Vows & Vaesen

Vaesen: City of my Nightmares is a campaign for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, the Roleplaying Game of investigative folklore horror set in nineteenth century Scandinavia published by Free League Publishing. It differs from campaigns and scenarios for the roleplaying game in that they are primarily set along that boundary between the rural and the raw countryside where modernity and progress clashes with tradition and folklore as the knowledge of the customs that enabled Vaesen and man to live alongside each other is being lost. Instead, Vaesen: City of my Nightmares takes in or near the ‘Venice of the North’, the city of Stockholm. Here, in the Swedish capital, the Player Characters will still be confronted with the clash between the old and the new. Between science and savagery, monarchism and unionism, new institutions replacing the old, and quite literally the past and the future, but all driven by all too human fear, ambition, and revenge. This is a city-based campaign that will involve the Player Characters in the doings of the nouveau rich, the avantgarde, and the poor and the oppressed, and more importantly in terms of the roleplaying game and its background, will involve them in both the history of the Society they belong to and the history of its founder. As a consequence of all of this, Vaesen: City of my Nightmares is better suited to be run with experienced Player Characters, ones who have conducted several investigations, thus enabling their players to appreciate the campaign’s contrast in terms of setting and the revelations that will be uncovered as part of their investigations. The campaign is ideally run after the events of Vaesen: Seasons of Mystery and whilst it will be helpful have copies of Johan Egerkrans’ The Undead and Vaesen to hand, they are not absolutely necessary. In the case of the latter, the ‘Codex Occultum’ from the Vaesen – Starter Set is an easy substitute. Lastly, although Vaesen: City of my Nightmares is set in and around the city of Stockholm, it can be shifted to other European cities if the Game Master prefers. Of course, the Game Master will need to change the setting details to fit the new location.

Vaesen: City of my Nightmares was funded as part of the joint Kickststarter for Vaesen: Mythic Carpathia. It takes place in late nineteenth century Sweden and involves numerous historical figures that have been adjusted slightly to fit the setting, its events playing out over the course of a year and consisting of four parts with several months in between. This enables the Game Master to run a scenario or two between the events of Vaesen: City of my Nightmares, which is also the best way in which to run it. There is a plot that runs through the whole campaign, but it is not a strong one. Certainly not strong enough to drive the Player Characters to continue their investigation from one part to the next directly and this is reflected by the months long gaps between scenarios and the instigating factor for each scenario. This is the cork magnet, August T. Lysander, a self-made wealthy capitalist, who has taken an interest in the activities of the Society and made several donations to keep its current incarnation operating. In turn, he will ask the Player Characters for their help and reward them for giving it. Of course, these adventures can be run their own, but that would negate the plot to the campaign. All four scenarios are organised in the same fashion. They start with the background and breakdown the Countdown of events that will occur as time goes on, ultimately leading to a Catastrophe if the mystery remains unsolved and the situation unresolved. This is followed by a list of the clues that become available after each step of the Countdown, pleasingly with the core, key clues clearly marked, and then the scenario’s pertinent locations. Each scenario ends with a breakdown of the climax and its aftermath. The organisation is consistent and accessible throughout, and in addition the scenarios are supported with a good overview of Stockholm in the late nineteenth century accompanied by excellent period maps. Notably, the period map of the city is included on a poster map in the book, but further, the back of this poster map is presented as the front cover for a copy of the City Gazette, Stockholm’s conservative newspaper. It is full of clues and hints for the four scenarios in Vaesen: City of my Nightmares, but especially the first scenario. Each of the scenarios should take roughly two to three sessions’ worth of play to complete.

The first part of the campaign is ‘Scent of a Killer’, which takes . Businessman August T. Lysander makes a request of the Society. Of late, the Town Between Two Bridges district of Stockholm has beset by a series of killings, common criminals found ripped apart. Now a noted tenor at the Royal Swedish Opera has been found dead too, and so the newly founded Police Department is being pushed to investigate this death at the very least. However, the nature of the killings means that the police cannot make head nor tail of them, let alone any progress. The case is a matter of medical malpractice—of a sort, as is another situation in the city. Experienced players will likely work out what the problem is very quickly, but knowing what the problem is and both identifying the culprit and dealing with is another matter. This is a good start to the campaign, setting the tone for the urban mysteries that are to come.

The Player Characters get some respite the following year in ‘Song to the Moon’, when August T. Lysander invites them to stay with him and his family at his summer retreat on Goose Island in the Stockholm archipelago. This is not only to say thanks for their efforts helping the city Police Department the previous autumn, but also to consult with them about the nature of Vaesen. The beguiling idyll is broken by series of strange drownings that trap everyone on the island. The deaths are not the only strangeness pervading Goose Island, though the Player Characters may not uncover all of it. This scenario combines horror with a classic country house murder and hints that not all is well in the Lysander family.

August T. Lysander’s interest in Vaesen comes to the fore a matter of six months later in the autumn in ‘The Haunted Library’. He makes another request of the Society and the Player Characters, this time to help him to find the lost notes of Carl Linnaeus, the founder of the Society himself. He believes that they are hidden in a secret library beneath the National Archives on Knights Island in Stockholm. So far, he has been unable to penetrate far into the labyrinthine catacombs under the National Archives and thinks that those with the Sight—in other words, the Player Characters—will have better luck. The Player Characters will be faced with a maze, and despite being haunted by a number of ghosts, but will eventually be able to find their way to a ‘Chamber of Riddles’. Doing so reveals the strangest of encounters in the campaign—windows into the very past of Carl Linnaeus! These are essentially mini-mysteries that reveal the biologist and physician’s past and some of his secrets, many of which are pertinent to the mystery at the heart of the campaign.

