Friday Fantasy: Tower of the Black Pearl

Everyone along the coast knows the legend of the Tower of the Black Pearl. That it is reputed to be the final resting place of the fabled Black Pearl—an artefact said to bring doom upon all who dare to possess it. That it stands out sea, deep enough that none can reach. Except that once every ten years the tides of the Empyrean Ocean recede far enough for one night to reveal the very top of this mysterious undersea tower. Easily reached by rowing boat. And that night is tonight. As the Moon hangs low in the sky, the Player Characters, armed with rumours and perhaps a little knowledge, have hours get atop the tower and descend to its lower floors in the hope that the Black Pearl might still be there. And they can survive the curse. This is the simple set-up for what is a fairly straightforward and mostly linear scenario. It is also a scenario with a bit of history.

The set-up is for the Dungeon Crawl Classics 2018 Convention Module: Tower of the Black Pearl, a scenario for Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, published by Goodman Games. It is written for use with First Level Player Characters. It was originally published in 2006 as part of Dungeon Crawl Classics #29: The Adventure Begins anthology for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition and subsequently converted in 2008 for use Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition as TheGolden Auroch/Tower of the Black Pearl. This was followed by its first appearance in 2013 for Dungeon Crawl Classics as Dungeon Crawl Classics #79.5: Tower of the Black Pearl and then more recently, as Dungeon Crawl Classics 2018 Convention Module: Tower of the Black Pearl. The fact that it has been adapted into a convention scenario is indicative that scenario type that it is, that is, short, direct, but still challenging—and designed to be played in a single four hour session.

The scenario mixes pirates, magic, more than a few traps, and weird, fury crab monsters. The pirates provide the Judge with the scenario’s only real NPC, the nefarious Savage Quenn, courteous to a fault, smooth talking, and charming, but still a ruthless murderer! The Judge should have some fun portraying him, perhaps as a classic matinee movie villain idol! The tower also hides a big secret. In fact, it has two big secrets. It was once one of the eldritch fastnesses of Sezrekan the Elder. Today, he is renowned as the most wicked wizard ever to plague the Known World, but that does not stop many Wizards seeking him as their patron. In fact, the scenario will be that more interesting if the Wizard in the party does have Sezrekan the Elder as his Patron. The second secret is that the tower is effectively one big trap. If the Player Characters mange to get down far enough to get hold of the Black Pearl, its curse is that it causes the tower to rapidly flood. Which gives the Player Characters very little time to escape as the waters rise in rapid fashion…!

In terms of design, the tower itself is linear, although the Player Characters will find themselves returning to the Chamber of Portals to solve some simple puzzles to be able to teleport into lower areas and proceed with the adventure. This means that the adventure does not feel as linear. Beyond, there is a mini-River Styx, complete with Charon the Ferryman, and ultimately, the ‘Shrine of the Black Pearl’ which lies on the other side of a pool of black snakes. Getting across this pool without antagonising the snakes is going to be a problem for the Player Characters. Getting back across with the waters rising is an even bigger challenge. However, none of these encounters are the most interesting room in the tower. This is the ‘Hall of Mysteries’, the second encounter in the tower. It consists of a room containing a single book and a lot of candles. Each candle represents the life of a Lawful hero. Snuff it out and the hero dies. Relight it and the hero springs back to life. This applies to the Player Characters as much as it does any other hero. This gives the Player Characters the power of life and death—at least within this room—and potentially, if the Player Characters actually snuffed out every candle, they could change the fate of nations as without Lawful heroes, Chaos triumphs and civilisations collapse. Essentially, unwittingly, the Player Characters could destroy the world as they know it, and since the tower is only accessible for a few hours and then not again for a decade, only discover the consequences of their actions after they leave and be unable to reset if for a decade! This is such a deliciously tart outcome to the meeting, just plain evil. Dungeon Crawl Classics 2018 Convention Module: Tower of the Black Pearl even suggests that this could be beginning of a ‘Dark Age of Heroes’ campaign.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics 2018 Convention Module: Tower of the Black Pearl is well presented. This is a much tidier and easier to use version of the scenario. The map is clearer and the handouts good. The artwork is good too.

Dungeon Crawl Classics 2018 Convention Module: Tower of the Black Pearl is easy to set up and run. It could be run as ‘Character Funnel’—the signature feature of the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game in which Zero Level Player Characters attempt to survive an scenario in the hope of gaining sufficient Experience Points to acquire a Level and be eligible to take up a Class and all of its features—but it feels just a bit too tough for that. It is potentially also a good adventure for a Wizard Player Character given the potential rewards, whilst its arcane, even arch nature mean that it could easily be run using the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set and Dungeon Crawl Classics Dying Earth without any difficulty. Overall, Dungeon Crawl Classics 2018 Convention Module: Tower of the Black Pearl is an entertainingly short, sharp, and sweet example of a low Level scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game.

