Monday 28 October 2024
Medicae Misconduct
Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum: Diagnostica Obscurus is there to fulfil that need. It presents ‘Three Mendacious Medicae Technicians for your Grim And Treacherous Adventures in the Macharian Sector’. There for when a Player Character suffers more Critical Wounds than he can cope with, the supplement not only describes three NPCs in quite some detail, but it also provides their stats, information as to where they might be found and what their facilities are like, their background—and of course, secrets, and a Treatment Table listing the typical effects of their medical attention. Lastly, each NPC description includes a set of scenario hooks that ends with an apex mission. The latter to be played out once the previous scenarios have been played through and the Player Characters have earned the NPC’s trust—or enmity. In each case, the Game Master will need to develop the scenarios into something that can be readily played, but if she does so, she will have an ongoing story, lasting a session or two each time, which can be slotted into her campaign and played out over time.
The supplement’s three Medicae Technicians consist of Noxia Vex, Karzinth Half-Hand, and Genetor Erudir Phi-VI. Noxia Vex runs a back-alley clinic in the depths of Hive Rokarth, providing cut-rate medical care to all, heedless of their faction, and is protected by well-armed and intensely loyal guards with strangely milky eyes. For some patients though, she will offer her services in return for a favour and this ultimately, will put that patient in a dangerous situation as he is tasked with investigating a viral vector that Noxia is researching in the hope that she can find a cure for the guards who protect her before they go on a murderous rampage!
Karzinth Half-Hand is noticeably missing two fingers from one hand and why he does not replace them with bionics is the subject of some speculation amongst his rich patrons and secretly, a source of shame for him. He primarily offers his surgical expertise to the Mavins of Hive Praemiosus on Asterion, having fled his former position as a Chapter Serf to an Apothecarian and is deeply paranoid that his former masters are still looking for him. Currently he seeks wealth and the means to protect himself, which includes blackmail using information he gathers from certain patients whilst they are anaesthetised and under his knife! Karzinth Half-Hand might become a patron for the Player Characters or he might blackmail them with information gained whilst under his care to work for him. The hooks for Karzinth Half-Hand are not connected, but the apex mission is connected to his activities and is quite detailed in comparison to the others.
Genetor Erudir Phi-VI is an arrogant surgeon with some highly unorthodox ideas that verge on heresy. A member of Adeptus Mechanicus, he has established a clinic at the Grand Docks of Harjus where conducts radical surgical experiments whose subjects find themselves supposedly ‘improved’ with transplants harvested from xeno beasts! This lends itself to the possibility that the Player Characters might find themselves on ‘bug hunts’ looking for specimens to capture for Genetor Erudir Phi-VI’s experiments and one of them involves such as task through the tunnels of the Spear on which the surgeon has his clinic. His associated apex mission involves protecting him against a black mail attempt and like the one for Karzinth Half-Hand is longer and more detailed than that given for Noxia Vex.
The length of the apex missions for Karzinth Half-Hand and Genetor Erudir Phi-VI in comparison to that given for Noxia Vex does unbalance her entry in Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum: Diagnostica Obscurus slightly, though she has four missions as opposed to their three. The situations for all three NPCs in the supplement are quite flexible in that they can be as written or shifted to other worlds in the Macharian Sector, and the NPCs themselves used as patrons, as straightforward NPCs, or even as NPCs to be investigated on behalf of the Player Characters’ actual Patron. The latter option will need more development upon the part of the Game Master as it is only suggested in the text.
Physically, Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum: Diagnostica Obscurus is well presented and the artwork is excellent. It does need a slight edit.
Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum: Diagnostica Obscurus is a great addition for Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum. Using all three of its entries might be a challenge, but three skilled, but imperfect Medicae Technicians to add to the Game Master’s campaign complete with secrets and scenarios to be developed and brought into play is exactly what this completely unqualified not-a-Medicae Technician recommends.
Companion Chronicles #3: Squires Rampant
Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, The Companions of Arthur is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon. It enables creators to sell their own original content for Pendragon, Sixth Edition. This can original scenarios, background material, alternate Arthurian settings, and more, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Pendragon Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Pendragon campaigns.