‘The Haunted Library’ climaxes with the intervention of the Rosenbergers, the rival organisation which split from the Society. Their appearance in the campaign is an oddity since they have rarely appeared in previous scenarios for Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying and whilst they appear in the next and final scenario in campaign, the eponymous, ‘City of My Nightmares’, it is a pity that there is not greater scope to explore this aspect of the setting. It is perhaps a missed opportunity, perhaps one that the Game Master could follow up herself.

In ‘City of My Nightmares’, the Player Characters are once again recalled to Stockholm, but this time not by August T. Lysander. Instead, the letter is from a renowned spiritualist and artist who received a portentous message from a spirit during a séance. They find a city tense with worker unrest and filled with an uncertainty that quickly tips over into dance and destruction. Against this backdrop of increasing civil agitation, the Player Characters must work out who is being warned about in the message and find a way to stop the threat. This is a much more challenging scenario than the previous three, but it ultimately reveals the real threats that the Player Characters and the Society face, one of them a returning from previous scenarios. The ‘City of My Nightmares’ brings the campaign to a satisfying climax. After which, the Player Characters are likely going to be relieved to return to the countryside for a more traditional investigation!

If there is an issue with Vaesen: City of my Nightmares, it is one that many scenarios and campaigns—the introduction of an NPC that the players and their characters have to trust. This is as much a problem with stories and players themselves and their not always trusting nature when it comes to such NPCs. It may well be a good idea to introduce the major NPC in this campaign and portray him as helpful and useful long before the campaign starts.

Physically, Vaesen: City of my Nightmares is very well presented. It is well written and easy to understand, whilst the cartography—old and new—has a pleasingly period feel. The artwork, including the handouts, is, of course, excellent.

Vaesen: City of my Nightmares is an engaging campaign, best played intermittently as written, that veteran players will enjoy, whilst wholly new players may find a bit more challenging. Vaesen: City of my Nightmares presents a contrasting backdrop, a chance to explore the history of the Society, and brings urban fantasy and horror to Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying, if only for a little while.

Grok?!ier

Grok is a monument to the folly of man. Technomancers pushed their study of the sciences and the arcane to its utmost and saw a way to harness the universe itself. For then Grok was a hollow world, formed around the rippling black mass of negative space known as the Voidstar from which the Technomancer were able to draw mana that in turn was used to develop trans-dimensional travel and contract the Simulacrum, a jigsaw-like spherical space station in turn encapsulated and revolved about the planet—just as Grok revolved around the Voidstar. Man entered a golden age of power and prosperity and Grok welcomed visitors from across the dimensions. Then a malfunction occurred in the harness that connected to the Voidstar, rupturing and unleashing untapped mana. In the Cataclysm, raw mana ruptured the planet and Grok cracked and split, marking enormous rifts in its surface, swallowing continents whole and ripping others free to float above the surface whilst the Simulacrum became unmoored. Parts of it snapped off and fell to the surface of Grok. The raw mana also rendered classical thaumaturgy unreliable and made technomancy inert or corrupt. In the Aether, the Domain beyond the planet’s atmosphere, bands of pirates and pillagers raid and pick over settlements often terrified by aliens discovered during colonisation. The Simulacrum—or the remaining parts of it—continues to revolve around Grok, the thrusters holding it up corrupting the surface of planet with the radiative phosphorescent twilight from recycled mana. The diverse inhabitants of the Simulacrum live under the merciless control of an A.I. to ensure their survival, though a few cyberpunks work to overthrow its control. The Hovering Isles are the lands formed from the parts of Grok’s floating crust after the Cataclysm, as yet not fully mapped, but home to the isolated Islanders who live on the underside to protect themselves from the radiation from the Simulacrum. This means that the Wastelands on the planet below form the Islanders’ sky. The Wastelands make up the planet’s surface, home to nomadic Vagabonds who trade with the Hovering Isles and often have mutations due to exposure to Simulacrum above. More corrupted are the Underlings who live in the Underworld of tunnels, caves, bunkers, research facilities, aquifers, and chasms that thread and shift throughout the subsurface of Grok. The worst of the monstrosities in the Underworld are found in the Underworld closest to the Voidstar, but on the inside surface of the Underworld facing the Voidstar is the Nether. This is a megacity home to Voiddwellers known as Lesser Ones who work towards to summoning the Great Ones from the obsidian spires of their city, The Nether. Grok is a broken planet.

Grok is the setting for Grok?!, a weird Science Fantasy roleplaying game of post-apocalyptic wonder and exploration. It was originally published as a fanzine in 2022, but has now been developed into a full roleplaying game. This includes sample Player Characters, advice for the Game Master, rules for playing solo, and guides to each of the regions of Grok, including adventure tips, sample locations, and tables to create more. None of the descriptions of the peoples or places are canonical so much as examples that the Game Master can use as is or alter as needed. All of which is accompanied by the same great artwork that sold the original fanzine.

A Player Character in Grok?! is simply defined. He has three Attribute dice, one each for Physical, Mental, and Social, ranging between a four-sided and a twelve-sided die. He has an Aspect—a word or phrase—each for his Personality, Motivation, Background, Trouble, and Appearance Traits, plus five Assets. These Assets are Outfit, Accessory, Weapon, Oddity, and either Magic, Vehicle, or Companion. A player is free to chose these as he likes, but he can also roll on the given tables for all of them. Grok?! includes twenty ready-to-play re-generated Player Characters.

Pythagoras Powell
Physical d8 Mental d4 Social d6
Personality: Bigoted
Motivation: Seize Power
Background: Gambler
Trouble: Hunted
Appearance: Illusory
Outfit: Extendable Kilt
Assets: Power Fist, Nanobot Shirt, Star Charts, A Pessimistic Hologram trained as a Torchbearer.

