Friday Fantasy: Creep, Skrag, Creep!

Something is really, really wrong. Your last memory was of the dinner to celebrate your good fortune, being selected to leave your isolated island home of Alviz and travel to the coastal town of Lys where you have been promised work in the copper mines and a chance of a better future. Then it was waving goodbye to friend and family aboard the sailing ship the Star of Nostro, captained by Kristene de Keradel. Now you are awake with a headache, a stiff back, and a tongue like the bark of a tree, in the low light and stench of the ship’s hold, your wrist shackled to a pole by a rusty chain. You are not alone. There are other villagers chained to the same pole as you are and then more chained to other poles scattered around the hold, some alive, but others dead and bloated, the source of the stench that is lodged in your nostrils. Then one of your fellow prisoners screams. There is movement coming out of the darkness, black dragons scuttling between those bound to the poles, and then one of them snaps at a prisoner who shrieks in pain as with a crunch the thing bites off his hand!

This is the startling set-up to Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep!, a scenario published by Goodman Games for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. It is both a horror and a ‘Character Funnel’. A ‘Character Funnel’ is a signature feature of Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game which takes Zero Level Player Characters—usually four per player—and pushes them through a Zero Level dungeon. Devoid of the abilities, spells, combat acumen, and Hit Points that a Class and even First Level would grant them, the Player Characters must instead rely upon their previous occupation and whatever equipment that granted them, the few Hit Points they possess, their wits, whatever they can find or scavenge, and above all, luck. The ‘Character Funnel’ has proven to be popular feature Dungeon Crawl Classics, not just to play, but also to design, because each has to present the right mix of death and danger which makes a total party kill a high probability, yet still allow for some of the Player Characters to survive and so ascend to First Level. Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! is the second Horror ‘Character Funnel’ for Dungeon Crawl Classics after Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red.

The opening scene of the scene drops the Player Characters into the middle of the action, desperately trying to break free of their chains as they fend off the black dragons that want to chomp down on them and their fellow prisoners. Survival is their priority, but they are also going to want answers to questions like ‘Where are the crew?’ and ‘What are those creatures?’ The Player Characters will find an answer to the first question, but finding an answer to the second will take longer. The crew are dead, and whatever those creatures are, they are going to stalk and attack the Player Characters—and worse, there is something much worse somewhere on the ship. The mother! It will attack the Player Characters—wherever they are aboard the vessel—again and again for it wants something from each and every one of them! Can the Player Characters survive long enough to work out what is going on and even longer to find a way out of the horrifying situation they are in?

By now though, the players should have worked out what is going on. The dead and gutted crew, the monsters that scuttle to attack again and again, and a ship adrift… If those clues are not enough for them to work it out, then the name of the ship that the Player Characters marooned aboard should. In fact, the name of ship, the Star of Nostro, should be a dead giveaway. For Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! is effectively an adaptation of the film Alien for Dungeon Crawl Classics, if not in deep space where no one can hear you scream, then on the high seas where everyone can!

Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! is as much an investigative scenario as it is a horror scenario. It is also very self-contained, limited to the Star of Nostro and its cargo holds, cabins and quarters, rigging, and its three decks. There are plenty of clues to be found as what has happened, but not necessarily enough time to find them all as the creatures and its offspring return to strike again and again. However, determining what has happened aboard the Star of Nostro is only half of the scenario. The second half is all about getting off the ship, because much like the film that inspired it, ultimately, there is no way for the Player Characters to stop the predations of the creature. There are clues on and about the ship that suggest a way for the Player Characters to escape the horrors that they are suffering, and if the scenario does not end in a Total Party Kill, they will have their chance in a big showdown.

There is plenty of advice for the Judge on running the scenario as well as making adjustments to tone down its lethality. Its default lethality works well for a one-shot or convention game, but if run as part of a campaign, the Judge may want to adjust it down a little. In addition, there are tables for ‘Rumors and Personality Quirks’ which add flavour and detail and help bring the Player Characters to life—at least for as long as that lasts—and ‘Sailor Tattoos’, the patterns for which can be found aboard the ship. If applied correctly, these can provide a benefit similar to the star signs that a player rolls for during character creation, working as temporary magical items. Further support is provided in the appendices, which list people, places, and things, full details of the creature, and a means of tracking it movement timing throughout the scenario, all of which makes the scenario easier to run.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! is as well presented as you would expect for a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. The writing, the artwork, the cover in particular, and the cartography are all excellent.

Probably the very last thing that anyone was screaming for is a scenario for Dungeon Crawl Classics or any old School Renaissance retroclone that does Alien on the high seas. Yet Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! is going to make the players scream in the opening scene, groan once they work out what is going on, and then scream and scream again as the creature keeps coming back for more. By its very nature and by its very inspiration, Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! demands more engagement than the average scenario for Dungeon Crawl Classics. If the players do buy into the survival horror of Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! and if any of their characters live to tell the tale and make First Level, then they really will have survived a horrifying ordeal!

—oOo—

Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module was the previous scenario in the series •

The next scenario is Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #6: The Web of All-Torment.

Friday Fantasy: Inferno Road

Hell rocks with rage and the race never ends! An enormous Doom Buggy roars across the foul and sulphurous landscape, its great steel-plated wheels smashing the smaller vehicle that swarm around, crushing flat boulders, crags, and fissures, cracking the bone dry surface from which first black blood spurts and then seeps. Atop is Satan, the Lord of Darkness, the Greater Deceiver, and the Master of the Nine Levels of Hell. But Master no longer, for he is chained and can only scream out his pain and frustration at his betrayal. Screams that cause the demons and devils that the work the great vehicle to cackle and the drivers of the convoy that chases in its wake—Killcycles, Motor Devils, Succubi on Unicycles, and more, to urge themselves to driver faster, faster, faster. As Satan shakes his chains and the whole of Hell shakes, the Dark Lords, his Princes see this as an opportunity. A chance to prove their loyalty? A chance to supplant their former master? No matter what their aim and their ambition, they have a ready supply of proxies—soulless grubs endlessly churning and writhing in the burning pits of Hell. Only each grub knows or cares how long it has been there, but what they all share is a constant, agonising desire for a Soul! Any Soul! Even if it was not a Soul that was theirs. Each of the Princes of Hell reaches down and scoops up grubs and after imbuing them with past lives, throws them into the convoy chasing after the Doom Buggy!

