Unparalleled Alternatives

For many British gamers, their first encounter with Luther Arkwright came with Imagine #14, the June, 1984 issue of TSR (UK)’s house magazine. The issue gave an introduction to the character and to the seminal and award-winning comic strip by Bryan Talbot, The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, as well as presenting a scenario, ‘The Fire Opal of Set’, written for use with Classic Traveller and TSR, Inc.’s own Star Frontiers, which came complete with pre-generated player characters that could be played as a gaming introduction to the setting. The setting for the comic is not one Earth, but many, across which a war is being fought between one parallel, Zero-Zero, and the Disruptors. The latter seek to destabilise and control multiple parallels, typically through advanced technologies and the backing of totalitarian governments, to their own ends. Zero-Zero, an advanced scientific utopia, seeks to prevent this, its primary agent being Luther Arkwright, an escaped Disruptor trainee, who as the next step in Human evolution is unique in all the parallels and can psychically transport himself across the parallels.

The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, recently reprinted in a collected volume, is exquisitely drawn, its setting and central character a nod to the works of Michael Moorcock and the swinging television adventure series of the 1960s—The Avengers, The Champions, Adam Adamant Lives, and so on. Originally conceived in the 1970s, it would not be fully published until 1989 and go on to receive multiple awards as well as a sequel, Heart of Empire, or the Legacy of Luther Arkwright, a decade later. An audio adaptation was released in 2005. In terms of gaming, 23rd Parallel Games published The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, in 1992, but unfortunately it was ill received. More recently, the second iteration of Hogshead Publishing, announced that Zero-Zero, an RPG based on The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and using the d20 System, was due to be published in 2004, but it did not come to fruition. Then in 2015, The Design Mechanism, the Canadian publisher best known for RuneQuest 6 released Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels.

Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels though, is not a roleplaying game in its own right, but supplement that requires the use of RuneQuest 6. It casts the player characters as agents of Valhalla Project, a programme directed by the computer W.O.T.A.N on Zero-Zero, to monitor and counter Disruptor operations. Each is highly gifted being trained experts in their field and in many cases also possessing psychic powers, perhaps being in the progenitors of homo novus, the next step in human evolution. Whether they are indigenous to a particular parallel, able to operate through empathic links forged with other selves on other parallels, or shunting between parallels via advanced technology, the agents of Valhalla will be participating in missions that will ultimately lead into the events of the first series—roughly analogous the early 1980s.

Character or Agent Zero-Zero creation in Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels follows the step-by-step process as RuneQuest 6 and other Basic Roleplaying derived RPGs. A player rolls dice for his attributes and from them derives the starting values for his skills. Then the player has three sets of points to assign—one for his Culture, derived from his Parallel Type and his Social Type; one for his Career; and lastly a set to spend as he likes, representing his training by Valhalla. Several new skills included, whilst others are updated, to reflect the fact that the many Earths of  Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels are far more technologically advanced than the Bronze Age of RuneQuest 6.

It should be noted that the character creation process is not an easy one. Primarily this is due to having to flip back and forth between Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels and the RuneQuest 6 rulebook. This is exacerbated by the supplement’s slightly poor organisation and the need to work out which skills an Agent needs to represent the selected background.

Our sample Zero-Zero Agent is Lucretia Raslo, an airship mechanic on Parallel 13.16.94. Her family runs shipyards in New New York, building and repairing airships. Lucretia followed in her father’s footsteps, her mechanical aptitude being noted at an early age, and became a mechanic and engineer. This was despite her mother’s efforts to teach her the social niceties. With little chance of finding an eligible suitor for Lucretia, her mother’s attention turned to her younger daughter. This left Lucretia to work where she is happiest, that is, with machinery. Her knack for diagnosing and solving mechanical problems—represented by her Technical Trait—was what brought her to the attention of Valhalla Project Agents.

Lucretia Raslo
STR 8 CON 10 SIZ 10 DEX 11 INT 17 POW 16 CHA 11

Action Points: 3 Damage Modifier: -1D2 Experience Modifier: 0 Healing Rate: 2
Build: Heavy Height: 161 cm Weight: 67 kg
Hit Points
Head 4 Chest 6 Abdomen 5 L. Arm 3 R. Arm 3 L. Leg 4 R. Leg 4
Luck Points: 3
Prana Points: 16
Tenacity Points: 16
Movement Rate: 6
Strike Rank: 13

