The Other OSR: Under the Seal of Solomon

Under the Seal of Solomon is a scenario for Into the Bronze: Sword & Sorcery RPG in Bronze Age Mesopotamia. Published by Lantern’s Faun, as the title suggests, it is set in the Bronze Age in Mesopotamia on the plains between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Here the first city states were founded, here the first men and the women strode forth to explore the lands between the first two great rivers known to mankind, to enter the silent, gloomy valleys where demons and their acolytes hid and devised their evil plans, here they would encounter the very gods of Sumer, and here they would build the first great civilisations. As those first men and women to stride the land, the Player Characters are Sumerian ‘Bounty Hunters’ , those willing to go forth and undertake dangerous tasks—explore the unknown, hunt down criminals, kill monsters, and more… In Under the Seal of Solomon, the Player Characters have a greater calling—killing demons!

In Under the Seal of Solomon, the king, Solomon himself, has selected the Player Characters for a great task. Whether the Player Characters are augurs, astronomers, sorcerers, priests, or warriors, you have been given a new role—exorcist. Demons run rampant across his kingdom, and King Solomon has chosen them to rid them from his lands. However, this is no easy task since demons cannot be killed. Instead, their physical manifestation must be defeated, the demon captured, and then conveyed to the Temple of Solomon where it can confess its corruptions. Only then will the kingdom be free of that one demon. There are seventy-two demons. If though, a demon cannot be killed, how is this task to be achieved? In addition to blessing the Exorcists with an oath to capture the demons, King Solomon bestows them with three other gifts. These are the Keys of Solomon, the Seal of Solomon, and the Jar of Solomon. The Keys work in similar fashion to the Magic Words in Into the Bronze, being written down on tablets or sheets of vellum and used against a demon. However, unlike the tablets of the Magic Worlds, the Keys of Solomon do not break, only the implements using them do. The Seal of Solomon is a ring engraved with his sigil used to seal the written Keys, whilst the Jar of Solomon is used to trap a demon before taking it to the Temple of Solomon. So think of this as Ghostbusters, but with Demons and set in Ancient Mesopotamia and not New York.

The bulk of Under the Seal of Solomon is dedicated to describing its seventy-two demons who are ranked as Kings, Dukes, Princes, Marquises, Counts, Knights, and Presidents—and some can hold more than one rank. A pleasing presentation places the hierarchy of the demons upon the steps of a ziggurat! Each demon is described in terms of its Manifestation, its Domain, and what Invocations it knows. The Domain is the power it holds over other demons and the Invocations are the powers it tempts sorcerers with. For example, Bael, King of the East, holds the Rank of King, manifests as a three-headed conglomeration of cat, toad, and man, has the Domain of “66 legions of demons”, and his Invocations include the teaching of science, bestowing of Invisibility, and the teaching of love. Attributes, Hit Points, and Damage are determined by the demon’s Rank.

In terms of support and advice, Under the Seal of Solomon suggests that a demon might be hiding amongst the population or tempting them openly as a false god, or colluding with a sorcerer. It suggests having a single demon dominate or take over a single hex, creating a location around it, in the process turning Into the Bronze into not so much a hexcrawl, but a hex clearance. The other factor that the Under the Seal of Solomon makes clear is that seventy-two demons is a lot and so the Player Characters are not the only ones to have received the blessings of King Solomon. This enables the Game Master to bring rival Exorcists into play. Lastly, Under the Seal of Solomon notes that it is set during the end of the Bronze Age, at the dawn of the Iron Age.

Physically, Under the Seal of Solomon is nicely presented, although the use of red text on black in places is not easy to read. It does need another edit.

Unfortunately, Under the Seal of Solomon is at best very light, at worst underwritten and underdeveloped. For example, it is not quite clear whether one Exorcist is holding the Keys of Solomon, the Seal of Solomon, and the Jar of Solomon and using them to fight demons or if they are divided between several Exorcists. Nor is it really clear how the Keys of Solomon work against the demons and what the user is actually dealing with them. Similarly, there is no actual adventure in Under the Seal of Solomon as its cover claims. Instead, what it gives the Game Master is a campaign set-up. It is not even a campaign framework, because there is only a beginning, and not a middle or an end. After all, what happens when the Exorcists have defeated all of the demons?

Ultimately, there is no denying that Under the Seal of Solomon is a great set-up for Bronze: Sword & Sorcery RPG in Bronze Age Mesopotamia (and indeed for any roleplaying game set in Bronze Age Mesopotamia). Unfortunately, it simply does not support the Game Master as fully as it should and leaves her with more concepts to develop and questions to answer than it really should.

