[Fanzine Focus XLIV] Cursed Scroll #2

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. A more recent Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game which right from the start of its appearance began being supported by fanzines, is ShadowDark, published by The Arcane Library. One such fanzine is Cursed Scroll. This is not only a fanzine for ShadowDark, but since it is actually published by The Arcane Library, it is the official fanzine for ShadowDark, fulfilling a similar role as Carcass Crawler does for Necrotic Gnome of Old School Essentials.

Cursed Scroll #1 carries the subtitle of ‘Shadowdark Zine Vol. 1: Diablerie!’ and created a complete mini-setting, ‘The Gloaming’, an ancient forest of black trees, moss strewn standing stones, and fog-shrouded marshes, demons which emerge from the trees, the Knights of St. Ydris who hunt the demons, and not only the Greywall Priory, but also Bittermold Keep, its stone walls long melted by the slime which bubbles up deep from under the ground from a shrine dedicated to the primordial ooze, Mugdulblub. Cursed Scroll #2 carries the subtitle of ‘ShadowDark Zine 2: Red Sands’ and continues the same format in presenting a complete mini-setting. Yet where Cursed Scroll #1 was gloopy, oozy, and acidic, Cursed Scroll #2 is dry, dusty, and burns hot. It features ‘The Djurum’, a shimmering desert lying between red mountains crossed by merchant caravans hoping to avoid the bandits that ride out of the mountain valleys, the skin-blistering sandstorms, and death from above by The Scourge, a Blue Dragon cursed and tortured by the evil spirit it swallowed, always accompanied by blue lightning and thunderclouds. Deep in the mountains is the secret, ancient monastery where the infamous Ras-Godai assassins train under a half-demon, whilst the Howling Caves hide the Iron Fortress, a Duergar mine long captured by the Efreeti where the princeling sons of the Efreeti lord compete for their father’s attention.

Cursed Scroll #2 was published in October, 2022 and includes a hexcrawl covering an area of seventeen by eleven hexes, thirty-four by twenty-two miles, roughly seven-hundred-and-fifty square miles. It has tables for rumours and encounters and in ‘The Djurum Hex Key’, gives detailed descriptions of twenty-two locations across the region. These include ‘Shar Oasis’, the likely destination for any travellers across the region, famous for its Thraxis Arena where crowds gather nightly to bet, drink, and fight as gladiators battle below them; a ruined fortress, blasted and bent, home only to twenty ghosts of former guards who materialise only to curse The Scourge for their deaths and only the death of The Scourge can end their torment; and Worm Trench is the spawning grounds for pregnant Purple Worms which gather in the thirty foot deep, one hundred foot long trench filled with webs and nests.

The three new Classes in the issue include the ‘Desert Rider’, which can Charge three times daily for double damage and is bonded to a mount (camel or horse) and gains an Armour Class bonus when riding it; the ‘Pit Fighter’ can regain Hit Points when hitting an enemy with a ‘Flourish’, has Advantage on Constitution checks to resist injury, poison, and extreme environments, and when reduced to zero Hit Points, can make a Constitution check to recover at one Hit Point; and the ‘Ras-Godai’ is an assassin that can inflict double damage to surprised opponents, teleport withing sight as if a puff of smoke, and after eating the petals of the Black Lotus flower, gains random abilities such as being able to temporarily paralyse a target, walk on water, or appear invisible to a single target. Of the three, the ‘Pit Fighter’ focuses heavily on recovery, whilst the ‘Ras-Godai’ is a fighter with semi-magical abilities.

It adds new weapons such as the blowgun, bolas, razor chain, shuriken, and whip, the bolas and the whip allowing the wilder to perform a ranged attack. There is a list of new poisons and rules for mounts, which pleasingly includes a list of possible personalities for the mounts. ‘Pit Fighting’ sets up venues for the Pit Fighter Class to perform in, with stakes set at low, mid, high, or epic to determine the nature of the foe faced and the rewards to the winner, and a possible twist to add a surprise to the fight. ‘Thraxis Arena’ at Shar Oasis is given page of description and comes with a table to determine the mood of the crowd, such as ruthless, bored, or awed. ‘Enduring Wounds’ applies extra effects for suffering severe injuries, such as a heart attack, torn muscle, or staggered. Overall, there is a brawny brutality to the rules combined with the strange unreality of the smoke-like assassins.

Supported by rules for ‘Travel in the Sands’, which heavily accounts for the wind and the heat, the ‘The Djurum Hex Key’ details various locations across the desert. There is plenty of strangeness as well as people simply trying to get by. For example, the ‘Hamad Camp’ is home to two hundred desert-dwellers who live around a natural spring and hunt and tame wild scrag lizards. They fear the sorcerer of the Saltstone Tower as the cause of the foul water, illness, and stillbirths they have suffered recently, but its leaders cannot agree on what they should do. There is more going on here, including the eldest son of one of the leaders having gone missing, but the Game Master will need to develop this site and others further to make it playable.

The bestiary is quite short, the most notable entry being the description of The Scourge. The adventure in the issue is the ‘Fortress of the Burning Brothers’. Designed for Fourth to Sixth Level Player Characters, this details a former duergar mining stronghold located in a cathedral cavern deep inside the Howling Caves built across broiling orange rivers of magma that cast a light over the whole area! There are rumours which will drive the Player Characters to climb down to reach it and what they will find is a fortress commanded by rival Efreeti brothers and manned by Salamander guards. There are some nice details that bring out the brothers’ rivalry, such as the broken iron golem with hollow eye sockets which needs a pair of magical ruby eyes to power it. One brother has found the rubies, but does not know how to use them, whilst the other knows how to use them, does not know where they are, and when he has them, wants to use the iron golem to arrange an accident for his brother! There is a mine below the fortress where Efreetis’ Duergar slaves still labour, refining ore in readiness for transport to the famed City of Brass (a nod to the classic location in Dungeons & Dragons on the plane of fire). Both levels are pleasingly details, the inclusion of a list of personalities for the Salamander guards and the Duergar workers is a really nice touch.

As decently done as the set-up of rival princeling factions in ‘Fortress of the Burning Brothers’ is, the problem with the scenario is how to use it. Or rather how to connect to the surface world such that the Player Characters would have cause to want to search for its hidden location. Without the impetus or motivation for this, the location feels separate to ‘The Djurum Hex Key’ above.

Physically, Cursed Scroll #2 adheres to the style of ShadowDark. Thus, it is clean, tidy, and laid out. The illustrations and cartography are also good.

Much like the previous issue, Cursed Scroll #2 is intended to be a complete package, a mini-supplement all of its very own, and it contains a good mix of content is playable and needs some development. However, it does not feel as complete a package as Cursed Scroll #1 did and the two halves—the hexcrawl and the dungeon—work better on their own rather than together. All that makes either half easier to add to a Game Master’s own campaign, she will still need to create content of her own to make them a whole.