Perfidy & Profitability

The world of Spume is hellhole and you definitely would not want to live there. Most of the few hundred that do live on the planet reside in the single dome settlement of Dryavis, where they conduct mining operations via remote drones and vehicles. Outside of the dome, the planet, with its thin, tainted atmosphere, is subject to near constant seismic activity, widespread volcanic activity, and a near constant rain of ash and rocks, all at extremes of temperature and intermittent radioactivity. Located within the Darrian Confederation in the Darrian Subsector of the Spinward Marches, just two parsecs away from the capital and one parsec away from the homeworld, nobody would willing want to visit Spume. Except that the planetary population has risen by a handful with the arrival of a team of scientists from the departments of geophysical sciences and engineering at Idikelin University to conduct field research. Unfortunately, the site designated for the expedition’s base was highly prone to seismic activity and a sudden landslip upended the base and made it uninhabitable, forcing the surviving members of team to flee across the highly inhospitable surface of Spume. This is the set-up for and plot of Ashfall, the first part of a trilogy of scenarios published by March Harrier Publishing for use with Traveller, Second Edition from Mongoose Publishing. As Ashfall comes to close, the Player Characters have managed to make their way to Dryavis and safety.

Ashfall II: Under the Dome is the sequel to Ashfall and the middle part of the trilogy. In addition to the core rulebook, the Game Master will need access to Alien Module 3: Darrians or Aliens of Charted Space Vol. 3, whilst the Central Supply Catalogue and Book 10: Cosmopolite may also be useful. Similarly, access to various issues of The Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society may also be helpful, but are not crucial to running the scenario.

For the most part, Ashfall II: Under the Dome is a locked room, or rather ‘locked dome’ affair. The inhabitants of Dryavis, consisting of miners, technicians, and administrators readily welcome the arrival of the Player Characters and even celebrate their survival with a banquet. After that, the Player Characters are free to wait out the period between their arrival and their eventual collection and departure off world as they wish, although they are encouraged to take part in the community life of the mining base. There are mechanical issues to fix, a tournament to participate in, and other events to get involved in. As they go about their daily lives in the mining base, perhaps even spending time preparing their research notes and data (gathered in the previous scenario, Ashfall) for publication, it becomes clear to the Player Characters that all is not well in Dryavis. There is some friction between the old timers and new commers in the settlement, and some between the employees of the five companies that make up the conglomerate, the Pihrund Corporation, that controls the settlement, but most friction is between the Pihrund Corporation and the miners as they suspect that the Pihrund Corporation is operating a ‘fire and rehire’ programme to bring in a new workforce that will accept cheaper wages. The Player Characters will learn of this right at the start of the scenario when a miner approaches them and voices her concern about the state of the Pihrund Corporation’s accounts.

Ashfall II: Under the Dome is not only a radical change of pace from Ashfall, but also a difficult change of pace. The hook is simply not as strong in Ashfall II: Under the Dome as it is in Ashfall, shifting from, ‘To survive, I must march to safety across this dangerous landscape’ to ‘I have reached safety, but someone is telling me her worries about some accounts’. The players and their characters are not motivated to get involved unless they decide they want to. It is entirely possible that the scenario could play out with the Player Characters involving themselves in the community and life of the mining base and nothing more. The conspiracy, as small scale as it is and as nasty as it is, could simply pass them by and remain uncovered and unnoticed. Depending upon how the scenario is being run, this can present the Game Master with a challenge because the hook relies too on player and character curiousity. As a one-shot and on its on rather than as part of the trilogy, Ashfall II: Under the Dome needs the conspiracy hook to keep the players and their characters interested because they have not been through the crucible of Ashfall, whereas as part of the trilogy, Ashfall II: Under the Dome is such a contrast of tone to Ashfall, that the conspiracy almost seem superfluous.

Whether or not the Player Characters decide to investigate the rumours and the accounts of the Pihrund Corporation, the scenario is solidly supported. Besides the description of Dryavis and its facilities, including the mining equipment, there are full write-ups of various NPCs, a detailed explanation of the politics of the mining base, a description of the rules to Pamboyra, or Darrian chess (this is the game for the tournament), lots and lots of rumours to drive any plot or distract from it, and even Occupation tables for the Miner/ROVer (remotely operated vehicle operators) and Technicians working on Spume. The latter allows for possible replacement Player Characters as there is the possibility of their being killed in the scenario. It also allows for the scenario to be run as one-shot with the Player Characters as Miners/ROVers and Technicians rather than as scientists seeking the safety of the mining base after a disaster. In many ways, this set-up makes better use of the scenario’s plot, because as Miners/ROVers and Technicians, the Player Characters would have a greater sense of investment in the future of the mining operation.

Physically, Ashfall II: Under the Dome is a tidy affair. The plan of the mining base is serviceable, but the illustrations of the animals on the base are sort of cute.

Ashfall II: Under the Dome is a scenario with two plot strands, one an amiable slice of mining base life, the other a corporate conspiracy. Getting the players and their characters interested and involved in the first is straightforward, but getting them interested in the other is much more of a challenge. So much of rests on the curiosity of the players and their characters, and for some players that will be enough to get involved, but for others, the Game Master may need to work harder to trigger that involvement.