Mechanically in Grok?!, to have his character undertake an action, his player declares his Intention, narrates the Action, and if necessary, determines the Outcome with the roll of an appropriate Attribute die. If the maximum is rolled on the die, it explodes and can be rolled again and the result added to the current total. If the result is between one and two, the Outcome is ‘No, and…’ something Detrimental happens; between three and four and the Outcome is ‘No, but...’ something else Beneficial happens; five and six and the Outcome is ‘Yes, but…’ something else Detrimental happens; seven and eight and the Outcome is ‘Yes...’ and the result is as intended; and nine and over, the Outcome is ‘Yes, and…’ something else Beneficial happens. Grok?! employs the Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic as standard, each one which comes into play—up to five Advantages and five Disadvantages, with the two types cancelling each other out—must be based on an Aspect. Aspects can be the character’s Traits, Assets, or from the environment or situation the character is in. If a roll is failed, it can be pushed, and pushed again, until the roll is a success. However, each time the roll is pushed, the Player Character suffers a detriment. Whenever a Player Character suffers a detriment, whether due to a Pushed roll or a failure to prevent a Threat, he suffers a Condition. This occupies an Asset Slot, and when a Player Character suffers so many Conditions that all of his Asset Slots are full, one of his Attributes suffers a Debilitation and is reduced by one step. When an Attribute would be reduced below a four-sided die, the Player Character is dead.

Combat in Grok?! is an extension of these rules, except that Grok?! phrases it in terms of dealing with Threats. The aim is to apply a Condition, and even a Debilitation, to an opponent if attacking and avoiding them if being attacked. The rules for combat are underwritten in comparison to other roleplaying games, the roleplaying game talking about dealing with threats rather than adversaries. For some players, some adjustment may be required to switch to narratively driven combat. However, Grok?! does acknowledge this possible difficulty by including optional rules for Health Points and weapon effectiveness, amongst other rules. They include alternative attributes, Supply dice, NPC conversion from other roleplaying games, opposed rolls, and more.

There is advice and commentary on this edition of Grok?! as well as the previous edition, throughout the rulebook, but the specific advice for the Game Master begins with a short discussion of safety tools, how to use both Aspects and Assets in play, define NPCs (this can be as simple as a single Aspect or as relatively complex as a Player Characters), an examination of Benefits that can be gained and Detriments that can be opposed, and then how to define a scene with locales and events, motivations extending from the latter. There are tables for random locales and events or random locale and event prompts. The advice is relatively light and it is somewhat unbalanced by the rules and procedure for running and playing Grok?! solo. These are built around an adventure loop that initially revolves around establishing and playing a series of scenes before using them to formulate a plot and then check to see if the plot is true or not. If not, more scenes are played through and the veracity of the plot checked again. At this point a capstone scene can be played to bring the plot to a climax. More attention is paid to the solo rules, but at the same time, the Game Master can use them as a tool towards creating plots too.

More than half of Grok?! is dedicated to the world of Grok itself. Attention is paid to all of the planet’s six domains—the Aether, the Simulacrum, the Hovering Isles, the Wastelands, the Underworld, and the Nether—and how each caters to different styles and types of adventures. For example, adventures in the Aether, set in space beyond Grok’s atmosphere, are about survival, discovery, alien horror, and Science Fiction, whilst adventures on the Hovering Isles, set on floating islands lit only by the dim reflected light from the Wastelands above, focus on isolated islands, their cultures, and breaking their taboos. Every domain has adventure tips, sample regions and scenes, notable NPCs, tables to generate prompts and ideas, and touchstones. The latter comprises a list of books, films, games, and music that inspired the domain. It gives an abundance of potential further reading and watching for the whole of Grok and Grok?!.

Grok?! is rounded out with a scenario, ‘The Thesis of Mr. Person Hugh Mann’. This will take the Player Characters across Grok at the bequest of a shrimp piloted mechanoid known as Mr. Person Hugh Mann to locate and rescue his Field Teams, which happen to be small contingents of shrimp hiding in unique headpieces. It is fast-paced, over-the-top, gonzo affair that showcases the different Domains and playstyles of the planet.

Physically, Grok?! is stunning. The layout is bright and breezy, but the artwork is amazingly good, capturing the weirdness of the broken world, whether is the three-eyed, beaked and spike-tailed camel-like camel on the front cover, the fecund fungi, the broken canal city menaced by a tentacled monster who eyes cry black ichor, the shattered land amidst which a warrior swathed in a cloak surveys the chaos and a floating island, or a scythe-wielding Plague Doctor-like figure rides a bewinged jet bike down a street. The artwork is truly excellent and hopefully future releases will feature more of it.

What sold the original version of Grok?! was its artwork. However, as good as the artwork was, and as well as it showed the reader how fantastically weird and gonzo the world of Grok was, it did not leave enough room for the author to tell the reader what the world of Grok was like. Grok?! Second Edition—a full roleplaying game rather than a mini-roleplaying game—has the room for that. It can both show and tell the reader what the world of Grok is like, and it does. Grok?! Second Edition brings the roleplaying game’s weird post-gonzo apocalyptic setting to life and provides the tools with which the Game Master can make it her own. If you dismissed the original Grok?! as unfulfilled potential, then take a look again.

—oOo—

The Kickstarter for Grok?!, Second Edition can be found here.

Solitaire: Lost in the Deep

You came to the Kingdom Under the Mother Mountain with hope in your heart. The great mountain realm was founded long ago by your ancestors, a wonder of the age, its great halls, high galleries, towering columns, and deeply delved mines, the subject of saga and song, and then of legend as a great evil wormed its way up and brought an everlasting darkness and killed out before it. The few Survivors fed with a great fear in their heart. Then you returned as one member of a host of Dwarven warriors who came to the lost halls of the ancestors, to retake it and drive out the blight that has beset for generations, and rebuild it in the name of your ancestors. To restore it to its former glory and give your fellow dwarves a home once again. Yet you failed. In mapping out the endless ruins, your band reached as far as your ancestors and committed the same folly. You unwittingly set free an ancient evil that lay asleep for generations, and one-by-one, it has butchered your companions in the most terrifying ways possible. You are the last Survivor.