Rolling for Ravenloft

Dice. Dice are so integral to the roleplaying game hobby that everyone has their own set. Probably more than one set. Whether they are the very first set that the roleplayer had when he started playing, the set that he pulls out from the many in his dice bag or his All Rolled Up, or a set that is specific to the roleplaying game he is currently playing—either because the roleplaying game in question requires its own special dice set or the dice are aesthetically designed to match the game—dice are a fundamental part of a roleplayer’s kit. Some roleplayers have traditions about their dice. They pick a dice set for each game, they do not like other players touching or rolling their dice, they will punish dice that roll badly by placing them in a ‘dice gaol’, they dump a set entirely because of the bad rolls, and they collect dice. They will peruse dice sellers looking for the perfect set or the most pleasing set, but that is not the only way in which roleplayers collect dice sets. They buy dice in blind packs, each containing a complete dice set, but which the roleplayer has no idea what the set will look like. This is much like a traditional trading card game with its booster packs. The difference is that instead of opening booster packs in search of better cards to enhance and improve the game play of the trading card game, dice blind packs are opened in search of finding prettier, rarer dice sets and in the hope that all of the sets can be collected. This is how the Castle Ravenloft Treasure Dice Packs work.

Castle Ravenloft Treasure Dice Packs are official, licensed Dungeons & Dragons dice, manufactured by Sirius Dice, and themed around the Ravenloft campaign setting inspired by Gothic horror and its supernatural monsters—vampires, werewolves, mummies, and more, but most obviously by Count von Zarovich, the Darklord of Barovia, who originally appeared in I6 Ravenloft. So, what do you get in a Castle Ravenloft Treasure Dice Pack? Rip open the pack and inside you will find an embroidered dice bag containing a full polyhedral dice set and a collectible metal ability coin. The complete set consists of fifty-five unique dice sets, thirty-one ability coins, and seven dice bags. The latter come in seven, different designs that in turn depict the famous Dungeons & Dragons ampersand, a raven on a skull, the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind (sacred to the Good-aligned Barovians), bats flying against the backdrop of the Moon, and more. Each is roughly four-by-three-and-a-half inches and done in soft material, with a strong draw tie that has Dungeons & Dragons embroidered on it and enough room to comfortably hold the ability coin and the dice set. The dice bags are not big, but will hold two dice sets. The ability coins are double-sided and depict a variety of images. They can also be round, square, or octagonal; bronze, gold, or silver. So, one might depict a ‘Werewolf’ on one side and the werewolf undergoing the ‘Shapeshift’ on the other side; a young or an aged Rudolph Von Richten on one side and ‘Monster Hunter’ with a stake on the other; ‘Dragon Flight’ and a Dragonborn on one side and the Dungeons & Dragons ampersand on the other; and others. The rarest is a replica of the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind and a colour coin depicting Count von Zarovich himself. The coins themselves grant no in game bonus, but they can be used to indicate whether a Player Character has Inspiration, is suffering a particular condition, has activated an ability, and so on.

The dice vary in look and feel, but are all standard polyhedral dice with an extra ten-sided die to use as the ‘tens’ die for percentile rolls. Some of the sets are standard sets in solid colours or clear gem style, whilst others moulded as if made from stone or brickwork. The latter style is not inked, so although they have a different tactile feel to them, they are not as easy to read. The rarity of the dice runs from common and uncommon through rare to super rare and legendary. The rarer dice have their top values marked with a symbol and there is also the legendary Ravenloft metal dice set. The Castle Ravenloft Treasure Dice Packs do not include any indication as to the rarity of the contents and complete range.

The Castle Ravenloft Treasure Dice Packs are nice. The embroidered dice bags are fetching and well made, the ability coins solid as you would expect, and the dice ranging from good to decent. Not all of the dice are as easy to read as they could be, but they all roll well, and it will come down to whether or not the look and feel of the dice is something that you find attractive. Ultimately, it is a matter of taste.

It is also a matter of age. Whilst many gamers and roleplayers of a certain age will be familiar with the pulling of cards from booster packs for trading card games like Magic: The Gathering, they will be less familiar with blind dice packs. They are more used to buying their dice—when they need to—off the shelf. In fact, the idea of blind dice packs, feels weird. Yet not to younger players, so there is a market for the blind dice pack, such as the Castle Ravenloft Treasure Dice Packs. As an older gamer, it is easy to dismiss these as for the youth, but given that as a roleplayer you are always imagining yourself being someone else, it is not difficult to imagine the roles reversed. As seeing the dice packs as perfectly normal and the attitude of older gamers being small-minded. Further, it feels appropriate for a dice and accessory range inspired by a Gothic horror setting for Dungeons & Dragons to have a sense of mystery and the unknown like the one imparted by the blind nature of these dice packs. Opening Castle Ravenloft Treasure Dice Packs is actually more fun than you might think and you might get lucky.

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A video of opening Castle Ravenloft Treasure Dice Packs can be found here.

Your Level Up Starter

A good starter set has to do a number of different things. It has to introduce and explain the roleplaying game it is a starter set for, whether that is the roleplaying game’s setting, mechanics, or both. It has to both tell and show what the players and their characters are expected to do in the setting and how they do it, first with the rules and then with a scenario. It has to provide everything that a group needs to play—rules, scenario, pre-generated Player Characters, and dice—and ideally more. Maps, handouts, tokens, and the like are all items that will help bring the world of the roleplaying game’s setting to life and give the players something to look at and interact with. Above all, a good starter should showcase the roleplaying game and entice both Game Master and her players to want to roleplay more with the rules and in that setting by picking up the core rulebook, and if the contents of the start set support continued play, whether that is providing an extra set of dice or maps for the setting, then all the better.

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The Level Up Starter Box for Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition has an uphill battle ahead of it, because in hobby in which Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition predominates and in which Dungeons & Dragons is the only roleplaying game that matters to the world at large, it has to sell itself on the point that what it offers is more Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Or rather, more than Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Although designed to be compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, what Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition does is offer more choice, more flexibility, and more depth in combination with the same heroic fantasy roleplaying that you want from Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. And this it sets out to do without added complexity. Published by EN Publishing, the Level Up Starter Box is not actually a starter set in the traditional sense. What a starter set typically does is introduce a roleplaying game and its setting, providing Game Master and players alike with everything they need to play—the rules, dice, pre-generated Player Characters, one or more adventures, and support for both the adventure and rules in general. The Level Up Starter Box has most of that. What it lacks is dice. This is because it assumes that anyone opening its box and looking through the contents will have roleplayed before—specifically, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Having done so, they will have dice, they will know what roleplaying is, and they know how Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition works and how it is played. In this way, the Level Up Starter Box is an introduction to Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition rather than roleplaying in general and Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition.

So what is in the Level Up Starter Box? Inside can be found a sixty-six page ‘Rules Manual’, three sixteen-page booklets which together make up the adventure, five pre-generated Player Characters, five double-sided poster maps, and ninety-one cardboard tokens for heroes, villains, and monsters. The ‘Rules Manual’ explains all of the rules changes and additions. This starts with telling the reader that the name for the Game Master in Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition is ‘Narrator’, and that the Barbarian, Monk, and Paladin are expanded into Berserker, Adept, and Herald respectively, whilst the Marshal is a new Class. Exhaustion is divided between ‘Fatigue’ and ‘Strife’, physical and spiritual in nature, respectively. Two skills are added, ‘Culture’, representing knowledge of customs, laws, and etiquette, whilst ‘Engineering’ is used for building and constructing. Skills can work with any Attribute as can Initiative, depending on the situation. A Player Character does not have a Species, but a Heritage and Culture, the first being what he inherited from his parents, whilst the latter his upbringing. A Player Character can have Expertise Dice, granted by a Player Character’s Class, the situation, and more. These are either a four-sided, six-sided, or eight-sided die and are rolled in conjunction with rolls of a twenty-sided die.