Miskatonic Monday #421: Nothing but the Wind

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. 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: Nothing but the Wind

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: JP Stephens

Setting: New World in the Dark Ages

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Seventeen page, 2.15 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Vikings versus Wendigo

Plot Hook: Vikings versus Wendigo

Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Vikings, one map, and several Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Technically a scenario for Call of Cthulhu and Mythic Iceland

# Could be run using either Cthulhu Dark Ages (or even Age of Vikings)

# Low preparation, easy set up and run

# Ososphobia

# Ancraophobia

# Frigophobia

Cons

# Straightforward and fairly obvious

# It is going to end in a fight (and it does)

Conclusion

# Easy to set up, low preparation scenario

# Vikings versus Wendigo, claws versus sword action

Miskatonic Monday #420: Lamps for the Lost

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. 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: Lamps for the Lost

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: David Waldron & Reshmi Lahiri-Roy

Setting: 1890s Ballarat, Australia

Product: scenario
What You Get: Fifty-eight page, 51.48 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Grave consequences of caste, corruption, and crime in Victorian-era Australia

Plot Hook: Is bigotry hiding a serious crime?

Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, four NPCs, six handouts, and two ‘monsters’.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Scenario for Cthulhu by Gaslight

# Lots of interesting historical background

# Diverse cast of pre-generated Investigators

# Casts a light on the Indian experience in Australia

# Phasmophobia

# Thalassophobia

# Homichlophobia

Cons

# Rushed in places

# Needs an edit

# No maps

# Historical background needed to be handouts

# Separation of the historical background and the scenario could have been better

# Should there be a Ballarat source and/or campaign now?

Conclusion

# Rushed, but well-researched historical ghost story

# A classic horror story of Victorian cultural indifference and bigotry

Magazine Madness #45: Knock! #4

The gaming magazine is dead. After all, when was the last time that you were able to purchase a gaming magazine at your nearest newsagent? Games Workshop’s White Dwarf is of course the exception, but it has been over a decade since Dragon appeared in print. However, in more recent times, the hobby has found other means to bring the magazine format to the market. Digitally, of course, but publishers have also created their own in-house titles and sold them direct or through distribution. Another vehicle has been Kickststarter.com, which has allowed amateurs to write, create, fund, and publish titles of their own, much like the fanzines of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest. The resulting titles are not fanzines though, being longer, tackling broader subject matters, and more professional in terms of their layout and design.

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Published in January, 2024 by The Merry Mushmen, the fourth issue of Knock! An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac comes as jam-packed as the previous issues. There is content drawn from blogs and content that is wholly new, there are new rules and new ways of doing old things, there are monsters and NPCs, there are spells and spellcasting, there are swords and scenarios, and there are thought pieces and threads that run through the issue. There is just about anything and everything in the issue that a reader with any interest in the Old School Renaissance might want to read about. There is even a ten-page section at the end of the issue called ‘Welcome to the OSR’ that explores how various authors encouraged Old School Renaissance style play at their table. (Despite the title, the section is not intended as an introduction to the Old School Renaissance, but the issue’s editorial does give pointers to that.) Along the way to that last section, there is plenty of art, some of it new, some of it in the public domain, some drawn from unexpected sources (Vincent Price makes a surprising appearance), and honestly, just almost too much stuff, too much to read, too much to use, too much to think about. Knock! An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac #4 really does pack a lot into its two-hundred-and-ten-pages.

Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, the content in Knock! An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac #4 begins with the dust jacket which contains with ‘The Lost City Sandbox’, Eric Nieudan’s homage to Tom Moldvey’s B4 The Lost City, the classic scenario for Basic Dungeons & Dragons. Along with the cover, this is a great start to the issue which does explore several themes. The first of these draws upon the influence of J.R.R. Tolkien upon the hobby. Josh McCrowell develops its ideas into two articles. The first is ‘The Hobbit as a Setting’ which asks, “What if The Hobbit was the only inspiration for roleplaying?”, whilst the second, ‘In search of better travel rules’ looks at where travel rules go wrong and how they might be improved for the Old School Renaissance. The first examines some of the elements of The Hobbit not normally seen in roleplaying, such as song do a lot of work—means to remember, appeals to authority, taunts, and more—and the importance of journeys means that Experience Points should be earned from them. There are new rule suggestions for each aspect like spending Experience Points to name yourself or an item following a critical success, to add both a story and a bonus to play, and that animals can speak their own language. There is even the observation that The Hobbit alludes to the existence of guns in Middle-earth! The second article expands upon the point about travel in the first, pointing out its potential mishaps if handled poorly and offering solutions to those problems. The second article can be seen as adjunct of the first, but can be used also be used in general Old School Renaissance too, not just one directly drawn from The Hobbit. Nevertheless, the first article could be the basis for a mini-roleplaying game and campaign all of its own.

A second theme will be more familiar; the design of adventures (and dungeons). They lead off with Idiomdrottning presenting her ‘BLORB Principles’, a preparation-focused, no-plot preparation, playstyle. The aim is to have the elements to place and engage the players and their characters with, but not plots, and then advice on how to develop and add to those elements in play. Then designer Chris McDowall takes a look at them in ‘Patching’ and develops them further to look at the more immediate effects of encountering something in play that the Game Master did not prepare for as part of her preparation. McDowall suggests ways of improvising a fix in play rather than leaving it for subsequent preparation. In some ways, the advice is obvious, but the second article complements the first and together they make a thought-provoking pair.

