Miskatonic Monday #212: We Dream of Flying

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: We Dream of Flying

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Jim Phillips

Setting: Overnight Flight to Tokyo

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Thirty page, 2.47 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Fly me to the moon

Let me play among the stars

And let me see what spring is like on

A-Jupiter and Mars”

– Count Basie and Frank Sinatra

Plot Hook: Flying really can be a nightmare.
Plot Support: Staging advice, six Pre-generated Investigators, three deckplans/handouts, one handout, one NPC, six Investigator/NPC hybrids, and one Mythos monster.

Production Values: Decent

Pros

# Weird in-between state aerial nightmare

# Excellent use of rarely used Malleus Monstrorum entry

# Nice cover

# Good handouts

# Solid convention one-shot

# Could be developed to run with two groups?

# Oneirophobia

# Aerophobia

# Basophobia

Cons

# Investigator/NPC hybrids need development

# Underpowered Sanity rewards

# Waking world underdeveloped

Conclusion

# Memorable and inventive liminal nightmare over the Pacific that works as a one-shot or convention scenario

# Underdeveloped in places, but still very playable

Terror for Two

The aim of Cthulhu Confidential is to take a player and a Game Master “down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honour—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.” And it is specifically a player and a Game Master, for Cthulhu Confidential is designed to be played head-to-head, with the player and his Investigator delving into a mystery, the Game Master helping to facilitate this and tell the story of the Investigator’s efforts. Published by Pelgrane Press, Cthulhu Confidential is set in the same world as the publisher’s Trail of Cthulhu, the roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror, but with major changes—most of them mechanical. This is to facilitate the change from the clue-orientated nature of Trail of Cthulhu using the GUMSHOE System and for several Investigators to the single player and single Game Master and the GUMSHOE One-2-One System. In addition to including the new rules, Cthulhu Confidential includes a guide for the Game Master to create her own GUMSHOE One-2-One System scenarios, a guide to Cthulhu Mythos and Cosmic Horror for beginners, and three scenarios. These are the highlight of Cthulhu Confidential, each with a different protagonist and by a different author, and each bringing noir horror and a different code of honour to another city in the thirties and forties.

Cthulhu Confidential assumes that the Game Master and player alike are familiar with both roleplaying and the cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction. There are introductions to both in the book, but they are not its starting point. Similarly, there is a set of Starter Notes for the experienced GUMSHOE System Game Master in the appendix, but again this is not the starting point in Cthulhu Confidential. This the nature of the Investigator and the investigative process for one. Just like Trail of Cthulhu and the GUMSHOE System, an Investigator in Cthulhu Confidential and the GUMSHOE One-2-One System has two types of Abilities—Investigative Abilities and General Abilities. Investigative Abilities, such as Assess Honesty and Research, are used to gain information. If the Investigator has the Investigative Ability, he receives the information or the clue. General Abilities, like Driving and Shadowing, are more traditional in that their use requires dice to be rolled and a test passed to determine success or failure. Cthulhu Confidential then deviates from this in order to account for the fact that there is only the one Investigator rather than many as in Trail of Cthulhu. With multiple players, all of the Investigative Abilities would be accounted across the Investigators. Not so in Cthulhu Confidential. So, when an Investigator lacks an Investigative Ability, he can instead turn to an NPC or source for help. In Trail of Cthulhu, Investigative Abilities have pools of points which can be spent to gain extra clues about a situation, but in Cthulhu Confidential, the Investigator has Pushes, which the player can spend to gain the extra information or a benefit. This applies to any Investigative Ability and could be used to spring the Investigator from jail on a bogus arrest using the Law Investigative Ability, persuade the doorman at a suspect’s office that you have not been asking about his whereabouts, and so on. An Investigator begins a scenario with four Pushes and can earn more through play.

In Trail of Cthulhu, General Abilities also have pools of points, which are then expended to modify dice rolls for tests. In Cthulhu Confidential, General Abilities have one or two six-sided dice, which are also rolled on Tests. Tests are rolled when there is the possibility of failure in a situation, such as getting past a doorman to break into a suspect’s office or fleeing from the inhuman monster found in said suspect’s office, and are divided into two types. In either case, the player rolls the dice—if his Investigator has more than one—one at a time and totals their values. This is important because some Tests can be overcome with the roll of the one die rather than two dice. The Challenge is the more complex and more interesting of the two.

A Challenge gives three results—‘Advance’, ‘Hold’, and ‘Setback’. The ‘Advance’ is the equivalent of ‘Yes, and…’ and indicates a successful attempt with an extra benefit. This benefit is called an Edge and can prove useful later in the investigation. In addition, if the Challenge was overcome with the roll of a single die, then the Investigator is rewarded with an additional Push. The ‘Setback’ is the equivalent of ‘No, and…’ and indicates a failed attempt with an added Problem that will hamper the investigation. The ‘Hold’ lies somewhere in between with the Investigator no better or worse off, and also without an Edge or a Problem. It is also possible for the Investigator to suffer an Extra Problem in order to gain an additional die to roll in the hope of gaining an ‘Advance’.

For example, Dexter ‘Dex’ Raymond, the Private Investigator presented as the first protagonist in Cthulhu Confidential has been hired by the wife of Lorenzo Calderone, nightclub owner and suspected mob associate. She wants a divorce and suspects her husband of cooking the books to reduce her settlement and alimony. She does not think that the real account books are kept at home or the nightclub, but at the office of her husband’s lawyer, Crispin Grimes. To get those books, Raymond needs to get past the doorman and into the office. So, the Challenge could look like this:

COOKED BOOKS
Stealth
Advance 6+: You get past the doorman and into Grimes’ office where you find the account books. No one knows the books are missing and when they find out, who took them. Earn Edge: ‘Crooked Books.’
Hold 3-5: The doorman does his rounds just as you are about to break in and you are not going to get past him now.
Setback 2 or less: You initially get past the doorman, but just as you are about to get into Grimes’ office, he spots on his rounds. Triggers Challenge ‘Flee the Building.’
Extra Problem: ‘There was this one guy poking around…’

EDGE: ‘Crooked Books.’ You got the account books Mrs Calderone wanted, so case settled. But if you keep a copy yourself, it could keep her husband or his lawyer off your back.
PROBLEM: ‘There was this one guy poking around…’ The theft puts Lorenzo Calderone and Crispin Grimes on edge. A Push is needed to successfully use any Interpersonal skill with both.

