennes as the German factions in the Secret War—Nachtwölfe and Black Sun, dig and in some cases, quite literally, bulldoze their way into the region’s prehistoric past. Four, the Agents will find themselves making alliances with some very strange bedfellows…

The set-up for the campaign echoes that of the Ardennes Offensive launched by Nazi Germany at the end of 1944 to stop further Allied advances and attempt to bring them to the table to negotiate. The desperation of Germany extends to its two factions in the Secret War—Nachtwölfe and Black Sun, and despite having been rivals for years, the need to defeat the Allies has driven them to do the unthinkable, that is, to co-operate. Their plan is known as Operation Brute Stärke, or Brute Strength, a secret coda to Hitler’s Operation Watch on the Rhine. The Agents are operatives for the British Section M sent to a field base ten miles behind Allied lines. There, Major Archibald Strang, codenamed Hunter, will brief them about the disappearance of Resistance leader Marta Archambaud—as detailed in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Führer Train, about the sightings and co-operation of Nachtwölfe and Black Sun, and the lack of intelligence about the region coming from Majestic, the American equivalent to Section M. Could the Americans be up to something? Major Strang would appreciate anything that the Agents can learn, but their primary orders are to investigate Nazi activities behind enemy lines in conjunction with the Resistance.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear starts with a good introduction to and explanation of the campaign and its background, along with some decent staging advice. The campaign proper begins with the Agents being sent behind enemy lines to ascertain enemy activity in the region. After making contact with the Resistance, they will be led to a remote farmhouse that serves as their base of operations for the campaign. In comparison to the missions to come, it is an intentionally quiet opener, but the Game Master is given several adventures to enliven the Agents’ stay at the farmhouse or visits to the nearby village. These can be used throughout the campaign, although the timeframe does tighten up near the end. The majority of the missions call upon the Agents to investigate archaeological sites, castles, ritual sites, and so on, often hiding entrances to cave networks that lead deep underground to the discovery of the Elder Thing undercity of Karvarteeli, which the Nazis have been surveying and plundering. The Agents will often find the Nazi efforts in disarray, the enemy either under attack by or having been attacked by eldritch forces. The often-brute force method of the Nazis have unleashed the dread servants of the Elder Things—the Shoggoth! Later in the campaign, it will become apparent that the Shoggoth—or at least the means to manufacture them—are what the Nazis are after, as well as the fact that not all of the Shoggoth are loyal to their former masters. There is even the possibility that the Agents might be able to communicate with the rebels, with one of the more horrifying moments in the campaign being faced by a Shoggoth holding a German soldier up like a puppet and having penetrated its brain, using him as a communications device!

In addition to investigating Nazi activities, the Agents are asked by their Resistance contact, Gaston Moreau, a Druid and secret follower of the goddess Arduinna, to help him in the ongoing fight between the Ardui, Ardenne Forest’s native Celtic deities, and the Crimson Brothers, a cult of evil monks, led by the Cowled Sorcerer, who want to free the Sleeping Horror, Chartotharkis, a godling imprisoned within the catacombs of a nearby ruined abbey. This is the second strand to the campaign, with the missions alternating between the two over its eleven missions, including the Agents actually meeting the Goddess Arduinna and the Ardui in person in their Sacred Grove (though this does involve a fair amount of exposition). The primary aim of the Ardui followers is to prevent the Crimson Brothers from succeeding and securing possession of three artefacts sacred to the Ardui—The Cauldron Which Never Empties, Flesh Drinker Sword, and Trident of the Dark Lake. One problem here is that the Agents cannot succeed in this. The Crimson Brothers do get hold of all three despite the Agents’ efforts and only in the final confrontation do they have a chance to reclaim all three.

The addition of the Ardui is not out of place in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear as Achtung! Cthulhu has always had a folkloric and pagan element whose traditions have run parallel to that of the Mythos and which an Agent Occultist has been able to draw upon to be able to cast spells of his own. Often based upon Celtic and Viking traditions, as well as Hermetic traditions, the presence of the Ardui in the campaign brings this aspect of the roleplaying game to the fore and enables the Agent Occultist to interact more directly with those he owes fealty to—especially if he follows Celtic traditions.

The final confrontation with the Crimson Brothers also suggests an interesting interaction with the Nazis as an option. This is to form a temporary alliance with them in order to defeat the Crimson Brothers. It is suggested that this will add extra spice and roleplaying opportunities, the latter in a campaign where roleplaying and interaction with NPCs and the enemy is underplayed in favour of exploration, stealth, and combat. Of course, that is the nature of a more action-focused and combat driven roleplaying game like Achtung! Cthulhu. Nevertheless, it also highlights the underwritten nature of the campaign’s enemy NPCs in terms of roleplaying and their portrayal. Ultimately, if the Agents can help defeat the Crimson Brothers and prevent the summoning of Chartotharkis, they will gain the aid of Ardui in the final confrontation with the Nazis.

Penultimately, the Agents do have a chance to rescue Resistance leader Marta Archambaud, who was captured as detailed in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Assault on the Führer Train. This is a big battle, potentially one of the most confusing ones to stage in the whole campaign as it involves a lot of forces. However, much of the battle takes place just slightly offstage to the Agents, so the Game Master could simply narrate it or she cut back and forth between the action. This would work well if the players were given control of the different forces on the Allied side. This also involves the Americans and forces from Majestic, the only time they appear in the campaign and even then, the mystery of what the Americans and Majestic are up to in the region, alluded to as a potential issue at the start of the campaign is never really explored—here or in the rest of the campaign. The campaign itself will come to a climax in a Nazi base atop a mountain, complete with cable car, so it ends more in the style of Where Eagles Dare than the style of the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade that pervades the rest of the campaign.

Each mission follows the same format. Each starts with an introduction and a brief summary, before breaking the mission down scene by scene. There are typically details of encounters along the way, scene Threat spends for the Game Master, lists of adversaries, details of Truths that can come into play, and perhaps most importantly, the ‘Key Intelligence’, which summarises the important information that the Agents will learn as result of their completing the mission. Throughout there are also ‘GM Tip’ sections which give further information and advice. Some of these can quite extensive.

Rounding out Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear is set of six appendices. These in turn list all of the spells and spellbooks; treasures, artefacts, and tomes; arcane and esoteric technology; both allies and adversaries of the Ardennes; and handouts. The ‘Treasures, Artefacts, and Tomes’ in particular provides the details of artefacts sacred to the Ardui—The Cauldron Which Never Empties, Flesh Drinker Sword, and Trident of the Dark Lake, whilst the ‘Arcane & Esoteric Technology’ includes numerous Elder Thing devices which the Agents can recover, such as the Sensory Augmenter, Stasis Field Projector, and Ultrasonic Wardstone. For the Nazis, there are detailed write-ups of the Grendel Earth Mover, which Nachtwölfe used to bulldoze into the ruins and cavern systems of the Ardennes, and the Panzer VII Sabre Tooth Tiger, with which Nachtwölfe and Black Sun aim to stop the Allied advance on Germany. The handouts consist primarily of maps of locations where the action of the campaign takes place. All together the six appendices take up a fifth of the book.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear is cleanly and tidily laid out. The illustrations and the maps are excellent. However, there are two omissions in terms of the campaign’s items and NPCs. None of the new items and certainly none of the NPCs, whether an ally or an adversary, is actually illustrated. This is a less of a problem for the various items, but for the NPC, it is more of a problem, especially for the campaign’s main villains. It does not help that their physical descriptions are limited, leaving a lot for the Game Master to do in trying to impart to her players what their Agents’ foes look like.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear is a big bruising campaign, played out on an ever-bigger scale even though it is geographically limited to the Ardennes forest. The authors admit the campaign is linear and that is certainly true. This is very much a campaign where the players and their Agents are not going to direct the action, rather the reverse, being directed on missions and then fighting out the action. Once at a location, the Agents will have more agency, but on a strategic level, none at all. This has the possibility of frustrating players and it is not helped by the occasional heavy doses of exposition and travelogues before their Agents can get to the action. In effect, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear is more a series of connected big scenes and confrontations in which the Agents get to battle it out with ever bigger threats. If the players are happy uncovering ever nastier secrets and punching out ever nastier Nazi threats, then there can be no doubt that Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Forest of Fear delivers that and delivers that very well, but any Game Master or player wanting more will be disappointed.