For the players, there is a guide to the advancements gain by their characters at Fifth Level. For the Narrator there are some nicely done Journey rules, which underpin the exploration pillar of Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition. They take into account travel pace, supply, fatigue, weather, and so on. There are tables for encounters ordinary and social, travel scenery, boons, and discoveries as rewards for overcoming objectives, but the really fun aspect is the list of activities that go beyond those you would normally except for journey rules. So alongside ‘Cook’, ‘Hunt and Gather’, ‘Scout’, and ‘Track’, there is also ‘Busk’, ‘Chronicle’, ‘Gossip’, and ‘Pray’, which is rather entertaining. There is also a guide to the magic items that appear in the adventure as well as a bestiary.

The five pre-generated Player Characters include a Halfling Sorcerer who grew up amongst the Hill Dwarves who specialises in planar magic; a Human Adept who grew up in a Dragoncult and is a brawler; a Dragonborn Ranger who was a Wilding and is now a holy champion; a Dwarven Rogue with a cosmopolitan background who specialises in traps; and a Planetouched Cleric also with a cosmopolitan background and who is an oracle. All five have their own Destinies from which they can take Inspiration, plus a Background, and each has particular guides for exploration and social actions. All five are presented on four-page pamphlets that easy to read and use. All five Player Characters are Fourth Level.

The rules cover several Conditions, including ‘Fatigue’ and ‘Strife’, which are tracked. Warriors can have combat manoeuvres. Disarm, Grab On, Grapple, Knockdown, Overrun, and Shove are basic combat manoeuvres, whilst the majority are divided into traditions, which are divided much like spell Levels, from First Degree to Fifth Degree. Four are included the Level Up Starter Box, including ‘Biting Zephyr’ for ranged attacks, ‘Mist and Shade’ for feints and distractions, ‘Rapid Current’ for speed and agility, and ‘Razor’s Edge’ for strikes and parries. Some combat manoeuvres require the defender to make a Saving Throw against, but all require the expenditure of Exertion Points. New actions in combat include ‘Press the Attack’, ‘Sprint’, and ‘Tumble’.

The adventure in in the Level Up Starter Box is set in the Albia, a highland region in Elissar, which is home to clans that feud and war for dominance. One of these was Clan Erin, which was disbanded centuries ago and many of its lesser clans picked over and absorbed over time by rival clans. Only Clans Carnoc, Kerdac, and Warlaw remain and they have now decided to come together to re-establish Clan Erin. Unfortunately, not all of the Clansmen are happy with the proposal and seek to prevent it from coming to pass. The Player Characters are hired as extra and neutral security for a moot where the terms of their re-uniting once again will be settled.

The adventure is divided into three booklets. The terms of the moot will be settled in the first part, ‘Clan Erin’s Moot’ by Akeem Favor’, but not without an attempt to stop it and the discovery that the legitimacy of the new clan leader cannot be confirmed without the Crown of Clan Erin. This has been lost for centuries, but there are clues as to where it might be. The Player Characters are asked to undertake this quest, detailed in the second part, ‘Valley of Misfortune’ by Mother of Goblins II. The quest will take them through a forest poisoned by souls and enables the Narrator to bring the Journey mechanics into play. Here the emphasis on combat and interaction of the first part switches to exploration and combat and one of the pleasing story elements about the situation in ‘Valley of Misfortune’—unconnected to , ‘Clan Erin’s Moot’—is that there are no real villains. In ‘Crypt Erin’, the third and final part of the scenario by Anthony Alipio III, the Player Characters locate and travel to the crypt where the Crown of Clan Erin might lie. Although the final scenes of this third part take place underground, this is not a dungeon in the classic roleplaying sense and although there is the possibility of combat, the resolution of the scenario lie in solving a puzzle and interaction rather than a fight. By the end of it, the Player Characters are likely to have discovered some clan secrets, resolved them, and enabled the peaceful re-founding of Clan Erin.

Altogether, the scenario provides a good mix of playstyles and activities, moving first from intrigue and interaction to exploration and combat and second the puzzle solving and interaction. The first and second parts will take the longest, likely two sessions each, whilst the final part can be played through in a single session. The scenario is supported by the three double-sided poster maps and the two sheets of counters which are perfectly scaled for use with the poster maps.

Physically, the Level Up Starter Box is well presented. The artwork is good, the explanations of the rules are good, and so on. In places, the scenarios are overwritten.

The Level Up Starter Box succeeds on its remit of, “We hear you like playing Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Here have some options to make your play more interesting.” The changes and additions are clearly presented and explained, and the scenario is a good mix of interaction, exploration, and combat. In fact, if the players have any experience in roleplaying, they could probably understand what is presented in the Level Up Starter Box without necessarily having played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. The use of Fourth Level Player Characters showcases much more of what Player Characters in Level Up are capable of rather than First Level Player Characters. The Level Up Starter Box is a solid and easy playing introduction to Level Up for when the Game Master wants to become a Narrator and her players want to keep playing, but want both more of and more than what Dungeons & Dragons offers.

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

[Fanzine Focus XLI] The Dragon Horde Issue #1

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. However, the vicissitudes of time and taste along with publisher decisions and in many cases, the publication of newer, hotter retroclones that capture the imagination of the Old School Renaissance means that some retroclones fall out of favour and so are no longer actively supported, whether that is by their publishers or their fans through fanzines. Such is the case with Labyrinth Lord. Fortunately, modern digital publishing means that many of the fanzines published for Labyrinth Lord and other, now less popular retroclones, are still available to download, and just like the fanzines of the early years of the hobby, they are still worth examining because their content is compatible with even the most contemporary of retroclones. One such fanzine is The Dragon Horde.

The Dragon Horde Issue #1 was published in July, 2013. What is apparent from the start is that this is a fanzine inspired not by the cut and paste, hand typed fanzines of the seventies and early eighties, but by the fanzines that appeared in the mid- to late-eighties with the appearance of the first commercially available Desk Top Publishing software. Thus, it has a look and feel of a booklet done on a dot matrix printer, which make it a little hard to read. This is confirmed in the author’s editorial and so the fanzine deals a double dose of nostalgia with the combination of its look and content. Published by New Big Dragon Games Unlimited, it states on the front that it is, “A Publication Dedicated to Tabletop Role-playing Games”, which given that it is primarily written for one retroclone, is a stretch. The other single content in the issue that is not for Labyrinth Lord is for the author’s own generic roleplaying game resurrected from the same period that inspired the fanzine, The System. The article, ‘Familiars Found – Guidelines for Spellcaster Familiars in New Big Dragon’s Universal RPG The System’ is serviceable enough and so mechanically light that it could been for almost any retroclone let alone the publisher’s own roleplaying game. Consequently, the inclusion of an article for a roleplaying game other than a retroclone is surprisingly unobtrusive and is really just another article about familiars that is, well, familiar. Otherwise, the stats given in the rest of the issue are written for use with Original Dungeons & Dragons, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, and Basic Dungeons & Dragons.

The issue begins with ‘The Monster Roster’ and a pair of monsters. The ‘Leech-Man’ is exactly that, a man-sized, man-shaped version of the leech, whilst the ‘Beguine’ is a Neutral Good hybrid-Race that combines Elves and Halflings. The ‘Leech-Man’ is the more interesting of the two and could easily be added to a campaign as a monster in a swampy or cave-like environments, whilst the ‘Beguine’ does not fulfil any real purpose. The ‘d30 FEATURE’—drawn from The d30 DM Companion—is ‘Where Does the Weapon Hit?’ gives a quick and dirty means of handling hit locations using a thirty-sided die, modified by attacker’s height, and allowing for the possibility of different armour being worn in different locations.