The theme is further explored by a trio of articles by Joseph Manola. ‘Elements of Incongruity’ suggests adding unexpected elements alongside elements, including traits, individuals, and nature, and ‘Localism – The Adventure as Microclimate’ decries the genericism in modern Dungeons & Dragons and suggests that the Game Master focus on small regions and populate with unique, even singular monsters and perhaps with races that are not found elsewhere, the aim being to make them memorable. Good solid advice and both backed up by examples, but Manola’s ‘Romantic Fantasy and OSR D&D’ takes Dungeons & Dragons in another direction. At the heart of the article, is the simple idea that not every solution has to be resolved with violence and its shows a number of ways in which the mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons—the reaction system, the morale system, the combat system, and the retainers system—can be all used to support that. The result is a game that focuses on relationship-building and non-violent forms of resolving conflict and getting rewarded for it.

Since Knock! #4 is for the Old School Renaissance, there are articles aplenty on magic, monsters, and treasure. Some of these are specific, some are not. The specific includes a complete magic system in ‘d200 Power Words of Sorcery!’, inspired by a gamebook from the eighties, but feeling very much like the television series Knightmare; the ‘Menagerie’ gives full stats and details for creatures such as Zedeck Siew’s Mob Demon, Danilo Moretti’s Mirror Mare, and James V. West’s Raptor Knight as well as Islayre d’Argohl gives four fully detailed villains; and a selection of swords awaiting stats in Letty Wilson’s ‘The Sword Librarian’. The less specific includes Jens Turesson’s weird ‘Telephone Pictionary Game as Spell Research’, which fortunately is completely untested; a ‘4d8 Golem Generator’ by Chance Dudhack; and Glynn Seal’s complete to what happens following the ‘Desecration’ of a grave for its goods and treasure. There is even a little crossover by Eric Nieudan. So, his ‘Dragons Should Be Unique!’ gives the means to create dragons from alignment, age, and element to personality, hoard, and quirk, whilst the accompanying ‘The never-ending saga of the Wyrm’ shows how it works with a complete example.

Each issue of Knock! always includes some new Classes with ‘Retinue of Rogues’ and this issue is no exception. Joseph Manola’s ‘The Ghoul Blooded’ lets a player create a character who gets more Ghoulish as he goes up in Levels, from having an acute sense of smell and very tough fingernails to learning all the benefits of cannibal cookery and tunnelling through the ground, and even though he will become an unliving monster, he is not undead! Manola follows this with ‘The Inquisitor’, who can pass judgements on others for various effects, and is an interesting variant upon the Cleric Class. Pierre Vagneur-Jones also details two new Classes. ‘The Cynocephasus’ is a dog-headed human who may be born that way or cursed and may, through good fortune, transform into a full human and take Levels in another Class. It is inspired the medieval legend of St. Christopher. ‘The Skiapod’ draws from the writings of Pliny the Elder to present a very agile one-legged human. They prefer to kick with their feet rather than use weapons, but there are no details to reflect this. These second two Classes are less useful than the first two and ‘The Skiapod’ is underwritten in comparison to ‘The Cynocephasus’.

Penultimately, Knock! #4 gives four short adventures in ‘Extraordinary Excursions’. Numbered Work’s ‘Swamp Renewal’ involves the Player Characters in an ecological battle between a wizard who is using golems to dig out peat in a swamp and a Lizardfolk Druid who wants him stopped. The scenario does not give a set ending, so it will be entirely down to the players, but there are consequences to whatever side the Player Characters choose. ‘Grandma’s Cottage, Inc. and Gift Shoppe’ by Glenn Robinson has a cosy feel until it does not as the Player Characters go in search of a lot of missing orphans. When the king puts out the call for the softest of feathers for his bed, the Player Characters are off in search of the softest feathers in the land only to be found on the Giant Arboreal Goose in Martin Orchard’s ‘A Fistful of Feathers’. A cross between a race—there are rival groups—and a pointcrawl, this is an entertaining scenario. Lastly, ‘The Mountain Hall of the Iron Witch’ by Rosie Grey is written for The Merry Mushmen’s CRACK!, but is easily adapted to the rules of the Game Master’s choice. The Player Characters find themselves shackled and forced to work in the Iron Witch’s mines and have to escape. This is a fun campaign starter. In fact, all four scenarios are easily adapted and would work with a number of different roleplaying games.

Lastly, Knock! #4 rounds out the issue with ‘Welcome to the OSR’. Here the issue explores some of the responses to the attempt by Wizards of the Coast to rewrite the terms of the Open Game Licence. The aim here is for the members of Old School Renaissance hobby to show this section to players of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and point them in the direction of the possibilities in the different play style. There is discussion too of several Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition-retroclone hybrids. For the most part, this preaching to the choir, but the first article, ‘Back to the Future (of D&Deering)’ by Daniel Norton gives a good comparison between the play styles and why a player might want to switch.

Physically Knock! #4 is impressively bright and breezy, just as with the previous three issues. The layout is cluttered in places and the text a little too busy, but on the whole, it is clear that a lot of attention has been paid to the layout. It needs a slight edit in places, but the artwork is good and the cartography excellent.