Standard Skills:
Athletics 19%, Brawn 53%, Conceal 27%, Customs 80%, Dance 37%, Deceit 28%, Endurance 45%, Evade 28%, First Aid 28%, Home Parallel 39%, Influence 22%, Insight 33%, Native Tongue 70%, Perception 48%, Sing 27%, Stealth 28%, Swim 18%, Unarmed 19%, Willpower 52%

Professional Skills:
Commerce 43%, Craft (Blacksmithing) 57%, Craft (Embroidery) 37%,Drive (Land Vehicle) 42%, Electronics 53%, Engineering 64%, Gambling 58%, Mechanisms 73%, Pilot (Airship) 44%, Streetwise 26%

Passions
Loyalty to Society 53%
Love (Sister) 47%
Hate (Gang) 53%
Dependency (Gambling) 20%

Parallel Type: Industrial Age
Sociological Type: Manufacturing

Trait
Technical

In addition to the various changes to the skills to reflect the width of technology found across the parallels, the Magic Points of RuneQuest 6 are replaced with Prana Points that fuel the setting’s Psionics and Mystic talents. Each Agent also has an attribute new to RuneQuest 6. This is Tenacity. It is equal to an Agent’s Power attribute and works like the mental or psychological equivalent of his Hit Points. Loss of Tenacity Points from shocks or sanity-shaking events can lead to an Agent loosing his mind.

Further, each Agent has one or more Traits that brought to the attention of the Valhalla Project and lead to his recruitment. These can be as simple as Charming, Polyglot, Quick, and Unshakeable, and most of these provide a base advantage rather than require the use an Agent’s Prana Points. Conversely, the rules for Psionics are more complex, though only slightly so, and do require the use of an Agent’s Prana Points. Once an Agent has rolled, or selected, the Psionic Trait, it opens up further options—Disciplines such as Biokinesis, Empathy, Telekinesis, Telepathy, and so on. Each Discipline possesses a number of Talents. For example, the Talents for Telepathy include Mental Scan, Mental Shield, Mind Probe, Telepathy, Thought Implant, and Psychic Wrack. Each Discipline will have its own skill, for example, Discipline (Biokinesis), that is rolled whenever a Talent is used from said Discipline.

As long as an Agent has Prana Points to spend and can make the appropriate Discipline checks, he is relatively free to use his Psionic abilities as he wants. What stops him is the Psionic Intensity he has for each Discipline. Equal to one twentieth of his Discipline, it governs the number of Talents he can use at any one time as well as the effects of some Talents. For example, the Focus Force Talent can be used to inflict damage equal to the user’s Intensity, whereas the protective value provided by Mental Shield is also equal to his Intensity.

Another option, representing the route taken by Luther Arkwright himself in the comics, is that of Mysticism. Consisting of a number of Paths of Enlightenment, such as Focal Yoga, Shaolin Monastics, and Transcendentalist Meditation, each of which have their own Talents. Where the Psionics of Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels presents a whole new set of powers and mechanics for RuneQuest 6, the rules for Mysticism in this supplement function exactly as they do in RuneQuest 6. It is possible for an Agent to begin the game already on one of these Paths of Enlightenment, but their primary use is twofold. Initially as abilities for NPCs—Luther Arkwright has them, but later on, as a campaign progresses, as something for the Agents to aspire to.

As powerful as Psionics and Mystic can be in Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels, their use, along with the difficulties and dangers of combating the machinations of the Disruptors, places a lot of stress upon an Agent and makes them prone to certain Dependencies. These can be as mundane as Alcoholism or Gaming (gambling), or as antisocial as Stealing or Voyeurism, or worse. Every Agent begins play with at least one Dependency—and can have more—and the strength of a Dependency also weakens his Tenacity, that is, his mental fortitude. Each Dependency has a percentage value that works like a skill, but any checks against it are ones that an Agent wants to fail lest it grow like any other skill. Again, this is another reflection of the comic series in which the characters, including Luther himself, suffer from addictions, whether drugs or behaviours. In game though, the effect of any Dependency will primarily be part of a scenario or ongoing campaign. These rules also mark Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels as a setting for mature players.

Although Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels has to encompass a wide range of technology, much like the comic, it places an emphasis upon steampunk and clockpunk devices. This does not mean that other technologies are not ignored as various examples of alchemical and chemical, psionic and multiversal, and computer and nanotech technology are also given. For the Agent who likes to tinker, there are rules for creating devices of their own, including vehicles and firearms. These feed into the supplement’s new rules for handling firearms and vehicles, which again encompass a wide array of types and technologies.