This is the set-up for Lost in the Deep. Published by Old Skull Publishing. It is a solo journaling game based on the mechanics and structure of The Wretched, published by Loot the Room, but is a standalone title. The game requires an ordinary deck of playing cards without the Jokers, a six-sided die, a Jenga or similar tower block game, and a set of tokens. In addition, the player will require a means of recording the results of his playthrough. A journal, especially one finely bound, along with an ink pen, seems appropriate. As with other games that adhere to The Wretched template, there is little to no background in Lost in the Deep. This is because as with The Wretched, the inspiration for Lost in the Deep is obvious. For The Wretched, it was the film Alien, whereas for Lost in the Deep it is J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, specifically, Moria. Even more specifically, the attempt by Balin and his cohorts to retake Khazad-dûm. The inspiration is obvious from the blurb on the back cover and the author makes it clear in his introduction.

Each day, the Survivor will count his last few remaining torches and meals, wandering through the halls and galleries and mines of the Kingdom Under the Mother Mountain, hopefully working his way towards the exit, but always with the feeling that the Evil under the Shadows is breathing down his neck. All whilst recording the day’s events in his journal. Can the Survivor discover the exit to the Kingdom Under the Mother Mountain before the Evil under the Shadows or its minions catches up with him? Will a rescue party reach him before it is too late? Will his torches and food last long enough before it is too late?

The game is set up with the Jenga tower and the deck of playing cards—sans Jokers—shuffled. Each turn, or day, the player consults the Dwarven Runes or cards. To do this, he rolls the die and draws that number of cards and resolves them, following their instructions, including removing pieces from the Jenga tower as directed. Each card represents an event, a vision, or encounter. The Dwarven Runes corresponds to the four suits of the ordinary deck of playing cards. Thus, Hearts are ‘The Mines’ and represent events that occur as the Survivor explores the Kingdom Under the Mother Mountain; Diamonds are the Survivor’s ‘Strength & Resources’ and when drawn represent him running out of food, water, or torches and so becoming exhausted; Clubs are ‘Memories and Hope’ that the Survivor has of his fallen comrades, and perhaps can draw inspiration from them; and Spades are ‘The Evil in the Shadows’, signs that that either it or its minions have been here already, are drawing near, or worse, have found you and you must face them. A Spade card is not entirely without hope, for there are relics which can help the Survivor drive off the forces and influence of The Evil in the Shadows, if only temporarily.

The thirteen entries for each of the four suits all serve as prompts for the Survivor’s journal. They are roughly divided between two types. Some like the three of Diamond for ‘Strength & Resources’, which prompts the player with, “You have lost some blood in a battle against a couple of undead dwarves and feel very dizzy. What did you feel when you fought the remains of your ancestors? PULL A BLOCK FROM THE TOWER”. Others like the ten of Clubs, gives just a prompt like, “You remember a friend who warned you before you came on this expedition. They talked about a nightmare they had of a demon hidden in darkness. Why did you all forget about it?” A few are more positive, but not many… The King of each suit provides a simple prompt, but unlike other cards, they are not discarded and the prompt is ignored until the fourth King card is drawn. Only this last prompt is counted as it marks the end of the Survivor’s journey and failed escape attempt from the Kingdom Under the Mother Mountain. The nature of his death is determined by the suit of the King card.

The Ace card of each suit provides a benefit of some kind, but only one, the Ace of Hearts, presents the Survivor with a chance of freedom. Even then it is fraught with one last peril, one last pull of a block from the Jenga tower.

Physically, Lost in the Deep is cleanly and tidily presented. It is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is excellent.

Lost in the Deep is the story of an escape attempt and very rarely an actual escape attempt. This does not stop it from being from a hopeful game, but that hope is wrapped in darkness and claustrophobia, of a fear that the Survivor and player know is lurking in the darkness coming ever closer. Lost in the Deep is a journaling game about facing fear and overcoming horrors in the dark, about how the Survivor of a doomed expedition copes alone, knowing that almost everything is lost, and perhaps having his hope born out… It is about the journey of the Survivor’s emotions, not the end of the journey.

Friday Fantasy: A Darkness at Runegate

The Dragonrise broke the hold that the Lunar Empire had on Sartar and enabled the clans and tribes the imperial thumb to join forces with the rebels that had long opposed the occupation from the hills and rise up, to free themselves. It also upended the social order, leaving a vacuum where there was not a fully cohesive government. Some settlements were left to fend for themselves. One such town is Runegate, famed for its east gate sacred to Asrelia, the goddess of luck and fortune, and for the great horses it breeds and sells. Despite lying in the lands of the Colymar tribe and being the market and religious centre for three of the tribe’s clans, its leaders and inhabitants have been forced to recover alone in the aftermath of the Dragonrise. This is going to change. Leika Blackspear, newly restored Queen of the Colymar Tribe has despatched a delegation from Clearwine Fort to present gifts to the Runegate leadership and so hopefully lay the groundwork for both its and town’s restored fealty to her. However, when the delegation of four reaches the walled town, they find too many funeral pyres smouldering and being attended to outside of the walls, many of the townsfolk coughing and spluttering, and a far from happy welcome.

This is the set-up for A Darkness at Runegate, a scenario for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha published by Chaosium, Inc.. It comes complete with a set of four pre-generated Player Characters and can be played as a one-shot, but its location and time frame actually make it easy to add to a campaign. It is located in the northwest of the Colymar tribal lands, a day or so’s travel west of Apple Lane. It takes place late in Earth Season of 1625. This combination makes it easy to add to a campaign based in the area, especially if the Game Master has used or is using the campaign material set in and around Apple Lane primarily found in the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack.