—oOo—

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

Down with the Gutters

Titan City reaches beyond the sky and deep into the planet. Its soaring Empyreal Spires are home to the Plutogia, the ruling families, who know only a life of glittering beauty and untold wealth. At its heart is the Great Cannon, the greatest machine on the planet, capable of launching starships laden with rare and valuable minerals mined by the innumerable tunnels which bore into the planet’s crust. The limits of Titan City are marked by the walls of the impossibly large crater and beyond lies radioactive deserts, inhabited only by mutated beasts and half-life bandits capable of surviving the death-grey sands and poisoned atmosphere, all under a sky marked with three moons. Ten billion humans live in Titan City, many in the Undercity, amidst industrial ruins which stretch for miles and miles up and down as well as in any other direction. Here such humanity and other such outcasts—mutants and psions, survive as best they can. Enforcers ruthlessly break up any dissent or uprising from here in the Guts of the Titan City, but that is only an intermittent threat to inhabitants’ lives, their purses bled dry by the hyper-corporations and the air they breath wrapped in smog poisoned by the waste output from barely regulated factories. Under such grinding conditions, some of these Guts-dwellers make what purpose and hope they can. They join gangs, cults, rebellions, churches, anything to give them both purpose and hope. The gangs are everywhere, staking their claims to territories, making money from crime, dealing with rivals through ‘honourable’ agreements and bloody violence, trying to get bigger, better, and richer, grab all the power they can to be crime lords, not just petty gangs.

The is the setting for Gangs of Titan City, a roleplaying game of crime and consequences in a far future underworld—literally and figuratively. Published by SoulMuppet Publishing, it can be best described as BBC’s Peaky Blinders meets Games Workshop’s Necromunda in a Judge Dredd-like Mega-City One, but vertical, in which the players take of the role of Gutters in a gang which wants to grow and be feared. As Gutters, the players will direct and roleplay the lives and development of their gang over three phases of play per session. In the ‘Escalation Phase’, the gang plans its next move. In the ‘Operation Phase’, the gang enacts its plan, and in the ‘Fallout Phase’, the gang suffers the consequences of their actions, for good or ill. Grabbing a Claim will often bring a gang into conflict with a potential rival and as the gang’s domain grows so will its rivalries and the consequences of its actions. How far will a gang go before the consequences threaten to overwhelm it, let alone individual gang members, will be revealed as a Gangs of Titan City campaign progresses. And it is important to note that Gangs of Titan City does require that progress to really work. The roleplaying game is better suited to campaign play than the one-shot because the consequences are not going to be fully explored in the short term, only the long term.

Gangs of Titan City is a storytelling roleplaying game in which the players are encouraged to be bold in their storytelling and their Gutters’ actions, as well as embrace and explore the consequences of those actions. It is player-driven in that there are no set plots and much of the setting can be created during play. However, it is a roleplaying game which deals with gangsters and that means that the players will be exploring the darker, criminal side of human nature. It is not surprise that Gangs of Titan City carries warnings about its violent, traumatic themes that include body horror, injury, and death. Similarly, the inclusion of addiction and drug abuse should be no surprise either. Harm to animals is definitely a surprise, whilst as a Science Fiction roleplaying game which includes psionics, especially one of this nature, the invasion of privacy and mind control are also included as a possible issue. To be clear, Gangs of Titan City does not dwell on these or condone, but instead indicates that they can be part of the game and its play given its dark nature. Thus, the use of Safety Tools is advised, but even so, Gangs of Titan City deals with some surprisingly direct and mature themes.

The players in Gangs of Titan not only create their Player Characters or Gutters, but also their Gang. A Gang has an Archetype, three XP Prompts, which suggest activities and behaviours the gang can engage in to generate Experience Points; various details which will vary between Archetypes and add flavour rather than mechanical benefits; two Aspects or quirks, which again flavour rather than mechanical benefits; a Contact and a Rival; an Advancement, a powerful ability which gives the gang an advantage; and lastly, a Hideout connected to the Gang’s Claim and three Hazards. One hazard comes from the Gang’s Rival, one from its Hideout, and one from its Archetype. There are six Archetypes. A Consortium will make and sell anything because money equals power; a Cult worships something dark and terrible and wants more converts; an Enclave is made up of outcasts and the dispossessed trying to survive, make a space for their own, and even hit back at their oppressors; Mercenaries are guns for hire, the bigger the paycheck, the bigger the boom; Operatives work in secret, stealing, destroying, and keeping secrets; and Overlords just want to rule. Each entry gives lots of options to choose from, including names, so that there is lots of variation and the players can really make their gang their own.

Name: The Party Syndicate
Archetype: Consortium
XP Prompts: Negotiate a favourable price, force a competitor out of business, secure a supply or source
Starting Claim: Stack-Market
Core Product: Vice Peddling
Aspects: Wide-Ranging Suppliers, Catchy Slogan (“Our price, your vice”)
Consortium Gear: Emergency Funds (enough for a small bribe or two), Very Fancy Outfit for each Gutter
Consortium Hazards: City-Wide Shortage
Contact: Hekeret Tine, Corporate Stooge
Rival: Promolium Vol, Spire House Representative
Hideout: Bodega Bill’s Corner Shop
Consortium Advancements: Smugglers
Hazards: Bodega Bill’s Corner Shop gets a lot of footfall (Hideout), got Promolium Vol, Spire House Representative very drunk and got him to invest (Rival), already sold a whole load of filth (City-Wide Shortage)

A Gutter has a Class, three XP Prompts, six Approaches (or methods of dealing with a situation), Aspects (visual descriptors and quirks), Personality Traits (roleplaying prompts), a Contact and a Rival, Specialisms (skills and areas of knowledge), an Advancement, and some Gear. A Gutter always has one piece of Gear with him, plus one item related to a Specialism and one given to the Gutter by his Contact or taken from his Rival. The six Approaches range in value between -3 and +3 and are Overwhelm, Exploit, Dominate, Resolve, Calculate, and Appeal. There are eight different Classes. These are the Aberration, more or less Human; the Broker, ready to make any deal; the Bruiser, who provides muscle and close-up intimidation; Marksman, stealthy gun for hire; Mastermind, gifted liar and clever thinker; Psionicist, whose gift both marks them and gives them power; Spectre, the sneak and knife in the back; and Technomancer, combing man and machine. Like the Gangs, each of the Classes is nicely detailed with lots of elements for a player to choose from and individualise his Gutter, to which the player also assigns an array of values to the Gutter’s Approaches.