Having got the technical aspects of a Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels out of the way, the last third of the supplement devotes itself to the background. This starts with W.O.T.A.N, the Valhalla Program, and the Disruptors, but as much as they figure in the setting, the focus of this background is the infinite number of Parallels and the means to travel between them. Each parallel is significantly different to its neighbours and the further a parallel is away from ZeroZero, the more likely it is diverge from ZeroZero. Some parallels might be radioactive wastelands or frigid icehouses following runaway climate change, but there are common themes running across a great many of them. These are known as ‘variations’, for example, an Aztec Empire variation in which Christopher Columbus was executed for heresy and Spain is now the vanguard against an invasion from the New World; a British Empire variation in which the Great Fire of London did not happen, allowing mathematician Sir Christopher Wren to become astronomer royal and spur a scientific revolution that would lead to better timekeeping and thus improved navigation by the Royal Navy, ensuring its dominance decades earlier; and German Republic variation in which Franklin D. Roosevelt is lost at sea on a trip to Clipperton Island and an isolationist president is elected in 1940; and so on. 

The discussion of Parallels is supported by numerous examples, each ready for the GM to drop an adventure into, as well as guidelines for creating his own. These are very much pointers to spur the GM’s imagination rather than a set of tables to create Parallels from start to finish, though perhaps such a set of tables might have been of use for the GM new to The Adventures of Luther Arkwright. The inclusion of such a set of tables would also support the other technical aspects of Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels that aid in construction of devices, weapons, and vehicles. Perhaps they could be included in companion volume?

Advice for the GM is kept relatively short, but is supported by full stats for the various characters from The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and Heart of Empire as well as a short scenario. ‘On Thin Ice’ sees Valhalla Program Agents attempt to thwart a Disruptor plan to destabilise 13.16.94, a Parallel caught in a new ice age. Amusingly, it takes place in Design Mechanism’s home country of Canada and even has a chance for the Agents to encounter a Baron Harkonnen-like alternate version of Mayor Frode! Any fans who remember Imagine #14 may also note that illustrations from its adventure, ‘Fire Opal of Set’, also appear in ‘On Thin Ice’ as thumbnail portraits for various NPCs. Rounding out Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels are a complete write-up of the Luther Arkwright Saga—The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and Heart of Empire—and an appendix of extra sources and inspirations, all of them worth investigating in their own right, though that said, the inclusion of some nonfiction sources on alternate history would have been nice additions.

Physically, Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels is a slim hardback down in black and white. In some ways this is a pity, since the Luther Arkwright Saga has been done in colour. That said, black and white certainly suits the exquisite and beautifully detailed line art of the first series. In places Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels does need a tighter edit, but really it needs to be slightly better organised for ease of use, mostly because the GM will need to refer to RuneQuest 6 for its rules and because of the complexity of the setting. Some may also  find the choice of a smaller typeface wearying on the eyes.

Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels is not necessarily a setting nor a supplement for the uninitiated or the non-fan of Luther Arkwright. If you fall into that category, then go read the graphic novels and then come back to this review, because The Adventures of Luther Arkwright is far, far better than this or any other review of mine. Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels definitely feels like a toolkit for running a game across the Parallels. It is solidly done toolkit, but nevertheless, given the complexities of the setting and of the rules, Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels is a sourcebook for the experienced GM and players alike.

Now with actual Steampunk

Although there is no scenario in the rulebook for Shadow of the Demon Lord, the first RPG released by Schwalb Entertainment following a successful Kickstarter campaign, one of the excellent decisions upon the part of the designer has been to release support—and release it early—in the form of scenarios for the game. This way a gaming group can get playing quickly, even if they are just using the core rules presented in Victims of the Demon Lord: Starter Guide plus the adventure. In addition, the publisher has also released Tales of the Demon Lord, a complete mini-campaign that takes a party of characters from Zero Level up to Eleventh Level. In the meantime, the seventeenth adventure is The Last Train to Darksville.

The Last Train to Darksville is written by Matt Forbeck, the designer of the Brave New World RPG and co-author to numerous other sourcebooks. It is the sixth adventure written for characters who have entered the Master Path, that is of Seventh Level or higher, and comes as a five page, 11.3 MB PDF. Notably the adventure is the first to make use of content from the Demon Lord’s Companion and the first to make real use of the RPG’s steampunk elements, something that previous scenarios have overlooked in favour of its dark fantasy and despite being a relatively simple, straightforward affair, The Last Train to Darksville is a tough, almost epic adventure with a silly pun of a title.