It is a full colour, nine page, 8.9 MB PDF.
Where is the Quest Set?
Where will the Quest take the Knights?
Each squire in Squires Rampant is simply defined by a description, a quote, a special Skill that the squire is good at, and a requirement for the Player-knight. The squire also has two names, one male, one female, depending upon gender. Thus, for example, the randomly rolled example is ‘The Drunken Squire’. Anna is described as a “[H]appy, red-nosed lass, who is always of good humour.” She is loyal and does a serviceable enough job, but obviously drinks too much, has a loose tongue when she does, readily letting slip her knight’s foibles and desires—such as his secret love or subject of his feud, and then in morning has completely forgotten what she has said and to whom. She also has a sore head! Her special Skill is Intrigue, but is unable to use it wisely. Her knight should have a high score in the Temperate Trait because he needs to be sober enough to deal with the consequences of Anna’s partying the night before! If this squire is male, his name is Alec.
Sunday 27 October 2024
Short, Sharp Cthulhu II
Collections of short scenarios for Call of Cthulhu are nothing new—there was the 1997 anthology Minions, but that was for Call of Cthulhu, Fifth Edition. It was also a simple collection of short scenarios, whereas the more recent Gateways to Terror: Three Evenings of Horror in being both a collection of short scenarios and something different. Published by Chaosium, Inc. for use with either Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition or the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set, it is a trio of very short scenarios—scenarios designed to be played in an hour, designed to introduce players to Call of Cthulhu, and designed to demonstrate Call of Cthulhu. All three have scope to be expanded to last longer than an hour, come with pre-generated investigators as well as numerous handouts, and are designed to be played by four players—though guidance is given as to which investigators to use with less than four players for each scenario, right down to just a single player and the Keeper. All three are set in different years and locations, but each is set in a single location, each is played against the clock—whether they are played in an hour or two hours—before a monster appears, and each showcases the classic elements of a Call of Cthulhu scenario. So the players and their investigators are presented with a mystery, then an investigation in which they hunt for and interpret clues, and lastly, they are forced into a Sanity-depleting confrontation with a monster.
No Time to Scream: Three Evenings of Terror is the sequel. It is again designed to be used with either the Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition full rules or the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set, and again, it contains three scenarios. However, each is more expansive and plays out in a larger area than the single locations to be found in the scenarios for Gateways to Terror. Consequently, the three scenarios in No Time to Scream are longer, intended to be played in two hours rather than the one, That said, they can each be played in an hour and each comes with a rough timeline for such a playing length. Whether played in an hour or two hours any of the three scenarios works as as evening’s entertainment, or as a demonstration or convention scenario. All three are suitable for players new to Call of Cthulhu, whilst still offering an enjoyable experience for veteran players.
The anthology begins with an overview of its three scenarios and an extensive introduction—or reintroduction—to the core rules of Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. This is to help the Keeper introduce the rules herself to her fellow players, whether sat round the table at home, playing online, or at a convention. In turn it discusses the investigator sheet, using Luck, skill rolls, bonus and penalty dice, combat, and of course, Sanity. Included here are references to both the Call of Cthulhu: Keeper Rulebook and the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set with pertinent points marked. The only thing not included here that perhaps might have been useful is a list of these references, possibly at the end of the section. It notes too, that the scenarios contain text to be read aloud to the players and two types of clues. ‘Obvious’ clues are meant to be found as part of the investigative as they are vital to its progression and they do not require any skill check to be found, whereas ‘Obscure’ add further detail and background, but are not vital to the completion of the scenario. They are typically discovered following a skill check. If an ‘Obvious’ clue does require a skill check, it is typically to see how it took the Investigator to find and to see if there are any complications from finding it. Otherwise this is all very useful, if not as a reminder, then at least as a means of the Keeper having to avoid flipping through another book.