In comparison, a Quick Test requires to simple roll to gain an ‘Advance’ result. The structure of Cthulhu Confidential and its scenarios presents Challenges as clear, black boxes of test and both Edges and Problems as essentially cards that are given to the player to add to his Investigator. Fights and both Horror and Madness, key elements of the two genres for Cthulhu Confidential—noir detective stories and Cosmic Horror—are handled as Challenges, typically using the Fighting General Ability for combat and the Stability General Ability when confronted with something horrifying. This is another place where Cthulhu Confidential differs from the multiplayer Trail of Cthulhu, because in Trail of Cthulhu, the Investigators can afford to lose one of their number, whether from a fight or madness, and such a loss is easily replaced. Not so in Cthulhu Confidential. Here a loss means the end of the investigation and the scenario, so whilst fights are dangerous, they are not lethal—and that applies to the NPCs or monsters as much as the Investigator. The investigator can suffer debilitating injury or loss, but can recover through the ‘Take Time to Recover’ action. Similarly, the antagonist, whether mundane or monstrous, is not killed, but suffers a loss that will benefit the Investigator in some way, represented by an Edge. Encounters or confrontations with horror work in the same fashion, although a ‘Setback’ will penalise the Investigator with a ‘Mythos Shock’ Problem. These cannot always be countered with the ‘Take Time to Recover’ action and instead require an Edge capable of countering a ‘Mythos Shock’ Problem. This is not to say that the Investigator cannot die or be sent mad, but this does not happen mid-story. Instead, it can become all too much at the end. This is especially so if the Investigator is left with a ‘Mythos Shock’ Problem or two or more that he has been unable to deal with in the course of the investigation. The remaining Problem cards will affect the narration of the investigation’s outcome and ending, typically in downbeat fashion to fit the twin genres of Cthulhu Confidential. If the Investigator survives, his player can retain these Problems to carry over into the next scenario—some he has to and some he can choose—and they will continue to influence the Investigator’s efforts until addressed. Even at the start of the first scenario, an Investigator has an ongoing problem, although the player is typically given a choice as to what that problem is.

For the Game Master there is advice on running the GUMSHOE One-2-One System. This covers guiding the player (gently) and avoiding the sticking points common to mystery and investigation scenarios, taking into account the nature of its single player and Investigator play style. This includes advice on running both sources and challenges and there is similar treatment on creating scenarios, building Challenges, and designing Edges. This is backed up with numerous examples which the Game Master can use for inspiration as well as model for her own scenarios. The appendix for Cthulhu Confidential includes a Rules Quick Reference, a Handout for New Roleplayers, lists of sources for all three protagonists, a guide to solving cases, sample Player Characters from other GUMSHOE System roleplaying games in the GUMSHOE One-2-One System format, such as an Ordo Veritas Agent from The Esoterrorists and a Mutant Cop from Mutant City Blues, and a set of generic Edges.

Two thirds of Cthulhu Confidential is dedicated to its three investigations and their protagonists, settings, and Problems and Edges. The three Investigators are Dexter ‘Dex’ Raymond, a Private Investigator in Los Angeles, 1937, obviously inspired by works of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet; Vivian Sinclair, an investigative journalist and lady detective in thirties New York, inspired by Kerry Greenwood and Dorothy L. Sayers; and Langston Montgomery Wright, an African American invalided veteran Private Investigator in Washington D.C. towards the end of World War II, inspired by Walter Mosely and Chester Himes. Each Investigator is accompanied by detailed descriptions of his or her sources and exceptionally good write-ups of their respective cities—Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C. The write-ups are so good, they are better than the actual supplements dedicated to those cities previously published for Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying, and in the case of Washington, D.C., the definitive guide Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying, since no sourcebook has been published for the city, let alone an actual scenario. In addition, all three authors—Robin D. Laws for Dexter ‘Dex’ Raymond, Ruth Tillman for Vivian Sinclair, and Chris Spivey for Langston Montgomery Wright—address the social and cultural aspects of their settings. So, there are discussions of whether Dexter ‘Dex’ Raymond should be a ‘straight white guy’ or not; of Vivian Sinclair’s bisexuality and how to handle violence against women; of handling the racist attitudes that Langston Montgomery Wright will face. The advice is excellent throughout, being inclusive and helpful.

Then each Investigator has his or her own scenario. As Dexter ‘Dex’ Raymond, the player will investigate ‘The Fathomless Sleep’. Fast-living society girl Helen Deakin has fallen into catatonia and her smouldering sister wants to know how this happened in this classic, hardboiled tale of blackmail and dirty money with a dollop of weird mysticism. In ‘Fatal Frequencies’, Vivian Sinclair helps out Sadie Cane, whose fiancé, George Preston, disappeared three days after a murder in his apartment block. What has George got himself messed up in? Langston Montgomery Wright investigates another disappearance, that of Lynette Miller, a riveter, in ‘Capitol Colour’. Last time her father saw her, she had a new job, secret, but highly paid. Where has she gone and what does her disappearance have to do with the war effort? All three scenarios are excellent, detailed and involving, and should keep the player and his Investigator intrigued and enthralled to the end.

Physically, Cthulhu Confidential is a crisply presented black and white book. It needs a slight edit in places, but is well written and engaging. It is not extensively illustrated, but what artwork there is, is not only good, but also captures the shades of grey in the three North American cities and both the protagonists and antagonists the supplement depicts. The use of period maps and other illustrations also enforces each setting’s sense of place.

Cthulhu Confidential provides an intense roleplaying experience. It has elements of classic solo play because of its set-up, especially in the structure of its Challenge mechanics and the Edges and Problems gained through play, but the intensity comes from working with the Game Master and interacting with the NPCs she depicts and doing so alone, pushing the player to rely upon himself and his Investigator’s Abilities rather than having to work with other players and their Investigators. Of course, the involvement of the Game Master means there is more flexibility and scope to adapt when investigating a mystery than there would be in a solo adventure. The end result is that Cthulhu Confidential provides an enthralling and engaging means of play and a one-on-one experience that pushes Lovecraftian investigative roleplay closer to its cinematic and literary influences and models.

