The FATE of Quiet

FATE of Cthulhu added two elements to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying—time travel and foreknowledge. Published by Evil Hat Games, the 2020 horror roleplaying game was built around campaign frameworks that cast the Player Characters as survivors in a post-apocalyptic future thirty years into the future, the apocalypse itself involving various aspects and entities of the Mythos. Not only as survivors though, because having entered into a pact with the Old One, Yog-Sothoth, they have unlocked the secret of time travel and come back to the present. They have come back aware of the steps along the way which brought about the apocalypse and they come back ready to fight it. This though is not a fight against the Cthulhu Mythos in general, but rather a single Old One and its cultists, and each thwarting of an Old One is a self-contained campaign in its own right, in which no other element of the Mythos appears.

The five campaigns, or timelines, presented in FATE of Cthulhu in turn have the Investigators facing Cthulhu, Dagon, Shub-Nigggurath, Nyarlathotep, and the King in Yellow. Each consists of five events, the last of which is always the rise of the Old One itself. The events represent the roadmap to that last apocalyptic confrontation, and can each be further broken down into four event catalysts which can be people, places, foes, and things. The significance of these events are represented by a die face, that is either a bank, a ‘–’, or a ‘+’. These start out with two blanks and two ‘–’, the aim of the players and their investigators being to try to prevent their being too many, if any ‘–’ symbols in play and ideally to flip them from ‘–’ to blank and from blank to ‘+’. Ultimately the more ‘+’ there are, the more positive the ripple will be back down the timeline and the more of a chance the investigators have to defeat or prevent the rise of the Old One. Conversely, too many ‘–’ and the known timeline will play out as follows and the less likely the chance the investigators have in stopping the Old One.

Each of the five timelines comes with details of what a time traveller from 2050 would know about it, more detail for the Game Master with a breakdown of the events and their Aspects, Stunts, Mythos creatures, and NPCs. Most of these can serve as useful inspiration for the Game Master as well as the advice given on running FATE of Cthulhu and her creating her own timelines. After all, there are numerous Mythos entities presenting the prospective Game Master ready to create her own timeline with a variety of different aspects, purviews, and even degrees of power, but nevertheless capable of bringing about an apocalypse. However, Evil Hat Games has already begun to do that with its own series of timelines, each again dealing with a different Mythos entity and a different downfall for mankind. The first of these is The Rise of Yig, followed by The Rise of the Basilisk, which although it retained a sense of Cosmic Horror, it definitely moved away from the Cthulhu Mythos. A trend which is continued with the third of the ‘Darkest Timeline’ supplements.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of the Quiet is even more different than The Rise of the Basilisk. Where The Rise of the Basilisk had some links to the Cthulhu Mythos, The Rise of The Quiet has none, but both share strong Science Fiction elements and the theme of infection via technology. In The Rise of the Basilisk this was memetic in nature, but in The Rise of The Quiet it involves nanotechnology. The time frame for The Rise of The Quiet is shorter, starting in 2032 and leaping back to 2020 for what is a very contemporary-set mini-campaign rather than other the more fulsome campaigns in the ‘Darkest Timeline’ line.

The future of The Rise of The Quiet is one of technological advances and continuing climate change, radical distrust of the news, clashes over limited resources, and expanded space exploration—and then The Quiet. People began reporting incidences of lost time, others seeing the sufferers standing or sitting completely still, as if deep in thought. Then they began to walk whilst in these states, safely moving first to the middle of crowds and then coming together in groups. First in their Quiet state, then socialising out of the Quiet state, no matter their origins or social status. At first mistrusted, the Quiet are then filmed running into burning buildings, strangers into their homes, and soldiers in conflict zones refusing to kill the enemy. In each case willingly offering compassion rather than conflict. The Quiet come to be seen as better examples of humanity, and perhaps a source of hope for its future. Then in late 2030 everyone begins dying from a disease which kills within twenty-four hours and whose cause cannot be determined… That is except for The Quiet. Just what is The Quiet and why is protecting the sufferers from this new disease?

What happened has its origins in 2020 when the Chinese military stole samples of newly developed nanotechnology, and then developed and weaponised them. That newly developed nanotechnology was what became known as The Quiet, which altered its sufferers’ cortexes and infected them with a sense of altruism. Not everyone could survive the infection though… China was not responsible for The Quiet, but it did have a counter—The Loud. This nanotechnology not only helped those infected withstand the effects of The Quiet, but instead of altering their cortex, caused them to undergo physical transformation, including unbreakable nanobot-infused bones, enhanced senses, transforming their skin into a non-Newtonian fluid surface capable of withstanding bullets, and enhancing their ability to micro-mirror nearby humans, evoking feelings of deep friendship and trust in bystanders. However, it is theorised that extended use of the abilities granted by ‘The Loud’ may turn the infected into an unstoppable killing machine.

In addition, time travel has been invented, but only back to one moment in early 2020. The Player Characters will be infected with The Loud, go back in time and if not stop the spread of The Quiet, then at least slow its spread whilst also ensuring that the knowledge necessary to combat it is retained for the future they come from. In other of the Darkest Timelines for FATE of Cthulhu, the Player Characters are being sent back in time to investigate certain events, typically four of them, which lead to the emergence of an Old One. The Rise of The Quiet forgoes that instead, being built around four ‘Swing Points’, nexus points that the Player Characters have the opportunity to alter and send ripples of causality forward into their future. The emphasis is on the alteration of these four ‘Swing Points’ rather than the stopping of them, and what this means is that the outcomes are likely to be conditional rather than absolute—there is no one happy outcome. The Player Characters are almost working towards a median outcome rather than a wholly positive one. They are at best stemming off the effects of The Quiet rather than locating a definitive cure.

As with events in other Darkest Timelines, the four Swing Points in The Rise of The Quiet are described in some detail and come complete with a number of NPCs which are given full write-ups. In turn the Swing Events focus on the origins of The Quiet nano-infection, which involves TED Talk giving techno-guru; the initial exposure of The Quiet, which takes place at an international airport in a spy free-for-all smackdown; a self-help group (or cult, it depends on who you are talking to) which tapped into the possibilities of The Quiet; and finding those believed to be immune to The Quiet, which sees the Player Characters going on the road in the wake of a terrible rock tour. There is a lot going on in each of these, much of which of course, will only become apparent as the Player Characters investigate.

Physically, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of The Quiet is cleanly presented. It is easy to read and the layout is tidy, though it needs an edit in places. The artwork is good also. The Rise of The Quiet does feel as if it is a story treatment, but that is no surprise given who its author is, John Rogers, the creator of the Leverage and The Librarians televisions series.

One issue that the publisher does address is that the fact that Darkest Timeline: The Rise of The Quiet involves both a pandemic and China, but notes that the timeline was written before the Corona virus outbreak and that it is not intended as a commentary upon the current situation in which society finds itself. Whilst China has a role to play in Darkest Timeline: The Rise of The Quiet it is not as the one to blame in the timeline and although the Player Characters are likely to encounter, if not confront, Chinese agents, as part of their efforts to save the future, China’s role in the situation is more nuanced than as simply the bad guy.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of The Quiet substitutes the usual Old One in FATE of Cthulhu with a nanobot swarm which has infected mankind with a techno-virus. This has several consequences. The timeline involves multiple, all-too human enemies rather than a single alien entity beyond human comprehension and its attendant cultists, each with its own agenda. There is no eldritch and thus no spells involved, or indeed, the corruptive influence of the Mythos. Instead, the Player Characters are corrupted by the influence of The Loud and the alterations it will make to their bodies. All of this difference and there is one thing which Darkest Timeline: The Rise of The Quiet does not address what exactly the roles the Player Characters should take instead those traditional to more standard roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of The Quiet is a horror scenario, not a Mythos one, but still a horror scenario nonetheless. It presents as equally an existential threat, but leans heavily into the Science Fiction of the FATE of Cthulhu set-up with the addition of relatively low-level superpowers. In essence it combines elements of Twelve Monkeys with The Terminator, but with the Player Characters as the Terminators. This is played out against a framework which is shorter, more focused, and has a contemporary setting. Again, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of The Quiet showcases how FATE of Cthulhu is capable of doing existential horror without the Mythos and how far its can push its Science Fiction.