Name: Wolter Dabrurgun
Class: Spectre
XP Prompts: Deception, Stealth, Disabling Security
Approaches:
Overwhelm 0 Exploit +2 Dominate -1
Resolve +1 Calculate +1 Appeal 0
Aspects: Pale Skin, Goggles
Personality Traits: Careful, Manipulative
Contact: The Bird’s Foot, Alleged Master Thief
Rival: Horvas, Data-Mind Scavenger
Specialisms: Security measures, Cyber Splicing
Advancements: Are you sure about that?
Gear: Cybernetic Interface, Lockbreakers, Climbing Kit

Mechanically, Gangs of Titan City is simple. If a Gutter wants to undertake an action, his player rolls two six-sided dice and applies the modifier from the appropriate Approach. A roll of ten or more indicates a Full Success, between seven and nine a Partial Success, and six or less, a Failure. Essentially, the equivalent of ‘Yes’, ‘Yes, but’, and ‘No’. Some abilities, including Specialisms, allow an additional die to be rolled, but only two are kept. Circumstances can add a single +1 bonus and rerolls of single dice are possible if the Gutter takes a point of Desperation.

Combat uses the same core mechanic. It tends to favour the Gutters initially; opponents tending only to act or have a Reaction when a Gutter’s player rolls a Partial Success or Failure on an attack. When this happens, the player makes a Resistance roll to avoid or withstand the effects of the attack. Essentially, Gangs of Titan City is player-facing. Once a Gutter starts suffering damage, combat can get nasty. A Gutter only has three Damage Boxes, which are filled in with Scratches and Wounds, and if all three are filled in, it becomes a Critical Wound. Further damage can inflict Desperation, Trauma, or kill the Gutter. If a Gutter has too much Desperation at end of the three phases of Gangs of Titan City’s play, there are multiple consequences that include burning a Contact, suffering a Trauma—which might be a Hatred, an Obsession, or a Weariness, and adding to the Gang’s Danger Table.

Gangs of Titan City’s rules also detail weapons, vehicles, and other gear in quite light detail. More detail is paid to Pharma-Serums, which are readily available across the city. These all have drawbacks, but provide an extra die for certain checks depending upon the Pharma-Serum. In terms of improvement, both Gang and Gutters can acquire further Advancements if they have sufficient Experience Points, which are gained from tagging their XP Prompts under dangerous circumstances. For the Gutter, a player can choose a new Advancement or Specialism from the Gutter’s Class, increase an Approach, or gain an Alteration. Alterations can be Cybernetic Augmentations, Gene-Mods, or Psionic Disciplines. Gaining Alterations can be easier for some Classes rather than others. For example, the Psion will only have access to Psionic Disciplines, but members of the other Classes can obtain the Cybernetic Augmentations and Gene-Mods—for a price and likely some roleplaying too. The players can spend their Gang’s Experience Points to take an Advancement for its Archetype or improve one of its Squads. In addition, a Gang’s Hideout can be improved with a new Feature or have an existing Feature upgraded.

Gangs of Titan City has a distinct Cycle of Play consisting of three phases. In the ‘Escalation Phase’, the gang plans its next move. In the ‘Operation Phase’, the gang enacts its plan, and in the ‘Fallout Phase’, the gang suffers the consequences of their actions, for good or ill. Each phase consists of several steps. For example, in the ‘Escalation Phase’ there are three steps. In the ‘Montage Phase’, the players explore what their Gutters are doing on a day-to-day basis, followed by a roll on ‘The Event Table’ which brings in a Rival or Faction into the story for that Cycle of Play, and then the Gang gets together to decide on its next ‘Gang Moves’. The ‘Operation Phase’ is when the Gutters go out and seize control of a Claim or Asset, launch a pre-emptive strike to remove a Hazard from the Gang’s Danger Table, or perform a job or contract for another Gang or faction, and this is when the Gutters will go out and actively, physically pursue the Gang’s aims. In the ‘Fallout Phase’, the Gutters and their players will resolve objectives, treat wounds, determine if the Gang’s actions has made sufficient ‘Noise’ to attract the authorities, check income, spend Experience Points, and more. All of this is intended to be played within a single session, although it need not be, and fundamentally player driven, with outside elements randomly generated by the Narrator. So, there are no set plots and the players need to be proactive more than reactive.