Slasher Serial

There is someone stalking us. Someone faceless or wearing a mask that hides his features, makes him anonymous, who wants us dead. He will catch us. He will slice us. He will stab us. He will play elaborate pranks on us. Pranks that do not make us laugh, but make us die. Then he will fade into the background, allowing a moment of respite to recover, only to come stalking out of the darkness, relentless, unstoppable. Picking us off, one by one. Perhaps always targeting the same person. Again, and again. All for reasons only he understands. Perhaps he has a weakness, something that will stop his unflagging hunt for you all. What will it take for you to survive? What will it take to stop him? What will you tell your family, your friends, your children about this determined horror? This ‘Slasher’ insistent upon bringing your life to end? Nothing? Or reveal the truth? Or let the trauma of your experience fall upon their heads until the Slasher from your youth comes looking for them and they realise that it was all real…

The slasher film is a subgenre of horror films that involves one or more killer stalking and killing people with knives and other sharp implements. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Child’s Play, Scream, and I Know What You Did Last Summer are considered to be classics of the subgenre and most of them have spawned sequels and even franchises of their own, as well as books, games, and more. It is the idea of the Slasher film as a franchise complete with a returning Slasher such as Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and Chucky that is explored in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder.

SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is a stalking, slashing, stabbing sourcebook and campaign for Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown, the horror roleplaying game published by Parable Games. It not only analyses the Slasher subgenre, but also provides six different scenarios all from the subgenre and different eras of the subgenre. These can be run as a single campaign with generational play, the players creating and roleplaying characters who are related to or descendants of the characters who were victims of a Slasher in the previous scenario. The playthrough of each film or scenario follows the structure of the Slasher film, with its advance and retreat format and its building of terror, all to a final confrontation with the Slasher. In turn, they take the Player Characters from the nineteen thirties to the twenty-tens, via the nineteen fifties, eighties, nineties, and noughties, forcing them to confront a different type of Slasher each time. Any one of the six scenarios in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder could be run as a single one-shot, but ideally not, because in-between, the survivors will pass on an inheritance to subsequent Player Characters. In effect, the entirety of the campaign in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder can be seen as one big Slasher film, with the inheritance interludes between each scenario as the only respite.

Although the campaign in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder has its own Slasher(s), the supplement handily categorises the various types as monsters that the Game Master can use them in scenarios of her own creation. So, for the Jason Vorhees or Michael Myers type there is the Unstoppable Force, the Supernatural Terror for Freddy Kreuger or the Candyman, and even the Apex for the Xenomorph or the Predator, which obviously points to a different interpretation of certain Science Fiction film series. There are full stats for all of these and discussion too, of possible attacks and signature weapons, and of course, resistances and weaknesses, the discovery of the latter typically enabling the Player Characters to defeat their Slasher. Lastly, there are some thought upon what the Slasher is going to look like, what makes his appearance iconic. The advice here is fairly broad, but in that, it certainly fits the horror subgenre.

The inter-generational nature of the campaign in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is handled via ‘The Inheritance System’. This starts with the players deciding upon why their characters or one of the characters in their group has inherited the ire of the Slasher stalking them. This can be due to a curse, a transgression, or a prophecy, but whatever the cause the legacy means that they will inherit two things—a Boon and a Cost. A Boon can be an artefact or wisdom, a Cost a certain trauma or a fear. An artefact might be a Lucky Rabbit’s Foot or a Diary; the Wisdom might be First Aid Skills or knowledge that ‘The Truth is Out There’; the Trauma could be Fear Paralysis or Panic Attacks; and the Fear could be of Fire or Masks. The campaign makes use of these and more.

The campaign in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder presents six very different scenarios. Each is very nicely formatted, including a set-up, suggested characters for use as both Player Characters and extra NPCs, a Classification Board, details of what the Director knows, enemies, weapons, and items, the epilogue, and the Doom Events. The Doom Events are the four events per scenario that can be triggered over the course of the script, whilst the Classification Board categorises the scenario. Actually the ‘SHIVER Board of Classification’, for each scenario it lists the length of play time, number of players required, Subgenre, Film Age Rating, Content Warning, Recommended Ability Level, and Watchlist. The latter includes the archetypal films that the script references and that the Game Master should watch for inspiration. The six are all quite linear in terms of story and lengthy too, so will probably take two sessions to play through.

The campaign opens with a prequel, ‘The Quiet Isle’. It is set in the 1920s and inspired by King Kong and Cannibal Holocaust. The Player Characters are the cast and crew of the groundbreaking film, The Lost Temple. Groundbreaking because it is going to be shot on film with the new technology. However, despite the director having sent out an advanced scouting party to get things set up on what is a lost world, by the time the Player Characters get there, it seems to have doubled down on being abandoned. Even getting to the base and the film sets is fraught with danger, and that is before things begin to go badly wrong. And that is all whilst the director is trying to get scenes shot. The scenario switches into a big chase sequence as the Player Characters try to get out of the ancient temple below the island. The scenario would be easier to run if there was a map of the sequence and it feels more Indiana Jones than King Kong in places, but it sets everything up for what is to come. This includes the villain of the whole campaign and a secret organisation with an interest in what he will doing in the next one hundred years! Its filmic nature also means that there is scope for a crossover with the publisher’s other anthology-campaign, SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream.

It leaps forward to the fifties with ‘Static Zone’. The setting is small town America and the inspiration is Stephen King’s It and Channel Zero. Thus, the Player Characters are children and the subject matter is the technological marvel of the age—television. They get to explore the town of Wayville and get a hint of what the lives are like for some of the adults in small town America. In this case, living in a box that is suburban and conservative. As children they do get see behind the façade, if only a little, and may gather a few clues that might be useful in the second part of the scenario. This takes place behind the television screen, first in an unreal reflection of the Player Characters’ own home life, then wider suburbia, and lastly, in a series of very dark versions of children’s television programmes. They will encounter dangerous mannequins, cartoon bullies, a killer pig, and Chippy, an axe-wielding maniac, who could be a man in a beaver costume or a big, animated beaver! Thematically, ‘Static Zone’ takes the conservatism of the fifties and gives it very scary twist.