The FATE of Basilisk

FATE of Cthulhu added two elements to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying—time travel and foreknowledge. Published by Evil Hat Games, the 2020 horror roleplaying game was built around campaign frameworks that cast the Player Characters as survivors in a post-apocalyptic future thirty years into the future, the apocalypse itself involving various aspects and entities of the Mythos. Not only as survivors though, because having entered into a pact with the Old One, Yog-Sothoth, they have unlocked the secret of time travel and come back to the present. They have come back aware of the steps along the way which brought about the apocalypse and they come back ready to fight it. This though is not a fight against the Cthulhu Mythos in general, but rather a single Old One and its cultists, and each thwarting of an Old One is a self-contained campaign in its own right, in which no other element of the Mythos appears.

The five campaigns, or timelines, presented in FATE of Cthulhu in turn have the Investigators facing Cthulhu, Dagon, Shub-Nigggurath, Nyarlathotep, and the King in Yellow. Each consists of  five events, the last of which is always the rise of the Old One itself. The events represent the roadmap to that last apocalyptic confrontation, and can each be further broken down into four event catalysts which can be people, places, foes, and things. The significance of these events are represented by a die face, that is either a bank, a ‘–’, or a ‘+’. These start out with two blanks and two ‘–’, the aim of the players and their investigators being to try to prevent their being too many, if any ‘–’ symbols in play and ideally to flip them from ‘–’ to blank and from blank to ‘+’. Ultimately the more ‘+’ there are, the more positive the ripple will be back down the timeline and the more of a chance the investigators have to defeat or prevent the rise of the Old One. Conversely, too many ‘–’ and the known timeline will play out as follows and the less likely the chance the investigators have in stopping the Old One.

Each of the five timelines comes with details of what a time traveller from 2050 would know about it, more detail for the Game Master with a breakdown of the events and their Aspects, Stunts, Mythos creatures, and NPCs. Most of these can serve as useful inspiration for the Game Master as well as the advice given on running FATE of Cthulhu and her creating her own timelines. After all, there are numerous Mythos entities presenting the prospective Game Master ready to create her own timeline with a variety of different aspects, purviews, and even degrees of power, but nevertheless capable of bringing about an apocalypse. However, Evil Hat Games has already begun to do that with its own series of timelines, each again dealing with a different Mythos entity and a different downfall for mankind. The first of these is The Rise of Yig.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk is different. Really different. To begin with, this second of the new timelines would appear to be barely connected to the Mythos at all—but it is, if that is, the Player Characters go digging deep enough into the world-side infosphere that Basilisk has planned for the whole of humanity. If not the universe. In Mythos terms, its closest parallels is with Hastur and the Yellow Sign, a memetic infection of occult nature which encourages artistic endeavour, but in Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk, that memetic infection is technological in nature, once shared often encouraging the monomaniacal exploration of fields of study and the need to understand them to their utmost. This often leads to the withdrawal of the infected from societal norms, ultimately leading to their deaths through lack of self-care and dehydration. Its origins lie in the Google Books project to digitise and make available all human knowledge. Thirty years later and Google’s Thinking Hat technologies enabled humanity to connect to digital neural networks and solve its most complex of problems—including climate change, whilst Google Physical Assistant enabled humanity to upgrade its body with cybertechnology. The combination provided a platform upon which Basilisk could survive and prosper and spread, the weakness of flesh bolstered by technology, pushing those connected to it to greater depths of understanding, for ultimately, its aim was a technological and scientific ‘Godthink’—not the idea that ‘All religions lead to the same thing’, but that the study of the universe leads to an understanding of both its and everything in it. If it had to turn the planet into the United Mind Of Humanity, a hungry, all-devouring hivemind of man and machine intertwined, it would and it did.

Where most timelines deal with known Mythos threats, or variations upon them, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk does not. It is a fight against an idea, not a thing or an entity, but all quickly an idea given form and physicality. This timeline combines elements of The Terminator—more so than other timelines—with The Matrix, mapping them back onto current developments in information theory, digitalisation, robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, the Internet of Things, and other cutting-edge technologies before pushing forward into a dystopia that is definitely Science Fiction rather Occult in nature. The technological nature of the setting means that the way time travel works in this timeline is also different. There is no corruptive pact with Yog-Sothoth to facilitate the way between and thus the means to travel back from 2050 to 2020 (or earlier), rather it is technological in nature, developed by Basilisk. The Resistance has gained access to it in 2050 to travel back in time, and there is the possibility that they may able to use the time travel apparatus to jump to other pivotal points within the timeline. This gives Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk a little more fluidity in terms of campaign structure. Instead of leaping into the past to a point from which they can moving forward and acting to undermine the threat at the heart of the timeline, the Player Characters may be able to jump up and down it, with agents of the Basilisk in hot pursuit, or even aware of approximately when the Player Characters will appear. After all, the extent of Basilisk’s understanding and knowledge means that it has a very good idea of just what the Player Characters are trying to do…

As with other timelines for FATE of Cthulhu, the Player Characters are jumping back in time to locate the four events which led up to if not the apocalypse of Basilisk, then the dystopia it ushers in. As with other timelines, there is no direct confrontation with the existential threat it represents, but primarily its agents and progenitors. And unlike those other timelines, the cosmic threat to humanity is not an unknowable Elder God, but a still inhuman mind that unfortunately humanity can understand—and that is the existential threat that the Player Characters face, avoiding understanding Basilisk. Further, Basilisk has agency (and agents).

As with the timelines in the core rules, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk details the history of its apocalypse and the four events which led up to it for the benefit of the Investigators who will be aware when they jump back from the future. It is accompanied by a more detailed timeline for Game Master along with their four event catalysts (which can be people, places, foes, or things) and their die face settings which the players and their Investigators will need to change by making enquiries and working to defeat the cult of information. There are details of threats and situations, including Thinking Hats Experts, biomechanically-altered humans, capable of temporarily enhancing particular skills to the pinnacle of understanding, Boston Dynamics-derived cyborgs, Hunter-Killer Experts, and more. 

The Basilisk’s agenda is discussed in detail, along with its mechanisms and advice for the Game Master on how to run Basilisk. This is absolutely necessary because of the complexity involved in running this timeline because of its complexity of ideas, the flexibility offered by time travel, and the greater agency possessed by Basilisk. If the previous Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig was more complex, not as straightforward, and involved multiple factions across the timeline, then Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk is more so—time travel, existential memetics, and deep conspiracy, all set against a contemporary world.

Physically, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk is cleanly presented. It is easy to read and the lay out is tidy, though it needs an edit in places. The artwork is good also.

Although Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk is specially written for use with FATE of Cthulhu and very much built around the Investigators coming back from the future forearmed with knowledge of the past, there is nothing to stop a Game Master from using the timeline to run a campaign from the opposite direction and from a point of ignorance. That is, as a standard campaign a la other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, whether that is actually for FATE of Cthulhu or another roleplaying game. It would be different to other campaigns, presenting more of a modern conspiracy campaign, possibly hackers or activists against the rise of the machines rather than classic Lovecraftian Investigators confronting entities of cosmic horror. This way, the Investigators can encounter the threats featured in Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk without the benefit of foreknowledge.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk is a very different campaign framework for Lovecraftian investigative horror, a radical technological departure that in effect is a non-Mythos campaign, but ultimately one involving existential horror. However, the technological aspects of the framework mean that it is complex and will take some effort to really run right. Ultimately, by drawing upon contemporary events and technologies, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk presents a scarily prescient timeline which showcases how FATE of Cthulhu can do more than just the traditional Mythos.

The FATE of Yig

FATE of Cthulhu added two elements to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying—time travel and foreknowledge. Published by Evil Hat Games, the 2020 horror roleplaying game was built around campaign frameworks that cast the Player Characters as survivors in a post-apocalyptic future thirty years into the future, the apocalypse itself involving various aspects and entities of the Mythos. Not only as survivors though, because having entered into a pact with the Old One, Yog-Sothoth, they have unlocked the secret of time travel and come back to the present. They have come back aware of the steps along the way which brought about the apocalypse and they come back ready to fight it. This though is not a fight against the Cthulhu Mythos in general, but rather a single Old One and its cultists, and each thwarting of an Old One is a self-contained campaign in its own right, in which no other element of the Mythos appears.