Ideally, the scenario takes place between Sixton and Foundry in the Northern Reach where the Darksville Railway runs between Darksville and Devil’s Breach, although it can be set anywhere to suit the Game Master’s campaign. Wherever the adventure is set, the Darksville Railway has a problem—missing trains! The player characters are hired to ride the rails and ensure that the last train gets through. Of course they get to find out what happened to the previous trains and then they face the cause in an epic battle! The problem is that trains have become the target of a dragon and any scenario that involves a dragon versus train battle with the adventurers aboard has to be epic—not to say fun!

The Last Train to Darksville is short and to the point, though there is the possibility of further adventures. Once battle is joined, the Game Master should ramp up the action as much as possible as it is not every day that the adventurers get to fight a dragon and certainly not aboard a train.

For Cultured Friends V

The fifth issue of The Excellent Travelling Volume  continues James Maliszewski’s support for TSR Inc.’s Empire of the Petal Throne: The World of Tékumel, only the third RPG to be published and the first to come with its own background. It also marks his continued involvement in the ‘Old School Renaissance’, though one more ‘cultured’ and not as prominent or as public as its once leading light via his blog, Grognardia. As with previous issues—one, two, three, and four—the fanzine showcases his own campaign, ‘House of Worms’, although with this issue, he introduces a second campaign. Although the fanzine is firmly aimed at ‘Petalheads’, devotees of Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne, the linguistic and RPG setting devised by the late Professor M.A.R. Barker, it is not aimed at the deep cultural aspects that the setting and thus the RPG is rightly renowned for. Rather, it sets out to provide material that has been played and can be played.

As with previous issues, The Excellent Travelling Volume #5 comes as a thirty-two page, digest-sized booklet, illustrated with greyscale pictures. Inside are just six sections, most of which will be familiar to readers of previous issues. It opens with ‘Mu’ugalavyáni and N’lüss Characters’, a guide to creating characters from Tsolyánu’s greatest rival, the Empire of Mu’ugalavyá and N’lüssa, the lands of the giant N’lüss, the barbarians to the north of Mu’ugalavyá. The article covers the basic information needed to play characters from either region, alignment, gender, skills, Level Titles, gods, and both names and clan names, and so on. The Mu’ugalavyáni get more of a detailed treatment than the N’lüss, but then the N’lüss are an ‘uncultured’ lot in comparison to the Mu’ugalavyáni, who make up one the Five Empires. As with previous articles in the series, this provides excellent support for both NPCs and player characters.

The article though, marks a radical shift upon the part of the author since it describes peoples to the west of The Empire of the Petal Throne, whereas previous issues have focussed upon the east with discussions of Sokátis, the City of Roofs, and articles about the Salarvyáni and the Pecháni and the Yán Koryáni and the Sa’á Allaqiyáni. The shift is explained by the author’s fascination with the Mu’ugalavyáni and his recently having set up a new campaign set in the city of Gashchné.

It is followed by another entry in one of the continuing highlights of The Excellent Travelling Volume—‘Patrons’. Except that where in the past the author has presented potential employers suitable for civilised and cultured clan members as well as uncultured, uncivilised, nakome scum*, here he takes us to ‘At the Clanhouse’ to present five patrons that Tsolyánu player characters might encounter. As before, each is accorded full stats, background and a story hook, plus options as to what is really going on. The various NPCs include a legion veteran, a matchmaker, a respected elder, and so on. Encountering may lead one or more player characters enlisting, getting married, covering up indiscretions, and more. The five patrons here are aimed at the campaign that involves Tsolyánu clan members and in particular work well with a single-clan campaign, though there would be little adjustment needed to use them in a campaign set in Mu’ugalavyá or the other Five Empires. However the GM uses them, these are good adventure hooks, especially for getting the players involved in clan life and politics.

Continued in The Excellent Travelling Volume #5 is ‘A Portion of the Underworld of Sokátis’, a description of part of the ‘Tsuru’úm’ or underworld that lies beneath the city’s Foreigners’ Quarter first described in issue #2. This completes both halves of the portion detailed so far. Now complete it still feels much like a sandbox for the player characters to explore and adventure in, the issue being that the player characters lack reasons to delve into its musty halls and tombs. Of course, a competent GM would be able to create reasons and hooks for his own campaign, but perhaps the regular Patrons section could be devoted to potential employers to lead on to adventures in the ‘Tsuru’úm’ described in the ‘A Portion of the Underworld of Sokátis’ series.