Begrudgingly welcomed into the town, the Player Characters find any fears they had upon reaching Runegate, quickly confirmed. The townsfolk are suffering from a widespread outbreak of disease, but the situation worsens as their only source of respite, the Chalana Arroy priestess, is found murdered in the Lightbringers Temple. This escalates A Darkness at Runegate from a horror scenario into a murder mystery. This being a scenario for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the cause of the diseases is essentially already known. In Glorantha, bad spirits cause disease, sent by the Goddess of Disease, Mallia, and nearly all of the inhabitants of the town have been touched by a disease spirit, and when they interact with them, there is a strong possibility that the Player Characters will be touched by them too. This adds to the impetus driving the scenario. That is, to find the source of disease that it is not only afflicting the townsfolk and its leadership, but potentially the Player Characters. If Mallia, the Mother of Disease and one of Unholy Trio of Chaos gods, is involved, the likelihood is that there are cultists devoted to her operating in Runegate or nearby. Investigation and talking to the townsfolk able to talk will reveal the depth of the problem, but observation will reveal that with the failure of the Chalana Arroy priestess to find the cause and alleviate the symptoms—prior to her death—some in the town are turning to another healer, recently arrived in Runegate.

The scenario will culminate in a confrontation with The Healer as the Player Characters attempt to work out quite who she is and who she actually worships, whilst she obfuscates and prevaricates. The scenario presents several ways in which this can play out, but whether The Healer lives or dies, is captured or escapes, she still has a group of quite nasty allies nearby. Ideally, the Player Characters will be able to identify and deal with the threat that blights the people of Runegate and thus as her delegates, show Queen Leika in a favourable light. Four pre-generated Player Characters are provided if A Darkness at Runegate is to be run as a one-shot or demonstration scenario. They consist of a good mix, particularly ages. There is a young priestess of Ernalda; her elder sister, an initiate of Orlanth Adventurous (Vinga); a middle-aged initiate of Issaries; and a young initiate of Humakt. All four have quite detailed background, but these are not presented separately for easy provision to the players.

Physically, A Darkness at Runegate is decently presented in the style you would expect for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. The new artwork is good, as is the map of the town. There is no map of the region which might have been useful considering that the actual climax of the scenario is likely to take place outside of Runegate.

One thing to note is that A Darkness at Runegate is not a new scenario, it having been used as a demonstration scenario prior to it now actual publication. What this means is that there will be some players who will have already played this scenario, so it will not be of use to every group or Game Master. Of course, given the diversity of games run in Glorantha, this applies anyway. The scenario itself is a little dense, but that is often the way of mystery scenarios. Otherwise, this is a great little scenario that shows off some of the consequences of Sartar’s immediate history and how the world of Glorantha is different to other fantasy settings. A Darkness at Runegate is a desperately disease-driven scenario as a one-shot or convention, but a good addition to a Sartar-based campaign.

Friday Filler: 7 Wonders Dice

It is surprising to realise that 7 Wonders is over fifteen years old. Published by Repos Production, it was the 2011 winner and the very first winner of the Spiel des Jahres Kenner spiel des Jahres, the award for the Connoisseur’s Game of the Year. This is not the only award it would win, though its is the most prestigious. It is a civilisation-themed, card-drafting, card development, and hand management game in which each player controls the fate of one the great cities of the Ancient World. Their aim, over the course of three acts, is to create a high scoring city, including building the Ancient Wonder that the city is famous for. The seven are, of course, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, each stage of which provides a mix of bonuses in game and points at the end of the game. 7 Wonders offered multiple ways to score and thus win. Defeat your neighbours with the largest military, being the richest city with the most gold, develop the most advanced science, spread the most culture, and so on. What is particularly notable about 7 Wonders is that because it concerns the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it supports seven players, which is a rarity for most board games. Unlike most civilisation board games, it also plays without a map, and it can be played in thirty minutes—even less with some familiarity. It is also played simultaneously. Lastly, when you play, it feels like you are telling the story of the city; whether you were invaded by a neighbour or retaliated later on, if you built a temple, developed a market, established important and powerful guilds, and so on. Of course, since its original publication, 7 Wonders has had numerous expansions and even a two-player version, but now it has a dice game.

7 Wonders Dice plays both exactly like 7 Wonders and exactly unlike 7 Wonders. Like 7 Wonders, it is designed to played by up to seven players, is played simultaneously, can be played in thirty minutes or less, and player controls the fate of a city home to one of the Wonders of the Ancient World. Unlike 7 Wonders, the game play of 7 Wonders Dice revolves around dice—as the game’s title suggests—and the results are not tracked by cards drafted and played, but by results of dice shaken that are recorded on player city boards. 7 Wonders Dice is actually a ‘Roll & Write’ rather than a straight dice game.

The game consists of ten dice, seven boards, seven dry-erase pencils, seven cloths, one box, scoreboard, three player aids, and a rulebook. All ten dice have different symbols on their faces, matching resources in the game. Seven of the dice—three grey and one each of blue, red, yellow, and green—are the starter dice. The colours match the colour of the cards in 7 Wonders. Thus, blue for culture, red for military, yellow for merchants, and green for science, whilst the grey cards are basic resource cards like the brown cards in 7 Wonders. The black, white, and purple dice are special dice. These only come into play when tracks on the University are completed and actually replace the base dice. The black die is the Spy and enables a player to cross off spaces in the buildings on his board; the white die grants access to the Gallery of Leaders and will help speed up construction; and the purple die allows access to Guild Court.

Each board is divided into two parts. The bottom part represents the city’s economy and is where a player tracks what resources he has access to in the city’s Warehouse and how much money he has in the Gold Reserve. The upper part is the city itself and here there are seven areas. These are the city’s blue-coloured Agora where culture is tracked; yellow-coloured Market where gold is generated; red-coloured Eastern Barracks and Western Barracks from where a player launch attacks against his neighbours and defend against attacks from his neighbours; green University where the special dice are unlocked; and purple Guild Court where a player can gain Victory Points from progress made by his neighbours. In addition, each board for its city’s Wonder and a set of three bonuses that can be gained by completing buildings.