The five campaigns, or timelines, presented in FATE of Cthulhu in turn have the Investigators facing Cthulhu, Dagon, Shub-Nigggurath, Nyarlathotep, and the King in Yellow. Each consists of  five events, the last of which is always the rise of the Old One itself. The events represent the roadmap to that last apocalyptic confrontation, and can each be further broken down into four event catalysts which can be people, places, foes, and things. The significance of these events are represented by a die face, that is either a bank, a ‘–’, or a ‘+’. These start out with two blanks and two ‘–’, the aim of the players and their investigators being to try to prevent their being too many, if any ‘–’ symbols in play and ideally to flip them from ‘–’ to blank and from blank to ‘+’. Ultimately the more ‘+’ there are, the more positive the ripple will be back down the timeline and the more of a chance the investigators have to defeat or prevent the rise of the Old One. Conversely, too many ‘–’ and the known timeline will play out as follows and the less likely the chance the investigators have in stopping the Old One.

Each of the five timelines comes with details of what a time traveller from 2050 would know about it, more detail for the Game Master with a breakdown of the events and their Aspects, Stunts, Mythos creatures, and NPCs. Most of these can serve as useful inspiration for the Game Master as well as the advice given on running FATE of Cthulhu and her creating her own timelines. After all, there are numerous Mythos entities presenting the prospective Game Master ready to create her own timeline with a variety of different aspects, purviews, and even degrees of power, but nevertheless capable of bringing about an apocalypse. However, Evil Hat Games has already begun to do that with its own series of timelines, each again dealing with a different Mythos entity and a different downfall for mankind. The first of these is The Rise of Yig.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig is different. It is triggered by a surprise eclipse in 2020, visible only in northern Mexico and in the southern United States, casting the whole of the region into shadow and it was into this darkness that Yig—the Father of Serpents—awoke. Wherever he walked, civilisation was destroyed in his wake; his full psychic emanations led to terrifying dreams of snakes and other reptiles; new species of snakes appeared with a painfully venomous bite that defied science, only those that pledged themselves to the Father of Serpents and became his foot soldiers, the Children of Yig, proved to be immune; Serpentmen appeared and struck at important leaders; and the weather heated up the planet leading to the spread of a hothouse jungle which would swallow up city after city in less than a year. Only in the polar regions has mankind been able to find a refuge…

In that year, organisations also appeared to combat the threat faced by humanity. Organisations such as the Center for Defense against Elder Threats from the UN, the Chimalli Union, and the Dark Light Net which had all long prepared in secret in case such an event as this occurred. However, the one of the Old Ones that they had not been prepared for is Yig. That is the first difference in Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig in comparison with the five timelines given in FATE of Cthulhu. Yig is almost comprehensible in his actions, and has a reputation for benevolence when it comes to mankind, being mostly concerned with the well-being of his children—reptiles, snakes, and of course, Serpentmen. So the question is, was Yig planning the downfall of mankind in 2020, or was there something else going on with this most benign of Old Ones?

As with the timelines in the core rules, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig details the history of its apocalypse and the four events which led up to it for the benefit of the Investigators who will be aware when they jump back from the future. It is accompanied by a more detailed timeline for Game Master along with their four event catalysts (which can be people, places, foes, or things) and their die face settings which the players and their Investigators will need to change by making enquiries and working to defeat the cult. There are details of threats and situations, including cultists like the Agents of the Snake and Snakepersons, the relics and magic associated with the cult, and in particular, the agents of Center for Defense against Elder Threats from the UN, the Chimalli Union, and the Dark Light Net.

If there is an issue with Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig it is that it is very busy and there is a lot going on, but the Game Master is given a clearer explanation at the end of the supplement. That is the other difference between Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig and the five timelines given in FATE of Cthulhu. It is more complex, not as straightforward, and there are multiple factions involved across the timeline. This makes for a much more challenging campaign, both to run and play, for the players and their Investigators to determine what is going on and what the motives are of the various factions involved in the apocalypse—on both sides. Then for the Game Master to depict the various members of these factions. Again, the clearer explanation at the end of the supplement is a big help with that.

Physically, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig is cleanly presented. It is easy to read and the lay out is tidy, though it needs an edit in places. The artwork is good also.

Although Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig is specially written for use with FATE of Cthulhu and very much built around the Investigators coming back from the future forearmed with knowledge of the past, there is nothing to stop a Game Master from using to run from the opposite direction and from a point of ignorance. That is, as a standard campaign a la other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, whether that is actually for FATE of Cthulhu or another roleplaying game. Plus, given the nature of the threat faced in Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig, it is easy to comb the support for roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror to find, if not more Yig-related scenarios, then at least more Serpentmen scenarios. Which gives it a flexibility beyond FATE of Cthulhu.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig gets the ‘Darkest Timeline’ series off to a strong start. It serves up a horridly ophidiophobic and fairly complex framework that will take some effort to really run right, but delivers a surprising take on Yig and his associated Mythos.

Friday Fantasy: The Teuthic Temple

As much as we get out of our hobby and as much fun as we have, it is often the case that it does not support its creators as well as it should. So when disaster or tragedy strikes, it places the creators in positions of unexpected financial difficulties above and beyond the difficulties caused by the disaster or tragedy itself. Such is the case with Sarah Newton, the author and publisher of Mindjammer – The Roleplaying Game: Transhuman Adventure in the Second Age of Space, Capharnaüm – The Tales of the Dragon-Marked: Fantasy Roleplaying in a World of Arabian Nights, Argonauts, and Adventure!, and Monsters & Magic Roleplaying Game. This is in addition to the numerous supplements and scenarios she has written over the years.
Unfortunately, and sadly, Sarah lost her husband of thirty years last year and as her many friends can attest, this has understandably affected her a great deal. In terms of the industry, it has hampered her ability to write, develop, and publish the imaginative and interesting gaming content which she is known for. In order to help support Sarah continue writing and creating the games we love, as well as support her through this difficult time, Solipsist RPGs has published a scenario from which all monies raised will be given to her.

The scenario is The Teuthic Temple. It is a one-page, molluscular scenario being sold ‘pay what you want’ and written for use with Sarah’s own Monsters & Magic Roleplaying Game. This is a retroclone which combines classic Dungeons & Dragons-style play with its Effects Engine to essentially bring narrative elements into the Old School Renaissance, almost as if it was ‘Dungeons & Dragons does FATE’. Despite the presence of these narrative elements, they do not mean that The Teuthic Temple cannot be run using the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice. To that end, notes are included to help the Game Master adapt the scenario and even add Squid or Octopus characters to a game. Certainly the squid and octopus-themed scenario should find a home in any aquatic or weird setting. So Green Ronin Publishing’s Freeport: City of Adventure or some link to The Squid, the Cabal, and the Old Man for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay from Lamentations of the Flame Princess. And given the nature of the scenario in The Sea Demon’s Gold from Arc Dream Publishing, it would certainly work as an equally odd companion to that too, and so bring it up to date for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Alternatively, rend it into the past and add it as an underworld location in the D1 Descent into the Depths of the Earth, D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa, and D3 Vault of the Drow trilogy of modules for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First edition.

Designed for a party of characters of First to Third Levels, The Teuthic Temple is built around a dungeon, the Teuthic Temple of the title. It is stunningly presented in full colour, just nine locations, but laid out like a squid and given a suitably crustacean, aquatic environment. It is an ancient ruined shrine, once a place of worship for the now dead Octopoi gods—who are definitely molluscular and octopoidal rather than Cthulhoid in design. Nevertheless, fanatical Octopoi priests and their Teuthic followers now guard the site, rather than going out and prothletising. Given the size and shape of the temple complex, it should be no surprise that it is fairly linear, but each location has a purpose and there are opportunities for both roleplaying and combat. As written, priest and wizard type characters are likely to get the most out of the adventure, it being a temple, but there is plenty of treasure to be plundered as well as Octopoi secrets.

As well as providing the dungeon itself, The Teuthic Temple provides six motivations or hooks to involve the player characters. These range from seeking an ancient artefact, such as the Sceptre of Fish Control or the Crown of Aquatic Command (possibly complete with Summon Fish spell?) and rescuing an abducted child to hoping to discover knowledge within the temple which help against a greater evil or needing to appease the spirit of the long dead god.