This is the setting for Inferno Road, a race and a chase scenario Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. It comes from the same team behind The Hobonomicon and again, is a showcase for the art of Doug Kovacs. This has ramifications for how easy Inferno Road is to use, since there is more art than text and that leaves the scenario with much less direction—other than onwards across the plains of Hell—in terms of running it. It should be no surprise that the players take the roles of the Grubs scooped up by their Princes of Hell and thrown into the chase. Each Grub has the traditional six stats of Dungeon Crawl Classics, some Hit Points, and two past lives. The latter are nearest thing that Inferno Road has to skills and the Judge might grant bonuses if a player can bring an aspect of them into play. However, once per game, a Grub can manifest an item pertaining to a past life. A Grub’s Prince of Hell is its Patron.

One thing to note is that some of the Past Lives are dark, even horrifying, in nature and veer towards the tasteless, if not cross that line for some players. Of course, Inferno Road is set in Hell and the Past Lives reflect that, each one of them having committed sins and other actions that resulted in their Soul being cast into Hell. Some require some invention upon the part of the players, but others are suggestive, and some are actually overt as what those sins might have been. For example, ‘Manson Family Member’, ‘Sex Criminal’, and ‘Nazi Stormtrooper’. With these, Inferno Road does cross the line because of what they ask the player to think about and then bring elements of that into play, the Judge might also want to decide which of the Past Lives that she wants to include right from the start. Ultimately, it up to the players at the table how far such sins and what the Past Lives did is expressed at the table and brought into play. What it makes clear though, is that as silly as its set-up is, Inferno Road is an adult scenario, one that in this instance deserves the advice it gives of ‘Trigger Warning: Everything’.

Just Another Grub
Strength 12 Agility 16 (+2) Stamina 7 (-1)
Personality 11 Intelligence 11 Luck 10
Hit Points: 6
Past Lives: Canadian Immigrant, Dog

From this simple set of stats, it suggests that Inferno Road is a ‘Character Funnel’. This is a singular feature to the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, which takes Zero Level Player Characters—usually four per player—and pushes them through a Zero Level dungeon. Devoid of the abilities, spells, combat acumen, and Hit Points that a Class would grant them, a Player Character in a ‘Character Funnel’, must instead upon his luck and his wits, all whilst aspiring to a proper Class. In Inferno Road, the Grubs seek not treasure, but Souls—and everything has a Soul. Kill another creature and a Grub can harvest its Soul and if aboard or close to the Doom Buggy, it knows where the nearest and biggest pile of Souls is. When a Grub harvests a Soul, it can either eat the Soul or add it to its Luck. Eating a Soul is really how a Grub gets better. Consume a Soul and a Grub will transform into an Arachnodaemon, Brute, Harpy, Killcycle, Motor Devil, Pit Imp, Spiny Devil, Succubus (Type I), Succubus (Type II), Twins, and so on. He can also regress back into a Grub. All of this is randomly determined.

Bar the set-up, almost everything in Inferno Road is randomly determined and thus supported by several sets of tables and the means to generate various aspects of the game. This includes the means to generate Hell Princes, Upgrades to the Player Characters, vehicles in the convoy chasing the Doom Buggy, and random crew and miniboss features. Separate sheets provide charts of random stuff and things to find on the way, and infernal weapons. The Spinner is used to indicate what new form that a Grub, or the Grub in its current form, transforms into, but there is a simple table included if the Judge simply wants to roll on that. It is also possible for a Grub to roll its current form and get Upgrades instead.

What Inferno Road does not provide is any guidance on running it. It does not explain how to set it up or what to do from turn to turn. The Judge has to infer a lot from reading Inferno Road and then set it up from that. It is not necessarily difficult, but it is made all the more challenging because of the lack of advice. And further, it means that Inferno Road is definitely not for the inexperienced Judge.

Physically, Inferno Road is a great looking book. Doug Kovacs’ artwork is as good as you expect it to be and it is clear that he is having fun drawing for a project of his own rather than a commission. Inferno Road does need an edit in places though.

Ultimately, Inferno Road is more of a set-up and then work it out how you want to run kind of thing. It is not so much a ‘Character Funnel’ with Zero Level Grubs as a ‘Character Grinder’ since there is no conclusion to Inferno Road, no end to its ‘Hieronymus Bosch meets Mad Max 2’ grind of road rage and high demonic action. What its set-up is designed for is a convention event with multiple players passing by, dropping in to play, and dropping out again as the Judge keeps the churn of Grubs and the Doom Buggy rollin’ rollin’ rollin’… Inferno Road looks good and sounds great, but like any demon pact, the Judge really has to have a very good idea of what she is getting into and what she wants out of it.

Friday Fantasy: The Great Pyramid of Atum-Isfet

Only scholars and adventurers care about the past. One for the knowledge they can gather and the other for the treasure they can find. The civilisation of the ancient Azinir people, lying in the Great Desert south of The Known Lands fell a thousand years ago after thousands of sacrifices were made in both blood and labour to build a great temple for their king. It was dedicated to his demonic patron Atum-Isfet, Lord of Entropy and patron of un-death and upon its completion, the King of the Azinir people sealed himself, his concubines, and his attendants inside the temple-pyramid, taking with him some claim, the royal treasury. The King of the Azinir was never seen again and the kingdom collapsed, the king’s disappearance passed into legend, and then even that was all but forgotten. Except recently, a nomad stumbled into the city of Dumatat, half mad after surviving a terrible journey across the desert, and told stories of how he had survived in shadow of a great structure, but had not dared enter the dark and foreboding entrance high up on its surface. As these spread, the people of Dumatat suddenly recalled the legends of the King of the Azinir and wondered if the nomad had found the mad king’s final resting place. So too did the flood of treasure hunters and adventurers which flooded into the city, hoping to find the temple and plunder the by now famed lost treasury of the recently remembered kingdom.

This is the set-up for The Great Pyramid of Atum-Isfet published by Death Guaranteed Games. It is designed for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game from Goodman Games and is a ‘Character Funnel’. This is a feature of Dungeon Crawl Classics, a scenario specifically designed for Zero Level Player Characters in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Zero Level characters and have them play through a nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. The Great Pyramid of Atum-Isfet requires between sixteen and twenty-four Zero Level Player Characters, so between four and six players. In terms of the set-up for The Great Pyramid of Atum-Isfet, what this means is that the Player Characters are not the adventurers and treasure hunters come to plunder the kingdom of Azinir’s treasury—though unusually for a ‘Character Funnel’, there is potential scope for them to do so within the scenario itself. They are instead the members of the poor and the down at heel of the Dumatat, lucky enough to be employed by these adventurers and treasure hunters as servants and hirelings, muleskinners and hunters, and so on, all for the princely sum of ten gold apiece.