[Free RPG Day 2023] Piercing the Demon’s Eye

Now in its sixteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2023 took place on Saturday, June 24th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Fil Baldowski at All Rolled Up, and others, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

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Piercing the Demon’s Eye is Goodman Games’ only contribution to Free RPG Day 2023. It is a scenario for use with the publisher’s highly popular Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Designed for a party of six to eight Second Level Player Characters, it is both designed and intended to be played in four hours and in-game explored in four hours. What this means is that once the four-hour playing time ends, the game is not only over for the players, but also for the Player Characters. Piercing the Demon’s Eye is set in the Demon’s Eye, the vault of the ancient wizard, Monath Ot. Said to contain great treasures and secrets, the entrance to the vault unseals and grants access for exactly four hours, once every ten years. Then the entrance will reseal itself again, only to open again in another ten years and again exactly for four hours. Whilst the game is over for the players, for their characters, trapped inside the Demon’s Eye, their fates are sealed just as much as the entrance is. Ideally, the Player Characters should at least be armed with one or two magical weapons. The scenario does not involve a great many fights, but those it does are challenging. Lastly, Piercing the Demon’s Eye does contain links to Tomb of the Savage Kings, the scenario published by Goodman Games for Free RPG Day 2021. However, the links are insubstantial and the Judge does not need to have run or have access to Tomb of the Savage Kings in order to run Piercing the Demon’s Eye.

As a tomb adventure, Piercing the Demon’s Eye contains more traps than fights. There is an interesting counterweight puzzle from the start, but others like a corridor with a pivoting floor and a room with spikes that extend out of the floors and walls and a room of skeletons that reanimate and self-replicate upon death a la the film Jason and the Argonauts, are all classics and clichés of the genre. This does not mean that they feel out of place. Similarly, neither does the inclusion of false vaults. With care though, the Player Characters should not only be able to find their way around the tomb, but also locate two major treasure vaults, one of scrolls and one of coin and magical items. What will hamper the Player Characters progress is a rival team also looking to loot the tomb complex. Consisting of three NPCs, these can be used to taunt the Player Characters, act as replacement Player Characters as necessary, or simply show the characters and their players how the scenario’s traps work.

There is also a hidden element to Piercing the Demon’s Eye. Use of Spell Burn can trigger an even bigger event. This is the release of the being trapped within the tomb. It is not the ancient wizard, Monath Ot, but something else. In true tomb in the Pulp genre, this triggers an immediate effect and a long-term effect. The long-term effect is left up to the Judge to determine and then only if the scenario is being run as part of a campaign. In the short term, the Player Characters will find they have very little time left before the tomb collapses…

If there is a problem with Piercing the Demon’s Eye, it is the connections to Tomb of the Savage Kings and the lack of connections to Tomb of the Savage Kings. To suggest that there are connections and not develop them is a missed opportunity. The lack of them makes it difficult to connect the scenarios and to build them into a setting, whether a published one or one devised by the Judge. So this scenario is more of standalone adventure than not.

Physically, Piercing the Demon’s Eye is very well presented. It is easy to read and the map is easy to use. The scenario is lightly illustrated, but the pieces of art are very good, capturing the mishaps and misadventures of a band of adventurers.

Piercing the Demon’s Eye is easy to set up and run, and works better as a convention scenario rather than an addition to a campaign, although with some effort upon the part of the Judge, this should not be an issue. Piercing the Demon’s Eye is a short, but fun one-shot that neatly fits a four-hour convention game slot too. All the Judge has to do is add Player Characters.

Assaying Arrakis

Arrakis is the most important planet in the Known Universe. From it flows the Spice Melange, and thus the power to control the Imperium. Spacing Guild navigators consume it in vast quantities to be able to fold space and thus ensure the interstellar travel and trade that underpins the Landsraad, the alliance of Houses Great and Minor, and CHOAM—or Combine Honnette Ober Advancer Mercantiles—which controls all trade and contracts across the Imperium, including that of Spice. The Bene Gesserit uses give their Sisters the gift of foresight and so pursue its own program even as it is advises Houses Major and Minor. To those that can afford it, Spice is a means to prolong life and delay aging, and for the noble houses, which means being able to plan and bring to fruition plots that take generations to bring about. The Emperor holds the key to extracting Spice, for it is within his gift to grant Arrakis and the right to extract Spice to the House of his choosing. It is both a gift and a curse, for although it will make the House occupying Arrakis rich, the House must ensure the Spice continues to flow even as rival Houses plot to undermine their efforts, smugglers shift Spice from under its nose, and very environment of Arrakis—endless dessert, high temperatures, and sandworms hundreds of meters long which can swallow a spice harvester whole—threaten to disrupt and undermine their operations. Then there are the Fremen, the mysterious inhabitants of the deep desert, secretive and insular, who have their plans for their world, ones which do not involve the Emperor or the governing House, and for which they only await the right sign.

Sand and Dust – The Arrakis Sourcebook is, as the title suggests the sourcebook for the world known as Dune for Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: The Roleplaying Game, the roleplaying game based on both the recent films and the fictional universe and novels originally created by Frank Herbert. The supplement provides an overview and details of the world of Arrakis, its history and geography; the Fremen and their history and culture, as well as new character Archetypes and Talents; the ecology of the Sandworm and how to ride them; and the secrets of Spice, how it is harvested, and its effect upon the Known Universe, plus Spice-related Talents. This is all supported by new campaign ideas and frameworks and a scenario.

Sand and Dust – The Arrakis Sourcebook starts with the planet itself and its history, which given the secrecy of the Fremen is little known and consequently there are few details here and the supplement is more about Arrakis as is, rather than as was. That said, there are suggestions for using Arrakis as a setting in the different Eras of Play for Dune – Adventures in the Imperium, though again, these are only briefly touched upon. More detail is given to the various locations in the cities of Carthag and Arrakeen and the roles they play in the setting. For example, the Conservatory Garden at the Residency in Arrakeen is initially presented as a gift to Lady Jessica, even though it is a sacrilegious waste of water, but it actually becomes a blueprint for the greening of Arrakis. All of the various locations are accorded plot hooks, rumours, and a suggested encounter or hazard for the Game Master to develop. Primarily intended for The Imperium, The Ascension of Muad’dib, and Era of the God Emperor Eras of Play, these locations are neatly done whilst leaving plenty of space in both cities for the Game Master to add her own content. The nature of the desert and how it changes as Muad’dib’s reign and that of his heirs progress, and beyond, is explored in detail. This broadens the options for the earlier discussion of the different Eras of Play.