Each of the three scenarios is tightly structured and follows the same format. This starts with advice on the scenario’s structure, specifically the timings if the Keeper is running it as a one-hour game. Then it discusses each of the four investigators for the scenario, including their notable traits and roleplaying hooks, what to do if there are fewer than four players, and what if there are more than four, before delving into the meat of the scenario itself. All three are very nicely presented, clear and easy to read off the page in terms of what skill rolls are needed and what the investigators learn from them. As well as decent maps, each scenario comes with a sheaf of handouts, suggestions as to how each of its four investigators react when they go insane, which includes possible Involuntary Actions and Bouts of Madness, and lastly, details of the four investigators. These are not done on the standard Investigator sheets for Call of Cthulhu, but those and the handouts are available to download.
The first scenario is ‘A Lonely Thread’, which takes place at the well-appointed country cabin of an elderly Professor of Archaeology who teaches part-time at Miskatonic University. A learned and avuncular man, he regularly invites guests to stay at his home, and this time that includes the Investigators. Unfortunately, it soon becomes apparent that the professor is unwell, is he acting oddly, and seems forgetful. Is that because he is ill, or is there something else going on here? Striking the right note of oddness takes some roleplaying skill upon the part of the Keeper and the players using what their Investigators know about him as given and suggested on the Investigator sheets. Just how soon the players and their Investigators notice and just how soon they act will greatly influence the outcome of the scenario.
The professor is definitely not himself, having become possessed by an alien wire-like entity, which he was investigating as part of his research into the Mythos and inadvertently set free. The creature has also threaded itself through the body of his housekeeper and is quietly gestating its new form in the wood cellar below the house (so, this scenario does prove that is something in woodshed). Once the Investigators have worked out that something is wrong, confronted the professor, fought and discovered his situation, then they will have the whole house to explore as well as his workshop. There is the opportunity to gain some clues before doing so, but the scenario’s time limit is reached when the creature-that-was-once-the-professor’s-housekeeper completes its transition and begins to stalk the Investigators through his house.
The ending is likely to be quite physical in nature, though the option is given for fleeing, as is setting fire to the professor’s cabin and workshop. This is actually covered in some detail and mechanically uses a Luck roll to determine if the Investigators are successful. Overall, this is a decent scenario and straightforward to run.
The second scenario, ‘Bits & Pieces’, moves the action to Arkham itself and the city’s morgue. This is where the Investigators will find themselves in 1927 after they receive a telephone call from a disgraced physician in which he mutters about cultists, resurrection, and the need for cleansing fire. The call brings a disparate group of people together, first at his apartment and then at the morgue, where once they have broken in (because it is closed for the night), they find the doctor almost dead, his final words being, “Don’t’ let them out.” So, whomever stabbed him in the neck with a scalpel is still in the morgue and not only that, but the corpse that the doctor was obviously working on, is not on the slab. So where has that gone? Once the Investigators start looking, they do not find anyone. However… what they do find are parts of a body and every single part wants to fight back.
‘Bits & Pieces’ feels very much inspired by the film Reanimator, because these body parts are animated and not only do want to get back together, they prepared to fight to do so. This scenario is huge, silly fun. It manages to combine both horror and what is effectively, slapstick. Plus, the body parts all do different things to the Investigators. The arms will lay traps and stab them, the legs kick them and run away, the torso barges them, and best all, the head not only bites them, it actually calls the police to try and get ride of the Investigators! The aim for Investigators is to grab all of the body parts and get them to the furnace to burn all of the evidence—if they can work out how to operate it. The time limit on the scenario is when the morgue opens up in the morning. This is a brilliantly fun scenario, very physical, and is going to be highly memorable one to play and run.