Unfortunately for their employers and potentially, fortunately for the Player Characters, events do not turn out quite how they expect. The Player Characters are ordered to stay outside in the base camp whilst their employers climb to the entrance to the pyramid high on its side. This lasts only so long when the camp is attacked by an enormous Roc and the only cover is that entrance, now lit by torches. Inside, the Player Characters make a grisly discovery, a corpse freshly stripped down to the bone lying on the floor, its boots recognisable as belonging to one of the six treasure hunters that employed them! What the players and their characters find inside the pyramid is a classic Ancient Egyptian tomb whose design designed by both classic pulp horror and pulp action. There are swarms of flesh-eating scarab beetles, there are vengeful spirits, there are traps, and more. The scenario is influenced by both The Mummy and Raiders of the Lost Ark and every encounter is nasty and deadly, not just for Zero Level Player Characters, but also First Level Player Characters—as the NPCs employing the Player Characters discover. As with any Character Funnel, the Player Characters will need to rely on their wits and their luck and whatever they find in order to survive The Great Pyramid of Atum-Isfet. There is a distinct possibility of a TPK, or ‘Total Party Kill’, especially if the Player Characters are too inquisitive.

However, the seven detailed locations of the Great Pyramid of Atum-Isfet make up only the second part of The Great Pyramid of Atum-Isfet. This middle section of the scenario can be begun with the Player Characters at the base camp and run in a single session, perhaps as a one-shot or a convention scenario. To run as a longer scenario, the Judge can use the first and third sections of The Great Pyramid of Atum-Isfet. The first takes the expedition from the city of Dumatat to the site to the pyramid, mostly physical in nature, crossing rivers and climbing mountain passes, but also a chance to gain the benefit of a fortune being told. The third section continues the scenario and takes the Player Characters further below the pyramid. It is recommended that the Player Characters have a chance to rise to First Level and so have all the benefits of a Class. This third part of the scenario feels more random in nature and less thematic than the second part, so not as coherent.

To support the scenario, The Great Pyramid of Atum-Isfet includes details of Atum-Isfet as a Patron and write-ups of three spells—Entropic Hand, Swarm Walker (which enables the caster to transform into a swarm of scarabs at the moment of being attacked to avoid injury), and Dire Supplication. Should a Player Character end up worshipping Atum-Isfet as a Cleric, these spells are a lot of fun to use and are even better if he can find the intelligent dagger, the ceremonial blade of Atum-Isfet! Lastly, there are a couple of handouts which should give the players and their characters a clue or two that might aid their survival. Oddly, none of the NPCs use these spells, which is a pity.

Physically, The Great Pyramid of Atum-Isfet is decently presented. It is decently written, whilst the maps and artwork are serviceable, and of course, not quite as polished as the scenarios from Goodman Games. The handouts are good though.

The Great Pyramid of Atum-Isfet is an entertaining and suitably nasty and challenging Zero Level Character Funnel for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. For the Judge wanting an Egyptian-themed, pulp-horror-fantasy scenario that is surprisingly flexible in its set-up, The Great Pyramid of Atum-Isfet is a decent choice.

Friday Fantasy: The Veiled Vaults of the Onyx Queen

It is a year to celebrate. The Queen’s Onyx Jubilee is about to begin, marking the ninety-fifth year of the merciful monarch’s glorious reign. Queen Yoros has the good fortune to be so long-lived and so youthful still, and her people rejoice at her fortune and the beneficence of her reign. She is even gracious enough to invite subjects from all levels of society, including the peasantry. For them, this is a chance to see the queen, to enjoy her hospitality, to pay their respects, and to make memories that they will tell their grandchildren. Unfortunately, only one of these facts is actually true. Whilst the queen is holding a celebration—of a sort—and does want the peasants to attend, hence the invitations, this is not necessarily to their good fortune, although it might be the making of them… They awake to find themselves in an opulent palace, a bitter taste in their mouths and bestial death cultists looming over them. Where are they? How did they get there? How do they get out? These are questions to be answered in Dungeon Crawl Classics #101: The Veiled Vaults of the Onyx Queen, a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #101: The Veiled Vaults of the Onyx Queen is, as the title suggests, the one-hundred-and-first title in the ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics’ line from Goodman Games. Befitting the fact that it has passed that milestone, Dungeon Crawl Classics #101: The Veiled Vaults of the Onyx Queen is a Character Funnel. This is a feature of Dungeon Crawl Classics, a scenario specifically designed for Zero Level Player Characters in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. Dungeon Crawl Classics #101: The Veiled Vaults of the Onyx Queen certainly is tough, a great mausoleum turned fouled fane, crawling with savage cultists, sepulchers marked with vicious traps, the smell of death and decay unavoidable, all the while something monstrous lurks in the upper halls ready to vomit flesh-burrowing grave worms at intruders, and a mellifluous voice urges intruders to come to her rescue… Inspired by the short stories ‘The Charnel God’ by Clark Ashton Smith and ‘Imprisoned with the Pharaohs’ by H.P. Lovecraft—and surprisingly—Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee. The whole complex has been turned into a temple to Mordiggian, a god of death, and it combines a slightly eerie feel with a Lovecraftian undertone and a sense of dread and uncertainty, all punctuated with screams of terror and death…

Dungeon Crawl Classics #101: The Veiled Vaults of the Onyx Queen begins en media res. The Player Characters awake to find themselves lying on the floor amidst rows of bodies. Cultists pick over the corpses. It is a wonderfully creepy opening. Once the Player Characters have dealt with the cultists—as is typical for a Dungeon Crawl Classics Character Funnel—with a mass brawl relying on luck rather than skill, because after all, they are intentionally incompetent, they can begin to explore. There is a lovely scale and grandeur to what is the royal funerary complex, dwarfing the Player Characters, its opulence, let alone the persistent and pervading stench of the grave, constantly serving to remind them that they are out of place.