Sand and Dust – The Arrakis Sourcebook is not just a sourcebook for the planet of Dune. It is also the sourcebook for Fremen, revealing further details of their history, culture, and outlook after that given in Dune – Adventures in the Imperium. This covers their oral history, their attitudes to live and death, plus of course, the importance they attach to water. Interesting here is the inclusion of the Jacurutu, a tribe massacred for stealing water and reviled ever since, such that their sietch is a taboo place. Descendants of the Jacurutu are included as an option for Player Character Fremen, which would have to be kept secret otherwise they would be an outcast. This inclusion adds a wrinkle in the otherwise uniform nature of the Fremen and perhaps the supplement could done with more of this to add a little more variety here and there. Fremen technology is examined in detail, noting the high degree of its craftsmanship and including Fremen Stillsuits, the feared Crysknife, and the Deathstill which is used to extract the water from the dead, as well as the Distrans Bat, domesticated bats used to record and send messages over long distances. Rules also cover worm riding, whilst the section on ‘Fremen and Outsiders’ covers their attitudes and dealings with various factions on and off world. This is useful whether the Player Characters are Fremen themselves or outsiders to make contact or deal with the Fremen, so helpful for the Game Master and her players. The section on playing through the period of the reign of Muad’dib, more tightly focuses on The Ascension of Muad’dib Era of Play and the changes that the Fremen undergo, both culturally and spiritually.

For Fremen Player Characters and NPCs, Sand and Dust – The Arrakis Sourcebook adds a table of life Events, new Foci—such as Desert Navigation, Fremen Culture, Pottery, and Stillness, new Fremen Templates including Naib, Fedaykin, Sayadina, and Ecologist. Bolstered with new Talents, many of which are Fremen specific, ranging from Chosen of Shai-Hulud (skilled worm rider), Crysknife Master, and Desert Walker to Tooth Crafter (craftsmen who make the crysknives), Water Wisdom, and Ways of Ichwan Bedwine (Fremen oral history), this is where there is some variation between Fremen. A set of tables allow the creation of sietch, including size, influence, and reputation. There is advice here on the roles they can have in a campaign.

Sand and Dust – The Arrakis Sourcebook is not just a sourcebook for the planet of Dune and Fremen. It is also the sourcebook for the Spice itself and this even includes Spice-related Talents like Spice Refinement, Enhanced Lifespan, Shortening the Way, and Voice of the Inner dark. Many of these require the consumption of Spice. The focus though, is on the physical nature of Spice and effects, where it comes from and how it is extracted, and the ramifications of all of this. In particular the need to balance the time spent extracting Spice and the inevitable arrival of a sandworm which threatens the loss of equipment and workers and extracting and smuggling Spice without attracting the attention of the planet’s governing House or any Imperial oversight. It should be noted that all of the factions on Arrakis, and not just the actual Smugglers, smuggle Spice, for there are always willing purchasers. Suggested roles are given for a harvesting crew which lends itself to what would literally be a very dirty campaign, the Player Characters having to deal with the stress of harvesting as well as the difficulties and intrigues of rival harvesters, criminal and smuggling gangs, and the all too ready to take a bribe authorities.

Campaign support covers the culture life and communities of Arrakis, including artists, mercenaries, and engineering, as well as locations where they might be found, and numerous NPCs. These include Bounty Hunter, Craftsperson, Fremen Craftsperson, Fremen Sayyadina, Market Seller, Mystic, Ornithopter Pilot, Spice Manager, Spice Worker, and others, plus factions such as Bankers, Courtesans, Criminals, Importers, and Manufacturers. Campaigns specific to Arrakis include Spice Smugglers, Imperial Agents, Fremen, Bene Gesserit, Guerrillas and Revolutionaries, and Explorers of the Old Empire. Each of these is supports the Game Master in their own way. The NPCs include named examples that the Game Master can bring to her campaign and a scenario hook; each faction includes a campaign inspiration; and each of the more detailed campaign frameworks on Arrakis includes suitability for the different Eras of Play, suitable Archetypes, and notable Assets, Factions, and Antagonists. In the case of the campaign inspirations and the frameworks, the Game Master will need to develop these further, but she is given two far more detailed campaign outlines as well. ‘Shadows on the Sand’ sees a group of smugglers, descendants of House Richese, the former governors of Arrakis which had all but bankrupted itself in extracting Spice before the fiefdom was taken away from them and given to the Harkonnens, attempting to survive and smuggle spice whilst keeping its true identity a secret. There are some interesting ideas here that the players and characters to see the story of Dune from a different viewpoint. ‘The House of Heslin’ is about a House Minor attempting to establish and run a merchant operation in Carthag and so establish itself on Arrakis. This will probably involve more intrigue and interaction within the city than the other campaign set-up. It would have been interesting to add a similarly developed third campaign idea here, one focusing on the Fremen rather than outsiders as the other two do.

Rounding out Sand and Dust – The Arrakis Sourcebook is the scenario, ‘The Water Must Flow’. Set during the governorship of House Harkonnen, a drought triggers riots and leaves the Player Characters’ House with insufficient water to pay the Water Tax to the Harkonnens. As rioters swirl around the city, they are forced to attend a feast hosted by another House Minor, this one allied to House Harkonnen. There, they may be able to find a way of negotiating a solution to their own House’s situation. What they do find is a friendly face—although how far that can be trusted is another matter—which suggests investigating the recent hijacking of a carryall with a delivery of water. The trail will lead into deadly plot in in Carthag’s many shadows and then out into the nearby desert. It is a solid scenario that can easily be run as a sequel to ‘Harvesters of Dune’, the scenario from the Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: The Roleplaying Game core rulebook.

Physically, Sand and Dust – The Arrakis Sourcebook is a nice-looking supplement. It is well written, and it includes some decent artwork, although sadly, not every Archetype is illustrated. One issue with Sand and Dust – The Arrakis Sourcebook is that there are no maps. So, no maps of Carthag and Arrakeen, the only cities on the planet, and even no maps of the planet itself. All would have been useful, although there are no maps of either city upon which the writers can draw upon within the canon itself. The lack of a map of Arrakis is even odder, since they do exist and this is a world sourcebook.