The third and last scenario is ‘Aurora Blue’. This is the most mature and complex of the three scenarios in terms of its themes and tone. This is because it sees a clash of the marginalised. It takes place in late winter, 1932 and the Investigators are agents if the Bureau of prohibition, marginalised because their backgrounds and their assignment. The Investigators consist of an African American, of mixed African American and Inuit heritage, an older African American, and a woman. Consequently, given the attitudes the Bureau of Prohibition, their careers have found them marginalised to the backwater of Alaska, at the time a U.S. territory rather than a state. This is because after first believing that a new source of very popular bootleg alcohol was Canada, their bosses want to blame the delay in actually investigating and dealing with the source, a farm in the Chugach Mountains, Alaska, and anything that might go wrong, squarely on the Investigators. ‘Aurora Blue’ helpfully includes a sidebar with advice on the portrayal of the marginalised quartet and the attitudes towards them, but also suggests that the Keeper refer to ‘Realism: Reality and the Game’ from Harlem Unbound.
In addition, the scenario also includes a ‘Memory’ for each of the Investigators, triggered by a scene or encounter, in which they each have the opportunity to recall a similar moment in which they were faced with the prejudices against them and what happened as a result. These flashbacks are a moment to highlight and personalise their status and for each player to roleplay his or her Investigator.
The scenario also suggests that the Keeper refer to the Color Out of Space—both the short story by H.P. Lovecraft and the film from 2019—for the look and style of ‘Aurora Blue’, as this is the threat at the heart of the scenario. Scenarios for Call of Cthulhu that involve a Color Out of Space tend to be quite traditional, the alien creature landing near a farm and its poisonous aura first causing unparalleled fecundity and change before a rot sets in that renders everything into a grey infertility. The difference between them is the set-up and who the Investigators are, and in this case, the Investigators are agents of the Bureau of Prohibition, and the set-up focuses on the clash between their desperation in being given a bad, possibility career-ending assignment and the economic desperation of the farm that is producing Aurora Blue, the brand of the bootleg alcohol which the Agents have been sent to investigate.
In many ways, ‘Aurora Blue’ is not a subtle affair, its horror on show from the start and its mutated fecundity and hints of its barren blight to come pervading the scenario throughout. The main opportunity for roleplaying is with the farmer’s daughter, ill-treated and then rendered mute by the effects of the Color Out of Space, with only crayons and paper as her only means of communication and with her drawings serving as clues that the players have to interpret. The scenario is also more sophisticated in terms of its outcomes. The Agents can succeed in completing their assignment and they can potentially defeat the Color Out of Space, but this is optional—fleeing the farm without destroying the Color Out of Space is an acceptable option. It may also be possible to get away with the farmer’s daughter, but the scenario does not really make clear to the Agents and their players the strength of the connection between her and the Color Out of Space and how, if possible, it can be broken. Consequently, the optimum outcome of ‘Aurora Blue’ is not as clear as perhaps it should be for a scenario that is as short as this and for a scenario that is designed in part to demonstrate the roleplaying game.
The book is rounded out with two appendices and a set of indices. The first of the appendices contains the handouts for all three scenarios,, whilst the second has the bibliographies of the authors. The indices consist of four—a general index and then one for each of the three scenarios.
Physically, No Time to Scream is very well presented, with decently done maps and a great deal of the artwork can be used to show the players during play. The handouts are also well done, the crayon drawings for the farmer’s daughter from ‘Aurora Blue’ standing out for being singularly different. Lastly, it should be noted that the running length of all three scenarios makes them fairly easy to prepare and have ready to run.
No Time to Scream: Three Evenings of Terror is good sequel to Gateways to Terror: Three Evenings of Horror. The three scenarios in this new anthology get better and more interesting as they go along. ‘Bits & Pieces’ stands out as a very rare combination for Call of Cthulhu—slapstick and horror—whilst ‘Aurora Blue’ is an excellent combination of back woods horror and poisoned hope with the need of the Investigators to prove themselves. As a collection of one-shots, demonstration scenarios, and convention scenarios, No Time to Scream: Three Evenings of Terror delivers three more, short doses of horror and does so in an engaging, well designed, and multi-functional fashion.