The given inspiration for the next part is Alien and Stage Fright, but at times it touches a little on The Running Man as well as video nasties. Moving into the eighties, ‘Curse of the Owlman’ shares some of the unreality of ‘Static Zone’, but this time of film-making rather than television. The Player Characters are only a little older, teenagers in their school’s Audio/Visual Club who sneak into a film studio shut down following a series of on-set deaths, for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a never before released film. Unfortunately, there is a very reason as to why the film was never released, which the Player Characters discover as the Slasher on-screen climbs out into the screening room and begins chasing them through the studio, including across sound stages which are set up just like they have seen on the screen! There is more of a mystery to this scenario and some puzzles to be solved before the final confrontation and the Owlman is sucked back onto the silver screen!

As the title of the fourth scenario suggests, ‘Be Kind, Rewind’ is all about VHS video cassettes. Set in the nineties and inspired by Saw and Squid Game, the Player Characters are now adults, looking for a ‘get-rich-quick scheme and desperate to sign up for a business conference promising wealth and success, held at a rundown Las Vegas-style hotel undergoing renovation. The villain of the piece, Mister Flick, only appears on screen for most of the scenario as the Player Characters ascend the hotel being made to play one deadly game after another. The scenario does involve scenes of torture that the Player Characters will need to find a way to stop, typically by winning the various games.

A cross between Terminator and Bubba Ho-tep, though there also hints of the novel, The Thursday Murder Club, ‘Fear, Scream-Lined’ takes place in the noughties at Shaded Pines, a retirement village. The Player Characters are retirees, members of the ‘Midnight Mystery Society’ to stave off the boredom of life in the highly regulated community, when the leader of their group goes missing. Investigating—or rather, being overly nosy—ends with them all following in her footsteps and receiving personalised care in the Shaded Pines’ medical facilities. Investigating further reveals that the retirement home is a front for a secret project to create the next evolution in fear, a biomechanical homunculus capable of transforming into the other Slashers. Which in this case means those Chippy, Mister Flick, and the Owlman! Of course, the creation turns on the creator in the final scene before the Player Characters have to battle it in the laboratory. This is weirdly creepy and made all the more challenging by the players having to roleplay retirees.

The campaign comes to a head in the last and final scenario, ‘Re-Slasher-Ed’. Combining Cabin in the Woods, Monster Squad, and Freddy vs Jason, it brings back the Slasher for 2010s at ‘Slash-fest 201X’, a convention dedicated to the horror subgenre and the works of a late director renowned for his horror films. It unsurprising that this final scenario is self-referential, with room for Player Characters from previous instalments to star as attendees much as Slashers from those previous episodes do, and there are plenty of callbacks to those instalments along with room for more. These include a playdate with Chippy and facing Mister Flick in a virtual realm, all the Player Characters have a final showdown with the villain behind it all. It brings the campaign to a decent close, but is less useful as a standalone affair given that it references so much of the rest of the book.

Physically, SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is another good-looking book from Parable Games. Although there are moments of respite, the artwork looms out of the darkness at you, cartoonishly horrifying in its depiction of the monsters and maniacs that will threaten one set of Player Characters after another. Unfortunately, it does need an edit in places and the writing feels a little rushed.

Unfortunately, SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder does not work quite as well as the publisher’s other shared anthology campaign, SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream. Whereas in SHIVER Blockbuster: Legends of the Silver Scream, the players are roleplaying the same characters from one film or scenario to the next, although performing a different role each time, in SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder, the players are not roleplaying the same characters in each of its scenarios. They are roleplaying different characters, some or all of whom are related to characters who appeared in a previous scenario. They are also playing in different eras, decades apart, with each scenario showcasing a different type of Slasher each time. Whilst there is the connection of the villain between scenarios, the overall connection between the scenarios is not as strong or as immediate because of the campaign framework. Obviously, the supplement has to showcase the different types of Slasher and different types of Slasher particular to each era, but this weakens the connections between the scenarios and the campaign, because unlike the film franchises which inspire the supplement, there is no horrifying realisation that Michael Myers or Freddy Kreuger has come back from the grave to hunt us down again.

Conceptually, SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is a great idea, but the supplement really shows how difficult that idea is to bring to fruition and make it engaging for the players. This is not to say that the idea is unplayable or indeed, that SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is unplayable. Rather that ultimately, SHIVER Slasher: Generation Murder is easier to run as an anthology of disconnected Slasher scenarios than as a connected campaign.

—oOo—

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

Terminator Terror II

Back in 1991, the release of Terminator 2: Judgment Day was not only highly anticipated, but proved to be a box office hit. The Terminator had been a surprise hit in 1984 and proven to be a big hit on video in the years that followed. Terminator 2: Judgment Day was a sequel that people wanted to see and not only introduced amazing special effects with the extensive use of computer-generated imagery to portray the liquid metal effects of the T-1000, but it also greatly expanded the lore of The Terminator universe from the simplicity of the original film. It is this second film and its expanded Terminator universe that Scottish publisher, Nightfall Games, explores in Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG. Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, as the title suggests, this is a supplement for The Terminator RPG, a companion volume to The Terminator Campaign Book which expanded upon the original film. As with the rest of The Terminator RPG line, it not only draws upon the films by James Cameron, but it also draws on the seventeen or so comic book storylines published by Dark Horse Comics between 1990 and 2019. Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG is the opportunity to explore the world of the nineties prior to Judgement Day on August 29th, 1997, and beyond into both the immediate aftermath and the Dark Future of the decades to come and look at operations conducted by both Skynet and the Resistance to alter the timeline, protect or destroy assets important to the development of Skynet and protect or destroy the foundations of the Resistance against Skynet.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG provides an overview of its themes and ideas—the darkness of metal, especially liquid metal; the negative consequences of advances in technology and the resulting technophobia; that humanity is its worst own enemy, even to the point of creating that which will kill it in its own image; and despite all this, humanity’s fate is in own hands. In the case of the latter, there can be no doubt that this is severely hampered as the supplement shows, whether that is because of the advanced technology that Skynet has access to and the Resistance only has limited access to, or because the dangers of time travel from the Dark Future to the 1990s (and back again). It also introduces the nineties, in all their flannel shirt wearing, music video watching, coffee swilling, fast food guzzling, longer working hours glory. In doing so, the supplement takes player and Game Master alike right up to Judgement Day itself, August 29th, 1997, the day which really has been lurking over the horizon of The Terminator RPG. It also adds two interesting options in terms of play. One, just like Terminator 2: Judgment Day, introduces the possibility of Terminators as heroes and thus Player Character Terminators. The other is for the players to play the elite of the Resistance, members of the Time Displacement Commandos, conducting operations from a secret base on the Moon that Skynet has no idea about.

The given history of the nineties is really very much seen in response to secret war that was being fought between forces manipulated or influenced by the Resistance and those manipulated or influenced by Skynet. Thus, on one side there are discussions of guerillas, survivalists—of various stripes, and the militias, whilst on the other, there are computer experts, federal agencies, and so on. There are interesting details of what might be found in a typical fallout shelter and stats for various NPCs on both sides, that with some effort could be adjusted so that they could be used as Player Characters. A history of both Cyberdyne Systems and its rival and eventual successor, Raven Technologies are given neatly providing a backdrop for the Player Characters’ investigations in the decade.