Sand and Dust – The Arrakis Sourcebook is not lacking in content, but it does leave the reader wanting more in places. Primarily this is in the history and future history of Arrakis and its importance in the Known Universe, their descriptions underwritten in comparison to the default period of Dune – Adventures in the Imperium—the decades before the accession of House Atreides to the fiefdom. Here is where Sand and Dust – The Arrakis Sourcebook comes alive and gets interesting, providing support and ideas for campaigns involving Spice harvesting and smuggling in particular, and the Fremen to a lesser extent. The background and details, as well as the Player Character and NPC options, for the Fremen, are good support for player and Game Master alike. Sand and Dust – The Arrakis Sourcebook is solid support for Dune – Adventures in the Imperium for it opens up and develops options for campaigns set on Arrakis.

[Free RPG Day 2023] Adventures in Rokugan: Storm Eel’s Rest

Now in its sixteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2023 took place on Saturday, June 24th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Fil Baldowski at All Rolled Up, and others, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

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Adventures in Rokugan: Storm Eel’s Rest is a scenario for Adventures in Rokugan, the Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition compatible version of Legends of the Five Rings. Originally published by Alderac Entertainment Group in 1997, but now published by EDGE Studio, Legends of the Five Rings and thus Adventures in Rokugan is set in Rokugan, a setting similar to feudal Japan, but with influences and elements of other Asian cultures, as well as magic and mythical beasts. The setting for Legend of the Five Rings, Fifth Edition is Rokugan. It is Known as the Emerald Empire and has been ruled for a thousand years by the Hantei emperors—the current emperor is Hantei XXXVIII—who have divided it between seven Great Clans. These are the Crab, Crane, Dragon, Lion, Phoenix, Scorpion, and Unicorn clans. Although each is comprised of Samurai—the bushi warriors, mannered courtiers, and shugenja, priests who pray to the kami, or spirits, for aid, each is different in character. The Crab Clan use its strength to man the wall that protects the Empire from the Shadowlands, but its members are regarded as uncouth and ill mannered; the Crane Clan is known as the Left Hand of the Emperor and has many wealthy and influential politicians; the Dragon Clan remains aloof from most affairs in its mountain fast, but has sallied forth to aid the empire several times; the Lion Clan is the Right Hand of the Emperor, being devoted bushi; the Phoenix Clan is known for its shugenja and primarily concerns itself with spiritual matters; the Scorpion Clan is the Emperor’s Underhand and revels in its villainous status and reputation; and lastly, the Unicorn Clan is Rokugan’s cavalry, having spent several centuries in the Gaijin lands to the West. The Mantis are a minor clan of seafarers and traders, most notable having travelled far beyond Rokugan by sea.

Adventures in Rokugan: Storm Eel’s Rest requires the Adventures in Rokugan rules and includes six pre-generated Player Characters. These consist of a Crane bushi and bodyguard, a Crab infiltrator, a Crane ritualist or shugenja, a Mantis clan duellist, a Crab clan courtier/bushi, and a Ningyo Ritualist. These are very detailed Player Characters, and notably, not all of the Player Characters are Human as is the norm in Legends of the Five Rings. This includes a Spectre, a Mazoku or demon, and a Ningyo or ‘human-fish’. All six have detailed backgrounds and motivations.

Adventures in Rokugan: Storm Eel’s Rest is designed to be played in a single four-hour session and is set on Earthquake Fish Bay, which is known for its storms and being administered by the Yasuki, the Crab Clan courtiers and merchants who once part of the Crane Clan. Consequently, the Crane still view both the land and its administrators as belonging to it. The main village in the region, Storm Eel’s Rest, also supports a monastery on Unnamed Island, an island wracked by storms. The tension between the Crab and the Crane Clans is what drives much of the scenario.

The scenario begins en media res. The Player Characters are aboard the Spider Lily, sailing across Earthquake Fish Bay in search of a missing vessel. After the Game Master reads out the general introduction and the introduction for each of the Player Character—which oddly, does give away some of the secrets about each Player Character—they set out across the bay. After a random encounter, they locate the missing vessel, driven onto Unnamed Island by the storms. The Player Characters will quickly discover that the ship is under attack as is the monastery by various aquatic monsters—crab horrors, amphibious horrors, and stinging horrors. The monastery is under assault because it hides a secret. They are Stormkeepers, protectors of the bay from the spirit of the great beast which centuries before stalked the bay bringing down storms and lightning from its body and the sky. Its skull is kept warded, but spirits are assaulting the monastery as well as many aquatic minions!

Adventures in Rokugan: Storm Eel’s Rest is short and it is combat focused. There is a lot of flavour to it and there is some interesting detail to the pre-generated Player Characters. However, there is relatively little scope for these details to come out in play rather than be read out at the start of the scenario by the Game Master. The latter is odd and it feels only necessary because the scenario is intended to be played in a four-hour slot. If the scenario is run beyond that time limit, then the introductions for the Player Characters could be kept for the players to reveal through play and roleplaying and perhaps a better and simpler introduction be created in order to speed up play and the beginning of the scenario.

Physically, Adventures in Rokugan: Storm Eel’s Rest is well presented. The map is excellent and artwork superb. The scenario is well written.

Adventures in Rokugan: Storm Eel’s Rest is a solid scenario that fits within a single session and nicely showcases the setting of Rokugan, such as the tensions between the Crab and the Crane Clans. It is playable in the intended four-hour slot, but to really bring out the Player Character backgrounds through roleplaying, it needs more time and to shift the Player Character introductions to under their control and better introductions supplied.

Your Own Private Arcane Academy

Academies of the Arcane has a problem. Or rather, the subject matter of Academies of the Arcane has problem. Academies of the Arcane is a roleplaying supplement about creating and playing in your own school of wizardry. Which means that it draws comparisons with the series of novels starring Harry Potter and set at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and by association, the contentious views of the series’ author, J.K. Rowling. Academies of the Arcane and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry are about academic institutions modelled on British boarding schools with their own peculiar practices and traditions where magic is researched and taught. That though, is where the comparisons end. For although there is nothing to stop a Game Master and her players using Academies of the Arcane to create and roleplay a game similar to that of the Harry Potter, should they so desire, that is not its raison d’etre. In fact, doing so would actually be to ignore the possibilities and options that the book presents that enable the Game Master and her players to create their school of magic and everything associated with it—school uniforms, school houses, teachers, locations, events, classes, and more—and roleplay their students’ time at the school.