At the start of the game, each player receives a board and a dry-erase pencil. A random player places the starting seven dice in the box. This box is the cleverest part of the game. It comes with a lid and when the lid is on, it looks like, and is called, the Forum. The bottom of the box is divided into four quadrants. These are priced from zero to three and separated by raised ridges. The Forum is shaken in a circular direction and the lid removed. The dice will now be distributed between the four quadrants. The face up symbols on the dice are what is available to buy at the Forum that turn and the value of the quadrant they are in determines how much they will cost to purchase that turn. A player can purchase only one die per turn and more than one player can purchase the same die.

Once each player has decided on the die he wants to purchase, he can one of three things with it. First, he can use it construct a building. Each building has one more or tracks showing what can be built next as well as the cost that has to be paid in addition to the price at the Forum. Construction cost can be offset by resources, but these need to be purchased and marked off in the Warehouse. Once done though, they are permanent and a player will not need to keep purchasing their resource over and over. Second, he can build a stage of his city’s Wonder and gain its benefits. This does not require a die to do so, but simply resources and gold. Third and last, a player can pass instead of selecting a die and receive three coins.

When a player completely fills in a single building and gained its benefits, there is an extra bonus to be gained. Once a player has filled in a total of three buildings and gained all three bonuses, the players are allowed one more turn before the game ends. At the end of the game, each player totals up the number of Victory Points earned from filled in spaces in the buildings across his city. The player with the most Victory Points is the winner. In comparison to 7 Wonders, determining which neighbouring cities defeated each other is slightly more complex, but otherwise scoring is a lot simpler in 7 Wonders Dice.

7 Wonders Dice faces the same problems as 7 Wonders in that it is not easy to teach or learn its nuances. The basics are fine—shake the dice, spend a die, and so on, but initially there is likely to be a lot of hand holding. Further, , the adaptation of 7 Wonders into the ‘Roll & Write’ 7 Wonders Dice has come at a cost. Gone is the interaction between neighbouring players in terms of purchasing resources, and instead, there is the ability of neighbouring players to invest in military defence that reduces the Victory Points gained by neighbour in his military offence. Gone is the ability to tell a story. There is no sense of a city being built, features being added, and it being developed along side the efforts to build the Wonder. This is not helped by the fact that the differences between one city and another are slight. They are there, but nowhere as distinctive as they are in 7 Wonders.

This is not to say that there is sense of progress to the game, more so when one or more of the special dice is purchased and they replace the base game, representing the city needing more sophisticated resources as they do in 7 Wonders. It is relatively slight though. On the plus side, 7 Wonders Dice is compact compared to 7 Wonders and has fewer components, making it easier to set up and play, as well as teach.

Physically, 7 Wonders Dice is a well presented. Everything is of good quality and bright and breezy and the rulebook is well written. Care will be needed to ensure that the boards—both the city boards and the scoreboards—are wiped clean after each play lest they mark permanently.

7 Wonders Dice plays fast and it plays simultaneously, both great features it shares with 7 Wonders. Yet it lacks nuance and the differences between the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that made 7 Wonders so good in the first place, that of developing a civilisation, of attempting to win with different civilisations, of trying out their differing strategies, and ultimately telling a story. 7 Wonders Dice ultimately feels like 7 Wonders-themed game than an actual 7 Wonders game. 7 Wonders Dice is likeable, but not likeable enough to warrant coming back to too often.

[Fanzine Focus XLI] The Travellers’ Digest #8

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and her group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. However, not all fanzines written with the Old School Renaissance in mind need to be written for a specific retroclone. Although not the case now, the popularity of Traveller would spawn several fanzines, of which The Travellers’ Digest, published by Digest Group Publications, was the most well known and would eventually transform from a fanzine into a magazine.

The publication of The Travellers’ Digest #1 in December, 1985 marked the entry of Digest Group Publications into the hobby and from this small, but ambitious beginnings would stem a complete campaign and numerous highly-regarded supplements for Game Designers Workshop’s Traveller and MegaTraveller, as well as a magazine that all together would run for twenty-one issues between 1985 and 1990. The conceit was that The Travellers’ Digest was a magazine within the setting of the Third Imperium, its offices based on Deneb in the Deneb Sector, and that it awarded the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award. This award would be won by one of the Player Characters and thus the stage is set for ‘The Grand Tour’, the long-running campaign in the pages of The Travellers’ Digest. In classic fashion, as with Europe of the eighteenth century, this would take the Player Characters on a tour of the major capitals of known space. These include Vland, Capitol, Terra, the Aslan Hierate, and even across the Great Rift. The meat of this first issue, as well as subsequent issues, would be dedicated to an adventure, each a stop-off on the ‘The Grand Tour’, along with support for it. The date for the first issue of The Travellers’ Digest and thus when the campaign begins is 152-1101, the 152nd day of the 1101st year of the Imperium.

To best run ‘The Grand Tour’, the Referee will need access to The Atlas of the Imperium, Supplement 8: Library Data (A-M), Supplement 11: Library Data (N-Z), Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats (or alternatively, Supplement 5: Azhanti High Lightning), as well as the core rules. In addition, other supplements would be required depending on the adventure, in the case of this issue, The Travellers’ Digest #8, that would be Alien Module 2, K’kree (though it is actually listed as ‘Alien Module 3, K’kree’ in the introduction) and Alien Module 7, Hivers. In addition, Book 8, Robots will be very useful. Of course, that was in 1987, and much, if not all, of the rules or background necessary have been updated since. The campaign is also specifically written for use with four pre-generated Player Characters. They consist of Akidda Laagiir, the journalist who won the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award; Dur Telemon, a scout and his nephew; Doctor Theodor Krenstein, a gifted-scientist and roboticist; and Doctor Krenstein’s valet, ‘Aybee’, or rather, ‘AB-101’. The fact is, AB-101 is a pseudo-biological robot, both protégé and prototype. Consequently, the mix of Player Characters are surprisingly non-traditional and not all of them are easily created using the means offered in Traveller or MegaTraveller. This is addressed within various issues of the fanzine.