The ‘Bestiary’ describes two types of the undead that might be found in the ‘Tsuru’úm’ below Sokátis. One is the Mnéktan, ‘the sword-handed’, whose arms have been sharpened into swords, whilst the Turuvándu, ‘the scuttler’, bends over backwards and is capable of walking up walls and across the ceiling. Each is a type of reanimated corpse that is used as tomb guards, the Mnéktan being the creation of the Temple of Ksáru, the Turuvándu the creation of the Temple of Sárku. Further creatures are described, but not given stats, in ‘The Underpeople’. These are the various nearly- and non-human species that live below the planet and who have been forgotten by, or are looked down upon by mankind. The author begins with those mentioned in Man of Gold, M.A.R. Barker’s first novel set in Tékumel, that is the Hehegánu and the Hehecháru, before going on to describe those that he developed for his own campaign and presenting a means for the GM to create his own. They are a means to further highlight the long history mankind’s future history on Tékumel and the activities of the Ancients, the xenophobic attitudes of the Five Empires and the weirdness of the setting. Rounding the coverage of monsters and creatures in The Excellent Travelling Volume #5 is a trio of ‘demons’ in ‘Demons of Belkhánu & Qón’.

Lastly, ‘The Tomb of Vrikheshámma’ describes the step-pyramid tomb of an ancient and once revered sorcerer. Located in some distant desert or badlands, this is a nicely described destination that consists of just a few rooms which should keep a group of  adventurers occupied for a session or two. As written, it just needs a good reason for them to go looking for it and it is all ready for the GM to drop it into a convenient hex in his campaign or sandbox.

Physically, The Excellent Travelling Volume #5 is solidly presented. Both its artwork and its cartography continue to be excellent. That said, another edit would not have gone amiss, but there is a solidly assured feel to this issue.

The Excellent Travelling Volume #5 continues James Maliszewski’s exploration and development of his own campaign for Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne. Although perhaps some more adventures and more involved adventures might be a nice idea, especially for Sokátis and its ‘Tsuru’úm, for future issues, the mix of articles in this issue feels like a good balance and is never uninteresting. The Excellent Travelling Volume #5 is as close to a professional magazine as a fanzine can get. If you are a ‘Petalhead’, a fan of Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne, then The Excellent Travelling Volume #5 is a must.

Fanzine Focus II: Vacant Ritual Assembly #2

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 began 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 tcompatible 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, such as The Undercroft and Vacant Ritual Assembly.

Published in the Spring of 2015 by Red Moon Medicine, Vacant Ritual Assembly #2 follows on from the solidly done issue #1 and like that first issue is devoted to Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay and the campaign of the editor, Clint Krause. Unlike that first issue there is no real theme to Vacant Ritual Assembly #2, but this does not mean that the contents of this issue suffer for it.

Once past the editorial and the editor’s campaign update, Vacant Ritual Assembly #2 opens with a pair of slight pieces, a list of names for a dark fantasy game and a reinterpretation of the Zodiac as part of character creation. This is followed by ‘Dretcher’s Bay’, a description of a forlorn, Innsmouth-like hamlet. Governed by ‘the captains’, the village is best known for the Bell Crab, the rich meat of which sells for high prices. Each of the captains commands rival crews of crabbers that dive upon the nearby submerged ruins of Acray to harvest the crabs, though the creatures are sacred to the strange lobster-like Nephroids who herd them. The description of Dretcher's Bay does not include any plot hooks or scenario ideas, but the setting itself has plenty of opportunities, whether the player characters want to get involved in village politics, dive for Bell Crabs, or scour the ruins for its secrets. It feels old and mouldering and is easily dropped onto any suitable coastal spot in a Referee’s campaign.

The only piece in Vacant Ritual Assembly #2 offered by an author other than the editor is ‘Oarsmen & Their Woes’ by Anxious P. This describes a strange Charon-like race that might be encountered singly when someone needs to escape from a situation or environment. The Oarsman offers a way to somewhere safe—or at least somewhere safer—aboard his ferry along impossible creeks, but there is a price. The Oarsman will not only share the woe that lead to him becoming an Oarsman, but also demand a price for their passage to be paid by one of the adventurers. This is usually something personal and vital to the adventurer. ‘Oarsmen & Their Woes’ offers both something useful and something creepy to a campaign and really works if used more than once because no two woes and no two prices should be alike. To that end, a few more suggested prices might not have gone amiss, but a competent Referee should be able to devise a few more.