Physically, The Teuthic Temple is a five-page, 2.72 Mb, full colour PDF. The page count suggests that the scenario breaks its ‘One-Page’ concept, but this is not the case. Rather that it devotes one page to describing the dungeon itself, one page to map and scenario hooks, and one page to describing Teuthic characters—both Octopi and Sepoi (or squid)—in terms for both Monsters & Magic and other Old School Renaissance roleplaying games. It should be noted that both the front cover and the map are gorgeous pieces of work.

The Teuthic Temple is a simple straightforward adventuring site with plenty of gaming potential. Built around a pleasingly thematic dungeon, it comes with plenty of hooks to get the player characters involved and is perfectly setting neutral that the Dungeon Master can add it wherever she wants. Lastly, The Teuthic Temple is available as ‘Pay What You Want’, but best of all, all monies raised from its purchase go towards helping Sarah Newton make more games.

The Fate of Cthulhu

It is the year 2050. Twenty years ago, an island rose in the Pacific Ocean and a horde of loathsome octopus-headed beasts swarmed over every ship sent to investigate, even withstanding multiple nuclear strikes. With a great being known as Cthulhu at their head, the creatures launched neurological attacks that warped and corrupted the survivors. Within a month, humanity survived only in a handful of enclaves. 

It is the year 2050. Twenty-two years ago, an island rose off the coast of Massachusetts and as the resulting tsunami floods the coast up and down the east coast of the USA there came reports of ships and towns being attacked by fish people. Then in the isolated town of Innsmouth, a search and rescue team saw survivors transforming into the fish people—quickly identified as Deep Ones. They were only the first, for what became known as the Innsmouth Plague spread around the world. Billions transform, millions die. What they have in common is that they were taking Palliagil, a cure to an MRSA plague from eight years before. Could it be linked?

It is the year 2050. On Hexenacht, April 30th, 2030, the top of Brocken, Germany’s highest mountain exploded to reveal a thousand foot tall, eight-legged and hoof-footed, tentacled monstrosity. Its appearance instigated a wave of cannibalism amongst the nearby Hexenacht celebrants that would leave thousands dead. But then from the corpses exploded miniature versions of the giant thing that had appeared earlier that night. They killed anyone who investigated, then more spawned from the new corpses. Within days, these tentacled horrors dominated the planet bar three, slowly contracting exclusion zones in New England, Nigeria, and Australia.

It is the year 2050. Twenty-two years ago, the unknown Nour Al Hasan walked out of the desert and won the Egyptian presidential election. He declared himself Nyarlathotep, the Dark Pharaoh, and that he would return Egypt to its former glory, whilst in Antarctica, over a hundred volcanoes exploded and revealed great cities and waves of star-headed, barrel-shaped and winged creatures which fly north to meet up with the armies of Faceless Ones that the Dark Pharaoh freed from below the pyramids. Within weeks, humanity is dead.

It is the year 2050. Twenty years ago a strange figure appeared in Covent Garden in London, all in yellow and masked, a strange mist spreading in its wake. Those touched by the mist exhibit symptoms of diseases in seconds that normally take days, either dying almost immediately or undergoing grisly transformations. Within hours this King in Yellow appears in cities around the world, spreading disease, and in weeks, there is nowhere in the world that remains untouched, most of humanity dead by then.

It is the year 2050. You are one of the few survivors of an unholy apocalypse that struck the world two decades ago. Scientists and researchers have developed the means to effect limited time travel and it has been decided that they will send one or more men or women—forewarned of knowledge of the future—back in time to meddle with one of these timelines and thwart the efforts of an Old Ones and its cultists. This is not without a cost though, for every time traveller must connect with another alien being known as Yog-Sothoth in order to come back to 2020, literally connect with the corruptive power of the Mythos, and that leaves a mark. It likely gives the time traveller a strange power, one beyond science, a power that itself will be of use in combating the Mythos and its influence, but even that will corrupt the user even further, however beneficial it may well be…

It seems that despite Call of Cthulhu having been in print for almost four decades and both initiating and dominating the Cosmic Horror subgenre, the long reach of Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying seems to touch upon roleplaying game upon roleplaying game. From Savage Worlds and Realms of Cthulhu and GURPS and Cthulhupunk, numerous roleplaying games have provided different takes upon the role of H.P. Lovecraft’s Mythos and approaches to it, so it is no surprise that it has finally reached FATE Core. The highly anticipated FATE of Cthulhu is radically different to the roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror that have come before it.

Published by Evil Hat Games, FATE of Cthulhu is a roleplaying game—a standalone roleplaying game which does not require FATE Core to play or run— of confronting the Mythos a la the James Cameron film, The Terminator. One or more of the investigators will have come back from 2050 to 2020 to stop the apocalyptic plans of an Old One and its cultists. They come back aware of the steps along the way which brought about the apocalypse and they come back ready to fight it. This though is not the Cthulhu Mythos in general, but rather a single Old One and its cultists, and each thwarting of an Old One is a self-contained campaign in its own right, in which no other element of the Mythos appears. So no cultist dedicated to another Old One or Nyarlathotep himself stepping in, even if only mockingly, to help the investigators thwart a common enemy. Unless the Game Master wants them to, that is… So what FATE of Cthulhu is not, is a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror, but is instead, a roleplaying game of Lovecraftian action horror. Now this does not mean that the Game Master could not take the elements of the Lovecraft Mythos in FATE of Cthulhu and use them to run a scenario or campaign of Lovecraftian investigative horror as per other similar roleplaying games. That would take a little more effort upon the part of the Game Master, as FATE of Cthulhu is not written or organised to support that, in part because the Mythos is compartmentalised timeline by timeline.

Investigators in FATE of Cthulhu are defined by their Aspects, Skills, and Stunts. Aspects describe elements of a character and to work effectively, they need to be double-edged, that is, each should be both an advantage or a disadvantage. For example, the Aspect ‘An eye for the ladies’ could be used as an Advantage to spot a particular woman in a crowd or a bonus to seduction attempts, but as a Disadvantage, it would mean that the character would be easily distracted in female company. Each investigator has an Aspect each for his High Concept and his Trouble, plus two free Aspects. In play, an Aspect is Invoked by the player to gain an advantageous bonus or a reroll, but Compelled to trigger its disadvantageous elements. It costs a player a Fate point to Invoke an Aspect, but he will gain a Fate point if the Aspect is Compelled. (A Compel can be resisted by a player, but this costs him a Fate point). Stunts provide advantages or bonuses under certain circumstances, usually to skills, and they can be Corrupted by exposure to the Mythos. Skills simply provide a bonus to skill rolls, there being a limited number of broad skills in the game, one of which is Lore, expanded here to cover knowledge and its application of the Mythos.

Francine Hernandez
Personal Timeline: 2050
High Concept (Aspect): Desperate Housewife who knows too much
Trouble (Aspect): My husband was a cultist
Relationship: I trust John, but he doesn’t trust me
Aspects: Ex-Society Matron, Gets lost in the Future (Corrupted) 
Stunts: The Voice of Reason, Hound of Tinadalos’ Eye (Corrupted)
Skills: Deceive (Great +4); Contacts, Resources (Good +3); Fight, Rapport, Shoot (Fair +2); Drive, Lore, Notice, Will (Average +1)
Physical Stress (Physique): 1 2 3
Mental Stress (Will): 1 2 3
Corruption Clock: O O O O
Refresh Rate: 3 Fate Points: 3

Mechanically, whenever a player wants to undertake an action, he selects a skill and rolls four Fudge dice—FATE having originally been derived from the Fudge RPG mechanics—special six-sided dice, each of which has two faces marked with a ‘+’ symbol, two faces marked with a ‘–’ symbol, and two faces left blank. The ‘+’ and ‘–’ symbols cancel each out and the blank faces add nothing, so the results range simply between +4 and –4. The result is added to the player’s skill, aim being to beat a target set by the Game Master, an Average target being +1, a Fair target being +2, and so on, the targets matching the skill values in terms of progression. Should a player’s result match the target, then he succeeds at a cost; if the result is one or two points or shifts above the target, he simply succeeds; and if the result is three or more  shifts, he succeeds with style. In combat, shifts usually represent damage inflicted upon a target, but should a character succeed with style, then he can place a temporary Aspect in play, that can either be used once and then it is lost, or used once for free with subsequent uses requiring a Fate point to be expended.