The Dark Future is treated in similar fashion, examining mankind’s initial responses to Judgement Day and its nuclear exchange and as they made the first steps out of their shelters and holes in the ground, to the rise of the machines and the coming of Skynet. This includes the establishment of the first Resistance settlements and how they evolved over time, as well as detailing various common character types found there—Demolitions Expert, Basic Infantry, Medtech, Sniper, and so on. Again, these are given as NPCs, but can be upgraded to serve as the basis for Player Characters. They are accompanied by descriptions of survivors other than members of the Resistance that might be found in the Dark Future, such as Junkers, Scroungers, Cannibals, Hoarders, and Raiders, plus traitors and despots. The inclusion of these push The Terminator RPG into a more traditional style of post-apocalypse setting, but also expands storytelling options available in the Dark Future, that they need not always be about the Resistance versus Skynet.

The advances made in technology means that whilst time travel is available to Skynet by 2030, it really comes into its own in the following decades and the 1990s become a battle ground for terminators and Resistance members sent back into the past. This includes the ability to return from the 1990s to the future, but this requires the means to recreate the time displacement equipment in the past. The most common method involves swallowing a large ‘Time Pill’ containing a Neural Net CPU chip and a quantum-synced isotope that is radioactive and needs to be evacuated from the body as soon as possible! Once their mission has been fulfilled, the time travellers will use the contents of the ‘Time Pill’ to construct the time displacement equipment. Other means, like the later developed Time Door, require a great deal of power that Skynet can easily spot. The primary users of the technology are the Time Displacement Commandos, effectively the elite of the Resistance and regarded with disdain by some members of the Resistance. Its history and operations and described, accompanied throughout, by advice and details of Time Displacement Commandos training which beg to be used in game. Also discussed are the possible dangers and paradoxes of time travel, such as temporal distortions, the Bootstrap Paradox (which is how Cyberdyne Systems got hold of the technology that would become Skynet), the Grandfather Paradox, and more. Some possible outcomes of the war are also discussed, but perhaps more interesting are the detailed alternative timelines in which Judgement Day take place, including one in which John Connor is killed by the T-1000 and his mother’s vengeance forces Skynet into one terrible, final retaliation, and one in which an asteroid strikes California and in response the US nuclear arsenal and Skynet were repurposed to provide defence against further strikes from space, but Skynet still destroys the world. What is made clear throughout is that time travel is fraught with danger and killing the wrong person or a random person by mistake can have consequences for the future.

Playing a member of the Time Displacement Commandos is offered as an advanced option, including new roles like Robot Fighter, Cyber Jockey, and Deep Insertion Operative, the later being supported by playing a Deep Insertion Operative, sent back into the past to monitor the activities of Skynet and those who contribute to its growth. Also included here are Agents of John Connor, the elite of his forces who report directly to him and follow only his orders. The other option is playing as a Terminator. This presents quite a change in game and out of game. In game, a Terminator Player Character must obey its programming, must seek technical rather than medical aid, and will expect to face hostility from NPCs. Out of game, a Terminator Player Character has no control over its fate and therefore no Hope Points and limited options in terms of Terminator units that the Game Master will allow in her campaign. The presence of a Terminator Player Character also limits the missions that can be played. For example, if it has to protect a scientist, that scientist has to be included in the game. What Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG suggest is that a Terminator Player Character fulfil a particular role and mission, like ‘The Nanny ’Nator’ which acts as a surrogate to a child or youth or ‘The Traitor ’Nator’ reprogrammed to attack Skynet. It is possible for a Terminator Player Character to overcome its programming, but this can cause it to corrupt, as can being reduced to zero Hit Points, suffering a hard reset, or failing a mission or objective. This begins to limit the skills it can use. However, there are plenty of ideas on how Terminators can be used with or as Player Characters, including a ‘Terminator Player Character Mission Plot Generator’.

Full stats are provided for numerous characters from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, including ‘Uncle Bob’ as John Conner nicknamed the Terminator sent back to save him, Sarah Connor post-incarceration, John Connor at ten years old, Miles Dyson, and Doctor Peter Silberman.* These are accompanied by assessments by Skynet and Doctor Silberman and some also by assessments by the Time Displacement Commandos. Several sections cover a wide array of weaponry, equipment, vehicles, and also wildlife—the latter with rules for bear hugs and vicious attacks!—from both the 1990s and the Dark Future. The book also adds a wide range of new Skynet threats from the bug-like HK-Crawler, MHK-Drone, and HK-Jet to HK-Tank MK 2, HK-Walker, and HK-Mini Walker. The first Terminator designed and built to replace human troops, the T-70, is also fully described, as is a wide range of Infiltrator models, before it details the use of Liquid Metal by Skynet. First seen in action in the T-1000 prototype sent back to the 1990s to kill John Connor, the development of the technology is explained as are its capabilities beyond those listed for Infiltrator units in The Terminator RPG. These include metamorphism, regeneration, and magnetic reader, but also vulnerabilities such as extreme heat and cold, and immersion in acid. Alongside these are precursor steps to the full T-1000, for example, ‘Dagger Tongue’ and ‘Medusa Hair’, that the Game Master can add to earlier Series 800 and Series 900 Terminators to hint at the development of the T-1000. Understandably, the stats for the T-1000 are fearsome and the special rules scary. This is definitely not a threat that the Game Master wants to throw into the path of her Player Characters unless they are very capable.

* You also get to learn in Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG that Doctor Silberman is a bigger arsehole than you thought he was from simply watching Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

However, the T-1000 is not the ultimate Terminator model in Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG. This is T-Mobius, an advanced version of the T-1000 with its own built-in Time Displacement Equipment. It is tasked with locating and shutting down time displacements before they can disrupt the timeline and threaten Skynet. Again, the Player Characters need to be very capable if they are to face this, let alone defeat it.

The supplement also expands on the rules in The Terminator RPG for Hacking. When Hacking, a player rolls Computer skill tests to generate points of Progress which can be expended to move deeper into the network, create a backdoor, capture a node, exploit a subroutine, and so on to infiltrate systems mapped out as a series of connected nodes represented by a ‘Network Architecture Diagrams’. The expanded rules cover hacking via a Terminator’s severed head, the need to learn the terminology and protocols used Skynet, and a host of tasks—logging in/out, network permissions, subroutine tasks, and more all the way up to sentience engine tasks. The problem with this is that there is more to learn and account for using these options. Since the hacking rules are designed to be played in conjunction with actions that the other Player Characters might be taking in combat rounds, this extra detail has the potential to slow play down. Simplified Hacking rules are provided, but the one set of rules that the Player Characters are likely to use are those for programming a captured Terminator. A ‘Network Architecture Diagram’ is provided for this, but much like a Player Character Terminator attempting to overcome its own programming, reprogramming the code of the A.I. of a Terminator can corrupt its systems and in game terms, potentially impede its skills.

Lastly, Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG includes three new missions. The first is ‘Into the Valley of Metal’ which lets all of the players take the roles of T-800 Terminators. Newly activated, programmed, and equipped for a seek and destroy mission on a resistance hideout, the players get to play the enemy—or so they think. Captured by the Resistance, they are hastily reprogrammed and sent back by the Resistance to strike at the heart of Skynet. This also allows the players experience a deep strike on Skynet facilities potentially long before their Resistance Player Characters might have a chance to. The scenario might also serve as a good convention scenario.