The honest truth is that the Game Master is never going to use everything in the pages of Knock! An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac #4. There is just too much. It is an embarrassment of riches. However, it gives the reader a lot of things to choose from and lots of ideas to think about. It is an absolute treasure trove of content for the Old School Renaissance and with so many contributors from the hobby, Knock! may well serve as a candidate for a focal point for the Old School Renaissance hobby. The reader could spend hours surfing the Internet for similar ideas and other content in Knock! An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac #4, or he could just get the issue and have it all at his fingertips in another literally solid issue of the magazine.

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An unboxing of Knock! #4 An Adventure Gaming Bric-à-Brac can be viewed here.

Your Pirate Borg Starter

The Pirate Borg Starter Set is the introduction to the self-described, “Worst Pirate RPG Ever Made™!” that is Pirate Borg. This Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game is set in the Dark Caribbean, a sea of tropical islands marked with European towns and fortresses and ruins of civilisations long gone, of shipwrecks with rich cargoes and even richer treasures, and of the Scourge. The Scourge made the dead walk once again, ghosts return to haunt the living, and monsters lurk ready to smash the foothold that the Europeans have established in the region. The governors and the viceroys, representatives of kings and queens, have forced to adapt and rule with no contact from home following the Scourge and even take advantage of the situation, especially since the discovery of the abilities and addictive nature of ASH, the ash of the burned and ground undead. Some seek to make money from the trade in ASH and some seek to control it, whilst others seek to repress it. This is another cause of the conflict in the Dark Caribbean. Pirate Borg casts the players as members of a crew who will sail the ASH-tinged waters the Dark Caribbean, raiding and smuggling, carousing and drinking, adventuring and exploring, and the Pirate Borg Starter Set comes with everything necessary for a group of two to seven players to enjoy a mini-campaign set within the Dark Caribbean.

The Pirate Borg Starter Set is a packed box. It contains a sixty-page ‘Player’s Guidebook’, the sixty-page ‘Trapped in the Tropics: A Pirate Borg Adventure’, six Player Character Creation Worksheets, a pad of twenty-five character sheets, ten poster maps, and a set of twelve dice. It also includes a set of twenty-two reference cards for general play and the scenario, tokens for use with the maps, and two Dry/Erase pens for use with the Player Character Creation Worksheets. The inclusion of the latter points to an absence of pre-generated Player Characters that would normally be expected to be found in a roleplaying game starter set. Instead, players have to create their characters to play through the ‘Trapped in the Tropics: A Pirate Borg Adventure’. This points to the fragility of characters in Pirate Borg because players may have to replace them as the Dark Caribbean is a sea whose waters are deadly. It also provides a player with the full Pirate Borg experience, and of course, the Player Character Creation Worksheets make that process easier and faster.

The ‘Player’s Guidebook’ is very much a cut down version of the full Pirate Borg rulebook, even down to having the same page numbers. This is intentional because it makes reference to the Pirate Borg rulebook easier. Inside the front page there is a replication of the Player Character Creation Worksheet, but beyond that there is an explanation of how to create characters, the rules, the roleplaying game’s six base Classes, plus the two optional Classes. A Player Character is is defined by his Abilities, Class, gear, and Devil’s Luck. The five Abilities are Strength, Agility, Presence, Toughness, and Spirit, each rated between ‘-3’ and ‘+3’. There are six Classes and two optional Classes. Each provides adjustments to Abilities, basic Hit Points, and starting Devil’s Luck. The Brute is a raging melee fighter who gets a trusted weapon like a ‘Brass Anchor’ or ‘Rotten Cargo Net’ and when he gets better, he might gain a ‘Boomstick’ or ‘Grog Breath’, the latter enabling him to belch in the face of an enemy and stun him! The Rapscallion is a sneaky, cutthroat scallywag, which as a Class requires an ordinary deck of playing cards to play. The Rapscallion starts with a single speciality such as ‘Burglar’ or ‘Sneaky Bastard’, and gain more or even double up on already possessed specialities. He can also drink Grog to heal himself. The Buccaneer is a sharpshooter and treasure hunter, and is also a skilled tracker. The Swashbuckler is a brash fighter, who might also be an ‘Ostentatious Fencer’ or ‘Inspiring Leader’, and when he gets better, he could be the ‘Shakespeare of Insults’ or a ‘Calculating Cutthroat’, the former adding damage to attacks with his wounding taunts, the latter letting the player achieve critical hits on a natural roll of nineteen as well as twenty. The Zealot has prayers like Heal, Curse, and Holy Protection, which are learned randomly and can be cast several times a day without the need to make a roll or a test. The Sorcerer draws power from supernatural spirits and ghosts to cast spells like Spiritual Possession, Clairvoyance, and Raise the Dead, not whilst near cold iron or holding metal.