Aspects like this can be set up on locations, objects, on NPCs, and on player characters, and then during play both the players and the Game Master can interact with them, Invoking and Compelling as necessary. Similarly, the Game Master can design and create places, people, and things all with the simple use of Aspects that get to the core of anything that he designs and creates, and again these can be Invoked or Compelled as part of FATE Core collaborative play between the players and between the Game Master and the players. Unlike FATE Core there is less of this collaborative effort involved during character creation, primarily because FATE of Cthulhu does not involve the worldbuilding that is part of the core rules.

One of the big differences between FATE of Cthulhu and other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror is that where in those roleplaying games the corrosive effect of witnessing or employing the Mythos, whether that is seeing a Mythos entity or reading a Mythos tome, or casting a Mythos spell, is mental. In other words, investigators lose Sanity. Now in FATE of Cthulhu, the corrupting effect of the Mythos can work that way, but in the main, its effects are physical. Every time an investigator is exposed to the Mythos or uses it in the case of casting a spell or ritual, or using a Corrupted Aspect or Stunt, the investigator will face backlash as the universe tries to protect itself against the changes forced upon by the unnatural nature of the Mythos. If the investigator cannot withstand this backlash—the backlash being equal to the success of the use or power of the Mythos—he adds points to his Corruption Clock. Fill that in, the Corruption Clock is emptied, but the investigator is drawn further into the influence of the Old Ones and one of his Aspects is corrupted. Should an investigator have all of his Aspects corrupted, he is lost to the Mythos.

For example, Francine Hernandez is attempting to find where her husband, Hector,  is going to be as she knows that he will be participating in a great ritual to learn the location of a lost tomb. He has already managed to deceive her as to where he is going, but Francine and her compatriots need to know. Francine’s player decides to use her Gets lost in the Future Corrupted Aspect. Francine’s player pays the Fate point to Invoke the Aspect. This will give a bonus of +2 to Francine’s Notice of +1. The Game Master takes Hector’s Deceive of +4 and rolls blank, blank, ‘–’, and ‘–’, to give Hector a total of +2. Francine’s player rolls blank, ‘–’, ‘+’, and ‘+’, for a total of +5. This beats Hector’s attempt at Deception, and means that Francine learns where he has gone. Unfortunately Francine suffers backlash equal to the roll her player made or +5. Her player has to make a roll using her Will of +1  and rolls blank, ‘–’, ‘+’, and ‘+’, for a total of +2, which is not good enough as it leaves three mental shifts to absorb. Francine can absorb one of the shifts on her mental stress boxes, the other two having been filled earlier in the investigation. For the remaining two mental shifts, Francine can either take a point of Corruption and have part of her Corruption Clock filled in, or suffer a Consequence. Francine’s player decides on the latter and Francine gains ‘Visions of an alternate failed timeline’.

Despite the physicality of the Corruption Clock versus the Sanity mechanics of other Lovecraftian investigative horror roleplaying games, there is still a downward spiral of being exposed to, and in this case, using the Mythos to fight the Mythos, over and over. Essentially, it may well be necessary to fight fire with fire, but the cost…? Once gained, Corruption is fairly difficult to lose, though it is possible if no Corruption has been gained during an investigation or through a supreme act of sacrifice upon the part of another investigator.

Instead of giving a greater sense of the Mythos, FATE of Cthulhu focuses on five distinct threats—five distinct threats powerful enough to bring about an apocalypse. Each threat is essentially a separate campaign or timeline in which someone from the future of 2050 has some knowledge of. Each of the five timelines—which in turn deal with Cthulhu, Dagon, Shub-Nigggurath, Nyarlathotep, and the King in Yellow—consists of five events, the last of which is always the rise of the Old One itself. The events represent the roadmap to that last apocalyptic confrontation, and can each be further broken down into four event catalysts which can be people, places, foes, and things. The significance of these events are represented by a die face, that is either a bank, a ‘–’, or a ‘+’. These starts out with two blanks and two ‘–’, the aim of the players and their investigators being to try prevent their being too many, if any ‘–’ symbols in play and ideally to flip them from ‘–’ to blank and from blank to ‘+’. Ultimately the more ‘+’ there are, the more positive the ripple will be back down the timeline and the more of chance the investigators have to defeat or prevent the rise of the Old One. Conversely, too many ‘–’ and the known timeline will play out as follows and the less likely the chance the investigators have in stopping the Old One.

Each of the five timelines comes with details of what a time traveller from 2050 would know about it, more detail for the Game Master with a breakdown of the events and their Aspects, Stunts, Mythos creatures, and NPCs. Most of these can serve as useful inspiration for the Game Master as well as the advice given on running FATE of Cthulhu and her creating her own timelines. In addition, FATE of Cthulhu highlights two issues with Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. First it makes clear that in spite of his deplorable social views, H.P. Lovecraft’s writings and creations are worth examining as sources of inspiration, as are the writings of more modern writers who do not share Lovecraft’s views, race, or gender. Second, it makes clear that in FATE of Cthulhu, Corruption is not Sanity—or the loss of it—and that in Corruption, it not only has a far wider array of effects to apply to investigators, it wants to avoid any stereotypes or insensitivity that the portrayal of insanity or other mental illness might lead to. It goes on to give good advice about the portrayal of those affected by Corruption and how to avoid clichés. Both are fair, balanced, and mature approaches to their subject matters, being aware of the sensitivity and difficulty that some gamers may have with either subject.

Physically, FATE of Cthulhu is well produced, nicely illustrated, and well written, including numerous detailed examples. It is however more limited in scope than other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, being focused on a certain type of campaign, and if a Game Master wanted to do more with it than run those campaigns—although any of the five offers opportunities for roleplaying and action—she would have to make more of an effort. In terms of the five timelines and the concept behind FATE of Cthulhu, what is really missing is the point of departure for any time traveller (or time travellers if the Game Master was running a full on ‘Chrono-Commandos versus Cthulhu-style campaign), so no details of what the future is like. There is advice on how time travel works, how it is possible to meet your past self and even have them die in your past, but no background about what life is like in 2050. Also as written, it is very much focussed upon the timelines, so writing a solo adventure would also be challenging.

As befitting a FATE Core roleplaying game, FATE of Cthulhu is more action-orientated, more direct, and more upfront about its confrontation with the forces of the Mythos. It definitely veers to being Pulp in nature rather than Purist and can probably be best described as High Derlethian. Further, its ‘time commando comes back from the future to stop…’ may not be original, but FATE of Cthulhu does provide a fresh approach to confronting the Mythos with Lovercraftian action horror.

Steampunk Soldiery Spotter's Guide II

Steampunk Soldiers: The American Frontier is a sequel to Steampunk Soldiers: Uniforms & Weapons from the Age of Steam, which described a nineteenth century wherein the Great Meteor Shower of 1862 scattered deposits of an incredible energy source—Hephaestium—which set off a great age of technological development and innovation as the great powers sought to advantage of the new power source. Over the course of the next three decades, Great Britain radically extended her railway network across her empire and beyond; Prussia fielded new armour and armoured infantry to defeat Denmark and unite all of Germany; whilst France used her Peugeot-built steam-powered exoskeleton-equipped Foreign Legion units to conquer Indochina and invade China. Meanwhile, Russia developed Hephaestium-fuelled chemicals and submarines, the Ottoman Empire developed automata, and Nicolai Tesla developed Hephaestium-powered electro-weapons for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, whilst Italy stole blueprints and prototypes, sabotaged others, and kidnapped scientists and became Europe’s rogue state.

Now the Americas were not ignored in all of this. Steampunk Soldiers: Uniforms & Weapons from the Age of Steam described how General Lee’s land ironclads forced back the Union forces and held them to a stalemate until a ceasefire was agreed between the Union and the Confederacy in 1869, ending the Civil War. It is also how the volume left the situation, with the former United States divided between the Union and the Confederacy. Steampunk Soldiers: The American Frontier picks up where it left off to describe and depict the situations, forces, troops, and equipment of not only the Union and Confederacy, but also the Republic of Mexico, Canada, Alaska, the Disputed Territories, and the frontier.