However, when the Player Characters are ready and capable enough to strike directly at Skynet, there is the second scenario, ‘Assault on Thunder Mountain’. Based on the graphic novel, The Burning earth, it is set in 2041 and can be run after the events of ‘Into the Valley of Metal’. Instead of the Player Characters being Terminators, here they are experienced members of the Resistance attacking the last redoubt of Skynet before drops nuclear bombs on every surviving settlement in North America. This is a challenging scenario combing a mix of stealth and combat.

The third and final scenario in the book is ‘Terminator Two: Judgment Day’. This is designed to emulate the events of the film as closely as the Game Master wants, whilst also allowing room for her make changes and add surprises for her players and their characters. There is advice and suggestions for running it according to the original timeline or an alternate timeline. In the original timeline, the players take the roles of Sarah Connor, John Connor, and Uncle Bob, whilst in the alternate timeline, there are more Player Characters involved. Either way, the scenario is broken down into the film’s big set pieces—the first encounter at the arcade, the chase on the roads of Los Angeles with the motorcycle and the big truck, Sarah Connor’s breakout from the hospital, and so on. As with the previous two scenarios, each scene is given a set-up, descriptions of the obstacles the Player Characters will face and the assets they have, and ways out of the scene, and on to the next. However, the film does not just consist of these big, set piece scenes. There are scenes in between and it is in these that the players are expected to roleplay the emotional aspects of the film and bring in their interpretation of roleplaying these characters. What this means is that the players get to re-enact the film and enjoy all of its big excitement and action, without having to exactly roleplay the roles as the actors did. Thus, it has just about enough freedom to be more than a simple replication.

Physically, Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG is a good-looking book with plenty of art that captures the feel of the film and depicts the ghastly nature of the Dark Future. The book is also an engaging read, but it does include some horrifying, often cruel scenes in its fiction. However, it does need an edit in places, whilst in others the layout contains a crash or two.

There is more of an emphasis in Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG on the Dark Future than the 1990s, but that emphasis is all about taking the fight to Skynet and setting up the means to jump back in time to the 1990s. In the process, it greatly expands the world of The Terminator RPG, ultimately highlighting how Judgement Day cannot be stopped, but that the secret war fought in the years leading up to it can influence the future and hopefully, save mankind. Overall, Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG is a good sourcebook for both The Terminator RPG and Terminator 2: Judgment Day full of great content that the Game Master can bring the 1990s and the Dark Future—and hopefully help save mankind.

Hope Reborn

Back in 1991, R. Talsorian Games, Inc. published Tales From The Forlorn Hope. This was not one, but three things. First, it was a special edition of the in-game magazine, Solo of Fortune, detailing a bar in Night City founded by veterans of the Central American Wars that provided a hangout, a sanctuary, and a refuge for themselves, other Solos, and Cops from 2011 onwards. Second, it was a setting supplement for Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0., one which the Edgerunners can turn into a base of operations for themselves. Third, it was an anthology of missions for Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. suitable for Edgerunners who visit the bar often or even find a home there, enabling them to interact with the regulars, many of whom are featured in the Solo of Fortune Special Edition. That though was in 2011 and a lot has happened in the decades since. What of The Forlorn Hope in 2045, in the Time of the Red?

Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn is a supplement for Cyberpunk Red: The Roleplaying Game of the Dark Future that brings the history of The Forlorn Hope up to date before presenting a whole new chapter that will involve the Edgerunners in first losing and then restoring hope and happiness. This is in the form of a six-part campaign which does two things. One is provide the means for the Edgerunners to effect change, if only at a small scale, and the other is to provide a street level campaign.

The six parts of the campaign are organised as is standard for scenarios for Cyberpunk RED. Each opens with a plot flowchart and then with a ‘Rumours’ table, which as the campaign progresses, begins to work in events that occurred previously and the Edgerunners will have been involved in, as well as hinting at what is to come. It is followed by the ‘Background’ to the scenario, which can be read out to the players, and ‘The Rest of the Story’ for the Game Master’s eyes only, as is ‘The Setting’ and ‘The Opposition’. ‘The Hook’ describes how the Edgerunners get involved, ‘Developments’ and ‘Climax’ detail the individual beats, whilst ‘Resolution’ provides options on how the scenario comes to end depending on whether or not the Edgerunners succeed or fail. ‘Downtime’ covers what the Edgerunners can do between missions and even prepare for the next one. In addition, there is general advice on running the campaign, which suggests that the Game Master looks for possible hooks in the Edgerunners’ Lifepaths, created during character generation, to tie one or more of them into The Forlorn Hope. Despite both of this explanation and advice, what Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn does lack is an overview of the campaign and an explanation of what is going on. What this means is that the Game Master does not really learn who the antagonists of the campaign are until she reads about them in the campaign itself, which makes it just a little bit more difficult to prepare. All six chapters include an indication of their running time.

What Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn does include is ‘A Tale Of Hope’ by William Moss. Told through the eyes of Aurora ‘Rory’ O’Reilly, livecasting journalist and daughter of C.J. O’Reilly, the famed Solo of Fortune journalist who wrote the original special edition, this introduces The Forlorn Hope and gives its history from its founding in 2011 to 2045 as well as its notable staff and clientele. Now only part of The Forlorn Hope is mapped at this point—and it is the only part that the campaign itself requires—so if the Game Master does want to connect the Edgerunners to the bar before the campaign itself begins, then she will need access to a copy of Tales From The Forlorn Hope.

The campaign itself opens with ‘The Angel’s Share’ by Eddy Webb. Co-owner of The Forlorn Hope, Marianne Freeman, asks the Edgerunners to help with an ‘XBD’, or ‘Extreme Brain Dance’ Dealer, who is threatening her staff and family after she kicked out of the bar for attempting to sell his wares to her customers. She wants them to put him out of business, rather than killed. It is a simple straightforward job, but when the Egderunners return, the action and the campaign switches up a gear. What they hear—and find—when they get back is that The Forlorn Hope has blown up! The Egderunners have another fight on their hands, this time to rescue those still trapped in the rubble of The Forlorn Hope. This is literally handled as a fight, which does feel odd, but it is actually topped off by an actual fight as allies of the ‘XBD’ dealer take their revenge. The rescue attempt is against the clock so the first part of campaign has a frantic feel and pace.

Although The Forlorn Hope is no more, the owners decide they will rebuild and this is the thrust of the campaign proper and asks the Edgerunners to help. This leads into a couple of fun chapters in which the Edgerunners first find a new location and then conduct a long-term reconnaissance of the neighbourhood. In ‘Real Estate Rumble’ by Paris Arrowsmith and Tracie Hearne, the Edgerunners get to work for a property dealer by the name of Jack Skorkowsky as he tries to find Marianne Freeman a suitable new site. Skorkowsky’s properties have been beset by a series of pranks and odd occurrences which are impeding work on them. If the players and their Edgerunners have played scenarios from Tales of the RED: Street Stories and Cyberpunk RED Data Pack, they will likely recognise the threat here. By the end, Jack Skorkowsky will have found a property, enabling the Edgerunners to move into the area in Linda Evans’ ‘Welcome to the Neighbourhood’ and check it out. There are some really fun little encounters here, such as having to rescue a drunken student trapped in the giant leaves of a carnivorous plant being grown as an experiment by the Biotechnica and having to be an emergency replacement team to play the local Roller Derby team. All of these embody the street level nature of the campaign and do so very well.