The Haunted Soul is either a ghost, conduit for restless spirits, has an eldritch mind, is a zombie, suffers from vampirism, or is a skeleton. Each provides a benefit and a penalty. For example, restless spirits constantly communicate with the conduit to grant a random Arcane Ritual which can be cast without a Spirit test, but must be cast before dawn the next day or conduit suffers damage. The Tall Tale can be one of the Merfolk, an aquatic mutant like a crab or The Great Old One, or a sentient animal such as a ‘Foul Fowl’ or a ‘Clever Monkey’. Although both the Haunted Soul and the Tall Tale are given as optional Classes, they are not really Classes, but closer to a Race or a Species as in other Old School Renaissance roleplaying games. This is because not only do they not get any better with experience, but the player also then rolls for an additional ability out of the standard six. Their inclusion, though, is unbalancing, granting a Player Character extra abilities that other Player Characters without either the Haunted Soul or Tall Tale options simply does not have the equivalent of. Further, the six core Classes not balanced either, especially when it comes to their progression. Several of the Classes like the Rapscallion or Buccaneer have multiple specialities or features that can be taken twice, whereas the Brute and the Swashbuckler do not. Of course, there is no need for the Classes to be equally balanced, but some rough equivalency would not have gone amiss.

To create a character, a player rolls for his Abilities, Class, gear, and Devil’s Luck. Gear includes weapon, clothing, and a hat. Optional tables provide for backgrounds, distinctive flaws, physical trademarks, idiosyncrasies, unfortunate incidents and conditions, and thing of importance. Of these which a group might want to avoid is rolling for Class since it avoids too many of the same Class serving in a ship’s crew.

Mechanically Pirate Borg is based upon Mörk Borg—hence the name—the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and also published by Free League Publishing. A player rolls a twenty-sided die, modifies the result by one of his character’s abilities, and attempts to beat a Difficulty Rating of twelve. The Difficulty Rating may go up or down depending on the situation, but whatever the situation, the player always rolls, even in combat or as both Mörk Borg and Pirate Borg terms it, violence. So, a player will roll for his character to hit in melee using his Strength and his Agility to avoid being hit. Armour is represented by a die value, from -d2 for light armour to -d6 for heavy armour, representing the amount of damage it stops. Medium and heavy armour each add a modifier to any Agility action by the character, including defending himself. This is pleasingly simple and offers a character some tactical choice—just when is it better to avoid taking the blows or avoid taking the damage? Armour can also be damaged, due to a Fumble when defending, reducing its protective effectiveness, and a critical hit in combat inflicts double damage or allows another attack. A Player Characters whose Hit Points are reduced to below zero is dead, but at zero, is broken and can recover.

Every Player Character also has the Devil’s Luck. Each Class receives a different amount of this, but all can spent to inflict maximum damage on a single attack, reroll any die, lower the Difficulty rating of a Test, neutralise a Critical or a Fumble, and to lower damage suffered by a random amount.

A Player Character may also have access to Arcane Rituals, such as Dark Delusions, which creates illusions in the minds that can see the caster; Phantasmal Fauna, which summons a ghostly hound or shark until sunset; and Thalassomancy, which fill the lungs of targets with sea water, causing them to suffocate. There are some truly nasty Arcane Rituals in this list. For example, The Black Spot which literally marks the target for death or Release the Kraken, which summons one of these great creatures in the nearby sea. If a Player Character fails to cast an Arcane Ritual, then a roll may be made on Pirate Borg’s Mystical Mishaps table. Other forms of magic in Pirate Borg include a quick and dirty pair of tables for handling alchemy and a list of Ancient Relics, such as the Conch Shell of the Abyss, which enables the wielder to ask a corpse one question or Mermaid Scales that when eaten grant the ability to breath underwater for a few hours.

Pirate Borg being a pirate roleplaying game, the one thing that it definitely needs is rules for ships and nautical combat. A vessel is defined by its Hit Points, Hull, Speed, Skill, Broadsides, Small Arms, Ram, Crew, and Cargo. Hit Points includes its condition and the health and morale of the crew; Hull, its armour; Skill the skill and training of the crew; Broadsides, the damage inflicted by a vessel’s main cannons; Small Arms the damage done by swivel guns and muskets; Ram, damage done in a ram action; and Crew, the minimum and maximum number of crew the ship can carry. Combat is conducted in thirty second rounds, and in that time, the captain moves the ship, the Player Characters take an action, and the Crew can take actions such as ‘Fire Broadsides’, ‘Full Sail’, ‘Boarding Party’, and more. Speciality Crew includes Legendary Captains, Strict Bosun, Deck Sorcerer or Priest, and so on. The rules cover crew skill, morale, cargo, repairs, and optionally—surprisingly, weather! An earlier section gives a list of sea shanties that the crew can perform each day, which might be to raise the crew’s morale or put out all the fires on a ship! Stats for the various ships are given on the Reference Cards included in the box.

What the ‘Player’s Guidebook’ does lack—and understandably so—is a bestiary and such things as tables for generating random encounters. What it does include is summaries of the rules, including those for naval combat, for ease of play.  Overall, the ‘Player’s Guidebook’ is attractive and functional, providing only the absolutely necessary details that a player is going to need.