Gangs of Titan City is played on two levels. One is the tactical, often the individual level, when the Gutters are acting directly and the players are roleplaying them, often in the field. The other is strategic, when the Gutters plan their actions, direct their Squads, handle their Assets and Claims, and so on. Thus, there is a degree of resource management to the play, whether that is dealing with Assets and Claims, but also Debt. Debt represents how far a Gang’s resources are spread out or extended and works the same way as Desperation does for the individual Gutter. If a Gang has too much Debt at end of the three phases of Gangs of Titan City’s play, there are multiple consequences that include burning an Asset, suffering a Hardship—which might be being Watched, Spread thin, or suffering from Loose Lips, and adding to the Gang’s Danger Table. Whilst Desperation and Debt track the consequences of the Gutters’ actions on the personal and collective levels, they both come together in the Danger Table. Entries can be added to the Danger Table because of both, but also due to Noise generated during the ‘Operation Phase’, taking Claims and assets from rival Gangs and Factions or doing jobs for them, and so on. As the Danger Table is filled with Leads, Jobs, and Hazards, these become storytelling elements which randomly come back into play and the Gutters have to deal with immediately. The entries on the Danger Table are never hidden, so there is always a problem or difficulty looming over the Gutters and their Gang, waiting to escalate into something that they must deal with immediately.

However, Gangs of Titan City does require some set-up by the Narrator. Not necessarily a great deal, but it is not obvious from the outset. This includes creating a starting sector or two and then populating it with themes, factions, and a starting dynamic. Plus, an Asset web needs be drawn, connecting the players’ Gang and their Assets to the previous owners of those Assets, because every Asset has a previous owner! This of course, builds connections for the Gang, for both good and bad. As a campaign progresses, this Asset web will grow and grow. Fortunately, the Narrator’s role is strongly supported throughout with almost a third of the devoted to helping her run Gangs of Titan City. The advice is good, including letting the players be cool, be open about the risks that their Gutters and Gang face, and almost in adversarial terms, that the Narrator can always get the Gutters and their Gang later if they are successful in their plans now! This does not mean that the Narrator is expected to be adversarial, but rather the successes of the Gutters and their Gang will come back to proverbially bite them through the Hazards and other entries on the Danger Table. There are also examples of almost everything that the Narrator can bring into play or use as inspiration, including Leads and Jobs. Various sector types are discussed as are the Enforcers who will act when the Gang causes too much Noise, and there are numerous example Gangs and Factions given too, ready to populate the sector.

Rounding out Gangs of Titan City is an overview of the City of Plutogia, its major powers, and its technology. There is high degree of technology and gear being used over and over, and is not that far advanced from that of the twenty-first century. Advances (or not) include the Data-Brains, the brains of both animals and humans preserved and used as motherboards, wired into electronic devices, including computers, as well as A.I.s, laser and beam weaponry, and space travel, but it is unlikely that the Gutters will have access to that.

Physically, Gangs of Titan City is in general well written and presented. The artwork is scrappy, but works well enough. The writing does suffer from being a little too succinct in places, but the main problem is the lack of index. This might not be an issue in another roleplaying game, but Gangs of Titan City does have a lot of moving parts and interplay between the Gutters, their Gang, other Factions, and the consequences of the actions of both Gutters and Gang. What might have helped is a flowchart for the phases of the roleplaying game’s play that was readily accessible, perhaps placed inside the back cover of the book.

Gangs of Titan City is not a roleplaying game that everyone is going to want to play given its subject matter, dealing with crime and having the Player Characters—the Gutters—commit criminal and direct criminal acts. However, whilst Gangs of Titan City does do that, it never lets them avoid the consequences of committing or directing such actions, and the roleplaying game is about those consequences as much as it is the criminal acts themselves. This balance makes for great storytelling with both the players and the Narrator expected to engage with and encourage actions and consequences, whilst at the same time making the players care their Gutters’ decisions on a broader stage. For the mature gaming group willing to commit to the time it needs, Gangs of Titan City is a great toolkit for telling stories and drama in the dirty underbelly of the tallest city in the galaxy.

—oOo—

SoulMuppet Publishing will be at UK Games Expo

from Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th, 2023.

The Other OSR: Into the Bronze

Published by Lantern’s Faun, Into the Bronze: Sword & Sorcery RPG in Bronze Age Mesopotamia is a minimalist roleplaying game built on the architecture of Into the Odd. As the title suggests, it is set in the Bronze Age in Mesopotamia on the plains between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Here the first city states were founded, here the first men and the women strode forth to explore the lands between the first two great rivers known to mankind, to enter the silent, gloomy valleys where demons and their acolytes hid and devised their evil plans, here they would encounter the very gods of Sumeria, and here they would build the first great civilisations. As those first men and women to stride the land, the Player Characters are Sumerian ‘Bounty Hunters’ those willing to go forth and undertake dangerous tasks—explore the unknown, hunt down criminals, kill monsters, and more… In return, their wicker baskets will be filled with great wealth—treasures, secrets, and favours. With their treasures, their wealth, and their secrets, they not only have the potential to make their mark on the world, but go onto to stamp on the world by building and constructing civilisation around them.