‘With Thine Eye Beheld’ offers a short encounter with a strange cargo cult obsessed with a cyclops-God and his eye. It details the small, family cult and its temple, essentially a small dungeon. There is relatively little to the scenario, but it carries its eye motive as far as it can in a few pages, right up to a sort of bonkers magic item. Just as ‘Dretcher's Bay’, this scenario lacks the hooks to get the adventurers involved, but unlike ‘Dretcher's Bay’, this scenario lacks the depth for the Referee to really develop interesting hooks. So the Referee will need to work harder to work it into his game, but it is nevertheless easy to drop ‘With Thine Eye Beheld’ into a hex of your sandbox.

As with the first issue, rounding out Vacant Ritual Assembly #2 is a lengthy interview. This time it is with Greg Gorgonmilk, the co-author and publisher of Dolmenwood - Character Archaics. It is informative, but at six pages, it is somewhat lengthy given that the fanzine is just twenty-four pages long. Essentially it is a magazine-sized article and perhaps it could have been split over two issues?

Physically, Vacant Ritual Assembly #2 is well presented, and there are decent maps whilst the illustrations do vary in quality. Where second issues—whether of albums or fanzines—might seem to have a difficult gestation with ultimately unsatisfactorily results, this is not the case with the Vacant Ritual Assembly #2. It contains some satisfying and usable content in both scenarios, an interesting creature to encounter, and even page filling pieces that can be used. Overall, a solid issue with a few problems which can easily be overcome for issue #3.

Fanzine Focus II: The Undercroft #2

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, such as The Undercroft and Vacant Ritual Assembly.

Published by the Melsonian Arts Council—also the publisher of he recently released Something Stinks in Stilton—in July, 2014, issue #1 of The Undercroft was an engaging initial issue, full of intriguing and useful material. It was followed in September, 2014 with issue #2 and as with all second efforts, especially after successful first efforts, the problem of the ‘second difficult album’ has to be addressed. Essentially can the editor and authors maintain the consistency and interest achieved by issue #1? It is even a concern raised by the editor in the opening sentences of the issue’s editorial, but it is clear that the editor is not only unconcerned by the problem, he is proud of The Undercroft #2. That is of course, his prerogative, but the truth of the matter is that The Undercroft #2 is a ‘second difficult album’, or rather a ‘second difficult fanzine’.

It opens well enough with Simon Forster’s ‘Between the Cracks’, a nasty little dungeon in which the adventurers explore the laboratory-home of a wizard-alchemist said to live beneath a pool of water. Of course he has not been seen in many years and is said to possessed a valuable treasure. What does lie below is not necessarily treasure, but a horrible monster—a little in the vein of a Hound of Tindalos—waiting for some fool of an adventurer to release it. This is all a bit of a cliché, but no less fun for it. The scenario could have done with giving a motive or two beyond the simple suggestion that the wizard’s laboratory-home be of interest to tomb robbers, but any competent GM should be devise motivations suitable for his campaign and player characters. The simplicity of ‘Between the Cracks’ means that it can easily be added to any wilderness adventure or sandbox.

As to the monster trapped in ‘Between the Cracks’, this is oddly not detailed after the scenario, but instead several pages later in The Undercroft #2. ‘That Which Slips Between’ by Luke Gearing describes a being of inhuman alienness, man-like, but not, that seemingly acts and attacks random. This is because it does and there tables to determine its next course of action and direction. It is also all but unstoppable and the only fact that this may not might drive the players and their characters into frustration is that the thing can just stop and it can head off in a random direction, so its behaviour may not be wholly directed at them. This is where it is quite clever because it leaves the player characters to wonder where and at whom it might strike should just wander off—they might even feel guilty for letting it go free... 

The other monsters presented in The Undercroft #2 are not quite as interesting. In ‘The Pit of Flesh: A Bestiary’, editor Daniel Sell offers the reader the ‘Transplasmic Organic Bifurious Inductors’ and ‘The Visitor’. The former is a ram-horned, porcine-featured ape-like creature created by wizards to turn magical pollutants into slurry that has since been put use dealing with all sorts of waste, from cutting the grass to chomping down on unwanted biological masses… The latter plays the part of the ancient relative, old and sad, insinuating itself into families and feeding on their warmth and their joy, whilst slowing coming to control the members one by one. Of the two, the ‘Transplasmic Organic Bifurious Inductors’ are simply silly, but ‘The Visitor’ has the potential to be quite creepy.