The Player Characters have two objectives. One is to find out where they are, the other is to get out of wherever they are. To do that they are pulled onwards by the mysterious voice into the first of several funeral vaults. These are the last resting places of various royal personages, holding not just the bodies of kings and queens, but items that are necessary for the Player Characters’ survival in helping them defeat the ghastly threats they are likely to face towards the end of the scenario. They are also the opportunity for the author to have some fun with the Judge in presenting puzzles and traps for the players and their characters to overcome and/or survive. They often include a great table of random (or appear to be random) events that can befall the Player Characters, either killing them in interesting ways or changing them radically in true Dungeon Crawl Classics fashion. If the Player Characters can overcome these nicely detailed set pieces, they have the means to defeat the threats they will later face. Wielding these means also hints at possible roles or Classes that the survivors can take after completing the scenario, that is, Cleric, Thief, Warrior, and Wizard.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #101: The Veiled Vaults of the Onyx Queen being a Character Funnel means that there is a possibility of a Total Party Kill. Fortunately, the scenario offsets that by providing a ready supply of bodies, some of which like the original Player Characters, may not actually be dead. These can readily replace the original Player Characters, so that a player could easily play through the scenario and complete it with a completely different set of Player Characters. Given the deadliness of the scenario in places, this is a distinct possibility, as is the chance that the Player Characters make an attempt to escape the funeral palace, totally unprepared, get killed, and almost have to start again, looking for the means to defeat the foul foes that killed their forbears and successfully gain their freedom.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics #101: The Veiled Vaults of the Onyx Queen is very well presented. If the frontispiece looks a little goofy, the rest of the artwork is decent and the cartography is excellent, nicely depicting the scale of the funeral complex. The scenario also includes four handouts and these are nicely done.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #101: The Veiled Vaults of the Onyx Queen is a really nicely done Character Funnel with lots of atmosphere and dread, but it does leave the Judge and her players wanting at the end. The issue is that in escaping the funeral palace and in the process, both discovering quite why Queen Yoros has managed both to stay so young and achieve the ninety-fifth year of her glorious reign and ending that reign, their actions have potentially calamitous consequences for her kingdom. The question is, what happens next? What happens to the kingdom which has just lost its (evil) queen? What are the consequences for the Player Characters? Of course, this is entirely up to the Judge to develop, but the idea of having inadvertently brought down a kingdom is such a delicious idea that you wish that Goodman Games would actually publish a sequel exploring what happens next.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #101: The Veiled Vaults of the Onyx Queen is a richly detailed and enjoyably thematic Character Funnel. It gets the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game’s second century of scenarios off to a delightfully grand and morbid start.

—oOo—

Goodman Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Friday Fantasy: DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’, which sadly, is a very North American event. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2023’, which takes place on Saturday, July 22nd, 2023, the publisher is releasing not one, not two, but three scenarios, plus a limited edition printing of Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. Two of the scenarios, ‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’ and ‘Grave of the Gearwright’, are written for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and appear in the duology, the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack. The third, Crash of the Titans, is a scenario for Mutant Crawl Classics notable for sharing the same cover as that for the limited edition printing of the rulebook. It is the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack which is being reviewed here as a preview of ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2023’.

The first adventure in the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack is ‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’. Designed for a party of between five and seven First Level Player Characters, it is notable for being the winner of the of the ‘2022 Mystery Map Contest. The scenario begins with the Player Characters summoned to the normally sunlit city of Sphyre high in the Torrith Mountains. Here the people have worshipped the sun for centuries, but now the pattern of day and night has changed, the latter longer, the former shorter. Normally, the city is protected by the immortal wizard, Baltothume, but something must have happened to him for the light of the sun to have begun failing, so the Player Characters are expected to enter the and explore the outpost when he has lived for thousands of years. The outpost is quite small, consisting of just nineteen locations divided between two halves. The first half is where Baltothume lived and worked and feels quite tight and worked to be liveable, whereas the second half is darker and has rougher-hewn, natural feel to it, of a far wider space than the Player Characters can see.

To progress beyond the first half, the Player Characters will need to explore the facility and solve several puzzles, all possessing a solar nature, requiring either light or shadow. There are a few encounters here, but in the main they are just about enough of a threat to First Level Player Characters. The scenario is puzzle-orientated—so much so that they require their own notes—their being solved opens the way into the dungeon’s second half and then back again for its dénouement after that. Surprisingly, for a scenario of this size, it does includes more than the route between the two, preventing the scenario from stalling when the Player Characters cannot make any further progress. That said, the players and their characters may find themselves stalling when attempting to solve the scenario’s puzzles. Careful attention to detail is required and the Judge should definitely make notes as part of her preparation to run ‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’, both to help her understanding and to help her players and their characters come to understand how it works.

‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’ is a neat, nicely self-contained—of course, decently detailed, dungeon which can played through in a session or two. The detail extends to a pair of entertainingly memorable magical items that will help the Player Characters in the exploration of the dungeon. The combination of its puzzles and theme of night and day that split the dungeon should engage players who like to think their way through a situation and the Judge should definitely prepare for that.

The second adventure in the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack is ‘Grave of the Gearwright’. Designed for a party of between four and six Second Level Player Characters, it is actually inspired by DragonMech, the fantasy-steampunk-mecha setting published by Goodman Games in 2004. (Perhaps the scenario is a precursor to it being re-released, this time for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game? Who knows? Watch this space in 2024 on the roleplaying game’s twentieth anniversary.) That said, the scenario is not specifically designed to be run using that setting, but rather as an adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game which combines magic and machinery. The scenario definitely requires a Thief, whilst Player Characters with a mechanical or engineering inclination will also be useful. Clerics or Wizards with mind or nature-affecting spells will find their spells to be less effective in the scenario given the nature of the dangers that the Player Characters will face.

Master Gearwright Alia Coppermantle has not been from in weeks. Perhaps they are tasked with checking on her well-being by a friend or stealing some of her secrets by a rival, but in whatever way they get involved, the Player Characters begin the scenario outside her tower, about to break in. That is quickly achieved and once inside, they will find the tower and its workshops below to be occupied by creatures that resemble weird balls of spiked tentacles and Dwarves very mechanically going about their work. If the Player Characters can defeat one of the constantly working Dwarves, they should learn some of what has been going on at the workshop (the Judge will need to prepare exactly what each Dwarf can remember as it will be different for each one), but not quite the true nature of the threat. That is invasion! From the Moon, no less! Ultimately, whether they sneak their way through the complex via its ventilation shafts—because ‘Grave of the Gearwright’ is as much Science Fiction as it is Fantasy and technological as much as it is magical, and therefore really, really needs ventilation shafts—the Player Characters can locate the missing Gearwright and learn what has happened in the workshop. Here the Judge will need to be a little inventive as Master Gearwright Alia Coppermantle has lost her voice. Nevertheless, that is not going to stop her and the scenario will climax with a battle for possession of the mecha that she was constructing.