The very basic map of ‘Yal Caramon’ is accompanied by ‘Lerdyn Chrisawn’s Chronicle’, a history of the continent. This discusses the several thousand years of the continent via the more than fifteen thousand volumes of Chrisawn’s Chronicle. The volumes are mostly written as a series of poems and epics before becoming more ordinary and prosaic as much of the continent settled down, became peaceful and organized, and then being upended when the Chaos came and the south-western lands were broiled for a thousand days as if under as many suns. Unfortunately, the most recent volumes have been stolen away, suspected by many as means to hide the culprits for the Chaos. As a very brief history, this is actually quite interesting and has the potential to be expanded and developed into something playable. However, there is no sense of place or geography to either really and it would require no little development to be something more.

The following NPC Class in ‘New NPC Class: Chroniclist’ does fit the setting though and could be added to others. The Classes specialises in languages, learning a new one every Level, and at later Levels gain the abilities of Memorisation and Insight, able to detect true meaning in someone’s words, and Comprehension, able to decipher unknown texts. From Second Level, the Chroniclist gains a ‘Branch’ at every Level, each one an area of geographical, cultural, military, and social knowledge. The deeper the knowledge of a Branch, the more exacting a question a Chroniclist can answer. Effectively, the Chroniclist is variant of the Sage NPC Class, but focuses on linguistics and anthropology as much as history and geography. They are very specialised, but very powerful within that specialisation.

The scenario in The Dragon Horde Issue #1 is ‘The Undertemple of Arkon – An Adventure for Characters Levels 1-3’. The Player Characters are engaged to investigate the remains of a temple which was founded by a cult dedicated to a large, very charming cat known as ‘Shadowcat’ and thrown down by the locals when the cult too large and too much of a threat, and where culists have recently returned. The dungeon does have a cat-theme running through it, but is often repetitive. The cultists are definitely back and definitely evil, even sacrificing the Bugbears which had taken up residence to feed to the reluctant panthers! The final battle against Arkon could have been better handled, since his major ability relies on his enemies looking into his eyes, and there is no real explanation as to what Arkon is beyond a big panther, what his cultists want, and so on. Underwritten without those explanations and serviceable with them.

Better still—and likely best of all in the issue—is ‘Seven New Magical Weapons’. This does what it describes, but is inventive. For example, Fumbleblade is a +1 dagger that forces the defender when struck on a roll of a natural twenty to drop everything in his hands, and Sickening Sword, a +1 longsword that inflicts, with a failed Saving Throw versus Poison, to temporarily suffer nausea and a penalty to hit. These are different and add some pleasing variety to the usual mix of magical weapons.

Lastly, ‘Who Speaks What: A Languages Spoken Crib Sheet’ is exactly that, a quick guide to the languages spoken by Dungeons & Dragons fantasy races and ‘Who’s in the Tavern: Tables to Fill the Tables at the Local Tavern’ provides a set of tables for rolling up tavern patrons. Both useful in their own way.

Physically, The Dragon Horde Issue #1 is as ever so slightly rough as you would for a fanzine using the early desktop publishing software. Problematically, this is intentionally so, such as with the choice of typeface which does make the fanzine challenging to read. The artwork is decent though, especially the cover.

The Dragon Horde Issue #1 is a love letter to the author’s past and the fanzines of his youth, and it does suffer for it. It is not as easy to read as it should be and its content is not as well realised as it could because of the lack context or background. There are bits and pieces in the issue that a Game Master might want to pick over, but they are far and few between, and given, this is not a fanzine that has yet found its voice or knows what it is yet.

[Fanzine Focus XLI] Cursed Scroll #1

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. A more recent Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game which right from the start of its appearance began being supported by fanzines, is ShadowDark, published by The Arcane Library. One such fanzine is Cursed Scroll. This is not only a fanzine for ShadowDark, but since it is actually published by The Arcane Library, it is the official fanzine for ShadowDark, fulfilling a similar role as Carcass Crawler does for Necrotic Gnome of Old School Essentials.

Cursed Scroll #1 carries the subtitle of ‘Shadowdark Zine Vol. 1: Diablerie!’. Published in December 2021, the theme for the inaugural issue is all things demonic and diabolic, and this includes both a mini-hexcrawl and a mini dungeon as well as three new Classes, new monsters, and spells. All of which is linked, so that the Game Master is provided with a complete mini-setting and campaign that can be run as is, added to her campaign, or pulled out and used separately. The setting for Cursed Scroll #1 is ‘The Gloaming’, an ancient forest of black trees, moss strewn standing stones, and fog-shrouded marshes, but worse, demons that hatch from the region’s dark marrow trees, forcing inhabitants to cower behind wooden palisades, warily watching for diabolic incursion and waiting for the Knights of St. Ydris to ride forth from Greywall Priory and strike down the demons and dismiss them from this blighted mortal realm, as is their mandate. ‘The Gloaming’ is a hexcrawl covering an area of seventeen by eleven hexes, thirty-four by twenty-two miles, roughly seven-hundred-and-fifty square miles. It has tables for rumours and encounters and in ‘The Gloaming Hex Key’, gives detailed descriptions of twenty-five locations across the region. These include crazy Uncle Grigor, a witch who wades barefoot through the bogs collecting leeches for treatment and pickling and who might take on an apprentice who shares the same love of leeches and leechcraft; Victoria, a maternal werewolf who has recently lost her cubs and from her Bone Cave is now plotting to turn the children of a local village into a new pack of werewolf cubs; and the Mud Pit where Ixidian, a swamp dragon, who writhes in the murk and the mud of a deep ravine, greedily awaiting the next sacrifice thrown to him by cultists that have made camp nearby and prey on nearby passing travellers.

Two notable locations include Greywall Priory from where the small order, the Knights of St. Ydris, attempt to put an end to the demons that threaten the region and Bittermold Keep, the former seat of the Bittermold family, its stone walls long melted by the slime which bubbles up deep from under the ground from a shrine dedicated to the primordial ooze, Mugdulblub, poisoning the minds of those it does not melt. These are both expanded in different ways. For the Knights of St. Ydris, there is a new Class, whilst for Bittermold Keep, there is a complete mini-dungeon. ‘The Gloaming’ has a mouldering, muddy feel of a land gripped by lurking horror and foreboding. ‘The Gloaming’ is deigned for First Level Player Characters.

The Knights of St. Ydris is the first of three Classes in the issue, a cursed knight who follows St. Ydris in embracing the demonic to fight the unholy. Notably, three times a day he can undergo ‘Demonic Possession’ to increase damage done and from Third Level, can lean Witch’s spells. The version of the Warlock Class is radically different to that normally seen in Dungeons & Dragons-style gaming. They are howling warriors and doomspeakers for their patrons, such as Shune the Vile, Mugdulblub, or The Willowman. Each of these grants random Patron Boons, and it is these that the influence what a Warlock can do. For example, Warlocks of Almazzat can temporarily gain advantage on melee attacks and initiative, whilst those of Titania can temporally hypnotise creatures, learn to wield a longbow, and gain protection against hostile spells. The Warlock is not a straightforward Class to play, but requires effort upon the part of both player and Game Master to bring the relationship between Warlock and Patron to life. The Witch Class is more traditional, being described as a cackling crone with milky eyes that can see portents, but also gains a familiar and potentially, the ability to teleport to the familiar once per day, as well as having its own set of Witch spells. All three Classes have their own set of titles that vary according to Alignment, a table of Diabolic Backgrounds, and for the Warlock, descriptions of the Patron options.