Into the Bronze: Sword & Sorcery RPG in Bronze Age Mesopotamia includes thirty-six backgrounds, a flexible narrative system for enchantments, a simple system for building and construction, exploration, encounter creation, god creation, and a bestiary. A Player Character or Sumerian in Into the Bronze is lightly defined—and needs to be! A Sumerian is a fragile thing, weapons and monsters both being deadly, so a Sumerian can be quickly and easily replaced. Sumerian has three Ability scores—Strength, Dexterity, and Willpower, his Hit Protection, some Obsidian (the currency), a Background which provides two Items of Equipment. Depending on the Background, a Sumerian may have Magic Words, though they count as an Item. To create a Sumerian, a player rolls three six-sided dice for each Ability and keeps the highest two, a six-sided die each for his Hit Protection and Obsidian, and then cross references the values of his Hit Protection and Obsidian to determine his Background. A Sumerian also has a weapon of his choice, a single torch, and his Omens. Garments and physical features can also be rolled for. Rolling up a Sumerian takes minutes at most.

Harran
Background: Beer Brewer
Omens: In the night Harran was born, they saw sandstorms (Reckless/Sanguine)
Physical Feature: Has a falcon
Strength 6
Dexterity 11
Will 9
Hit Points: 3
Obsidian: 3
Item: stone spoon (1.5 m), torch, yeast, spear
Garment: Black Linen

Mechanically, Into the Bronze is simple. To undertake an action, a Sumerian player rolls a twenty-sided die, attempting to roll equal to or less than an ability. When it comes to combat, Initiative is handled narratively, with the Game Master foreshadowing events around the Sumerians to both engage them and determine when they act. Otherwise, mechanically, combat involves rolling for damage rather than to hit. Every attack hits and does damage, rolled on a six-sided die. All weapons ‘explode’ and allow an extra die to be rolled and added to the total if a six is rolled. Heavier weapons explode on a four, five, or six. Damage is inflicted on a Sumerian’s Hit Protection and then his Strength. Any time a Sumerian suffers Strength damage, his player must make a test against his Strength, failure indicating that he has suffered a critical hit. The effects of this are determined by a roll of an eight-sided die on the Critical Hit Table, and can be anything from a scar, teeth being knocked out, loss of a limb, all the way up to death. The life of the average Sumerian who ventures out from the safety of the city is likely to be nasty, brutish, and short.

Another effect of combat and other situations is that a Sumerian may suffer Conditions. Unfortunately, these are not given in ‘Annex 1’ as Into the Bronze states, but are attached to the character sheet for the game. Many of these Conditions also cause a player to roll with Disadvantage. This is not explained in Into the Bronze either, but essentially this should be taken to refer to the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanics common to other roleplaying games, first seen in Dunegons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. In play, Conditions also take up slots in a Sumerian’s Inventory, much like Mausritter. Lastly, items such as torches, lanterns, and the like all have a Usage die, which is rolled on six-sided die, one use being marked each time a player rolls four, five, or six.

Some Backgrounds such as Archivist, Astrologer, Enuuch, Scribe, Mathematician, and Tapestry Weaver have access to Magic Words, and so through Divine Intonation, the Language of the Sacred. At the start of play, a Sumerian with such knowledge knows two words, such as Treason, Clay, Bones, or Steps, but can learn more. The player of such a Sumerian describes the effect he wants using the Words his Sumerian knows and casts the combination automatically as an enchantment. However, the Game Master determines the cost of casting the enchantment in terms of Hit Protection, or Strength if the caster has no Hit Protection. For example, Gizzal the Enuuch knows the Words Treason and Shadow. Chased by some bandits, he calls upon the gods to direct the bandits’ shadows to betray them and so confuse them as to the direction they are heading in. The Game Master decides that since this is affecting several bandits, Gizzal will lose two points of Hit Protection, but he will get away from the bandits. The Enchantments rules are simple and engaging to use, encouraging player inventiveness, whilst at the same time being far more narrativist than a roleplaying like Into the Bronze usually would be.

More than half of Into the Bronze is about building the world around the Sumerians. This includes elements such as weather and travel, but much is devoted to creating the terrain nearby for the Sumerians to explore and then populating these hexes with encounters across steppes, swamps, deserts, and mountains, and adventure sites. These are backed up with a lengthy table of adventure hooks, a table for creating the gods who walk among men, and a bestiary of classic creatures, such as Ghouls, Griffins, and Minotaurs. These are joined by monsters and creatures out of Sumerian myth, such as the Ekkimu, unburied bodies who have returned as demons and hunt in packs of seven to hunt for human flesh.

Physically, Into the Bronze is decently presented with a range of Public Domain Artwork and laid out in an exciting style. In places, the artwork is poorly handled though, and worse, the roleplaying game is underdeveloped. For example, the lack of explanation for the Disadvantage mechanic, whether or not there is a corresponding Advantage mechanic, and the missing Conditions. An experienced Game Master will be able to address this issue, but having to do so, adds more effort than is necessary in running the game—if only a little. In terms of running Into the Bronze, the Game Master will need a fair bit of effort with Into the Bronze given the brevity of the rules, but at least a bibliography is included for further research. Certainly, the Game Master will need a few more monsters and threats to throw at her players. As a framework, it is potentially too sparse, but that does mean there is room aplenty for input by both the Game Master and her players.

Despite its flaws, Into the Bronze is a fantastic little toolkit for running games in a version of ancient Mesopotamia that the roleplaying game provides a means to create and the Player Characters to then explore and go onto building civilisation. Simple and easy to play, Into the Bronze: Sword & Sorcery RPG in Bronze Age Mesopotamia is an enjoyably nasty, brutish, and short roleplaying game set at the dawn of civilisation.