‘Grave of the Gearwright’ is definitely more Science Fiction than fantasy in its feel and trappings. It does offer the opportunity for a Player Character to begin to learn engineering as a skill and even take the Great Machine as a Patron. What it does not do is let the Player Characters take control of the mecha, which would have been fun for the final scenes in the scenario. The fight up and down the giant robot, as well as atop it, is a great stage upon which to have a battle though. Otherwise, ‘Grave of the Gearwright’ is the more straightforward of the two scenarios in DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack with an emphasis on combat and stealth. It also pushes the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game slightly in a direction that the roleplaying game as a whole is not quite compatible with as written, but this will vary from one Judge to the next.

Physically, the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack is decently done. The artwork is fun and the maps clear, and both scenarios are well written and easy to read.

Of the two scenarios in the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack, ‘The Rift of the Seeping Night’ is both more interesting and more challenging, as well as easier to add to campaign. Otherwise, with two different scenarios in terms of tone and mystery for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, the DCC Day 2023 Adventure Pack contains two entertaining scenarios as you would expect from Goodman Games.

Friday Fantasy: Night of the Bog Beast

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Friday Fantasy: DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’, which sadly, is a very North American event. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2021’, which took place on Saturday, July 26th, 2021, the publisher released two books. One was Dungeon Crawl Classics Day #2: Beneath the Well of Brass, a classic Character Funnel, one of the features of both the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game—in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. The other was an anthology, the DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack, which contains three adventures. One for Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, one for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, and one a preview for the forthcoming Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth.

The DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack opens with ‘Temple Siege!’. This is designed for five to six First Level Player Characters and draws directly from ‘Appendix N’ by being inspired by the Cossacks stories of Harold Lamb, an influence on Robert E. Howard. The Player Characters will definitely encounter horse nomads—and they prove to be a rough, evil lot, ready to kill the Player Characters and take whatever they have. ‘Temple Siege!’ is a very different scenario. Rather than being an atypical dungeon, it takes place entirely in the confines of a single location. Such a constraint is a challenge to the author. Can he create an interesting location and an interesting plot built around the one place? Often, these are ‘locked room’ style adventures, but ‘Temple Siege!’ is not quite that. Rather, the Player Characters are trapped within the confines of the site, but the door is open and the enemy really wants to get in!

‘Temple Siege!’ takes place on the nomad steppes where the Player Characters have come to plunder an ancient temple, but not long after they enter its confines, they are besieged by a band of nomads. The Player Characters have a limited number of actions they can take between wave upon wave of nomad incursions inside the temple, but they also have a lot to examine in the temple. There are puzzles to be solved and traps to be discovered, some of which will lead to means and ways that the Player Characters can use to their advantage. To that end, the Judge is provided with a wealth of detail which she will need to understand and be able to impart to her players as their characters, as well as handle the three different waves of vile nomads, each of which is slightly different. The progress of the Player Characters will be greatly hampered if they do not have a Thief amongst their number. ‘Temple Siege!’ is a scenario which will keep a Thief really busy just as it will keep a Fighter—and other Classes—busy facing off against the nomads outside. ‘Temple Siege!’ might be slightly too long a scenario to run in a single session and its isolated, nomad steppe location make it a little too difficult to add to a campaign, although the prominent role of the Thief Class in the scenario means that it could work with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Overall though, this is a detailed and fun scenario which combines traps, puzzles, and combat in an entertainingly fought situation.

The DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack is really notable for its inclusion of the first scenario for Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth, the adaptation of the world of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth. ‘Fathoms Below Witch Isle’ is again a scenario for First Level Player Characters, but just three or four. However, it does not require the use of Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth and does not make use of the new Classes from Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth, but can instead be run using the standard rules from the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. (Doubtless, this will change once Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth is widely available.) The scenario opens with their travelling aboard the Calealen, a vessel pulled by giant sea worms that need careful handling throughout the journey. Due to circumstances beyond their control—and heedless of the Calealen’s somewhat scurvy crew—the Player Characters find themselves cast ashore on a decidedly strange island. One that has been turned upside down! To find out how this came about and perhaps make their escape back to sea, they must descend the upturned mountain and confront a mad hermit! 

‘Fathoms Below Witch Isle’ is intentionally odd and weird, just as you would expect from something set in the world of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth. For the Judge, the language itself is ostentatious and takes some getting used to, but the scenario works just as well under the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game as it will under Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth. However, it does not quite feel weird enough, primarily because the players cannot engage with it as Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth characters yet, and only as Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game characters. This is still a decent scenario and will be enjoyable which ever version of Dungeon Crawl Classics is used.

‘The Neverwhen Rock’ is a Character Funnel for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. It can be run on its own, or if the Judge has access, run together with ‘Ruins of Future Past’, the scenario from the DCC Day 2020 Adventure Pack. As part of their Rite of Passage, the Player Characters are instructed by the tribal shaman to examine a strange boulder not too far away and explore the cave inside of it, the likes of which no one has ever seen before. Although their characters will have no idea as to what is going on, the players will quickly realise that this is a time travel adventure. It is a very basic one though, with an obvious nod to Doctor Who, and the Player Characters never get the chance to explore the strange boulder, merely get thrust out of it in different locations. It definitely feels like it should be more and like some of the great ideas presented in other titles from Goodman Games, it leaves the Judge left wondering what to do next if she wants to do more with that idea.

Physically, DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack is decently done. The artwork is fun and the maps clear. The maps for both ‘Temple Siege!’ and ‘Fathoms Below Witch Isle’ are both well done. All three scenarios are well written and easy to read.

The DCC Day 2021 Adventure Pack contains three scenarios which vary in their utility and their capacity to entertain. ‘Temple Siege!’ is the standout entry, a thrillingly constrained and nicely detailed encounter which will challenge the player and their characters and is suitable for almost any Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game setting. ‘Fathoms Below Witch Isle’ is a serviceable introduction to Dungeon Crawl Classics: Dying Earth, but will really come into its own when the Judge and her players can experience the whole of what the setting has to offer, including characters Classes. In comparison, ‘The Neverwhen Rock’ feels too slight, as if it wants to be something more, but the page count is constraining it. There are more than enough Character Funnels for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic that the Judge not really need look at this unless she has access to ‘Ruins of Future Past’ from the DCC Day 2020 Adventure Pack.