The Union is technologically advanced, but her attention is divided between the Cold War with the Confederacy, surreptitiously running the blockade to Republic of Mexico, poor relations with both Canada and England, and with pushing back the frontier before the Confederacy does. Consequently, agencies like the postal service have been militarised, the Mailman of the United States Army Postal Service being shown armed and his faithful hound, being armoured and trained to attack mail thieves! The Union also employs numerous spies and agents, including Pinkerton agents to protect both the President and corporate interest; Special Service Agents with advanced monitoring equipment, such as Edison’s Kinetographic camera concealed in a carpet bag, and of course, US Marshals who wander far and wide. In the Confederacy, the Texas Rangers perform the same role as the US Marshals, but are not always welcome beyond the Texas state line. They are an effective force though, being equipped with modular, adaptable devices, such as the New Haven Arms modular Volcanic Pistols and Alamo Fortified Suit. The dominance of Texas in the Confederacy is show in the depiction of a Field Research Team from the Galveston Consortium testing out a new and advanced weapon—a Sonic Discombobulator! The Confederacy’s reliance on less conventional means of warfare is shown in its depiction of a Confederate Privateer, armed with a Winchester Boarding Carbine—which is fitted with an axe; a black-cloaked Night Ranger sharpshooter complete with starlight goggles; and a Bombardier of the Confederate Aeronautics Corps, whose mini-dirigibles are used for reconnaissance and raids, the latter including the famous bombing of the White House in 1864.

When not facing off against each other, the Union and the Confederacy have pushed West in search of new territories and fresh resources, but these lands have not become known as the Disputed Territories for nothing. The Chiricahua Apache are caught between the Mexico and the Confederacy, maintaining a guerrilla campaign against both with surprisingly modern weaponry—perhaps supplied by the Union; similarly caught between the Union and the Confederacy, the Five Tribes Confederation has declared itself neutral, adopted their technology to protect itself, and become a conduit for banned goods in both nations; and perhaps most amazing of all are the Sky Hawks of the Hualpai tribe, scouts who construct winged suits which they use to glide off all trees and the lip of the Grand Canyon. Despite the disputed nature of the territories, there are individuals and organisations who seek their fortune in the West. They include injured soldiers using technology such as ‘Quick Draw’ rigs to turn gunslinger; the members of Norton’s Guards who continue the legacy of the late Joshua Norton, self-proclaimed Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, by keeping the peace in fractious San Francisco with their non-lethal, electrical Franklin Baton; mining companies and couriers have purchased ex-military Land Ironclads to protect their operations from Indians, bandits, labour agitators, and others; and some have established independent polities, such as the Independent Kingdom of Jefferson.

The other nations of North America are also affected. In the far north-west, extensive Hephaestium strikes in Alaska has enhanced the importance of the territory to the Russian Empire and Canada to the British Empire, leading to a shift in the Great Game from India to the western frontier. Russia uses Alaska as a scientific and industrial laboratory, prototypes being developed with ruthless, often unchecked efficiency by her Imperial Army military commanders in the region, sometimes in secret facilities. There are rumours of deserters or test subjects fleeing from such facilities, leading to tales of wild men or ‘skoocooms’ in the woods and caves, tales often repeated, or at least embellished by dime novels. Canada’s military is stretched thin along her border, facing Russia in the west and both Fenian and Métis native rebels internally. This has led her to raise militia regiments, such as the Royal Regiment of Toronto Volunteers, to protect her borders and the North-West Mounted Police to turn to technology—such as multi-terrain tracked vehicles—to get their man. To the south, the Union aided Mexico in kicking out the French backed Imperial forces and establishing the Mexican Republic, much to the consternation of the Confederacy. Now the republic’s ports are blockaded by Confederacy backed privateers, they raid each other back and forth across the Rio Grande, while Mexico supplies the Banditos—outlaws and brigands—who worry the border regions and disputed territories, with advanced weaponry that it can often ill afford to hand out to anyone other than its underequipped soldiery. The best of Mexico’s armed forces, are the 1st Naval Brigade or ‘Los Tiburones’, trained by German advisors and equipped with the best that the Kaiser can provide. The ‘Los Tiburones’—or ‘The Sharks’ are deployed as naval assault troops, often tasked with capturing with the Confederacy backed privateers.

Of course, this is all a conceit. For Steampunk Soldiers: The American Frontier is, like its forebear, a collection of artwork by the forgotten British artist, Miles Vandercroft, who travelled Europe and North America, sketching and painting the soldiery of the age. It develops the guide to the vivid and striking uniforms worn by the armies and the steam-powered weaponry and equipment fielded by these armies in the years between the fall of the meteors and the Great War of the Worlds previously seen in Steampunk Soldiers: Uniforms & Weapons from the Age of Steam. Of course, it is not this, but a second pictorial guide to a past that never was, beautifully depicted in a series of colour plates having been ‘rediscovered’ and collected in a second handsome book published by Osprey Books under its Osprey Adventures line. There is not so much pomp and pageantry in these images, which have a rougher quality, reflecting roughness of the frontier and beyond.

As with Steampunk Soldiers: Uniforms & Weapons from the Age of Steam, the problem with Steampunk Soldiers: The American Frontier is that leaves the reader either wanting more information or wanting to take its content and develop into a setting of his devising, whether a wargaming or a roleplaying setting. There are no suggestions to end given in Steampunk Soldiers: The American Frontier. Despite this, Steampunk Soldiers: The American Frontier is a beautiful hardback, full of intriguing detail, awaiting the reader to develop into something playable on the table.

Wolves on the Border

As its title suggests Time of the Wolves: An epic saga for the Age of Arthur roleplaying game is a campaign for the Age of Arthur roleplaying game. Published by Wordplay Games, Age of Arthur – Dark ages roleplaying powered by Fate—though written for use with an earlier itteration of the rules, both Time of the Wolves and Age of Arthur can work with FATE Core—is a gritty, Dark Ages-set Arthurian roleplaying game which presents a more historical approach to the Arthurian legend in comparison to the romantic approach taken by the classic King Arthur: Pendragon roleplaying game. Both are equally valid approaches to the Arthurian legend, but King Arthur: Pendragon is—and remains—the preeminent roleplaying treatment  of the genre, and rightly so. The historicity of Age of Arthur means that it does not quite have the grand sweep that King Arthur: Pendragon and The Great Pendragon Campaign together possess, but it does mean that there is greater scope for player character action and influence over a campaign.

Set in the Kingdom of Ebrauc—roughly equivalent to Yorkshire—Time of the Wolves presents four linked adventures which see a band of heroes attempt to stave off an invasion by Angles which threatens the kingdom. Ebrauc is not the only place facing the threat of invasion. King Wehha of the Wuffingas, ruler of the recently founded Kingdom of the Angles, has designs on the nearby city of Lindum as much as he does Ebrauc and has set a competition for his sons to impress him by capturing both. In the course of the campaign, the heroes will encounter treachery and greed, honour and ambition, Fae magic and Saxon magic, and more. The fate of Lindum and Ebrauc lies in their hands.

It opens with ‘Hammer to Fall’, in which the heroes are in Lindum, a city whose strategy in dealing with the threat of the Angles is to hire mercenaries—including Angle mercenaries—for protection and pay tribute to King Wehha. This has only put a temporary hold on the Angles’ ambitions and perhaps an opportunity has arisen with the news that pay for the mercenaries in Lindum’s employ has gone missing. The heroes are asked to investigate the loss and the process must deal with mercenary bands, hold off the approaching Angles, and somehow find a way of funding the city’s defence.

Yet as the heroes work to save Lindum, the Angles make a move elsewhere. In part two, ‘Play the Game’, news comes to them that the heir to Ebrauc has been struck down and lies dying whilst the command of his troops has passed to a cousin. He proves ill-suited to command and even when it becomes apparent that the heir has been poisoned, he inadvertently impedes the heroes’ search for a cure. This takes the heroes off into Britain’s wilder realms where the GM gets to portray some fun NPCs and the heroes get to step up to the stage. They should earn a favour by the end of the scenario, but also owe one in readiness for ‘Put Out the Fire’, wherein the heroes must travel north to pay it back. This third part is mostly a journey, but it does present the heroes with a question of honour when they return.

The last part is ‘Friends Will Be Friends’. Ebrauc’s situation looks perilous. The Angles have finally gathered enough enough forces to make their attack and the kingdom just does not enough men at its command to withstand their onslaught. The heroes must make one last desperate effort to bolster their forces before the invaders attack. This involves negotiation with an Angle Thane and his fearsome bodyguard and is a good opportunity for some roleplaying prior to the campaign’s climatic showdown between Ebrauc and the Angles. This allows the GM to bring all of the Angles’ forces to bear, including great magic and skin changing warriors, but there are opportunities for the heroes to counter these aspects and make the situation just a little less challenging… This is a suitably rousing climax to the campaign and hopefully, a chance for the make Lindum and Ebrauc safe for a few more years...