Academies of the Arcane is a supplement for Troika! Numinous Edition. Published by the Melsonian Arts Council following a successful Kickstarter campaign, presents some forty or so tables, over a third of the supplement, for creating numerous different aspects of an institution dedicated to the teaching of magic. Academies of the Arcane does not start there though. It begins with advice and suggestions for the Game Master on how to use the book and the types of campaign frameworks and framework elements it can be used for. These include using the magical school as a place of intrigue, betrayal, and treachery; as a base of operations from which the students can set out to undertake the very dangerous process of learning magic—at the school and beyond; to explore the pride and factionalism of the board school model and its houses, but with wizards and magic; and play not as young students, but as graduate students or members of the faculty, or interlopers at the school with a mission of their own. None of these concepts are explored in any great detail, but they are solid starting points from which Game Masters and players can develop their own frameworks, aided of course, by the familiarity of Academies of the Arcane’s subject matters and settings.

Academies of the Arcane provides some thirty-six student Backgrounds. These begin with the Prodigal Magus—who just happens to have an interesting birthmark or scar that glows when he casts spells, and the Warlock of the Withered Ouroboros, who is trying to avoid the fate of being consumed by his own magic. All have several possessions and several advanced skills, including spells, as well as a special ability. Others include odder creations such as Tiger Conceptual, Worm Troll, Printer’s Devil, and Precocious Ooze. These is a fantastic mix of the ordinary and the outré, and whilst a player can choose one from the thirty-six available, rolling for his character’s Background as intended adds to the challenge. Added to this are some ninety or so spells, from Acumen, Alignment Language, and Astral Parasite to Window-Weald, Word Feaster, and Wormcast. The spells are as weird and wonderful as the Backgrounds, such as the Word Feaster which enables the caster to eat the vocabulary of another wizard and effective silence them temporarily; Discordance which disrupts time with the terrible singing of the cosmos and upends the initiative stack in combat; and Manifest Doubt, which reveals a flaw in a personal philosophy, forcing the victim to collapse into painful introspection or double down on his belief. The spell notes that no philosophy is truly pure and so there is always a flaw to take advantage of.

Then Academies of the Arcane presents the tables needed to create an academy. This starts with the name such as ‘Father Ankou’s Cage of Arcane Triumph’ or ‘Drimcliff University of the Torment Eternal’. After this, rolls are made for campus appearance, interior and exterior, nearby notable locations, school uniform, history, recent troubles, and rumours. There are tables for creating houses and their mascots and mottos, notoriety and troubles, and for the classes and subjects that the Player Characters can take and study. As well as tables for creating members of the faculty, there is guidance for running classes and the school itself, and even a wizarding competition. Rounding out the book is a wild selection of interesting magical items such as familiars, The Adder-Skin Book of New Fate, Ancient Indelible Foods of the Gods, and more, all of which be used to drive stories at the wizarding school.

Although Academies of the Arcane is designed to be played used Troika!, a Science Fantasy roleplaying game of baroque weirdness, it need not be. Both Academies of the Arcane and Troika! are Old School Renaissance adjacent, in addition to being British Old School Renaissance in its inspiration. The simplicity of the mechanics Troika! and Academies of the Arcane—the latter’s spells in particular, combined with the lack of mechanics in its numerous tables and the prompts they contain, mean that the supplement is easy to use as a framework in another roleplaying game. This could be generic like the Cypher System or Savage Worlds or a retroclone like Old School Essentials. Either way, Academies of the Arcane is sufficiently generic to make adapting to another set of rules or a setting relatively easy.

Physically, Academies of the Arcane is cleanly and tidily presented. The artwork is excellent whether of the inclusive nature of the student body, the wonder of the arcane, or the exquisite nature of the magical items. The clarity of the design to Academies of the Arcane means that it has few problems and even then, they are minor at best. One is the size of the book, larger than that typical of supplements for Troika! Then again, getting all of the supplement’s tables into a digest-sized book and making them useable would have been challenging. The other is perhaps the brevity of the content, but then that content is designed as an extensive series of prompts to push the Game Master and her players to create their own arcane academy. However, that leaves one element of the genre unaddressed and likely intentionally so. Academies of the Arcane focuses on the fantasy of the magic and learning the magic and ignores the ordinary aspects of living in the equivalent of boarding school (for magic). So, there is no contrast between the ordinary and extraordinary, no push and pull between the two. The problem with doing so of course returns Academies of the Arcane to the problem of its subject matter and comparisons with Harry Potter, which could have been contentious. Thus, the aspect of the setting is left unmentioned and unexplored and in the hands of the Game Master and her players should they decide to include it in their game.

Ultimately, Academies of the Arcane provides everything the Game Master and her players need to run a game set at a sorcerous school, but not just any institute of invocation. Instead, an academy of the arcane that they create and make their own, telling the stories of their students, their studies, their rivalries, and adventures, and that is what makes Academies of the Arcane the toolkit of choice for its genre.

[Free RPG Day 2023] Level 1 Volume 4

Now in its sixteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2023 took place on Saturday, June 24th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Fil Baldowski at All Rolled Up, and others, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

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The most radical release for Free RPG 2023 is as in previous years, Level 1. Published by 9th Level Games, Level 1 is an annual RPG anthology series of ‘Independent Roleplaying Games’ specifically released for Free RPG Day. Where the other offerings for Free RPG Day 2023—or any other Free RPG Day—provide one-shots, one use quick-starts, or adventures, Level 1 is something that can be dipped into multiple times, in some cases its contents can played once, twice, or more—even in the space of a single evening! The subject matters for these entries ranges from the adult to the kid friendly and from action to cozy, and back again, but what they have in common is that they are non-commercial in nature and they often tell stories in non-commercial fashion compared to the other offerings for Free RPG Day 2023. The entries in the anthology often ask direct questions of the players, deal with mature subjects, and involve varying degrees of introspection, and for some players, this may be uncomfortable or simply too different from traditional roleplaying games. So the anthology includes ‘Be Safe, Have Fun’, a set of tools and terms for ensuring that everyone can play within their comfort zone. It is a good essay and useful not just for the games presented in the pages of LEVEL 1 – Volume 1, Level 1 Volume 2, and Level 1 Volume 3, which were published for their Free RPG Day events in 2020, 2021, and 2023 respectively, but for any roleplaying game.