For the Game Master there is ‘Trapped in the Tropics: A Pirate Borg Adventure’, which promises British Redcoats, rival pirates, booby traps, hordes of zombies, and cursed relics. It is specifically designed to teach the Game Master and her players the rules and how the game is played. So, there is more advice here for the Game Master than might be found in another scenario, but as a scenario in a starter set, it makes sense. It tells the Game Master how to prepare for the first session, gives her notes for tone, stye, and inspiration, of which there is lots (and pleasingly, is not afraid to suggest looking at other piratical games, especially wargaming rules), and suggests a way in which the adventure can be run as a one-shot. There is advice on running different aspects of the rules and a handy list of the tenets for both the Game Master and the player. The scenario is designed to be played using the included maps and tokens.

The scenario begins en media res and essentially in the same fashion as Pirates of the Caribbean! The Player Characters and their vessel have been hired by the Spanish Inquisition to locate a shipwreck on Eel Island. As the Player Characters emerge from the jungle, they find themselves on the beach, betrayed by a crewmember, attacked by Red Coast. Then zombies! It is an exciting start and the cues from Pirates of the Caribbean continue with the exploration of the island and the discovery of the target ship—hanging almost upside down deep into the jungle. Then on to a neighbouring island which is close by. One interesting aspect of the scenario is that in introducing both Pirate Borg and its setting of the Dark Caribbean, it also introduces the concept of ASH, how it is made, and how it is consumed. It is a fairly grim process and the scenario does suggest alternatives if the gaming group is unhappy with the concept. On Scrub Island the Player Characters can acquire a ship, and armed with a major clue they should have been able to acquire, set sail properly! This gives them a bit more freedom of action and opens up the play style a bit, first enabling the players and their character to experience some naval combat and explore Gibbet Town, a British port on a neighbouring island. The scenario will culminate in a disaster and a delve deep under an island in search of treasure leading to a confrontation with its guardians.

The scenario is well designed and written, taking the Game Master and her players hand-in-hand through the different aspects of Pirate Borg’s play. There is good advice throughout on the different aspects of the rules and the scenario, plus useful discussion of what to do next once the Player Characters have completed the adventure. The scenario is also entertaining and fun, both for the Game Master and her players, the former being giving a pair of intriguing NPCs to portray.

The ten poster maps show a mixture of maps and artwork. There are maps of the various islands and Gibbet Town, deck plans, and an illustration of the hanging ship in the jungle. There is also a plain sea map for use with the naval combat rules and one of the whole Dark Caribbean and even a double-sided treasure map that the Game Master is expected to tear in half! The tokens include ships for naval combat, NPCs and monsters, and one for each of the Classes in Pirate Borg. There are even tokens for the chicken, crocodile, and parrot companions (and there are other animals on the other side) that the Player Characters could have! There are even tokens to represent the approximate time of day. All together, the tokens are simply useful and their inclusion is well thought out.

Physically, the Pirate Borg Starter Set is fantastic. Both the ‘Player’s Guidebook’ and the ‘Trapped in the Tropics: A Pirate Borg Adventure’ books are sturdy and colourful, and the maps, along with the tokens, are going to look great on the table. Both books are both very well written, the scenario in particular being full of little extra details such as suggestions how to portray the major NPCs by referencing various films. Lastly, both inside of the lid and the inside of the base box have tables on them to help the Game Master run the game. There is even the detail of the embossed lid that gives  the Pirate Borg Starter Set a pleasingly tactile feel.

Like any good starter set, the Pirate Borg Starter Set can be used as more than an introduction to the setting of Pirate Borg. An experienced group can still play ‘Trapped in the Tropics: A Pirate Borg Adventure’ and beyond the adventure, the other content in the Pirate Borg Starter Set can be used as part of an ongoing campaign. The ‘Player’s Guidebook’ as a rule reference guide, several of the maps can be reused as can the Reference Cards, and the Player Character Creation Worksheets can be used over and over. Plus there are the dice…

The Pirate Borg Starter Set is an impressive box, offering a combination of simple, but highly thematic rules and an engaging, entertaining scenario, all supported by some useful play aids that will extend its usefulness beyond the completion of the scenario. Which all together is a great introduction to Pirate Borg. If other publishers within the Old School Renaissance were thinking of producing a starter set, the Pirate Borg Starter Set has just set the standard by which they will all be judged.

Decay & Destruction

The city of Spire is in a constant state of wrack and ruin. As its overlords, the Aelfir, live a life of indolence and intrigue, the walls crack and parts of the structure shear and fall the many storeys to smash crumble on the ground below. The rot though, does not come from without, the cold and the wet finding cracks in the walls, working them and snapping them open, but from within. Deep below the city of Spire is the Heart, a ruinous tear in the fabric of the world that bleeds upwards, spreading disorder and chaos and blighting souls with rot. Unseen, its consequences have found a home in the harsh and uncaring undercity of Red Row, making the lives of its Destra inhabitants ever more dangerous, ever more dreadful. Gangs engage in open warfare, the sound of their gunfire marked by palls of spireblack gunsmoke, unable to agree on any one cause or able to resume the wary respect that kept their weapons holstered and a peace between them. Families bicker and divide, casting children aside. The Crimson Vigil, a group of violent anti-aelfir reactionaries, is openly recruiting soldiers for their forbidden cult, and with its numbers growing, how long before its actions bring the attention of the authorities down upon the whole neighbourhood? And yet despite the violence and despite the dissension that seems rife in every home and on every street, what the people of Red Row are talking about is The Weeping Maiden, a new play currently on tour! Society seems to be tearing itself apart at the seams and everything is going to wrack and ruin. This cannot be natural. There has to be someone or something behind it. Surely? This is the set-up for Blood and Dust: A Campaign Frame for Spire RPG.