The Witch spells are a good mix. For example, Bogboil transforms an area of ground into a boiling, muddy bog of quicksand; Broomstick enables the Witch to fly; Cat’s Eye lets her see invisible creatures and secret doors with eyes that have turned to slits; and with Curse, she can instil curses such as horrible boils and warts, a constantly shrill voice, always losing at gambling, an irrational fear, and so on. Most work better with the Witch Class rather than the Knights of St. Ydris, and a player with a Knight of St. Ydris character may want to work with the Game Master to select the spells that he thinks is appropriate.

Many of the monsters in Cursed Scroll #1 can be found in ‘The Gloaming’ or ‘The Hideous Halls of Mugdulblub’. They include the Marrow Fiend, the wolf-like demons that hatch from the area’s marrow trees; Howlers, cannibalistic Halflings with sharpened teeth; and the Tar Bat, which an oil tar that it will set alight by flying into open flames and potentially doing more damage. Also included are stats for two of the Warlock’s possible Patrons, Mugdulblub and The Willowman.

The last entry in Cursed Scroll #1 is ‘The Hideous Halls of Mugdulblub’. This is a one-level dungeon for First Level Player Characters, the squelchy, acid-scarred dungeon below Bittermold Keep. The factions in the dungeon include devolved members of the Bittermold family; Howlers, Halfling cultists dedicated to Mugdulblub, whose leader is happy to let all dissolve if it will defeat the Bittermolds; vengeful Catfish mutated by Mugdulblub who are annoyed about being sacrifices; and Mugdulblub himself, who considers only the survivors worthy of worshipping him. The dungeon comes with rumours, but the Game Master may want more to get her players and their characters involved. The dungeon itself is clammy and muculent with barely a dry surface and plenty of sludge and mud underfoot. It is good for a mini-campaign as part of ‘The Gloaming’ hexcrawl, but can be run separately. Whether run separately or as part of the hexcrawl, the dungeon should take two or three sessions to fully explore.

Physically, Cursed Scroll #1 adheres to the style of ShadowDark. Thus, it is clean, tidy, and laid out. The illustrations and cartography are also good.

What is a so good about Cursed Scroll #1 is that it is a complete package, a mini-supplement all of its very own. That means that it is also easy to drop into a campaign and easy to add to. For example, the more recent Dark Visions and The Tower of Six would work well with this. Cursed Scroll #1: Shadowdark Zine Vol. 1: Diablerie! is a good first issue packed with playable content for ShadowDark.

So Whose Dare is This, Anyway?

There is a very early meme called ‘Realmen, Real Role Players, Loonies, and Munchkins’. In this meme, players are classified into the four categories and the types of roleplaying games they would play, their favourite elements of those roleplaying games, and how they would play them. It originally dates back to 1983 and so its references are all from the eighties. For example, for ‘Favourite 1920s RPG’, the responses are, ‘*Real Men* play Gangbusters’, ‘*Real Roleplayers* play Call of Cthulhu’, ‘*Loonies* play a variant Spawn of Fashan’, and ‘*Munchkins* play anything by TSR’, whilst for ‘Favourite Dungeon Activity’, the responses are ‘*Real Men* fight Dragons as old as the world itself’, ‘*Real Roleplayers* bluff the Ogres’, ‘*Loonies* tell dirty jokes to Green Slime’, and ‘*Munchkins* do whatever gives the most experience/rip each other off’. Dumb Dares & Silly Side Quests: The In Character Game for your RPG Party very much plays into that type of humour—the *Real Men* will be up for the challenge, but will probably fail to get the humour, the *Real Roleplayers* will embrace the challenge because their character is a good sport, the *Loonies* will do it just because, and the *Munchkins* will do it for the Experience points.

Dumb Dares & Silly Side Quests: The In Character Game for your RPG Party is published by Loke BattleMats. Although it has form this kind of humour, having previously published The Deck of Many Insults, the publisher is better known for its volumes of maps such as Big Book of Battle Mats: Rooms, Vaults, & Chambers and Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats. Now Dumb Dares & Silly Side Quests, as with The Deck of Many Insults, does sport a content warning in its cover and it does state it suitable for players fourteen years old and older, due to its mature content. It also states that that it is ‘5E Compatible’. To be honest, the degree of mechanical compatibility, let alone rules, is actually very low, and the cards in this box will honestly work as well with any Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying game and any retroclone, not just Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.

The idea behind Dumb Dares & Silly Side Quests is simple. Each player and each NPC—important NPC—races to complete three dares and do so in-character. Completing a Dare earns the player or NPC a reward. In terms of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, this can be Inspiration, Advantage on a roll, Experient Points, the benefits of a Short Rest, or some loot. These are suggestions only, and in terms of rules compatibility, that is about as far as Dumb Dares & Silly Side Quests goes in being ‘5E Compatible’. And even then, these suggestions work as inspiration for the Game Master of another roleplaying game.

The rules to Dumb Dares & Silly Side Quests are just as simple. Explained on two of the game’s one-hundred card deck, at the start of the session or adventure, the players and the important NPCs receive three cards. The player or NPC who completes the most not only receives the individual rewards for completing dare cards in-game, but wins the game of Dumb Dares & Silly Side Quests too. The rules themselves are very simple and to be fair, it is what is on the Dare cards that matters.

Each Dare card is split into two parts. The top tells the player what the dare is, whilst the bottom half suggests ways in which the player might complete the dare. The player is free to follow the given suggestions or have his character complete the dare however he wants. The Dares include, “Get to know your companions in the worst possible way.” with the suggestion of, “So, whose parents are the most disappointed in them and why?; “Refer to a companion as they are not present/deceased.” with the suggestion, “It’s what Dan would have wanted”; “Translate what the pigeon are saying (it is all swears, taunts and insults).” with the suggestion, “That pigeon really hates your mother…”; “Keep a score card, ranking your companions.” with the suggestion, “That’s minus two points for not spotting that trap Dan, making you the new worst party member.”; and “Use only taste and smell to search for clues or answers.” with the suggestion, “Traps, locks, hidden keys? Lick your way to answers…” Most of these are entirely player-driven, but in some cases, like the last Dare involving searching for clues using only the senses of taste and smell, they can involve the Game Master too, as she has to tell the player what it is exactly that his character is smelling or tasting.

Physically, Dumb Dares & Silly Side Quests is simply presented. The rules are easy to grasp and the content of the cards is easy to understand.

Dumb Dares & Silly Side Quests: The In Character Game for your RPG Party is silly. So silly that it will disrupt a normal game, unless that game already includes the type and amount of ridiculous humour that Dumb Dares & Silly Side Quests is all about. So best then, to use Dumb Dares & Silly Side Quests as an occasional treat or special event. Perhaps for April’s Fools Day, a dream sequence, or when the Player Characters are all caught up in the effect of a prankster’s magic? Dumb Dares & Silly Side Quests: The In Character Game for your RPG Party will definitely encourage some fun, silly roleplaying, but is best used in moderation or ideally, under special circumstances, to avoid spoiling that fun.