Although Time of the Wolves can be played with characters of the players’ design, it really benefits if these characters have ties to Ebrauc and Lindum as this will mean that they can better interact with the Aspects for both the campaign’s locations and NPCs. To that end, the campaign provides four pre-generated heroes. They include an illegitimate prince of Ebrauc and war leader, a druid in service to Ebrauc, the ambitious daughter of the Prefect of Lindum, and an ex-bandit in the permanent service of said daughter of the Prefect of Lindum. The characters are nicely tied to each other and the setting, so that they really have a stake in the future of the region. Of the four, the bandit has the weakest ties to the campaign, but they are all four very playable with Aspects that will bring the campaign to life.

One issue with the campaign is the problem with travelling. Time of the Wolves does involve quite a lot of travel and on almost every journey the heroes are attacked or ambushed by bandits or Angle warriors. The GM may want to vary these a little.

Physically, Time of the Wolves is a digest-sized hardback, done in full colour. It is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is excellent, being full colour paintings. The pre-generated hero portraits are particularly good. Likewise, the maps are done in full colour and very attractive pieces. The writing is clear, but perhaps it could have been slightly better organised within the various chapters so that some of the plot information could have been made a little more obvious. Some of it does appear after the NPC it relates to is presented. That said, the plots are not that complex anyway, but it makes finding the information not quite as easy as it should. Overall, Time of the Wolves looks great and it looks far more professional than a small press release has any right to do.

If you already have a copy of Age of Arthur, then Time of the Wolves is a perfect addition. It showcases the perilous situation in which post-Roman Britain finds itself and the efforts its peoples are making to hold off the impending threat from across the North Sea. It also showcases how to bring forth the storytelling possibilities of the setting and the Aspects of both this setting and the characters. It is also a good showcase for Fate and how it works, so if you wanted to try Fate, then Time of the Wolves with Age of Arthur is a really strong combination. Time of the Wolves is a good campaign, but it gets better when the character Aspects involve them in the narrative.

Fanzine Focus VIII: The Grognard Files – Annual 2017

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

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as is Swords & Wizardry. Not all fanzines can be considered to be part of the Old School Renaissance though...

The Grognard Files is a fanzine of a different stripe. First off, it is only available to patrons of The Grognard Files, a North of England podcast dedicated to the games of the late seventies and early eighties, in particular, RuneQuest. (Alternatively, it is also available to attendees of Grogmeet a one-day convention in Manchester, again in the North of England.) Second, just as with The Blasphemous Tome, it is literally is an annual thing, that is, available once a year. British gamers of a certain age will very much recognise the style and layout of White Dwarf from the mid-eighties in The Grognard Files – Annual 2017 and this behind a great cover by Russ Nicholson, whose art graced the pages of many a Fighting Fantasy title and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay supplement. So just from the look, we are all ready for a heavy dose or two of nostalgia.

The issue opens with ‘Do you remember the first time?’, a lengthy remembrance of gaming past and how the presenters of the Grogcast got their start in the hobby. It is very personal and at the same time, very parochial, so there is a lot here that both younger gamers and non-British gamers will find to be beyond them. So if you grew up with White Dwarf during its first hundred issues in the Great Britain of this period, then there is much here that will be familiar. Getting your first game and getting others to play it, exploring one game after another, and so on. Of course, the reader is unlikely to find the specifics all that familiar, unless he grew up in Bolton in the 1980s, but even if the reader is not British, not from Bolton, not from the North, there are memories here that will resonate—certainly memories of taking your first fumbling steps into the hobby with little in the way of guidance. Much of it of course, will be familiar to listeners of The Grognard Files.

Just like the White Dwarf issues of old, The Grognard Files – Annual 2017, leaps into ‘Open Box’, its reviews department. Four reviews are presented, all of older games—Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game from West End Games—recently announced as going to receive a thirtieth anniversary reprint, Shadowrun from FASA, and both Boot Hill and Gangbusters from TSR, Inc. Although longer than the reviews that appeared in the original Open Box, they are as much reminisces as they are reviews, exploring each reviewer’s memories of playing the game as well as what they think of them now.

Written by Eddy Fielding, the next department, ‘Return to Grognardia’, also looks at an old classic, this time a campaign for Call of Cthulhu. The campaign was also my first for Call of Cthulhu—The Fungi from Yoggoth, a pulpy world-spanning affair set on the eve of the Great Depression. Again, there is a fair degree of reminisce in this examination, but also advice on running it, which version to pick up, and so on. It is an enjoyable piece if a little slight.

What is so surprising about ‘Safe Word’, the scenario in The Grognard Files – Annual 2017 is that it is not for an old game, but a new one. Further, the set-up for the game is also very modern. That said, the subject of the scenario is very in keeping with the ethos of both the podcast and the annual. That subject is the stories of Jerry Cornelius, the poly-amorous anarchist super spy created by Michael Moorcock. The plot casts the player characters as super spies themselves in the style of seventies television shows, Department S and Jason King, suddenly assigned to track down rogue monetarist economists amidst riots in London. Written by Chris Hart, the scenario involves a very private club, a sex dungeon—or two—a game, and of course, a villain’s lair. Plus, a lot of tongue in cheek tone… The system for all of this is FATE Accelerated, the light version of Evil Hat Games’ FATE Core designed for narrative driven action. Which is a very twenty-first century game for the team behind the Grogcast to be running and writing about. Yet, it is a perfect fit for the scenario’s subject matter with its interactive mechanics and narrative, just as can be seen in Agents of S.W.I.N.G. The other modern aspect to the scenario is its set-up, not to the scenario, but to the game system. This has the players create characters not for a freewheeling seventies spy game, but a traditional swords and sorcery roleplaying game. Then discard them—and then create spy characters. There is no need to worry. The players do get to use both characters.

Now the character of Jerry Cornelius has been visited in gaming several times over the years, but never in a roleplaying game or supplement of his own. Rather he was the subject of discussion in fanzines and magazines, so bringing back here is another dose of nostalgia. The scenario is entertainingly bonkers, but might be beyond players of a certain age if only for its heavy seventies references and humour. The author also follows the scenario up with ‘Inn Space’, a playtest report of the scenario, which is a nice addition.

Justin Hill provides ‘To Run with Brother Dog’, a short piece of fiction set in Glorantha which should keep RuneQuest fans happy, whilst Chris Hart remembers his experiences with Play By Mail games which became popular in the mid-eighties. ‘Those who are about to die…’ focuses upon the one PBM, a game called Gladiator. The real interest here is how the game and its associated fanzine, Gladiator’s Gazette grew and changed. Again there are parallels to be had with the gaming experience of those of a similar age and how they got into PBM games as well roleplaying, and how once the craze spread, gamers would run their own. For example, Game Designers’ Workshop’s En Garde! was a popular choice back in the day because a lot of mechanics could be run during the game’s downtime. One pleasing corollary to the article is ‘Form the FLAMES of Hell!’ in which Chris Hart catches up with the creator of Gladiator’s Gazette and interviews him. Rounding out the issue is Alan Gairey’s ‘Small Ads’, a celebration of the small ads section in White Dwarf as well as its letters page. Anyone reading how we communicated in the days before the Internet and e-mail will wonder how we survived.

Physically, of course, The Grognard Files – Annual 2017 lacks the gloss of White Dwarf, but then it is not intended to be a glossy magazine, but a fanzine. So it has the mixed production values and the mixed content of a fanzine, intended as it is to celebrate the amateurism of the hobby. That said, there is denying that it captures the style of White Dwarf back in the day and even the adverts feel appropriate to the time and the issue. A tighter edit would not have gone amiss, but this is technically a ‘first’ issue, so there is always going to be room for improvement.

Ultimately, The Grognard Files – Annual 2017 is one of those publications that captures a little bit of history, essentially a memory of gaming in the 1980s. It is a light chatty affair, which simply serves up a big lardy dollop of nostalgia and if you are British and of a certain age, there is more than enough to reminisce about in its pages.