The Travellers’ Digest #8 was published in 1987 and is the last to be published in digest format. From the ninth issue it would be larger and have an increased page count, but these were not the only planned changes announced in The Travellers’ Digest #8. They included coverage of Game Designers Workshop’s other Science Fiction roleplaying of the Traveller: 2300. The editorial also highlighted the strengthening relationship between Marc Miller, the creator of Traveller, and Digest Group Publications, and announced the then forthcoming publication of Grand Census, a companion to Grand Survey.

The eighth part of ‘The Grand Tour’ in The Travellers’ Digest #8 is ‘Feature Adventure 8: Shoot-Out at Shudusham’, written by Gary L Thomas and Joe D. Fugate Sr. The publishing date for the adventure is 060-1113, or the sixtieth day of the year 1113, whilst the starting date for the campaign as a whole is 014-1103, or the fourteenth day of the year 1103. The adventure takes place in the Shudusham system of the Core subsector of the Core Sector. The four travellers are just four weeks’ travel away from Capital where they are due to knighted by Emperor Stephon himself! Shudusham is a water world best known for the location where the Shudusham Concords were signed by the Sylean Federation, a century before the founding of the Third Imperium, which governed the types of weaponry which could be mounted on robots. For the past seven hundred years, it has been the venue for the Shudusham Robotics Conference, a year-long event which takes place every ten years and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors and delegates from across explored space. The Shudusham has even built an underwater arcology specifically designed to host the event. OF course, given the nature of the event, both Doctor Theodor Krenstein and ‘Aybee’ are interested to attend.

Of course, nobody expects anything to happen at the Shudusham Robotics Conference, but when a K’kree delegate is accused by the staff of the Hiver Six Eyes booth, relations between the K’kree and the Hiver sour. The travellers get to witness this, but things get stranger when Akidda Laagiir, the journalist, is inadvertently passed a note about a planned theft of a robot. The players and their travellers may think that the intended target is ‘Aybee’, but it turns out that the target is the ‘Baby Bruiser Robot’ model warbot being demonstrated by the Hiver Six Eyes booth. Are the K’kree taking their revenge by stealing the Hiver’s robot? Well, yes, and no. The K’kree are not the only ones interested in stealing the ‘Baby Bruiser Robot’; there is also a local protest group which has decided to take direct action. It will take a bit of work to get all of the travellers involved –and the scenario makes this clear—and to the climax of the scenario. The scenario is quite short, likely taking no more than a couple of sessions to complete, because ultimately, there is not a huge amount of plot to get the travellers involved in. Indeed, almost half of the plot to the scenario takes off-screen and the travellers are likely to be completely unaware of it. Which is exactly how the Hivers like it…

The scenario is decently supported. This includes details of both Shudusham and the Shudusham Robotics Conference as well as full stats and details for the ‘Baby Bruiser Robot’ (it is a tough opponent as you would expect for a warbot), the various NPCs (including both Hiver and K’kree), and the Hiver Explorer starship and the K’kree Xeekr’kir! merchant vessel. There is not a map of the Shudusham Robotics Conference given, but there is a cutaway of the arcology where it is held.

As with previous issues of the fanzine, The Travellers’ Digest #8 details the Subsector where the scenario takes place. This time it is the Core Subsector of the Core Sector, including both a map and its data listing, which notably includes Capital, the capital of the Third Imperium. The corollary to this is ‘Core Sector: Library Data’, which provided expanded information for the whole sector. It highlights how the world of Ameros in the Ameros subsector is being used by the megacorporation Hortalez et Cie, LIC to test a fast, century long terraforming project, which is not going as fast as projected, whilst at the Imperial Navy base on Sabsee in the Apge subsector, an advanced fusion/plasma hybrid, dubbed the FGMP-16, has been unveiled. It is full of fascinating details covering an area which is not generally visited as part of Traveller campaigns.

Gary L. Thomas continues the exploration of the characteristics that are part of Traveller’s UPP, or ‘Universal Personality Profile’. In ‘Brains, Not Brawn’, it is the turn of Intelligence to be examined in Traveller. It explores how exactly to view Intelligence in the context of the rules for Traveller and actually takes the Education characteristic into account, looks at how to handle the gap between the players’ own mental acumen versus that of their characters. In this, the Game Master will need to account for what a character knows versus what his player knows, such as Doctor Theodor Krenstein’s skill of Robotics-5 versus what his prospective player will know. Ultimately, the article differentiates between Intelligence as brains, common sense, and quick-wittedness and Education as accumulated knowledge and training, and presents basic skill rolls, using the UTP—or ‘Universal Task Profile’—for both. The article may well be obvious in its conclusion, but it is interesting to see what how parts of the UPP were considered at the time.

The Travellers’ Digest #8 comes to close with a pair of technical articles. The first of these examines the transmission of information in much of Charted Space. ‘Hand Computers’ (actually wrist-mounted) by Gary L. Thomas looks at how the hand computer is used in the Third Imperium and beyond, how information is updated on it, and so on. This is a ‘future tech of the past’ type article looking at how an advanced technological device works in the then very far future, when today, we have very similar devices widely available. The technical specifications are given and how the information is accessed is explored, primarily through a subscription service, which is updated when new starships, typically the Scout Service’s X-Boats, arrive and transmit new data packets to local servers. Of course, there are limitations too, including how a user might search available databases and that does not take into account network problems. The ramifications feel very familiar to today, such as checking a fact to settle an argument or getting the latest weather details, but at the time, this would have been quite literally Science Fiction.