The preparation for the opening of The Forlorn Hope anew, begins with Melissa Wong’s ‘The Devil’s Cut’. This is a classic heist style scenario in which the Edgerunners go to work for a veteran conman in an attempt to recover some bottles of genuine alcohol, which she believes have been stolen by a special operation run by the local office of a corporation and are being auctioned off. The Edgerunners have to investigate the operation and its staff, plan the heist, infiltrate the launch party—because of course, there is a launch party—and make off with the bottles of alcohol. Lastly—or rather penultimately—‘Hope’s Calling!!!’ by Chris Spivey takes the Edgerunners through the preparation proper for the reopening of The Forlorn Hope. They are taken on by the bar as combination roadies, techies, gophers, and security going through a checklist of things that Marianne wants addressing. This includes getting the right cocktail ingredients, technical checks, and more. As they work on checking these, the Edgerunners discover that someone is actually attempting to sabotage the opening night, so it becomes a race to both undo the efforts of the saboteurs and identify who they are. As soon as they manage that, it is time for the opening night. The Edgerunners’ efforts to undo the sabotage will play an unexpectedly big role in this as the bad guys make a direct assault on The Forlorn Hope. This plays out as a cross between a massive brawl and firefight, which is essentially a make-or-break night for The Forlorn Hope. It has its own mechanic for handling this mass combat, which is kept fairly simple, with plenty of room for player input and room for them to sway the fight.

Although ‘Hope’s Calling!!!’ feels very much like the end of the campaign, it actually is not. In Frances Stewart’s ‘Ripping the Ripper’, the Edgerunners are asked to take revenge on the people who actually blew up the original The Forlorn Hope. This requires them to sneak into ‘The Hot Zone’, the geographical centre of Night City where the tactical nuclear device was detonated almost atop Arasaka Towers and triggered the events of the Time of the Red, and either set the perpetrator up or gun him down! How the Edgerunners go about it is up to the players, but they need to do it without The Forlorn Hope itself being blamed for it. It is a solid ending to the campaign.

One consequence of Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn being a street level campaign, is that the Edgerunners are kept away from the wider plot. That is, who targeted The Forlorn Hope for destruction and who wants the new bar to fail? Neither are connected and neither become apparent until the last chapters of the campaign. How much of an issue this is, really depends on the players, and how much umbrage they might feel at being sidelined from what would be the main plots—or plots—in any other campaign. Essentially, what is really going on is that Edgerunners who are better and more experienced than those of the players are dealing with them. However, the players being players are likely to want answers to those questions and so the Game Master might want to have some answers and some updates as to what is going on and the owners and staff of The Forlorn Hope have learned.

Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn comes to a close with an Appendix of new rules. They include rules for ‘Hacking Agents’, ‘Vehicle Chases’, ‘Roller Derby’, ‘Flash of Luck’, and ‘Headquarters’. The majority of these are fairly general in their application and thus have life beyond the pages of the campaign. ‘Hacking Agents’ enables Netrunners and Techs to remotely hack the devices that everyone carries in the Time of the Red, so opening up options in accessing security and information and so on as well as increasing the versatility of both Roles. ‘Vehicle Chases’ are quick and dirty rules for handling chases and complement the rules for vehicle combat in Cyberpunk RED, relying primarily on Edgerunner Drive skill. The rules cover standard manoeuvres as well as ramming and passenger actions that can help the person behind the wheel. ‘Flash of Luck’ brings a narrative element into play, letting a player spend his Edgerunner’s Luck Points to retroactively bring items and events into play to provide an advantage when the unexpected occurs and so prevent heists, infiltration, and con jobs from becoming extended planning sessions rather than actually playing them through. Playing them out as flashbacks is optional, of course, but whilst ‘Flash of Luck’ is designed to work with the heist of ‘The Devil’s Cut’, it will also work in other situations too.

Other new rules are designed to work with the various Jobs in the campaign and are thus quite specific. ‘Headquarters’ is designed for the long term. It enables the Edgerunners to build their own base of operation, spending Improvement Points earned as a group to add things like an Evidence Wall, Medbay, or Server Room. There is advice too on how to use The Forlorn Hope as a base of operations, Improvement Points being spent to buy ready access to the bar’s facilities rather than actually build them. The oddest rules are for ‘Roller Derby’. They detail how to play the sport which takes centre stage in the ‘Wheels on Fire’ Job from the ‘Welcome To The Neighbourhood’ chapter of the campaign. These allow the Game Master and her players to play out their Edgerunners’ participation in that Job, but they could be useful in other ways. They could be used to handle street battles or chases on skates, but they could also be used as the basis for a campaign in which the Edgerunners actually form their own Roller Derby team!

Physically, Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn is well presented and organised, although it does lack an index. For the most part, the artwork is excellent and the cartography is good.

Although it does feel a little clumsy in places in terms of its mechanics, Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn provides a really fun street level campaign that offers a good mix of roleplaying, combat, and technical challenges, a variety of really different missions and jobs that will keep the players on their toes, and ultimately the opportunity for the players and their Edgerunners to really make a difference. Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn is an impressive first campaign for Cyberpunk RED that delivers on what it promises to do.

1994: Walker in the Wastes

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, and the new edition of that, Dungeons & Dragons, 2024, in the year of the game’s fiftieth 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—

Walker in the Wastes is a campaign published by Pagan Publishing in 1994. It was the first of the three campaigns from the publisher, all of which would be designed and written by John H. Crowe III. Designed for use with Call of Cthulhu, Fifth Edition, it is a grand campaign in true Call of Cthulhu style, that will take the Investigators from arctic Canada to Alaska and beyond to the remotest part of northern Japan, New Jersey, and New York state, and from there to the North Pole, with a corollary that culminates in Iraq. It is an ambitious, bruising campaign that is well organised and supported, but which is best run by an experienced Keeper and best played with players who have some experience of Call of Cthulhu under their belts. There is a Pulp sensibility to the campaign in that it involves flight and airships, but Walker in the Wastes is not a Pulp-style campaign. Further, it differs in terms of set-up, rationale, and radically, in terms of the Great Old One the Investigators will face and the plans of the cultists devoted to him, that they must thwart. This is Ithaqua, the ‘Death-Walker’ or ‘Wind-Walker’, a Great Old One who has appeared in many a scenario for Call of Cthulhu, especially rural or wilderness scenarios, but only once, here in the pages of Walker in the Wastes has he been of the subject of a campaign. Running from Saturday, 10th November 1928 to Sunday, 21st December, 1930 (and beyond), Walker in the Wastes details the attempts by the Cult of Ithaqua to fly from various points around the world and congregate at the North Pole where the cult will free its master from the Temple of the Winds in which the Elder Gods bound the Great Old One in times beyond imagining.