The games in Level 1 Volume 4 all together require dice, tokens, a deck of ordinary playing cards, a tarot deck, and even gifts such as incense, drinks, food, oils or lotions, or a song. It should also be noted that many of the entries include a solo option. The anthology features fourteen roleplaying games all with the theme of ‘endings’. This does not necessarily mean the end, though it does in several of the titles in the anthology, but the end of situations and circumstances. Consequently, the ‘Be Safe, Have Fun’ safety tools are perhaps more pertinent than in previous issues of the anthology.

The first entry in Level 1 Volume 4 though, does deal with a finality. Mark Kennedy’s ‘Hero Catastrophe’ is a storytelling game of the last hurrah of classic epic fantasy genre heroes. They are lost in a magical wilderness with no hope of escape, but armed with four Moves in common—‘Manifest’, ‘Manipulate’, ‘Master’, and ‘Master’—and a weapon and a Heroic Silhouette, such as Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Druid, or Bard, they will be faced with catastrophe after catastrophe, and whilst they can make changes to the world around them, will ultimately fail, wrestling with their fate. They have limited Harm they can suffer and a Fate number and a Death Roll. When this Fate number is rolled on Move, something tied to the Player Character’s Fate will happen to his benefit, whilst when the Death Roll is rolled, it indicates a Fail and each Fail necessitates a roll on the ‘Catastrophes’ table. Procedural in nature, ‘Hero Catastrophe’ is designed to have the players and their heroes ultimately fail, but how they fail and what their last stories are is what matters.

If ‘Hero Catastrophe’ deals with imminent death, ‘Filling an empty breath’ by Dustin Blottenberger deals with a failed funeral ceremony to deal with a death, leaving one of the undead at the Player Characters’ feet. This is the roleplaying game where the gifts are partaken of and the aim is to break the curse that left the deceased one of the restless dead, first establishing connections to the deceased and thus each other, write a eulogy for them, and then describe what went wrong, how the revenant has changed and what their wishes are, and ultimately what rituals need to be performed to put them to rest. This creates a set of written artefacts, which each player must decide if he wants to sacrifice or not. If everyone does, the revenant is laid to rest, but not if a player decides not to. ‘Filling an empty breath’ is storytelling game, primarily driven by prompts, that will see the Players Characters decide the fate of the revenant and the consequences of that fate.

‘Daiquiris and Drunk Girls’ by K.J. and C.J. Lappin is the most fun of the entries in the anthology. It enables the players to roleplay the events of a hen do or bachelorette party and the end of the bride being single. As the players describe their character’s activities, such as karaoke or discovering that really is Elvis who turned up at the bar, they attempt to collect enough Cool Points to actually look cool and be remembered for the great party everyone had before the Mean Bartender accrues too many Anger Points or the characters too many Drunk Points and the Mean Bartender throws them out. ‘Daiquiris and Drunk Girls’ is simple and easy to play, but in embracing the clichés of the situation, there is scope too for some fun roleplaying.

The earlier ‘Hero Catastrophe’ explored the afterlife of heroes. M. Belanger’s ‘Rainbow Bridge’ does the same for household pets. In comparison, this is a safe space, with the pets going on a journey together and having two types of encounters along the way. A Memory is of their past life, a good time which can be shared with others, whilst a Passage gives a character the opportunity to move on to a new life. The players share these until all of the characters have taken advantage of a Passage. ‘Rainbow Bridge’ is the simplest and lightest of the entries in Level 1 Volume 4. ‘Live Without Warning’ is a solo game which explores the last day of the character. Written by Rue Dickey, the character uses Comfort to make his life and those others easier, Thrill to add excitement, and Recompense to address regrets and become a better person. The player draws from a tarot deck to determine a prompt and rolls the dice to determine whether the character struggles with the event or learns from it. This occurs once an hour over the course of twelve hours until an attribute is reduced to zero or the day is over. At which point, the player takes the time to reflect upon the day. Like the earlier ‘Rainbow Bridge’, ‘Live Without Warning’ is simple, but it is more reflective and mature in tone.

Nat Mesnard’s ‘Adventurer’s Respite’ returns to the subject matter of the earlier ‘Hero Catastrophe’. Rather than taking place in an afterlife, the adventurers have come to a valley known for its restorative benefits. Arriving at the Last Homely Hall, the Player Characters realise how tired they are, but want to share what brought them to the valley. In turn, the Player Characters will visit various locations in the valley and attempt to finding healing here. This can be positive or negative, the player narrating the outcome, with the aim being not to lose any Health. If all of the Player Characters lose all of their Health, they are lost to the valley, but a Player Character can sacrifice his own Health to restore others. Players are free to reflect on what their characters gained from the respite if anything, determined mostly by their Health.

‘A Necessary Miracle’ by Gabrielle Rabinowitz is a journaling game in a similar style to Thousand Year Old Vampire. It is about recovering an important treasure which has been lost to you. The player has coins he can spend to gain Miracles in the hunt for the lost object and can effectively never run out, though he not have enough coins to gain the benefit of the greater miracles. ‘A Necessary Miracle’ is short and sweet and benefits from an example of play even for a game as small as this.