Friday Fantasy: The Tomb of Grief

King Leland never wanted to be king, but he reluctantly took up his duty as others had before him. He found no favour with the lords and ladies of his court, heeding little of their advice or their wishes, and only entering into a marriage of convenience to appease them upon becoming king. Instead, he favoured Sir Eardwulf, a lowly knight who was at first a friend and then a lover, who he wished to raise to rank of Earl. This outraged the nobles of the court such that a faction led by Lord Blacklow moved against the king’s wishes, capturing and beheading Sir Eardwulf before his ennoblement could come to pass. King Leland was apoplectic with grief such that it fuelled years long retribution upon those lords who had conspired to kill his lover, soaking fields and forest in their blood. So he became known as the Red king. Now King Leland lies dead and his grief continues to be felt across the land. Crops fail, livestock dies, and the people are driven into madness by a sorrow that was never theirs. At the heart of this dolorous malaise stands the Tomb of Grief, the last resting place of King Leland. Can the curse be lifted? Which riches were buried with the Red King?

This is the set-up for The Tomb of Grief. This is an adventure written for use with ‘5E+’, so Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and Dungeons & Dragons 2024. It is a playtest adventure, the second, in an anthology of scenarios published by No Short Rests! called One Room One Shots. The first was Temple of the Forgotten Depths. Each entry in the collection is a short adventure themed around a single room or structure and intended to be slotted readily into a campaign or more readily, played in a single session with either no preparation or preparation required beforehand. This might be because some of a group’s players are unable to attend; because they want to play, but not want to commit to a longer scenario or campaign; or because a group wants to introduce new players to the roleplaying game. The Tomb of Grief is written for a group of Player Characters of First Level. The scenario has no other requirements beyond this and its setting, but both a Cleric and a Rogue will be useful, and a character of Noble background may have a minor advantage.

The scenario proper begins with the Player Characters at the entrance of the Tomb of Grief itself. Here amidst the rubbish-strewn floor and the broken, battered, and vandalised statues, the Player Characters can begin to search for hints and clues as to what lies in the burial chamber beyond. This search involves a variety of different skills, not just Investigation and Perception, so multiple Player Characters can be involved in the process. There is the challenge of how the Player Characters actually get past the heavy gate between the entrance and the tomb, but again, multiple means to get through are given and even when it feels like they are being punished, the scenario makes clear it is only temporary.

Inside, the tomb is embraced in darkness, resting over an abyss. The first challenge that the Player Characters face will be King Leland’s ‘Knight Protectors’, serving him in unlife. Thematically, each of the four is associated with the four stages of grief and this is applied not just in their special attacks, but also in their memories. For example, when a combatant hits or is hit by Sir Ben the Negotiator, there is a chance that they will be convinced that the ‘Knight Protectors’ are no longer a threat and that the everyone in the party should lay down their arms. This only lasts for a turn, but each effect of the different ‘Knight Protectors’ has a different attack.

The second part of the scenario focuses upon roleplaying. It consists of four, dedicated encounters consisting of memories of the ‘Knight Protectors’ who swore to serve the king and who the Player Characters have just defeated. Some are the significant memories that some of the ‘Knight Protectors’ have of the king they served, others are memories of significant events during his reign. All together, they chart the reign of King Leland. In each one, the Player Character will experience an event in a Knight Protector’s life and be tested in how the Knight Protector responded to it. There are three different responses per memory, each involving a different skill and each memory is also tied to several different Backgrounds. What this means is that the Dungeon Master can help tailor each roleplaying encounter to specific Player Character and test their skill accordingly. Of course, none of this will affect the outcome of scenario, or indeed, its set-up, since King Leland was sent mad with grief and took that grief out upon the land. What it will do though, is reveal the history of what brought about the fall of both King Leland and the land. This is a grim tale that gets ever grimmer, and what it will do ultimately, is influence how the players and their characters feel about King Leland and his actions.

The third and final part of the scenario is divided into two parts. In the first, the Player Characters face the real villain of the story and a giant of a knight hinted at the memories, whilst in the second they will confront the former king. How they decide that, ideally based upon the memories that revealed his history and characters, will determine the nature of the scenario’s conclusion. One last touch here is that the material reward that the Player Characters can earn, King Leland’s Sword of the Red King, will actually have different effects depending upon the outcome.

Physically, The Tomb of Grief is reasonably well presented. It is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is excellent. It does need an edit and the map is rather too dark to read with ease, but simple enough that it should impede the Game Master too much. If there is an issue with The Tomb of Grief, as with the earlier Temple of the Forgotten Depths, it is that the text is small, making it a challenge to read!

The Temple of Grief delivers a solid, enjoyably thematic scenario for a good session’s worth of play. It is presented as a playtest adventure, but in truth, it is ready to play, whether that is as a one-shot for an evening or an encounter for a campaign, and ready to play with a minimum of effort. The Tomb of Grief sets out to tell a story and it is an epic story, such that it is surprising that the scenario manages to pack all of that story in a single session. Ultimately, it is a tragedy, one reminiscent of A Game of Thrones that if The Tomb of Grief is played as part of campaign, the Player Characters will be able to tell the truth of what happened during the reign of King Leland and so reveal that tragedy.

—oOo—

One Room One Shots: Epic D&D Adventures in a Single Session! is currently on Kickstarter.

ShadowDark Goes Nuclear

Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game is Gamma World updated for use with ShadowDark, the retroclone inspired by both the Old School Renaissance and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition from The Arcane Library. In its modern updating, there is a dash of the Fallout computer game too, but the influence of Gamma World, First Edition can definitely be seen on the front cover. Unlike Gamma World, First Edition, or even subsequent editions of the roleplaying game, there is no setting to Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game, beyond that of being a world which has suffered a nuclear, biological, and chemical meltdown, and in the remains of the destroyed infrastructure, Pure Strain Humans, Mutated Humans, Mutated Animals, and Sentiment Plants, pick over the ruins and scavenge the objects of the past, and perhaps build a better life. What this means is the Game Master can create a setting of her own or grab a scenario of her choice and run that using Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game.

What this means is that Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game, published by Wallhalla Games, is a set of rules for the Game Master to do her thing. Fundamentally, it is an Old School Renaissance-style, Class and Level roleplaying game and will be familiar to many. A Player Character has six stats—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma—and an Ancestry and a Class. The four Ancestries are Pure Strain Human, Mutated Human, Mutated Animal, and Sentient Plant, whilst the Classes are Gunslinger, Savant, Scavver, Survivalist, and Wasteland Warrior. The Ancestries will be familiar from similar post-apocalyptic roleplaying games, whilst the Classes are mechanically new, they will be thematically familiar. Thus, the Pure Strain Human has more Hit Points, gains an extra Talent, and does not suffer the mutating effects of radiation; the Mutated Human begins play with mutations and is also marked by his mutations; the Mutated Animal has a mutation and a natural characteristics such as claws, scales, or wings; and the Sentient Plant is mobile, has a camouflage, a mutation, and is also marked by his mutations.

The Gunslinger is good with ranged weapons being able to fire twice in a round at Disadvantage, can modify ranged weapons with Advantage, knows how to use cover, and a ‘Little Friend’, a preferred weapon with which he gains bonuses to attack and damage rolls. The Savant has studied lost lore and technology, and is a Hacker who has Advantage with robots and computers, as well as with ancient Lore, and as a Mentor can instruct and lecture others for various benefits. The Scavver is good with repairing, modifying, and crafting checks, at an Advantage when searching for Junk, and also for climbing, sneaking, and hiding, finding and disabling traps, and also picking pockets and locks. The Wayfinder has Advantage on travel and survival checks, on identifying safe food and drink, and areas of radiation as well as being able to make natural healing remedies. The Wasteland Warrior can carry more, does not suffer Disadvantage fighting from a mount or vehicle, gains Advantage when handling a vehicle, can deliver a Brutal Strike meaning that damage rolls of one or two are rerolled, and his Grit grants him Advantage with either Strength or Constitution.

Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game lists two types of mutations, which are either benign or harmful to the user. There are fifty benign mutations, from Absorption, Acceleration, and Armoured Skin to Teleport, Transform, and Wall Walker. They each come in two tiers, a Tier II mutation being slightly more difficult to activate than a Tier I mutation, but having a greater effect. For example, ‘Electrical Generation I’ enables the Mutant to generate a pulse of electricity and inflict one four-sided die’s worth of damage to anyone in Close, which is doubled if the enemy is a robot or android. The Tier II version increases this to two six-sided dice’s worth of damage, again doubled if the enemy is a robot or android. There twenty Harmful mutations, such as Brittle Bones, Heat Susceptibility, and Toxic Blood. These are mostly gained in play, but with the right cocktail of anti-mutagens can be removed. A Player Character will start play with his benign mutations being Tier I, but this can be increased with a lucky roll either during character creation or when the Player Character is subject to radiation and mutates or when the Player Character gains a sufficient Level. Using a benign mutation is a simple check, but if the check is failed, then the mutation cannot be used until the following dawn.

To create a character, a player rolls for the six stats in order and then selects an Ancestry and a Class. He rolls for a background and if the character is a mutant of any type, his player also rolls for his mutations and his mutated appearance.

‘Fowl-Mouth’ Flapsy
Ancestry: Mutated Animal
Animal Type: Goose
Background: Entertainer
Class: Junker
Level: 1
Armour Class: 12
Hit Points: 12
Strength 11 Dexterity 10 Constitution 13 (+1)
Intelligence 15 (+2) Wisdom 08 (-1) Charisma 16 (+3)
Mutations: Wings, Psychometry
Languages: Beastie, Chirpie, Lingo, Scalee, Trade

Equipment: Scavenger Bag, Trade Bag, Sports Armour, Street Sign Shield (Mornington Crescent), Billyclub (1d4), Dart Pistol (1d4), Medspray

Mechanically, the Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game plays very much any Old School Renaissance retroclone. Actions are managed by a roll of a twenty-sided die and aim is to roll high, whether that is against an Armour Class in combat or Difficulty Class for anything else. The main change to the mechanics is instead of a Critical Hit roll as per the ShadowDark roleplaying game, is that dice explode! And that is for everything—except rolling stats—including Hit Points, damage, the number of wandering monsters encountered, and so on. It is thus almost better to have weapons that roll smaller dice for their damage since there is a greater chance of them exploding.

Beyond the core mechanic, the question is, how does the Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game handle the various aspects of the post-apocalyptic genre al la Gamma World? Technology is divided into six levels, modern firearms rated at Tech Level 4, so initially out of reach of the Player Characters. All weapons have an Ammunition Die, which is rolled at the end of combat. If a one is rolled, then the weapon is out of ammunition until the Player Character can find some more. The equipment includes laser and plasma weapons, but not power armour. There are corporate and military access cards though.

The rules for scavenging cover both building condition and the likelihood of it collapsing as well as giving tables of junk and trade goods that can be found in various locations, including animal hospitals, corporate offices (good for staplers), religious buildings, and clothing stores. Scavenged items can be scrap, gear, or trade goods, and there are rules for trading too, but armour, weapons, modifications, and vehicles can also be broken down into parts and this is easier at a workbench. Parts can then be used to repair arms and armour, and then if a Player Character has the right schematics, crafted into gear or modifications added to gear. For example, armour can be ‘Muffled’ to eliminate Disadvantage on stealth checks or ‘Insulated: Rads’ added half damage from radiation. Similarly, the ‘Serrated’ Mod adds a bonus to damage, whilst a ‘Heated Coil’ adds fire damage.

One type of item that will definitely require repairs if not modifications is vehicles as they are extremely rarely found in an undamaged state. Multiple vehicle types are given and all have a fuel die which works in a similar fashion to the ammunition die, but of course, the Player Characters are going to want to add modifications like a Ram, Wheel Spikes, Supercharger, or Smokescreen, and then go racing across the post-apocalyptic landscape. And so are the NPCs! The rules for vehicular manoeuvres, chases, and combat are kept quite simple, more narrative in nature with the Game Master expected to run action on the fly.

The Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game comes to a close with rules for environmental hazards, including hunger, thirst, diseases, seasons—the seasons of Atomic Shadows being divided between Blasted Summer and Nuclear Winter, weather, and radiation. The latter includes rules for further mutating from overexposure to radiation. There is a list of factions, but these are left for the Game Master to develop. Lastly, there is the means for the Game Master to create her own monsters as a lengthy bestiary itself. The list includes dinosaurs as well as a weird bunch of creatures befitting the genre, including the Gamma Moth, Hopsies, Rad Roachs, and Trippids.

Physically, the Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game is laid out in the same style as the ShadowDark roleplaying game. So, it is clean, tidy, and easy to read, whilst the artwork is serviceable enough.

With an implied setting rather than an actual setting, the Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game is a toolkit more than something that is ready to play, perhaps something that the inclusion of a scenario might have countered. Yet as a toolkit, it is easy for the Game Master to use and tinker with it, whether that is with a campaign setting or scenario of her own, or one readymade. Further, those tools and the rules are really easy to pick up and play, with almost any familiarity with the genre and the Old School Renaissance meaning that the Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game is really both accessible and playable. As a generic—by that I mean genre-like—post-apocalyptic roleplaying game, the Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game is a particularly good choice.

Friday Faction: Dungeon Crawler Carl

The LitRPG genre appears to have got a loot box of its own with the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman. LitRPG—or ‘Literary Role Playing Game’ is a genre of fiction in which the protagonists of the story are in a computerised game world, one that they are aware of being in, and have an understanding of the mechanics of the game world they are in. The term itself is barely more than a decade old, but it can be argued that books such as the 1978 Quag Keep by Andre Norton and the 1981 Dream Park by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes are its precursors. With Dungeon Crawler Carl, the genre reaches a wider audience as the reader follows the exploits of an ordinary joe and his ex-girlfriend’s super-precious show cat, as together they attempt to survive a mega-dungeon and in the process save the world. The result is a knowing satire of roleplaying that combines the fish-out-of-water oddness of Douglas Adams’ The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with the bureaucratic cruelty of Stephen King’s The Running Man.

The book opens with the destruction of the Earth, although not all of it, and not by a Vogon Constructor fleet. The Borant Corporation, an alien company from outer space, has bought the planet’s mineral rights and because no-one put in an objection, has flattened every building and turned the inside of the planet into a megadungeon with eighteen levels that the remaining fourteen million survivors of the planet must fight their way through. Of course, not everyone is going to survive, and the book maintains a running count that rapidly decreases as the secrets and lethality of the dungeon are revealed. All of which will be broadcast to the galaxy as one big reality video event—Big Brother or Survivor in a dungeon, if you will. This is how the purchasing corporation plans to recover its costs in the short term, focusing on the exploits and travails of the survivors who do well as Dungeon Crawlers. One such is Carl, ex-Coast Guard marine mechanic, who happens to be outside in the freezing winds of Seattle when the flattening occurs, wearing a leather jacket, no trousers, and a pair of crocs. His choice of clothes, certainly the lack of trousers and proper shoes, becomes a running joke throughout the book. As does his means of fighting—kicking and applying explosives to almost any situation, and his navigating his way around the interface. The latter is done as a computer roleplaying game interface that plays out in the minds of the Dungeon Crawlers.