“In 1848 the Franklin Expedition vanished in the ice searching for the Northwest Passage. Eighty years later, you and your associates travel to Northern Canada to research the disaster - and find yourselves launched in a globe-spanning race to defeat the terrible god of the icy wastes. Hundreds of hours of research have gone into creating the most realistic 1920s campaign ever. Japanese gangsters, Iraqi archaeological digs, secret airships, and a legend older than humanity serve to challenge even the most experienced of CoC players. Walker in the Wastes is a huge campaign of discovery and horror, and is suggested for experienced Keepers.”

—Back cover blurb, Walker in the Wastes, Pagan Publishing, 1994

Walker in the Wastes has a strict set-up that means that as campaign it cannot easily be run with Investigator types typically found in Call of Cthulhu. Here they are anthropologists, archaeologists, artists and photographers, botanists, geologists, physicians, and zoologists, as well as guides, employed by the University of Toronto and the Canadian government to live and work on a base in the Arctic in the Northwest Territories. This is on the Adelaide Peninsula, near King William Island. This is near the location of some of the remains of members of the Franklin Expedition, the British Royal Navy’s infamous expedition to discover the Northwest Passage which disappeared in 1848. Now unlike the back cover blurb of the campaign suggests, the expedition is not stationed on the Adelaide Peninsula to specifically investigate the remains of the Franklin Expedition. This does not mean that the expedition and its fate will not play a role in the campaign, but rather it is not and should not be the focus of the campaign.

The campaign itself opens with a prologue, ‘The Dead of Winter’. Set in November 1928, the Investigators have already been on Adelaide Peninsula for over a year and the only excitement to date has been the rescue attempt of the crew of the Italia, a second polar airship commanded by the Italian explorer, Umberto Nobile. This changes when two of their fellow expedition members return to the base with the frozen corpses of two Inuit men, both badly mauled. What got their interest is that it is clear that neither man was attacked by a wolf or polar bear. Could they have been attacked by an unknown Arctic predator? Talking with the local Inuit reveals that they believe that the creature responsible for the deaths is a supernatural creature known as a ‘Yiige’, which has awakened to hunt again after many years dormant. Pushing for further information reveals that two particular clans might know more, the Red Caribou clan and the Blue Seal clan, but that the Blue Seal clan attacked the Red Caribou clan recently and all but wiped it out! Taking an active interest in either clan will push the story forward and lead to further discoveries. Most obviously that there is a monster lose on the ice—the dread Gnoph-Keh—and that despite what the rational, scientific minds of the Investigators would believe, that magic is real. The latter discovery is important as it will open up the minds of the Investigators later in the campaign as to the scope of what they face and potentially, prepare them to arm themselves with that magic to use against the cult and its plans.

‘The Dead of Winter’ will end in a chilly confrontation in the snow and ice of King William Island with the vile Blue Seal clan and the awful Gnoph-Keh. The nature of the environment and the advantages that the Blue Seal clan and the Gnoph-Keh have as compared to those of the Investigators make the scenario quite a physical challenge. Defeating both does not mark the end of the expedition, nor necessarily the very end of the scenario. There are some loose ends to wrap up, but otherwise, ‘The Dead of Winter’ could actually be run as a scenario all by itself, without the need to run the full campaign. However, where would the fun be in that? What it does do, is lay the groundwork for what is come and open the eyes of both the players and their Investigators as to the dangers to come.

The campaign proper begins with ‘Into the Realm of the Wind-walker’ after the Investigators have returned to Toronto. Having completed their reports and debriefings for their employer, the Investigators are approached by Doctor Alfred Barrowman, an archaeologist, who has heard reports of a creature similar to the one encountered by the Investigators and worshiped by local cultists, but in Alaska. He wants to hire them and join him on an expedition to investigate. Amidst tales of missing hunters and surveyors and government disinterest, the Investigators will likely make an amazing scientific discovery and come across the first hints that what they encountered in Canada was not an isolated situation. The big questions are, why there is a secret air base deep in the Alaskan forest and what are its highly armed occupants planning to do their aircraft? By the end of this investigation, the Investigators should have learned that the cult has many branches, that December 1930 is an important date to the cult, and that all of the major branches are preparing to fly to the North Pole for this date. The Investigators will also have gained Doctor Barrowman as sponsor, thus funding their efforts to save the world.

At this point, Walker in the Wastes opens up and the Investigators can tackle any of the newly discovered locations—the Kurile Islands in Japan and Camden, New Jersey, back in the USA—in any order. Unlike in Alaska, where government indifference and lack of awareness combined with the isolated location of the cult’s base make it relatively easy to deal with, the sites in Japan and the USA are much harder to deal with. The Kurile Islands are isolated, but the Investigators face a language barrier, a government with a distrust of foreigners that has also been bought off, and a nearby Japanese naval base. Conversely, the base in Camden, New Jersey is in a public location, a shipyard on the Delaware River across from Philadelphia. Further, the airship being constructed there and the expedition to the North Pole are both public knowledge and sponsored by the United States Navy, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Howard Hughes! Of course, the involvement of the cult is not. Although the situations and the challenges are different for each base, the Investigators are essentially attempting the same thing each time. Finding out about the base, scouting the base, infiltrating the base, and ultimately, finding a way to sabotage the activities of the cult and the aeroplanes and airships its members are building. One of the discoveries that the Investigator will probably make in the Camden, New Jersey base is that the cult has a fifth, secret base, this time in Camden, New York state! Its secret nature makes it easier to tackle than the bases for Camden, New Jersey and the Kurile Islands.

Ultimately, the Investigators will join in the flight by the cultists to the North Pole for the Winter Solstice of 1930 where the Temple of the Winds will manifest and they will attempt to break the Great Seal inside which has kept Ithaqua from doing no more than visiting the world’s northern climes for aeons. This has the scope to be a grand, bruising finale, on a scale with the Rising of the Island of R’lyeh in The Shadows of Yog-Sothoth—with the Investigators facing multiple, often well-armed cultists—both in terms of materiel and magic. There is the possibility of aerial combat too if the Investigators have armed their means of transport. If the Investigators travel via King William Island, there is the possibility that as they travel north, they make a startling discovery—the Erebus and the Terror—the two lost vessels from the Franklin Expedition. Should they land and investigate, this leads to a memorable encounter aboard the Erebus (as depicted on the front cover) and although optional, this is a pleasing callback to the Investigators’ original expedition as detailed in the prologue.

Although it may seem that the campaign ends with the thwarting of the cult’s plans and ideally, the prevention of the cult’s attempt to break the Great Seal in the Temple of the Winds and free Ithaqua, it is only a preclimax to Walker in the Wastes. Having stopped an attempt once, the focus of the campaign switches to finding a more permanent solution. One of the aspects of Walker in the Wastes is that air gods are found in multiple pantheons in cultures around the world, some of which appear in the campaign and seen as avatars of Ithaqua. One of these is Enill, the Sumerian and Babylonian ‘storm god’ and ‘chief demon’ who was in possession of the Tablets of Destiny. If they are real and if they can be found, perhaps their reputed great powers can be used to prevent the cult from returning to the Temple of the Winds and making further attempts to break the Great Seal? Unfortunately, the cult is also aware of the existence of the Tablets of Destiny and not only wants to obtain them to prevent from falling into the Investigators’ possession, but also to use them to its own ends.