Sullen Structure

The continent of Zyl-Kaduun—also known as Kaduun or ‘the Sullenlands’ after its once-beloved king, Redgold Sullen is broken not once, but twice! Zyl-Kaduun is broken because King Redgold, who unified the lands of Zyl-Kaduun, is dead and his heir, a daughter, is missing, and the only king is King Ravianwhurst, whose rule from the City of Eldercliff in the far southwest of the continent barely reaches the borders of his own province. Thus, much of Zyl-Kaduun remain broken and ungoverned. Zyl-Kaduun is broken because a once in seven generations conjunction of the thirteen moons has occurred and the God Mist has descended upon the land. No longer can the gods see their worshippers, no longer can worshippers reach out to their gods for guidance and succour. No longer can priests and wizards cast their magics with any degree of predictability or safety—if they ever could. Even heathens who do worship the gods or have the wherewithal to practise magic may be beset by the unpredictability of the God Mist. Worse, with the separation of the gods from Zyl-Kaduun, the Dark Chorus—Kreathorne the Boiler of Souls, Vlox of Between Things, and the carrion crow goddess Malotoch—all seek to take advantage of the situation, grow their followers, and gain in power and influence such that they can become more than mere minor gods! This is the situation across the continent of Zyl-Kaduun, although few if any, realise quite why of Zyl-Kaduun is broken, and on which the Player Characters will explore and discover in The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide.

The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide is a mini-campaign and guide for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics RolePlaying Game from Goodman Games. Published by Purple Sorcerer Games, it collates three scenarios by the same author, provides background details of the Sullenlands, the setting for all three scenarios, as well as adding a fourth, new, mini-scenario. The three scenarios, ‘Nebin Pendlebrook’s Perilous Pantry’, ‘The Frost Fang Expedition’, and ‘The Crypt in Cadaver Canyon’, take the Player Characters from Zero Level to Second Level in a campaign which will take them across the Sullenlands and reveal a little of the setting’s secrets. These are only the key scenarios though, for the map given in The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide has plenty of bank spots where the Judge can insert adventures of her own design or prewritten. If she plans to continue her Sullenlands campaign beyond the three core scenarios, this is something she will need to do.

After a foreword explaining both the author’s introduction and reintroduction to roleplaying games, The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide opens with ‘Nebin Pendlebrook’s Perilous Pantry’. Set in the village of Bitterweed Barrow, this is a Character Funnel, in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. In the scenario, a local, well-to-do halfling, known for his excellent hat, has not been seen for a few days and so the villagers—the Player Character—assemble to investigate his house. When they do, they discover a tunnel leading deep into the ground. Amounting to just twelve locations, the scenario and dungeon complex are fairly linear, with just the occasional side passage or room. This perfectly suits a Character Funnel, which designed to have Zero Level Player Characters dropped in at one end, and a mix of corpses and First Level Player Characters squirted out at the other.

The various rooms and locations are nicely detailed and not all of them involve deadly encounters, but the mix of monsters will whittle down the would-be adventurers until they face the first of two confrontations in the dungeon. There is one which solves the mystery that triggers the adventure and one that solves the mystery that becomes apparent as the dungeon is explored. Along the way, the Player Characters will find some interesting equipment and magical items that will help them, as well as the ability to cast a spell or two. The survivors will have found Nebin Pendlebrook, learned a secret or two about the complex beneath the village of Bitterweed Barrow, and hints about the greater situation in the Sullenlands. It is designed to be played in a number of different ways. It could of course be played by a standard party of First Level characters, but the Judge might want to add a monster or two to each encounter because as written they do not represent too much of a challenge. Alternatively, it can be run as a ‘Character Funnel’ in one of two ways. The first is as an ‘Instant Action Adventure’, one that can be run in a single four-hour session, including character creation, making it suitable for play at a convention or a demonstration game in a hobby store. The second is as standard scenario, allowing the players to take a bit of time creating their characters and establishing themselves in the Bitterweed Barrow and their relationships with each other, checking for rumours, buying equipment, and so on. Then it is off into the depths of the missing Halfling’s pantry… There is good staging advice for the Judge to round the adventure off.

‘The Frost Fang Expedition’ is the second adventure and is designed for four to eight First Level adventurers. It takes the Player Characters to Village of Neverthawes in the shadow of the Frost Fang Mountains. The village is famous for the enormous chunk of earth hovering above it, upon which stands the castle of the wizard, Dagon the Doleful. In recent days, the castle’s lights have grown dark, and chunks of earth have reined down upon the village, and it is feared that the island and its castle will crash down upon Neverthawes and crush everyone in the village. As villager after villager prepares themselves to flee, the local priest and the last Dwarven descendant of the head of the now abandoned Ardokk mines are preparing to lead an expedition up the mountain and across the bridge to Dagon the Doleful’s castle.

Unfortunately, neither of the expedition’s leaders can agree upon their eventual aim once they get to the castle, the Dwarf believing that the only good wizard is a dead wizard… Either way, the expedition’s aim is to determine if the old wizard inside the castle is still alive, and if anything can be done to keep the castle afloat.

Like ‘Nebin Pendlebrook’s Perilous Pantry’ before it, ‘The Frost Fang Expedition’ is a linear adventure. The expedition and the Player Characters climb up Frost Fang Mountain, following the steep path which winds it way around and through the mountain. The path does split, so the Player Characters do have a choice, both routes offering entertaining encounters—either a cow-medusa hybrid thing called a Moodusa or a talking goat looking to extort passers-by… These are not the only weird encounters to be had up the mountain, two of them involving ambulatory buildings! There are plenty of smaller encounters two before the Player Characters have to scramble across the rope to the castle not unlike Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. There is even a table to roll on if they fall or are shot off the bridge by the strange humanoids who live up the mountain.

As the Player Characters travel up the mountain, the two expedition leaders will be bickering with other and there is scope for the Judge to play the two off against each other and the Player Characters. In addition, the Player Characters will suffer visions that give hints as to the situation on Frost Fang Mountain. As to what is going on in the castle, it is fairly complex, and the Judge will need to read through the background and possible outcomes with care as there is no easy solution to the situation. Appendices detail the expedition leaders, provide simplified rules for spell duelling, the situation, a possible patron for the Player Characters, and a guide to linking the scenario to ‘Nebin Pendlebrook’s Perilous Pantry’. It is a surprisingly big adventure and whilst like ‘Nebin Pendlebrook’s Perilous Pantry’, it is designed to be used as an ‘Instant Action Adventure’, a great deal has to be excised from the content for it be run within a four-hour session at a convention. Otherwise, ‘The Frost Fang Expedition’ is an entertaining affair and should actually provide several sessions’ worth of play.