Saturday 26 October 2024
Solitaire: Colostle – Dungeons
Colostle – Dungeons expands Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, definitely the prettiest solo journalling game on the market, by taking it down into the ground. It is the third expansion for Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, following on from Colostle – The Roomlands and Colostle – Kyodaina, and one that makes absolute sense. After all, if the scale of the castle in Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure is literally colossal, that does not mean that it cannot have dungeons, even if they are of a similar scale. In taking the player and his character deep underground, it opens up a whole new environment, dark and dank, of cathedral-sized chambers, populated by strange new types of Rooks, riven with an infection that is both a blessing and curse, protected by Guardians who stand watch over fabulous treasures, and home to a whole new society. All of this, plus treasures to be found and advanced rules for the explorer, as well as pre-written Major Labyrinths for them to delve into, which all together form a campaign.
Essentially, once the player has drawn a card indicating the entrance to a Labyrinth, he can decide to enter it and explore. This opens up its own set of ‘Labyrinth Tables’ with which the player can create chambers, determine their look, and populate them with a guardian and rewards. The rewards often take the form of treasures such as valuable rings, cups that can heal when drank from, keys some of which are marked with glyphs that open doors to other locations, and shards. The latter appear to have been broken off a larger tablet, and are typically seen as worthless. However, there are some interested in collecting them if the explorer knows where to find them. What the significance of the tablet is, if it can be reconstructed, nobody knows. Some of the treasures are worth a few coins, others a bit more, but there are rare treasures which will grant the explorer advantages when exploring future Labyrinths. The treasures are also important culturally to the peoples who live in the Dungeonlands.
The Other OSR: Dungeons & Death
Dungeons & Death is itself notable for the fact that it contains three scenarios created from fantastic terrain created and painted by the members of the Forbidden Psalm Community. The supplement makes a point of including photographs taken of these three pieces of terrain and each of these is amazing! Not only do the photographs show off the skills of the contributors in terms of sculpting and painting, but they are great handouts should the Game Master want to show them to her players to give them an idea on what they are facing. Otherwise, Dungeons & Death is a short anthology that contains three scenarios and a new set of rules for creating random dungeons that players can take their warbands delving into their depths.
Friday 25 October 2024
Friday Fantasy: Mercy on the Day of the Eel
The scenario begins with the Player Characters being held captive. Somehow—and the how is something that each player should decide upon for his character—the Player Characters have each fallen foul of the Thieves’ Guild. The reason can be a collective one, shared by all of the Player Characters, or be individual to each Player Character. In this way, the scenario can also be used as a ‘Meetup’, the equivalent of a ‘Character Funnel’ in Dungeon Crawl Classics. A Character Funnel is a scenario specifically designed for Zero Level Player Characters in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar does have its own Character Funnels, but they are not a major aspect of the setting and its play. What is the ‘Meetup’ in which the Player Characters simply meet on a mission or a burglary or other activity, and instead of getting into a fight about completing the objective, decide to work together and share the rewards. However, most Meetups for Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar are for Zero Level or First Level, rather than Second Level as is Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #12: Mercy on the Day of the Eel. This is, of course, because the players typically want to roleplay their character from First Level rather than Second Level. However, since the Player Characters are held captive and this is a Meetup, they need not know each other, and this could be used as a means to introduce a new Player Character, whether because a previous one died or because there is a new player.
Overall, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #12: Mercy on the Day of the Eel is best used as whole rather than in parts, because it possible to miss the part that makes the scenario memoerable.
Friday Fiction: The Dunwich Horror
The Dunwich Horror is one of horror author H.P. Lovecraft’s most famous stories. It takes place in the mouldering decrepit parts of Massachusetts where the ravines seem to run deep and the trees appear to leap up to ring the stone-topped hills from strange sounds emanate, and few if any of the villagers appear to work their boulder strewn pastures. Here stands Dunwich, a refuge for those fleeing the witch trials of Salem, decayed and shunned in equal measure, where no man of the cloth has set foot for centuries. The Bishops and the Whatelys, the leading families, such as they are, send their few scions to study at Harvard and elsewhere, and some do indeed return to Dunwich. Yet the worst of these scions, and most precocious—both physically and mentally—is Wilbur Whately, who leaves of his own accord, in search of knowledge that will enable him to make contact with his true father. A mere fifteen when he goes in search of this knowledge, it will ultimately be his undoing and his death will have terrible consequences for the village of Dunwich and the men who accompany Doctor Henry Armitage to deal with the aftermath of Wilbur’s attempts to obtain information from the eldritch tomes kept in the stacks of the Miskatonic University library.