—oOo—

Into the Bronze: Sword & Sorcery RPG in Bronze Age Mesopotamia is available for sale in print here or in PDF here.

Hexagonal Horror

Best Left Buried is a fantasy horror roleplaying game in which characters venture into the crypts and caves below the earth in search of secrets and treasures and there face unnameable monsters, weird environments, eldritch magic, and more… Whilst deep underground, they will be under constant stress, face fears hitherto unknown, and the likelihood is that they will return from the depths physically and mentally scarred, the strangeness they have seen and the wounds they have suffered separating them from those not so foolish as to descend into the dark. Published by Soul Muppet Publishing, one of the more accessible versions of the roleplaying game is Best Left Buried: The ZiniEdition or A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Rules because it presents  its contents in discrete, self-contained chapters or ‘Zinis’. This includes an anthology too of fifteen mini-dungeons and mini-locales reduced to the ‘Zini’ format, just four pages per entry, many of which can be found in this A Doom To Speak Megabundle.

Released at DragonMeet 2021, A Garden Most Foul: A rot-choked fever-nightmare adventure for Best Left Buried is the newest zini, another four-page pamphlet scenario. This takes the Player Characters into the Garden of the Demon Postulix, deep in the wilderness, part of an expedition led by Lord Amador Gregory to discover the Tree of Life and its miraculous fruit. It begins with the Player Characters, having been told that the Demon Postulix grants eternal life, standing at the entrance to a low tunnel which runs through the high hedge of thick thorns surrounding the garden. The inside consists of a mini-hexcrawl of a single hex containing seven smaller hexes. The terrain under foot and the general conditions is mostly foul—as the title promises—ranging from thick, boot-sucking mud to fields of jagged boulders which almost seem to want to bite passers-by. In between are landscapes which resemble acres of rolling slabs of muscle and fat, copses of trees from which hang strange pods, a fungus infested cave, abscesses containing hives of rotten insects, and freshly tilled fields sown with fragments of bone…

A Garden Most Foul is a relatively light mini-adventure and there is a sparseness to it—no surprise given its length. Nevertheless, it possesses a weird and disturbing atmosphere, which comes of its disparately themed hexes being mashed up against each other. The location is also sparsely populated, with just the one NPC, two singular monsters, and the one monster type. There is room too for the Game Master to expand the fungus infested cave, perhaps connecting it into any one of the fungal-themed and Mushroom Men populated adventures written for the Old School Renaissance. There are moments too when the Cryptdiggers will find themselves being hunted, likely leading to clash between a great abomination and the unwholesome beast it rides. The story though suffers from a paucity of plot and what there is perhaps a little too obvious. Plus the personalities involved are underwritten. On the plus side, this does mean that there is plenty of scope in the zini for the Game Master to expand and develop A Garden Most Foul where necessary, whether that is expanding the plot or adding an NPC or two—with there being room aplenty for both.

Physically, A Garden Most Foul is also fairly unpossessing. The only illustration is on the front cover and is that of the two singular monsters—an abomination and the beast it rides. It nicely captures the utterly unwholesome nature of both. The zini is well written and easy to grasp, so that the Game Master could prepare with very minimal preparation.

A Garden Most Foul is short, weird, and self-contained. All features which make it easy to run, with very little preparation time—though perhaps in terms of plot and personalities, if the Game Master has some time, then she should develop both. The minimal preparation time and the self-contained nature means that for Best Left Buried, it is incredibly easy to pick up and get to the table. It also means that it is easily dropped into any distant wilderness location and it can be just as easily adapted to the fantasy roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice, especially ones which embrace the weird and the horrifying—for example, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or Shadow of the Demon Lord. Simple and sparse, A Garden Most Foul: A rot-choked fever-nightmare adventure for Best Left Buried is ready to fill in a space when the Game Master needs it, or waiting for development to bring out little more personality and plot.

Zini Dungeons

Best Left Buried is a fantasy horror roleplaying game in which characters venture into the crypts and caves below the earth in search of secrets and treasures and there face unnameable monsters, weird environments, eldritch magic, and more… Whilst deep underground, they will be under constant stress, face fears hitherto unknown, and the likelihood is that they will return from the depths physically and mentally scarred, the strangeness they have seen and the wounds they have suffered separating them from those not so foolish as to descend into the dark. Published by Soul Muppet Publishing, there are several versions of Best Left Buried. Although all three contain the same basic rules, they vary according to the extra information they contain. So Best Left Buried: The Zini Edition offers a lightweight, basic version intended for ease of play; Best Left Buried: Cryptdigger’s Guide To Survival includes more information for both player and information as well as everything in Best Left Buried: The Zini Edition; and Best Left Buried: Deluxe Edition contains everything plus background and extra rules.