Two or three monsters would seem to be sufficient in a twenty-four page fanzine, but The Undercroft #2 offers yet more. Matthew Adams, best known for his illustrations for the supplement, Yoon-Suin: The Purple Land, draws and describes in turn ‘The Storkman’, ‘The Briar Witch’, and ‘The Snailing’. The first swaps newborn babies for reasons unknown, the second haunts ruins covered in briars, and the third are former misers turned snail-like demons that obsessively hunt and collect certain objects. All three are accorded a full page illustration and barely half a page of text without any stats. What this means is that none of them amount to very much, not helped by either the swathes of empty page or Adams’ scratchy art style which does not really work as full page pieces. Further none of them with stats, so they are not immediately useful. Given how much space they take up—one quarter of the issue—all three entries feel like page fillers. Which is odd given how much little space each takes up on their respective pages.

Fortunately, Tony A. Thompson offers up something with a little more substantial in the form of ‘Piteous Potions’. This details a dozen potions of weirder sort—ones that cause the imbiber’s toes to fall and be replaced by hooves, to become disorientated, make a vow of poverty, and so on. All twelve are weird and wonderful and should put the player characters off trying any potions they find for quite a long time. Lastly, the issue is rounded out with Simon Forster’s ‘Blood’, a sanguine piece of horror fiction that just is.

Physically, The Undercroft #2 is generally well presented, but this is not the problem with the issue. The problem is that too many—in fact, more than half—of its pages are devoted to uninteresting material, primarily, too many monsters. This is not to say that any of the articles in The Undercroft #2 should not have seen print, but rather they should never have seen print all together in the one issue. The result is that a decent scenario and an interesting monster and some potions are drowned in the underwhelming rest of the issue. Ultimately, a poor choice of material and dearth of interesting ideas after the promise of The Undercroft #1 explains why The Undercroft #2 is a difficult second issue.

Fanzine Focus II: Mystic Pangolin #1

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, such as The Undercroft and Vacant Ritual Assembly. Similarly, Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game has proved to be popular choice for fanzines. Mystic Pangolin though, is written for use with Swords & Wizardry, Mythmere Games’ interpretation of the original Dungeons & Dragons.

Published in the Autumn of 2014 by Blackie Carbon/Cloudstepping Media, Mystic Pangolin #1 is wholly written by R.G. Anderson and promises to deliver “Old School Fantasy Gaming” in “an ogre’s lunchbox full of goodies”. Putting aside that image, the unfortunate truth is that this first issue does not quite deliver on that claim. The problem is that the fanzine opens with a mundane article and never quite lifts itself above being pedestrian. The first of these is ‘Casks & Barrels – terminology and definitions’, part of the Down ‘n’ Dirty Dungeon Dozens series, which as the title suggests gives the twelve terms and definitions for casks and barrels—and that is it. There is no faulting the facts in the article, but there is no application, no suggestion as to how the details can be used. This is followed by ‘An Elaborate System of Curious Signs – a lexicon of hobo signs for your game world’,  which draws upon the signs used by hobos during the Great Depression to communicate amongst themselves as they rode America’s railways. The suggestion is that they can be used to form the basis of secret signs and the cant between thieves and that is a nice idea. Unfortunately the author only presents the historically used signs and does not take the time to develop any for the fantasy setting that fanzines like Mystic Pangolin is written for. This is a missed opportunity, but this does not mean that a Dungeon Master could not create some of his own, plus as written, the contents of the article could be used with the recently released Gang Busters Basic Rules or indeed with the article on hobos in Island of Ignorance – The Third Cthulhu Companion.

The third article is part of the fanzine’s ‘Randomizer-O-Rama’ series. Initially ‘Books & Scrolls – Alternate treasure and adventure hook’ reads very much like ‘Casks & Barrels – terminology and definitions’, essentially presenting the various ways in which the written word has been preserved, from the clay and wax tablets to scrolls and parchment. It backs these up with a somewhat convoluted table for determining the type, material and condition of the written work and another for determining a manuscript’s contents. Again, the article suffers from a lack of application and a lack of examples. There is though more substance to the fourth article, the first entry in the ‘Ports of Call’ which describes the minehead and ore port of Haeford. The small settlement supplies the nearby towns with lumber and iron, whilst also engaging in some shipbuilding. Although there are one or two pieces of nice description, the write-up of Haeford never really comes alive and never feels like a place that the player characters might visit or do little more than pass through.