Originally published in April 1929 issue of Weird Tales, The Dunwich Horror has been published many times since and in more recent years adapted into films, graphic novels, audio dramas and radio plays, and even a stage play. One of the latest adaptations is none of these, but an illustrated version of the short story. The Dunwich Horror is published by Free League Publishing, a publisher best known for roleplaying games such as Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings, and Alien: The Roleplaying Game. It is not the publisher’s first such title. That would be The Call of Cthulhu, the classic of American horror literature and the short story that is arguably H.P. Lovecraft’s most well-known. It has since been followed with At the Mountains of Madness, H.P. Lovecraft’s most famous and only novel, published as two parts, Volume I and Volume II. As with these classics, the Free League Publishing edition of The Dunwich Horror is fully illustrated by French artist François Baranger and presented in a large 10½ by 14 inches folio format.
Much like Lovecraft himself, Baranger draws the reader long up the Miskatonic River to its headwaters amongst the dark hills that surround the village of Dunwich. There is a sense of isolation and decay, shrouded in mist and a gloom of long nights and secrets, the latter brightened by hilltops blazes around which men and things cavort and conspire. Perhaps the most marked sign of decay is the depiction of the traditional New England covered bridge, the wooden walkway leading to it twisted and broken, the bridge itself missing planks and the remaining construction already rotting above the dank waters. As the seasons come and go, the folk of Dunwich comment and chart the strangeness of Wilbur Whately himself and the ongoing construction at the family home. Twice the gloom is broken by fire atop the hillsides, the brightness marred by the unholy reasons for them being lit, once for the birth of Wilbur, then again for his search for answers. It is this search that takes Wilbur to Miskatonic University and here is perhaps the only light in the story, an austere bastion of knowledge caught in the pale winter sun as the looming figure of Wilbur Whately approaches the Orne Library.
Yet this is the only moment of contrast in the depiction of The Dunwich Horror by François Baranger, a moment of calm between Wilbur’s unseemly growth and the thirst for knowledge that will not only kill him and so revealing the ghostly true nature of his form, but also unleash a monstrous horror upon the blighted farming folk of Dunwich. The second half of the novel—the first half being described as a prologue—details for the reasons for reader’s return to Dunwich, the dangerous nature of Wilbur’s researches and the unearthly presence in the village, unseen as it lumbers from one scene of destruction to another. This time though, we are in the company of Doctor Armitage, he and his colleagues equipped with the dread knowledge necessary to banish what that presence might be. The head librarian has already paid the price in the cost to his composure in conducting that research, making clear the insidious effects of looking too much into things that man was not meant to know. The short story and Baranger’s illustrations draw in closer and closer, leaving the expansiveness of the horror’s wake, behind to climb the hill where the fires were once lit. Here in one terrible moment, just as the first half of story revealed Wilbur’s true form in inhuman twistedness, both Lovecraft and Baranger shows us the real ‘Dunwich Horror’.
The third of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories to be adapted by François Baranger, his depiction of The Dunwich Horror is one of brooding claustrophobia and leaden shadows, seeming only to up when the tale looks skyward and to the monstrosity unleashed by Wilbur Whately’s branch of the family. As before, the likelihood is that the reader of this book will have read H.P. Lovecraft’s story before, probably more than once, but François Baranger brings the story to life in sombre tones and startling revelations that match the text perfectly as it reveals much about the Whatelys and the mythology Lovecraft was creating. This new depiction of The Dunwich Horror is perfect for dark nights upon which new readers can discover this classic horror story, whilst old fans can come back to stalk the crepuscular valleys and hills of this corner of New England and be reviled at its secrets once again.