The reason he is outside is Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk. This is the prize-winning show cat belonging to Beatrice, Carl’s girlfriend. Quickly after Carl finds himself in the dungeon, Princess Donut gets uplifted and turned from a pet into a Dungeon Crawler, and thus into a character in her own right, whilst Carl is classified as her bodyguard. After getting a briefing in a Safe Room, Carl and Donut set out to explore and find an entrance to the next level down, taking down mobs and bosses on the way. As they progress, Carl and Donut learn that there is much more to the dungeon than at first seems. It is built on a regular floorplan with blocks with district bosses rather than something more organic in design and the Artificial Intelligence behind the dungeon tailors the loot boxes that both Carl and Donut receive. So, Donut receives items that enhance her Charisma—after all, she is a princess—and lots of torches, whilst Carl receives items that enhance his feet and ability to stamp and kick, but is never destined to receive any trousers. There are daily updates on the dungeon that occur in response to the Dungeon Crawlers’ actions, television shows which Carl and Donut get scheduled to appear on once they begin to get famous and accrue followers, and politics playing out behind the scenes that this first book only hints at, but which will likely play out in the subsequent books in the series.

In terms of character, Carl himself, does not entirely come across as being wholly likeable. More of an everyman than a hero, in keeping with the genre, he is both aware of Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder and uses that knowledge to his advantage. Given the circumstances, it is understandable that he is exasperated, sometimes angry, by his situation, and that extends to his attitude to his girlfriend, Bea, who is first revealed to be cheating on him and then promiscuously cheating on him. It is a note of poor characterisation, not just in terms of Carl, but also of Bea, upon the part of the author, and it is not the only negative portrayal of women in the book. Several of the monsters, especially the boss monsters are more gross caricatures of women than monsters. Yet, Carl is driven to be the hero, to want to help the survivors from the old peoples’ home that was nearby his home and get them down to Level Two and then Level Three. To do that, he is forced to kill a lot of monsters, including a nursery of goblins, and he does feel guilty about it in exactly the opposite way that the average player of Dungeons & Dragons likely does not. The need to kill to Level up to survive almost assuages the feelings of guilt that Carl suffers from these actions, whilst the revelation that many of the monster denizens are literally waiting in fear for a dungeon crawler to turn up and kill them all, does the exact opposite.

In comparison, Princess Donut is a more interesting and likeable character even though she has the morality and attitude of a cat, uplifted to sentience and full expression. Princess Donut is often more insightful and aware than Carl is, but as a cat she is self-centred and embraces the fame of being a social media star where Carl bridles against it.

Dungeon Crawler Carl combines horror and humour, but not always effectively. The megadunegon as reality and what Carl and Donut have to do is the source for both, but it emphasises the horror more than the humour, which is from the absurdity of the situation. Both begin to weary after a while from the repetition of both and the book being just a little too long to really sustain either. The humour is also a bit too obvious and just not sharp enough to be really satirical, rarely getting above being amusing rather laugh out loud or clever.

Dungeon Crawler Carl ends almost midsentence, or at least mid-decision, rather than on definite conclusion or cliffhanger, so there is no impetus to start reading the next book if the reader has not decided already. Any reader who is not a roleplayer, whether of tabletop roleplaying games or computer games, is less likely to do so, whereas role-players are more likely to do so, since the series is squarely aimed at them, they are going to get the references, and really, there is not a lot of fiction aimed directly at them anyway. For them, the fact that they can buy this at their local bookshop is a bonus as is the fact that they might see the series adapted for television.

Dungeon Crawler Carl is an amiable read, a very knowing poke at traditional roleplaying played out on an absurd stage. It does not quite outstay its welcome, but it could have been sharper and leaner.

Solitaire: SoloDark

SoloDark brings the means to solo adventures to the rules of ShadowDark, the fantasy roleplaying game which combines elements of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition with those of the Old School Renaissance. He will control both the fate of his characters and those of the NPCs and monsters they encounter in the course of their adventures. Like solo rules for other roleplaying games, it uses an Oracle to generate answers to questions, whilst also making changes to accommodate for the fact that there is only the one player. These include creating between two and four Player Characters instead of just the one that solo play suggests, having group initiative and play in Chaos Mode meaning that it rolled at the beginning of every combat round, and that Luck is earned on any roll of a natural twenty. Perhaps the biggest change is that light sources last ten rounds of game play rather than an hour of real time. Both the presence and absence of light have a significant influence on game play in ShadowDark. Once a torch or lantern goes out, there is always a rough scramble to get a new one lit and in the meantime, there is the fear of the dark and the fear of something attacking out of the dark, since random encounters are suddenly more frequent!

Surprisingly, as SoloDark only runs to ten pages, two of those are devoted to a list of possible sources for further play. One-part sources of help and advice, one-part recommended locations—both dungeons and wildernesses—to play, and one-part suggested resources whether the player needs a monster, NPC, treasure, or encounter, that he can grab and add to his game straight away. Thus, there are links to The Arcane Library where the roleplaying game’s designer runs through some sample solo play and Me, Myself and Die! also offering solo play sessions such as with Free League Publishing’s Dragonbane. In addition to referencing ShadowDark for monsters, NPCs, treasures, encounters, dungeons, and wildernesses, SoloDark also points to Knave, Masks: 1,000 Memorable NPCs for Any Roleplaying Game from Encoded Designs, Ensorcelled Loot from Philip Reed Games, and City Encounters for Swords & Wizardry by Mythmere Games. Plus, dungeons like Dying Stylishly Games’ The Gardens Of Ynn and wildernesses such as The Hexanomicon #1. Overall, this provides not only a solid, useful set of references, but also highlights other authors too.

The next part of SoloDark is not quite so useful, being a table for creating dungeon names such as the ‘Palace of the Draconic Hunter’ or the ‘Asylum of the Fungal Sorcerer’. If there an associated set of tables to generate dungeons in SoloDark, the table might have been more useful. What is useful is the Oracle. This the means by which the player will generate yes and no answers to his questions and there is short simple advice on best practices, such as keeping questions plausible, rely on game rules, asking positive questions, and limiting the number of questions. To use, it the player determines the odds, rolling with advantage or disadvantage depending on the difficulty of getting a ‘yes’ answer. It is possible to roll a critical or a fumble on the Oracle check, leading to extreme results, but the results can be quite nuanced, allowing for a ‘yes, but…’ or ‘no, but…’ answer. If the player needs further clarification, including if he rolls an unexpected twist, the following table of ‘Prompts’, which encompasses a wide array of verbs and nouns, is there to provide more nuance.

Physically, SoloDark is decently presented and written. Lightly illustrated, the artwork is excellent.

SoloDark requires more experience of ShadowDark and running solo sessions of any roleplaying, let alone ShadowDark, than is included in its pages. There is no example of play and perhaps there should have been. Of course, the point of including a suggestion to check a YouTube video is there to alleviate that need, but its inclusion would have been nice and given SoloDark some permeance rather than just saying, look at this or look at that. Still the suggestions are useful and in some cases do show how the designer uses SoloDark and how other players play their games. For the more experienced player, none of this should be an issue and SoloDark should get them delving almost as soon as he has characters ready to play. SoloDark is free and a more than decent aid to venturing into the dark alone.