Rounding out Mystic Pangolin #1 is ‘The Reliquary of Thazur Zul’, a dungeon adventure for characters of Second to Fourth Levels. Again written for Swords & Wizardry, the adventure also makes use of the Swords & Wizardry Monster Book and Roger S. G. Sorolla’s Varmints and Vermin, so any Dungeon Master wanting to adapt the adventure to the Retroclone of his choice may need to do a little extra work. The scenario has the adventurers hired by a mercantile matriarch to retrieve the head of the corpse of a rival in an effort to restore her family’s fortunes. Unfortunately the matriarch’s sons hid the head in an old tomb and access to that tomb is blocked by rival tribes of Gnolls and Kobolds. The adventure is fairly large, taking up half of the fanzine, but as written is somewhat colourless and flat, lacking the detail and flavour that might bring it alive. There is also a certain degree of artificiality to the set-up, having Kobolds and Gnolls so close together without the latter turning on the former. There is a reason given for the stand-off between the two tribes, but it does not feel enough. Ultimately the adventure is somewhat pedestrian and the Dungeon Master will need to work hard to bring it alive.

Physically Mystic Pangolin #1 is cleanly laid out, but does suffer from a surfeit of white space. It needs another edit as the writing is clumsy in places. The use of photographs and illustrations is decent though. Mystic Pangolin #1 is no longer available in print, but is available as a PDF. Mystic Pangolin #2 is currently available in print.

Ultimately, not everything is going to be great and Mystic Pangolin #1 is not great. It is again pedestrian, lacking the application and the development that would lift it above the mere presentation of facts. This does not mean that a good Dungeon Master could not take the information here and develop it into something more exciting, more inspiring, and more fun, but that would require effort that might be better directed to writing his own material.

Kaves of Karshoon II

Although there is no scenario in the rulebook for Shadow of the Demon Lord, the first RPG released by Schwalb Entertainment following a successful Kickstarter campaign, one of the excellent decisions upon the part of the designer has been to release support—and release it early—in the form of scenarios for the game. This way a gaming group can get playing quickly, even if they are just using the core rules presented in Victims of the Demon Lord: Starter Guide plus the adventure. In addition, the publisher has also released Tales of the Demon Lord, a complete mini-campaign that takes a party of characters from Zero Level up to Eleventh Level. In the meantime, the sixteenth adventure is The Gorgon’s Tears.

The Gorgon’s Tears is written by Cam Banks, co-author of various titles including the Cortex Classic System Role Playing Game, the Leverage: The Roleplaying Game, and the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Basic Game. It is the fifth adventure written for characters who have entered the Expert Path, that is of Third Level or higher, and comes as an eight page, 19.36 MB PDF. It is designed as a standalone adventure, but can also be run as a sequel to Beware the Tides of Karshoon, being set in the same city of Gateway. It is also designed to serve as a bridge for characters moving from the Expert Path to the Master Path, that is of Seventh Level or higher. So ideally it should be run for characters of Sixth or Seventh Level. By the end of the adventure, the characters will have either prevented or allowed the return of an ancient evil—and if the latter, then they might even be working for it!

As the scenario opens, word has reached Gateway of the Orc uprising to the south and of the assassination of the Emperor—and the city is in uproar. Certain factions in Gateway advocate separation from Empire’s provincial government and foment civil unrest, inciting mobs to riot and protest. Leading these protests is the wealthy and decadent Gogenthaler Clan, but whilst the clan campaigns for Karshoon’s ‘independence’, something else stalks its members for reasons of its own. It is amidst one of these protests that the player characters find themselves when the scenario opens. By the time the riot is over, they will likely have an offer of employment—from one side or another—and have been presented with a grisly mystery. It is this mystery that lies at the heart of The Gorgon’s Tears. 

The likelihood is that solving the mystery in The Gorgon’s Tears will involve violence and combat—violence and combat upon the part of the player characters. Yet the scenario does not have to and there is the scope for this too. The scenario’s antagonists are not necessarily hostile towards the player characters and are even prepared to negotiate with them. This is refreshing after the focus in so many of the scenarios for Shadow of the Demon Lord having been on combat and it leaves several of the other scenarios available for the RPG slightly wanting as roleplaying experiences… The scenario almost begs to be expanded and to last longer than the simple one or two sessions that it offers.

The Gorgon’s Tears is a good scenario for Shadow of the Demon Lord, involving a decent mix of mystery, combat, and social interaction. The latter, the social interaction, is the adventure’s most interesting feature, but unfortunately, it is slightly underplayed. Perhaps though, there is scope here for the Game Master—perhaps even Schwalb Entertainment and the author?—to expand The Gorgon’s Tears into the fuller, more interesting, and more rounded scenario it deserves to be.