‘The Crypt in Cadaver Canyon’ is the third scenario and shifts the action far to the south of the Sullenlands in the Bleaklands Desert. This does mean that there is a bit of a physical distance between its location and that of the previous two scenarios. Here there is plenty of space for the Judge to insert content of her own and potentially, the Judge may also want to bump up the Level requirements for the scenario, which is designed for four to six Second Level Player Characters, if she adds content in-between. The scenario begins in the partially hidden City in the Cliffs, built into the side of the Crimson Canyon on the Deep Scratch River. The city has a ritual it must enact every thirteen years. This is that a birth-marked chosen one must be sacrificed to a desert god known as Bulda­katak the Burning Warthog, so that he will not destroy the city along with its two-thousand inhabitants. Unfortunately, the last known birth-marked candidate was acciden­tally executed as a thief by the city’s ruling Council of Thirteen and her body uncer­emoniously sent floating down the Deep Scratch River to the Crypt in Cadaver Canyon. The Council intends to resurrect the thief long enough to sacrifice her to Buldakatak and save the city, but first, the body must be retrieved. Which is where the Player Characters come in.

The scenario can either start with the Player Characters arriving in the city and exploring it, earning more about what is going on, or it can leap straight into the action on a boat travelling down the Deep Scratch River. Again, ‘The Crypt in Cadaver Canyon’ is a linear adventure, this one down a river rather than up a mountain. There are fewer deviations, and the scenario makes a great deal of its desert setting, giving it something of Swords & Sorcery feel as the Player Character sail down the river to lands of the dead in the nearby cavern. There is course, a twist or two at the end, which make the scenario not as straightforward as it first seems, and the scenario is supported with several appendices detailing various desert encounters and giving solid staging advice for the Judge. If there is an issue here it is that although the notes do suggest links to get to ‘The Crypt in Cadaver Canyon’ from the previous two scenarios, there are none on what to do in-between. There is advice too on how to make the scenario a four-hour or convention game, but ‘The Crypt in Cadaver Canyon’ really needs more than the single session to play through.

Roughly a third of The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide is devoted to the setting’s background. This includes a map with empty spots and name tags for the Judge to add her own content, a history of the region and description of its current situation, a discussion of its themes, a gazetteer—paying particular attention to the Sullenlands capital of Eldercliff and adding more detail to the City in the Cliff, and more. Bar the inclusion of the gods who play a role in the scenarios and the Dwarven gods, the Judge and her players are left to decide what other gods are worshipped, but there are tables for how the God Mist affects spellcasters and non-spellcasters. The Dwarven Cleric is added as a new Class to accompany the description of the Dwarven gods, and for the Judge, there is a toolbox of extra details including festivals, thieves’ guilds, herbs, treasures (such as a Holy Hornet’s Nest and a fire-resistant Weeping Cloak), and a list of random place names for when the players decide their characters go exploring. There is also a ‘Character Death Table’ which give a Player Character one last hurrah, a short bestiary complete with encounter suggestions for each entry, various encounter tables, and even a set of tables entitled ‘The Judge’s Retort!’ to make misses in combat a bit more interesting. Here at last is ‘Tips on Tying the Adventures Together’, a useful section which could have been placed much earlier in the book and made more obvious given how there are notes earlier on linking the scenarios, if only loosely, together.

Rounding out The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide is the fourth adventure in the supplement. ‘The Bellows of Bromforge’ is a mini-adventure designed for four to eight Second Level Player Characters which takes in place in the great dwarven fortress of Bromforge, where something has affected the great furnaces in the city of Glimmervault. It is again short and linear, and has more the feel of a traditional dungeon adventure than the other adventures in the supplement. It is decent little adventure, nicely illustrated, which brings the Player Characters into contact with a new interpretation of a traditional Dungeons & Dragons foe.

Physically, The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide is solid, digest-sized hardback. Although it needs a slight edit in places, the cartography and artwork are decent. The main problem though, is the organisation. Having the background information and advice on running the three scenarios in the supplement at the back of the book is unhelpful and counterintuitive, making the content not as easy to prepare or even run as it should be.

The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide has the makings of a good mini-campaign for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, but needs no little effort upon the part of the Judge. The individual scenarios are relatively easy to prepare and run, but linking the four scenarios in the supplement and then running them will take extra effort. All down to the poor organisation and the extra content which such a campaign would need to flesh it out. This fleshing out is necessary because the scenarios never get as far as fully exploring the background to the Sullenlands and further linking scenarios would help with that—as would further scenarios designed for Player Characters of higher Levels. Hopefully, there will be an anthology of further scenarios to help flesh out the campaign.

Overall, The Sullenlands Adventure Omnibus & Guide is full of entertaining, playable content, but it just lacks the organisation and development to really help the Judge to prepare it and bring it to the table for her players.

Friday Fantasy: DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack

As well as contributing to Free RPG Day every year Goodman Games also has its own ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day’, which sadly, is a very North American event. The day is notable not only for the events and the range of adventures being played for Goodman Games’ roleplaying games, but also for the scenarios it releases specifically to be played on the day. For ‘Dungeon Crawl Classics Day 2022’, which took place on Saturday, July 16th, 2022, the publisher released not one, not two, but three booklets. Two of these were specifically for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game—the supplement, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day: The Book of Fallen Gods, and the scenario, Dungeon Crawl Classics Day #3: Chanters in the Dark. The third, DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack, is a duology of scenarios for both the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic. Both scenarios are designed for Player Characters of Second Level, both are nicely detailed, and both can be played in a single session, but neither should take no longer than two sessions to complete.

DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack opens with ‘Incident at Toad Fork’, a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game written by Brendan Lasalle. This returns to the Appalachian-style fantasy setting of The Shudder Mountains, first seen Dungeon Crawl Classics #83: The Chained Coffin and more recently compiled in Dungeon Crawl Classics #83: The Chained Coffin anthology. Consequently, the scenario has a strong sense of the rural versus the urban, the backwoods culture versus the sophisticated manners of the city, the distrust of the latter by the former, and the feeling that them there city folk are invariably out to bamboozle the good folk of The Shudder Mountains.