Best Left Buried: The Zini Edition or A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Rules is probably the most accessible, presenting its contents in discrete, self-contained chapters or ‘Zinis’. The idea here is to minimise page-flipping and the format has also been applied to its companion, A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons. This is an anthology of fifteen mini-dungeons and mini-locales reduced to the ‘Zini’ format, just four pages per entry, written by a diverse number of writers working in the Old School Renaissance hobby. Each entry adheres to the same format, a title page providing an illustration of the dungeon’s main antagonist, a quick introduction to the dungeon, a page listing each of the monsters and any treasure to be found in the dungeon, and then a double-page spread showing the plans or maps of the dungeon, building, or locale with its room descriptions circling the map. The result is generally easy to read, though anyone used to traditional maps with their numbered locations may need to make a slight adjustment to get used to the self-contained design.

A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons is bookended by maps. It 
opens with a combined map and table of contents for the anthology’s content. The map is of the Eastern Isles, part of Soul Muppet Publishing’s The Thirteen Duchies of Lendal setting. It closes with a full map of The Thirteen Duchies of Lendal which shows an oddity that the Eastern Isles are actually in the west of Lendal. The map at the front of the book does at least mark the Eastern Isles’ major duchies along with the locations of the fifteen dungeons and their page numbers. This though highlights the issue of the lack background given in the anthology to either the Eastern Isles or The Thirteen Duchies of Lendal. A Zini devoted to either would have provided some context to the fifteen dungeons in A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons.

The dungeons or locations or encounters vary wildly and weirdly, from caves occupied by alien creatures from the stars and the unknown and halls and houses fallen to the macabre and the magical to islands which breath and swallow and ravines stalked by insectoid monsters. For example, ‘Hearteater’s Hall’ is a rural Elven manor house, home to the late Lord Holston, a Blood Elf who has and regressed into savagery and a meaty diet with servants who would love to have the Cryptdiggers to dinner, whilst ‘Like Family’ details Remly House, a manor home to a coven of mages which has not been heard from recently and so perhaps might be worth investigating or even burglarising… The Game Master will have fun with a particular NPC in this scenario, a talking book and there are lots of little details here for the player characters to dig into. Elsewhere ‘The Prophet’s Valley’ offers visions from the ninth child of a Gorgon at the end of a ravine—or plenty to steal and ‘Transmuter’s Tower’ is home to a noted wizard and sage who has not been seen since a calamitous sound was heard from within its walls. Other dungeons include tombs and caves and temples, and so on, some located in jungles, some in ravines, some by the coast.

Perhaps the two dungeons in A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons that stand out are not dungeons at all, but rather mini-hexcrawls which give the monsters and situations described room to breathe. Literally in the case of ‘Maw Isle’, and literally not in ‘White Hair’. ‘Maw Isle’ is part island, part tentacular monster, that hunts and crunches ships. The seas around the island seem to rise and fall as the island breathes even as shipwrecked survivors do their best to get by until rescue arrives or another ship presents a means of getting off the island. ‘White Hair’ is even stranger, a village, the surrounding hills, grottoes and tombs under a rain of white hair that falls each time a singular dragon takes to the sky. Exploring the mini-region exposes the Cryptdiggers to more and more of the strange hair and as it more and more gets everywhere, they get infected by it and they begin to transform… This is delightfully weird set-up, the infection driving the Cryptdiggers to discover what is going on.

In general, A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons provides a good mix of dungeons, houses, caves, and other adventuring location. There is always a sense danger to them, something not quite right about them, whether it is a mad researcher bent on obtaining hidden lore at all costs, alien scorpions attempting to conquer the world, or a fertility cult blasé about its sacrifices. The Zini format also leads to a sense of claustrophobia to the dungeons, if not the mini-hexcrawls. What they are missing though is context, the reason why they are there and, in many cases, why the Cryptdiggers would be interested in visiting such places. Now of course, the Game Master and her players can come up with motivations for the Player Characters, but there is no denying that one or two more, or even some, hooks would have helped to draw the Cryptdiggers into each location. 

Similarly, some information about the Eastern Isles would have been useful too, adding more context to the playing area for the Game Master and her players. Rounding out the anthology is a guide to adapting the monsters in A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons to Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games. This nicely expands the utility of the book and its contents. There are innumerable roleplaying games for which the contents of the anthology would work, whether that is Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or Mörk Borg.

Physically, A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons is a neat and tidy book, light on artwork, but what there is, is decent and the maps are all very clear.  Although in many cases, the Game Master and her players will have to supply context and motivations for the Cryptdiggers, A Doom to Speak – The Crypt Collection 1: Dungeons provides fifteen solid adventuring locations for a Best Left Buried game. They work as one-shots, but are flexible enough to work into a campaign or even be adapted to the dark fantasy roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice, but whatever the choice of game, they should each provide a good session’s worth of play. 

Friday Fantasy: The Touch of the Beast

The Touch of the Beast is a low-Level Old School Renaissance scenario published by SoulMuppetPublishing, best known for the retroclone, BestLeft Buried. Inspired by the eighteenth-century French fairy tale, La Belle et la Bête, and the 1991 Walt Disney film, Beauty and the Beast, it is a dark tale of forgotten history and obsessive horror on the eve of the French Revolution. This period setting makes the scenario a little difficult to use in the more traditional fantasy roleplaying of the Old School Renaissance, but there are roleplaying games with which it will work. These include both 17th Century Minimalist and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying, as well as All For One: Régime Diabolique, though with some difficulty. Further, because The Touch of the Beast is stated up for Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons, the scenario is relatively easy to adapt to the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice.