Two of the roleplaying games in Level 1 Volume 4 deal with getting lost as much as with endings. Noah Lemelson’s ‘Labyrinth’ is about searching for endless maze whilst being chased by the equivalent of a Minotaur. It is not necessarily the half-man, half-bull of classic Greek mythology, but still a guardian of the Labyrinth which hunt the Wanderers. Both the players and the Spirit of the Labyrinth—the Game Master—define Character Trait cards and Revelation Cards. Character Traits are divided between Traits which define facts about them and Regrets, vague memories of something wrong they did in the past. They also define Revelation Cards, each of which consist of cards for Memory, Object, Location and a Fact About the Minotaur. The Spirit of the Labyrinth reassigns the Character Trait cards randomly to the players and their Wanderers, and will give out the Revelation Cards during play. Wanderers also have a Class—‘The Muscle’, ‘The Survivor’, ‘The Intellectual’, and ‘The Strange’—which defines their die type when rolling Actions. If a player successfully rolls an Action, he narrates the outcome of the Action. Otherwise, the Spirit of the Labyrinth does it. As the Wanderers explore the ever-changing sections of the labyrinth, they begin to recall memories, triggered by the Revelation Cards the Spirit of the Labyrinth hands out. Eventually, all of the Revelation Cards will be given out, memories regained and explored, and full facts known about the Minotaur, leading to a confrontation with the beast. This can be played out in any fashion, narratively or mechanically. Part of the challenge of ‘Labyrinth’ is playing with its randomly assigned Traits and revealed Revelation Cards, and the desire to escape does give it a decent drive.

‘Are You Lost, Traveller?’ by H.L. Black has a labyrinthine quality to it, but has a more interesting set-up than ‘Labyrinth’ does. The Player Characters are both players and their Avatars, playing or exploring one last virtual world before it is shut down. Each Aavatar has a Connection, a combination health and Wi-Fi strength, which if reduced to zero, boots them from the server. It includes a sample world/game called ‘Eternal Realm ’98’ and without that, ‘Are You Lost, Traveller?’ is underwritten, neither Game Master or nor player not knowing quite what to do with the mechanics. A lost opportunity and done better with .Dungeon.

‘Dear Marley’ takes the players back to high school. It can be their high school or a high school of their imagination, but Brigitte Winter’s game take place on the last day. Everyone is friends—more or less-with Marley, the heart of their social group. The game establishes their relationship with Marley and then as they reflect on the end of their time at high school, tell the stories of four yearbook photos in which they and Marley both appear. In the process, they leave messages in in the yearbook and the tells the story of the relationship. This is developed until the yearbook is full and the class song is sung and then everyone has the chance to reflect upon what they created. The connections and relationships are created randomly and that is what prompts the changes to the relationships over the course of the game.

Sylvia Gimenez’s ‘Hauntrification’ is about ghosts. The players take the roles of a Wraith, Poltergeist, Banshee, or Maze, and have to learn to deal with the arrival of mortal Newcomers in their Home, both controlled by the Game Master or Voice of the Living. As Ghosts they have a background in both life and death plus a Binding which ties them to the Home and Bonds with each other. ‘Hauntrification’ is primarily set-up in that it establishes the Ghosts, their Home, and the Newcomers, and then leaves what happens next up to the players. Do the Ghosts want to drive the interlopers from their Home, come to some arrangement, and do something else? Supplied with an example scenario, ‘Hauntrification’ does feel like the BBC and CBS television series Ghosts, although the Newcomers can only sense the Ghosts and possibly their emotions. The Ghosts have a surprising degree of agency, but affecting the living is hard work in this fun roleplaying game.

‘ARC – A Game About The End’ by Zak Eidsvoog & Ian Rickett is a storytelling game about the story of a Subject, from beginning to end. The Subject could be the life of one person or of a whole empire. Players take it in turns to define the Subject and then in turn a Desire that the Subject wants. Whether or not the Subject gets a Desire is determined by a vote, which is held once each Desire is established. The outcome is narrated and a new Desire chosen. Once four or more Desires have been voted on and their outcome narrated, the game ends with each player narrating a Legacy based on the completed story of the Subject. Several sample Subjects and Desires are suggested, but it is easy to create these in play. Being played without cards or dice, ‘ARC – A Game About The End’ is an easy, straightforward framework with which to tell stories almost anywhere.

The penultimate roleplaying game in Level 1 Volume 4 is ‘Atop the Burning Heap’. Designed by Goat Song Publishing, this is a single player game of pyrrhic victory. It uses the Spades cards from a standard deck of playing cards to represent obstacles the player has overcome, whilst the other cards—Diamonds are resources, Clubs are people, and Hearts are morals—represent the costs paid or sacrifices made to overcome these obstacles. Their values determine if they overcome the value of the Spades cards. The player does not name or identify the exact nature of the costs or sacrifices at the time they are made in play. Instead, this is done in the epilogue when the player also asks if they were worth making. The setting for ‘Atop the Burning Heap’ is a city rife with crime and political infighting and comes with tables corresponding to the four suites in the deck of playing cards, but the player could easily create tables of his own. This is another relatively short roleplaying game, but one that intentionally saves the shock of the player’s failure until the very end.

The last entry in Level 1 Volume 4 is ‘An Epic Ending – A Game About Dying For What’s Right’ by Helena Real. It returns to the subject of fantasy heroes and their final chapter. It uses the Powered by the Apocalypse mechanics to tell their desperate self-sacrifice which if successful, will stop a villain threatening all of reality. Consequently, it is the closest to a traditional roleplaying game in the anthology, but still intended to be played in a single session. Anyone familiar with Powered by the Apocalypse will have no issue setting this up and running it, but for anyone coming to the roleplaying game and its rules anew, ‘An Epic Ending – A Game About Dying For What’s Right’ will feel very incomplete. Even the author recommends reading a Powered by the Apocalypse to understand the mechanics. Consequently, the setting or settings possible in ‘An Epic Ending – A Game About Dying For What’s Right’ feel underwritten or incomplete and it brings Level 1 Volume 4 to a close in an underwhelming fashion.

Physically, Level 1 Volume 4 is a slim, digest-sized book. Although it needs an edit in places, the book is well presented, and reasonably illustrated. In general, it is an easy read, and most of it is easy to grasp. It should be noted that the issue carries advertising, so it does have the feel of a magazine.

As with previous issues, Level 1 Volume 4 is the richest and deepest of the releases for Free RPG Day 2023, is not as rich or as deep as the entries in previous volumes. Several of the roleplaying games in the anthology feel incomplete or use very similar mechanics and themes so that those which do often play out in a similar fashion, which means a lack of variety, at least on one level. However peruse the pages of the anthology and there are some interesting games to read about and play. These include ‘Filling an Empty Breath’, ‘Daiquiris and Drunk Girls’, and ‘A Necessary Miracle’, which stand out from the rest because they are different. Overall, despite the varying quality and playability of the games in Level 1 Volume 4, its pages still present interesting and challenging storytelling games that are worth playing and an session or so contemplating the end.