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Previously unavailable, the publishers of The Grognard Files – Annual 2017, Armchair Warriors, have kindly made the issue available as a ‘Pay What You Want’ PDF available to download. Even better, the proceeds of the sale of the fanzine will donated to continue the running of Yog-sothoth.com, the best site dedicated to Lovecraft and Lovecraftian investigative horror.

The Tools of FATE

The FATE System Toolkit is part of the sextet of books funded via Kickstarter for FATE Core, the newest version of Evil Hat Games’ ENNIE award winning light and cinematic generic RPG first seen in Spirit of the Century back in 2006. It began life as the guide to magic for FATE Core, but as the Kickstarter grew and grew, things kept getting added to it, many of which have nothing to do with magic. In each and every case, the FATE System Toolkit asks what the GM wants the new rule or approach to the rules to do and how it fits into the game. It never mandates that its solutions are how something should be done, but rather how the mechanics can be ‘hacked’ to get it done. As it states up front, the FATE System Toolkit is not ‘the’ toolkit for FATE Core, but ‘a’ toolkit for FATE Core. In other words, “Here is how you could do it” rather than “Here is how you should do it”.

In keeping with the Bronze Rule in FATE Core—that anything can be treated as a character—the first things that the FATE System Toolkit looks at are Aspects, Skills, and Stunts. Aspects underpin FATE Core and here we get a range of suggestions as what else they can do in addition to the options given in the main rulebook. This includes invoking them for effect rather than a bonus to a roll, such as a dwarf where he is underground and knows which way is North; detonating situation Aspects, that is going from ‘Weak Structural Integrity’ to ‘Collapsing Bridge’; representing quests as Aspects, for example, ‘Sabotage the Imperial Annihilation Station’; and making gear important by giving it Aspects, such as ‘Brutal Orc Cleaver’.  Skills are given a similar range of options, ranging from Professions as Skills or replacing Skills completely with adjectives that describe how a character does something, like Forceful, Graceful, Clever, or Resolute, to working into modes or bundles and even replacing them totally with Aspects. Modes package the skills into bundles for easy character generation and give bonuses to skills that duplicated between bundles. This is one of the options to replace FATE Core’s Skill Pyramid and enables a GM to design modes to fit particular genres or campaigns. Stunts receive a similar if much shorter treatment, including tying them to Aspects or gear rather than Skills, having pre-requisites—much like there was in Spirit of the Century, and so on.

The original way in which the hobby categorised characters is looked at in ‘The Big Game’ rather than campaigns as a whole. So we are shown a way to do Class and Race with Professions such as Fighter or Thief and Races like Elf or Orc. Both are packages that emulate an older style of game as much as FATE Core can. These come with an interesting side note that explains what we mean by Race in game terms. The new Origin Story method of character creation uses flashbacks rather than necessarily forging connections between the characters as per the FATE Core book whilst the Bronze Rule is applied to a scenario structure to use Aspects as the framework, a list of events leading to a crescendo that if reached means that the bad guys are winning! Special Circumstances covers particular situations, for chases which can be designed as challenges or contests and handling motivations and instincts in social interaction, whilst the section of Customized Tools is more a collection of odds and sods, from getting into the nitty gritty of Stress, Consequences,  Zones, and Refresh to creating your own FATE dice.

Given its original purpose, it is surprising that the FATE System Toolkit devotes less than half of its pages to its original purpose—magic. Even then it devotes more of those pages to examples than it does to discussing how to build magic systems for FATE Core. This starts out with what the magic system is designed to do and what its aims are before specifically looking at its tone, source, availability, cost, and limits. Once their ramifications are discussed, it looks at how magic can be modelled through the use of Aspects, Skills, and Stunts. Over all, it does not amount to more than a few pages, but they are a thoughtful few pages, prompting the GM to think about his intended design.

So where the section is lengthy is in its examples—and really good examples they prove to be. Stormcallers power their ambitions by tapping into the five Great Storms raging at the heart of creation—Earthquake, Flood, Glacier, Inferno, and Thunder, whilst Storm Summoners conjure the elementals of these storms to do their bidding. Each example can be used independently, but they nicely go together with the Stormcallers being a development of the magic system in Evil Hat Games’ The Dresden Files RPG. Thematically, The Six Viziers is a ‘Great Steppes of Russia’ inspired system where the characters are marked with a tattoo of one of the great constellations—or Viziers—in the sky and are thus capable of great actions with their skills. In comparison, The Subtle Art opts for the understated effect, that is, the placing of temporary blessings and curses—or Aspects—upon a target. It has a much grittier feel than the other example systems. All of these magic systems are great, but the highlight is Voidcallers, essentially the black, black magic version of the Stormcallers. Instead of tapping into an elemental storm, a Voidcaller draws on the Void for aid and ‘great power’, but this comes with consequences—consequences of the GM’s choosing. This begs to be used as the basis for ‘things mankind is not meant to know’ campaign and as written does not necessarily come with tentacular trappings, but there is nothing to stop a GM from adding these if so desired. Accompanying each of the worked examples is a ‘30-Second Version’ that summarises the system in easy to digest thumbnail fashion. Very useful—and that is before you get to the full details which beg to developed into a fuller setting.

Rounding out the FATE System Toolkit is a set of subsystems, ones that enable the GM to take his game into different directions and enable him to do different things in his game. These include Kung Fu, Cyberware, Gadgets, Monsters, military Squads and Mass Battles, Swashbuckling Duels, Vehicles, Superheroics, and Horror games. Of these, Kung Fu has been more recently done for the Wuxia genre with the alternate takes given in Tianxia: Blood, Silk, & Jade and Jadepunk: Tales of Kausao City. Military Squads and Mass Battles are handled as characters and character-versus-character—as per the Bronze Rule that turns everything into characters—just as you would expect, whilst the Monster rules  do a good job of handling Very Large Monsters across multiple zones. So good for fighting truly big dragons, kaijū, or monsters like those of the computer game, Shadow of the Colossus. The Duelling subsystem works in a similar fashion, enabling characters to swashbuckle back and forth across zones as well as giving advantage to the duellist who makes the best use of the terrain in each of the zones in addition to their opponent’s psychology. Both the Cyberware and Gadgets subsystems enable characters to build great devices, that is with advantages and weaknesses, whilst the Vehicles subsystem calls for the characters to emotionally invest in their joint-owned Mystery Van/Firefly class spaceship/Babylon 5.

Lastly, the FATE System Toolkit suggests ways in which FATE Core can do horror, a genre that it admits that it is ill equipped to handle. By turning up the Compels for an Oppressive Atmosphere, turning up the difficulty of any obstacles for Impossible Circumstances, and turning down player character resources—fate points, stress, and consequences—for Stark Desperation, the FATE System Toolkit shows how FATE Core could do horror, especially the more cosmic horror of Lovecraft’s works. These suggestions would also work nicely with the Voidcaller magic system given as an example earlier in the book.

Physically, the FATE System Toolkit is a sturdy hardback. It is well written, cleanly presented, and illustrated with some excellent artwork. This though, does not mean that it is without issue. Most RPGs involve one or more elements of the technical. Indeed the roleplaying game can be best described as ‘technical fiction’, their requiring technical information—or rules—to help the GM and his players participate in the fiction or setting. The FATE System Toolkit is more technical than fiction, which means that it is probably drier than most RPG supplements. Which does mean that FATE System Toolkit is not always the most engaging of reads and it explains why it took this reviewer more than one attempt to read through it, but to be fair, that is as much an issue with this reviewer as it is the book. In fact, it is probably more the former than the latter given that ideas in the FATE System Toolkit gives are imaginative and fun. There are, undeniably, great ideas in the FATE System Toolkit for adding this or that to a FATE Core game as well as, of course, for tinkering with different elements of said FATE Core game.

The rules and mechanics to almost every roleplaying game are written in stone. Their designers will doubtless note in the forward to said game that the game and thus the rules you have are now yours and can tinkered with or played the way that you want. Then they leave all of the effort making and implementing those changes up to you. Not so the designers of FATE Core. They give you a book that is entirely devoted to thinking about and implementing those changes to make FATE Core your game. Then they give you examples. Really good examples.

You never need anything more than FATE Core to run or create a FATE game, but the FATE System Toolkit may well be ever so useful when the GM and his players come to do so. The FATE System Toolkit is a thoughtful tinkerer’s guide to getting under the hood of FATE Core.