It is a mini-campaign for Spire: The City Must Fall, the roleplaying game of secrets and lies, trust and betrayal, violence and subversion, conspiracy and consequences, and of committing black deeds for a good cause. It is set in a mile-high tower city, known as the ‘Spire’, in the land of the Destra, the Drow, which two centuries ago the Aelfir—or ‘High Elves’—invaded and subjugated the Dark Elves. The Drow have long since been forced to serve the High Elves from their homes in the city’s lower levels and allowed only to worship one facet of Damnou, the moon goddess, instead of the three they once did. However, not all of the Drow have resigned themselves to their reduced and subjugated status and joined ‘The Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress’, or simply, the Ministry. Its members—or Ministers—venerate the dark side of the moon, the goddess of poisons and lies, shadows and secrets, her worship outlawed on pain of death, and they are sworn to destroy and subvert the dominion of the Aelfir over the Drow and the Spire. Published by Rowan, Rook, and Decard Ltd., Spire: The City Must Fall inverts traditional fantasy, making the traditional enemy in fantasy—the Drow—into the victim, and certainly the protagonist, but not necessarily the hero.

Blood and Dust: A Campaign Frame for Spire RPG is not a traditional roleplaying scenario. It foregoes the traditional construction with prewritten encounters that the Player Characters play through one after another. Nor does it not suggest any plot or story threads, something that other campaign frameworks for Spire: The City Must Fall, such as Eidolon Sky: A Campaign Frame for Spire RPG do. Instead, it outlines an intrigue and a greater plot of sorts whose chaotic effects are playing out on Red Row and which the Player Characters are driven to investigate, and beyond the initial set-up of getting the Player Characters together, it focuses on the six factions involved. These consist of the Retroengineers employed to operate the devices that are destabilising the neighbourhood and helping to sow the chaos; the Sunlight Collective, a theatre group of radical artists and occultists fascinated to see the effect that its latest play is having on Red Row; the Knights of the North Docks, the strutting bully boys whose factionalism has turned them into extortionists; members of the City Guard, overworked with all of the unrest they have had to deal with; the Church of Absolution, a burned-out magicians and sages, destitute oracles and defrocked priests, that worships decay and wants revenge on those that stole its ideas; and the Crimson Vigil, anti-Aelfir zealots ready and happy to stir up more chaos. Some are more detailed than others—the Game Master will need to refer to the Spire: The City Must Fall for more details—but all are given motivations and suggestions as to what they might do as well as some notable NPCs.

The most detailed advice for the Game Master is on how to set the scenario up and involve the Player Characters, whether they are the pre-generated Player Characters or not. This is because there are no staged encounters or scenes, so there is no advice on how to handle them. What happens instead is the Game Master will reacting to the directions in which the players want to push their characters, which character hook and motivation and thus which faction that the want to investigate. Having set this up, the authors leave it to the Game Master at the table to respond to her players and their characters to determine what happens. There are some notes on how to end the story, primarily concerning what the remaining factions that the Player Characters do not investigate might do.

In addition, Blood and Dust: A Campaign Frame for Spire RPG includes five pre-generated Player Characters, all members of ‘The Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress’. They consist of an ex-military revolutionary and firebrand; a beautiful artistic and revolutionary idol; a Knight of the North Docks (effectively a gangster in plate armour); a Lajhan, a priest of Our Glorious Lady, the light side of the moon, the one aspect of the Drow goddess that is legal to worship, whose temple has been despoiled; and a Vermissian Sage, who hides knowledge in the Vermissian , the broken mass-transit system that runs up and down Spire. All five have their own character sheets and reasons to get involved in the investigation and adventure, such as the Lajhan’s temple having been bespoiled and the Vermissian Sage having recently been denied access to the Vermissian.

Physically, Blood and Dust: A Campaign Frame for Spire RPG is well presented and its contents are neatly organised and easy to reference, done in an easy-to-grasp style from start to finish.

Blood and Dust: A Campaign Frame for Spire RPG is not a ‘campaign frame’ as its subtitle suggests. Its emphasis and thus is structure is all on the set-up. It is described on the back cover as “…[A] series of prompts, suggestions, factions, pre-generated characters and personalities…” and it is very much that rather than a frame or framework that provides anything akin to structured campaign or plot line. Nor is it necessarily a campaign, since it is intended to be run in a few sessions. Yet as a set-up, it does work, giving the elements that a Game Master would need to run it. However, the lack of the frame and the fact that the Game master will be improvising the responses to the Player Characters’ actions does not make Blood and Dust: A Campaign Frame for Spire RPG either easy to use or necessarily suitable for the inexperienced Game Master. For the experienced Game Master, Blood and Dust: A Campaign Frame for Spire RPG provides a good set-up and content suitable for several sessions’ worth of player-driven play.