Where Walker in the Wastes was a race to prevent the Cult of Ithaqua from getting to the North Pole and the Temple of the Winds, now it becomes a race to find, study, and utilise the Tablets of Destiny. If the race to the North Pole was dangerous because the environments and the dedication of the cultists, it now becomes deadly as the cultists possess a hatred of the Investigators and more readily and openly move against them. Previously, the cult was more careful, not wanting to bring attention to itself and its plans, which were, of course, its true focus. The points to the nature of the Cult of Ithaqua and its members. Most are devoted members and fervently want to see Ithaqua freed, but they are not evil per se and do not wish mankind great ill. Of course, by any standards, they are all insane, and of course, there are members, such as the infamous Reinhold Blair (named after the late artist, Blair Reynolds), who are actually evil and he in particular, will take great delight in enacting his revenge upon the Investigators and their associates (if he still lives by then).

Thematically and mechanically, this switch in the campaign is challenging, since its focus changes from northern climes and the Arctic and the often-physical difficulties posed, to warmer environs and a more traditional style of Call of Cthulhu that Investigators may not be suited to if they have survived thus far. One skill required here is the ability to read Sumerian Cuneiform and unless there is replacement Investigator at any point after the Investigators were at the North Pole, they will have to rely on a translator. (One is provided, but he is old, doddery, and incredibly cantankerous. Great for the Keeper to roleplay, but only adding to the Investigators’ woes.) In true classic Call of Cthulhu style, the Investigators have the opportunity to conduct research at the British Museum in London and learn what they can about Ancient Mesopotamia. Obtaining the Tablets of Destiny will potentially involve a trip to a cult-sponsored dig in Iraq and if the Investigators failed at the North Pole, a terrible encounter with Ithaqua, and to the current resting place of the Tablets of Destiny in southern Turkey. Here, there is likely to be tussle between the Investigators and the cultists for possession of the artefacts, spoiled potentially by the obvious interest of the Turkish government, but more likely by the presence of an ancient Serpentman sorcerer entombed at the same location and who is likely to be awoken by the digging at the site.

‘Day of Reckoning’, the actual climax to Walker in the Wastes takes place in British Columbia, back in Canada. Here the likelihood is that the cultists have possession of the Tablets of Destiny given their muscle and the Investigators will have chased back across the Atlantic and North America. There the Investigators have a chance to foil the Cult of Ithaqua once again—and if not permanently—then long enough for almost nobody alive in 1930 to worry about… (That said, if the climate suddenly gets a lot colder from December 2031 onwards…) It does involve making a terrible moral choice though, one that in some ways makes the Investigators as bad as the cultists, but for the greater good…?

Walker in the Wastes includes three separate scenarios, interludes intended as red herrings. ‘Chirihoi’ takes place in Japan and is set on the island of the same name, and is intended to distract the Investigators whilst they investigate the cult’s base in the Kurile Islands and ‘The Osbrook House’ is a supposed haunted house mystery set in Camden, New Jersey. Neither has any connection to the campaign’s main plot and certainly in the case of ‘The Osbrook House’ feel out of place as part of the campaign. The third interlude, ‘The Monolith’, is connected to the campaign—if only slightly—and is an actual red herring. It does involve a cult dedicated to Ithaqua and is a classic rural cult Call of Cthulhu scenario set in Scotland.

Walker in the Wastes is incredibly well supported. The campaign is given a good overview and the aims and motivations of the Cult of Ithaqua is clearly explained and accompanied by good advice. The resources include details of the Wind-Walker, his associated magics—many of which the Investigators have an opportunity to learn, an examination of Ithaqua in multiple different cultures and his role as a god of the air, associated legends, a guide to the Inuit and Inuit mysticism (which is treated with respect), the Arctic environment and survival in the region, and airships and aerial combat. There are then new spells such as Banish Gnoph-Keh and Chill of the Wendigo, and new skills like Boating, Botany, Cartography, Forensics, and Land Navigation and Sea/Air Navigation. Plus, there is background to the Franklin Expedition, which of course, is what would have been as much as was known about its fate in 1994.

Every chapter and scenario includes an introduction and an outline at the start and a list of Sanity rewards and penalties along with the NPC stats at the end. In between, each chapter or scenario is well presented and organised and accompanied with advice as needed. Rounding out Walker in the Wastes is a Miscellany of ‘Player Aids’ which collates all of the campaign’s handouts, though not all of the maps. Indeed, the campaign is lacking versions of many of the maps suitable for the Keeper to give to her players. There is also a lengthy bibliography which showcases how deep the research the author conducted in creating the campaign. Lastly, an engaging afterword by the author explains how the campaign came to be and how it was developed and written.

Physically Walker in the Wastes looks amazing. The campaign is well written and presented, the maps clear and easy to use, and there is a good index at the end. However, the artwork is incredible, black and white, but reversed shadows, giving the campaign a twilight look of foreboding and distrust.

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Walker in the Wastes was not extensively reviewed at the time of its release. It was a ‘Pyramid Pick’ by Scott Haring in Pyramid Number 12 (March/April 1995). He said, “You don’t know when a Pagan product  is going to come out, but when it does, you’re usually in for a treat.” before continuing, “Walker in the Wastes is certainly no exception. A massive 200+ page book, Walker is the first major campaign for CoC that Pagan has ever published. Author John Crowe claims that four years of writing and research went into Walker, and it shows. Walker in the Wastes immediately zooms to the top of the list as one of the finest Call of Cthulhu campaigns ever produced.”

Earl P. Thatony (surely a pseudonym) reviewed it in ‘Reviews’ in Shadis Issue #26 (April 1996). He warned that, “Player need to keep sharp, think about what’s going on, and ask the right questions or they’ll get nowhere. There are some vexing (and possibly deadly) red herrings waiting for them, and even the best groups might, and even the beat groups might get tripped up. The GM needs to be top of things as well. There are several warnings in the introductory pages about the complexity of the scenario and the need for the GM to not just read, but study the campaign. These warnings need to be taken to heart, but rest assured the effort will pay off.” However, he concluded on a positive note, saying, “Walker in the Wastes is an amazing product. It’s organised, tremendously well-researched, engrossing, and fun to read. Anyone interested in running a mega campaign is advised to take a closer look at it, as it’s a fantastic example of how to do a project right. For the GM and players who are willing to spend the time it provide months of entertainment.”

—oOo—

Walker in the Wastes is great campaign, with a grandeur that showcases both what a highly thematic campaign can be like and the potential of Ithaqua as global threat as never before. At times, with its themes of the Arctic and aeronautics, it can feel Pulpy, but it never lets up on the brutality of the story and the awful aims of the cultists, who with a few notable exceptions, are portrayed as human beings rather than monsters. Above all, Walker in the Wastes is a demanding campaign, for both the Keeper and her players, requiring a great of deal of preparation upon the part of the former and some adjustment in play style from the latter. There are some great moments in the campaign, such as the battle in the snow against the Blue Seal clan, the flight to the North Pole, the return of Ithaqua to Mesopotamia should the Investigators have failed at the Temple of the Winds, and that last, final, agonising choice… Throughout, Keeper and player alike will be challenged by Walker in the Wastes from start to finish, and if their Investigators succeed, they will have done something truly heroic and had an incredible experience doing so.

—oOo—

Sadly, Walker in the Wastes is a lost campaign. It has been out of print for over two decades and is currently unlikely to be reprinted or made available in electronic format.