The scenario opens with the Player Characters invited to the Harvest Moon Dance, an important annual event when all of the Shudfolk from the communities across The Shudder Mountains come together. It is normally a joyous affair, with plenty of dancing and music, but this year is different. A strange shadow is cast over the activities as several of the young men suddenly bolt, running pell-mell into the surrounding woods, oblivious to all entreaties. The Elders entreat the Player Characters to go after them and they quickly encounter strange glamours and a representative of one the devil which competes for Shudfolk souls. This is a fun roleplaying encounter for the Judge to portray, the NPC being akin to the charming and seductive Mister Dark from the film, Something Wicked This Way Comes, as portrayed by Jonathan Pryce (or in this case, Vincent Price). Overall, reminiscent perhaps of Halloween, but set way in the mountains with a Hillbilly sensibility, if the Judge has not yet run Dungeon Crawl Classics #83: The Chained Coffin, then this is an entertaining and engaging adventure to add to the campaign setting.

Marzio Muscedere’s ‘The Last Life Guardian’ is the second scenario. In this adventure for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, members of the Player Characters’ village have learned a terrifying tale of horror and hope from a dying outland trader. He told them that a Pure Strain Human wizard with the ability to heal and even bring the dead back to life is being held prisoner by savage mutants within a time-ravaged superstructure of the Ancient Ones. The village Rememberers—the wisest of the villagers—have said that the trapped wizard must be none other than a fabled Life Guardian, a surviving member of an ancient pre-disaster order sworn to heal and protect mankind. Consequently, he must be rescued. Which of course, as village’s Seekers, those that go out and search for technology and knowledge of the Ancients and protect the villagers from outside threats, is a task for the Player Characters.

Once at the site of the time-ravaged superstructure, both Seekers and their players will quickly realise one fact each. The Seekers that even the lake is artificial and their players, what with the ruins of café alongside the lake and the tubes curling all over the place, that it is actually a former waterpark! Part of the fun of the scenario is in recognising this fact, as is discovering that it is home to a tribe of fishmen! So what you have is not-Deep Ones at the deep end of the pool and they are not happy with the presence of the Seekers. As well as dealing with the not-Deep Ones, there is still a decent bit of exploration and investigation to conduct, with only a relatively small bit of roleplaying at the scenario’s end. The various locations are nicely detailed, and a lot of thought has gone into twisting a simple waterpark into an aquatic den of danger in Terra A.D. Especially the zombie which appears if the Seekers are just that too curious! Primarily an exploration and combat scenario, the isolated location for ‘The Last Life Guardian’ makes it easy to drop into a campaign, with success granting the Player Characters a potentially useful campaign reward rather than personal ones. 

Physically, DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack is decently done. The artwork is fun and the maps clear. The map for ‘The Last Life Guardian’ though will need careful examination by the Judge as it is a little busy. Both scenarios are well written and easy to read.

DCC Day 2022 Adventure Pack contains two entertaining scenarios. ‘The Last Life Guardian’ makes a great deal from the one location for the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, but ‘Incident at Toad Fork’ for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and specifically, The Shudder Mountains, is a fun, fast-paced Hillbilly horror scenario which will want to make the Judge take a closer look at the Appalachian-style fantasy of Dungeon Crawl Classics #83: The Chained Coffin—if he has not already.

[Free RPG Day 2022] Danger in the Air

Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

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Goodman Games provided two titles to support Free RPG 2022. The first was The Three-Wizard Conundrum, an entertaining scenario for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, much in the mode of The Dying Earth stories by Jack Vance. The other was an adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, as you would expect, highly anticipated. Free RPG Day 2022 – Dungeon Crawl Classics: Danger in the Air is a Character Funnel, one of the features of both the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game—in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. If one or more of the Player Characters survive—and the players may need to share some of their surviving characters if one or more players get theirs killed—then they will have each acquired the sufficient Experience Points necessary to rise to the heady heights of First Level. In the process, they will gain a Class and all of its benefits.

Free RPG Day 2022 – Dungeon Crawl Classics: Danger in the Air begins with a strange occurrence. As the villagers look up, they see a strange alien creature drifting in the air above their homes, its translucent body rent with weeping wounds. Within its body can be seen a structure and from one damaged corner gold and other treasure glints, even as the occasional trickle of alien, though doubtless gold, coins rains from the sky. Already, other villagers have scavenged treasures beyond their imagination from the blobs of alien flesh which have fallen from the sky, but there is surely more—much more—to be found inside the odd combination of jellyfish with butterfly-like wings? Fortunately, there is an easy way up. Numerous tentacles and tendrils dangle from its underside, and if some brave souls can climb their length, there has to be a way inside. After all, how else did the treasure get there otherwise? There are certain to be dangers too, but any man, woman, elf, dwarf, or halfling, armed only with a stick or a pig or a piece of overly fragrant cheese, brave enough to make the climb and explore the strange structure is destined for better things.

Getting into the strange floating object is relatively easy and what the Player Characters discover is not one, but two weird combinations. The first is that of Science Fiction and fantasy, though actually, more the former than the latter. The second is strange biology with technology. This will be apparent to the players of course, but not their characters, for whom Clarke’s Third Law—“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”—definitely applies. This is because the object turns out to be an advanced interdimensional spacecraft which suffered a catastrophic encounter and with its occupants dead, drifted into the Player Characters’ world. It also means that there are a lot of strange devices and objects which the Player Characters can interact with to various effects. The adventure consists of just eleven locations across three floors, and it should no surprise that each includes lots of detail that the Judge can use to bring the adventure location to life.

A playing group should be able to play through Free RPG Day 2022 – Dungeon Crawl Classics: Danger in the Air in just about a single session. If any of the Player Characters survive long enough to discover and return with the treasure its vault holds, then they will be surprisingly wealthy as well having sufficient Experience Points to each First Level. The Judge also has a hook or two which she can develop into a possible sequel. Hopefully, Goodman Games will return to the story in a sequel to Free RPG Day 2022 – Dungeon Crawl Classics: Danger in the Air.

Physically, Free RPG Day 2022 – Dungeon Crawl Classics: Danger in the Air is slightly disappointing as it is not quite up to the standards usually set by the publisher. In places the writing is rushed and the map, whilst clearer than in other releases for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, is mislabelled. The artwork is excellent and entertaining though.

Free RPG Day 2022 – Dungeon Crawl Classics: Danger in the Air is a thoroughly entertaining scenario. It definitely offers a fun session of roleplaying mind-boggled villagers just trying to work what they have themselves into and wondering if they are going to be able to get out again.