The scenario is set in France in 1789 during the Ancien Régime as the peasants and bourgeoisie of the Third Estate drive the nobility of the Second Estate out of their feudal holdings. Thus, castles and chateaus are being left empty, so ripe for plundering! One such chateau lies outside of the village of Alsace, rumoured to be still left untouched by the villagers and by robbers. It is also rumoured to be occupied by some terrible beast, but no one in these enlightened times believes such twaddle. Two occupants of the village take an interest in both the castle. One is an ex-soldier who wants them to confirm the existence of the castle and determine whether it can safely be plundered, the other is a young woman who claims that the castle and the great beast which resides within its walls are cursed, and that this curse is spreading… She wants an end to this curse before foolish bandits or robbers blunder into the castle and inadvertently unleash the curse on first the villagers, then beyond…

Getting to the castle is an arduous trek through increasingly worsening weather; getting into the castle and wandering around its halls and grounds will prove to be less of a challenge. In fact, the adventurers are free to wander around the castle at will, which seems to be uninhabited, but filled with the signs of it having been inhabited. The furnishings and fittings, decorations, gewgaws and nick-nacks are all indicative of the wealth lavished on the castle and its grounds by the ‘former’ occupant of the castle. The castle—consisting of three storeys—harpsichords, fine wallpaper, fancy dresses, porcelain plumbing, paintings, chandelier, and more. There are odd, even weird things to be found in the castle too, such as a room filled with wax, a thick red carpet which seems to sway in a non-existent breeze, and a wardrobe which spews clothing.

All of this is mapped out storey by storey, but then room by room. So The Touch of the Beast includes a map of the grounds, each of the castle’s three floors, plus its cellars. Then accompanying each entry in the room by room description is an excerpt from the main map showing both the room and its adjacent corridors and rooms. These sub-maps are typically on the same page as the room descriptions, although on occasion they only appear on the opposite page. What this means is that although The Touch of the Beast is perhaps a little cramped in places and a little busy, the Game Master has been given an easy means of tracking the progress of the player characters through the castle and its grounds. In effect, this is not just room by room, corridor by corridor, but page by page, and all this without the need for constant reference back to the main storey maps by the Game Master. On the downside, the likelihood is that The Touch of the Beast would be a much shorter book without this admittedly useful map feature.

Now despite appearances, the castle is not uninhabited. Strange creatures lurk in certain rooms—and lurk is important here, because The Touch of the Beast is not a scenario with a random encounter table. Instead, the behaviour of the inhabitants is reactive in nature, responding to the actions of the player characters, and to support this, the scenario includes certain triggers which will cause the inhabitants to act. When this happens, certain of the inhabitants will actively hunt the player characters. For this though, the Game Master will need not one ordinary deck of cards, but four! And from these decks, the Game Master will just use the Jack, Queen, King, and Ace cards to form four separate decks. One of these is the Starter Deck and whenever the player characters make a noise in certain locations in and around the castle, the Game Master will draw a card. If the Ace is drawn, the associated inhabitant of the castle reacts and begins hunting the player characters, certain seemingly random events such as all naked flames flaring or time seeming to skip. Then the next deck is added to the current deck, and so on and so on. Make too much noise, in too many locations, and draw too many cards in the wrong order, and the player characters may themselves being hunted by multiple inhabitants!

Unfortunately, having four separate decks is possibly too much to ask of the Game Master. It is a pity that no other means of handling the inhabitants’ actions is suggested and likewise, it is disappointing that the Game Master is not warned ahead of time of the nature of the set-up which the scenario requires. Also, the grounds of the castle do feel underwritten in comparison to the castle itself, and despite the castle being depicted as having walls and towers, they are not described.

In terms of theme, The Touch of the Beast is based on both the French fairy tale, La Belle et la Bête and the 1991 Walt Disney film, Beauty and the Beast. So yes, there is a curse which can be lifted as per both sources of inspiration, but the main monsters are more inspired by the Walt Disney, being greatly weird and twisted versions. It does seem a pity though that the corridor of grasping arms from 1936 film by Jean Cocteau was not included. In terms of design, The Touch of the Beast echoes a number of classic dungeon designs. Perhaps the earliest is X2 Castle Amber for Expert Dungeons & Dragons with its madhouse feel, but S1 Tomb of Horrors for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition follows as a close second for the design of its touch or interfere at your peril, no Saving Throw, you are dead, nature of its traps. It also feels similar to several scenarios for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying in that devices from other times and places can be found within the walls of the castle.

Physically, The Touch of the Beast is scrappily presented and does need an edit in places. It could also have been better organised—especially at the start—to help the Game Master prepare the scenario. The artwork though, is decent, and the cartography is big and easy to read. It is also clear that some thought has been put into organising the maps and room descriptions to make the scenario easy to run.

The Touch of the Beast is a fairly simple scenario, more weird and creepy rather than out and out horror. The combination of its period setting and use of familiar fairy tale as inspiration serves to make it accessible—though the scenario does lay a trap or two for anyone who is too familiar—but not necessarily easy to use in a campaign or setting. That said, the scenario is relatively easy to adapt to a Game Master’s campaign or setting of her choosing.