The second and last is ‘Beyond 101 Robots’. In what feels like a very robot-focused issue, The Travellers’ Digest #8 expands upon the supplement 101 Robots with more examples. Five designs are given from the Naasirka corporation. They include a ‘Ship’s Boat Pilot Robot’, a ‘Clerk Robot’, a ‘Servant Robot’, and so on. All decent designs and would fill certain niches in a campaign if so needed.

Physically, The Travellers’ Digest #8 is, as with all of the issues so far, very obviously created using early layout software. However, there is a marked improvement in the quality of the artwork, even so.

The Travellers’ Digest #8 is an enjoyably readable issue. The scenario is perhaps a little too short, but the supporting material is excellent and the ‘Hand Computers’ article is delightfully prescient and archaic at the same time. Overall, a solidly put together issue.

[Fanzine Focus XLI] LOWBORN Issue 3

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and her group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Most, but not all fanzines draw from the Old School Renaissance. Some provide support for much more modern games.

Lowborn is ‘An Independent Grim Perilous Fanzine for Zweihänder RPG’. As the subtitle suggests, this is a fanzine for the Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous RPG, published in 2017 and thus modern, but actually a retroclone of another roleplaying game. That roleplaying game is the definitive British roleplaying game, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, published by Games Workshop in 1986.

Lowborn Issue 3 was published in November, 2020. It dives straight in with ‘The Spiral of Stress: An Alternative System for handling Disorders.’ Written by Irene D. B., it presents a different way of tackling the effects of shock and fear, avoiding the potential stigmatisation of mental health issues that more traditional rules systems do not always avoid. It even goes as far as using the Disorders section on the Zweihänder character sheet. Essentially, as a Player Character accumulates Chaos Ranks, his ‘Spiral of Stress’ also increases. When his ‘Spiral of Stress’ exceeds his Will Bonus, the Player Character is forced to retire. In between that, he will also gain general penalties to all of his actions. The suggested means of reducing a Player Character’s ‘Spiral of Stress’ is to go on a Personal Quest, which leads to interesting roleplaying and storytelling possibilities. The opening article is quick and dirty and could easy have been expanded to give some actual examples and perhaps to better explore the positive and (hopefully not) negative effects of undertaking a Personal Quest. This is interesting and useful where the fanzine’s regular cartoon, ‘Those Two Orx’ fails to do anything except take up space. Honestly, it if had to be kept, it could have been halved in size to double the humour, or if not, simply dropped and nobody would miss it.

Peter Rudin-Burgess’ ‘Drama Dice and Pools’ suggests another pair of alternative rules to handle the drama of play in a broad rather than a specific sense. The first is the sue of drama dice. Essentially, using a die to track the progress of the Player Characters’ failures and when the die number reaches a particular threshold, an alarm of some kind is triggered. The second is dice pools, the more challenging the situation, the fewer the number of six-sided dice in the pool. When a failure is rolled, the dice pool is rolled and any six rolled means that a die is removed from the pool. When it is emptied, the alarm is triggered. These are both quite serviceable, offering an alternative to the countdown clock device found in other roleplaying games and in the case of the dice pools, randomising it a little.

Later in the issue, Irene D. B. offers her own development of this with ‘Chaos Overclocked’. This is to roll percentile dice when the six face is revealed and an alarm is triggered, but instead of it being triggered, the Game Master rolls to see if its triggered. It is a counterpoint to the certainty of the alarm being triggered when the six face is revealed, but this really, is a boxed text for the first article given its own article, which seems unnecessary. Plus, ‘Drama Dice and Pools’ already provides a perfectly good random means of triggering an alarm or other effect with the dice pool idea.

The feature of the issue is ‘Cytoplasm’. This is a scenario by Ignacio M, a locked room mystery in which the Player Characters wake up to find themselves in the attic of a house which as they explore, they will find out that they are trapped. Designed as one-shot, but it could easily be added to any campaign, the Player Characters have to explore the house, examine its furniture and fittings, search for secret doors, and find clues as to where they are, what is going on, and how they get out. This is nicely detailed puzzle box of a scenario that includes decent floorplans of the house and good descriptions of each location. Although they do not know it initially, the Player Characters are up against the clock as the thing trapping them inside attempts to squeeze itself in through whatever gaps it can find. Fortunately, there are multiple ways of getting out if the Player Characters can find them or solve the puzzle. The scenario is let down by the fact that none of the rooms are marked with numbers to link them to their descriptions in the text, so it is just slightly more difficult to run than it should be. Anyway, good puzzle box adventure than relies on brains rather than brawn.

Irene D. B.’s ‘Perilous Tactics: The Death Hedge’ is the first in a series of article that examine the combat tactics for various creatures from the bestiary from the Zweihänder Core Rulebook. It breaks down and analyses the stats for the Death Hedge, an immobile, sweet-smelling rose bush, mutated by the Aether Winds into a deadly ambush predator. The author manages to get two tightly packed pages of material out of this one twisted plant, which surprising given that it only has the one attack, its flailing, thorny branches, does not tend to attack humanoids, and is otherwise, mindless. It is exhaustively overwritten and really could have done with advice on how to use it in a scenario as much as in combat. There are hints throughout, but really, this series could have better launched with an entry from the Zweihänder Core Rulebook that actually does use tactics and would be more of an interesting opponent than a flailing bush.

With ‘Elementalist Professions (Element Bending)’, Lilith Grishaw presents several Professions from her Homebrew Setting of Andelos. In the setting the Elementalist is an innate magic user who learns to harness control of abilities connected to a particular element— Air, Earth, Fire, or Water. Over time they can go on to embody their connected element as a Master of the Element, but their training also includes some martial skills too otherwise they would be vulnerable on the battlefield. As they further specialise, they become either a Master of Metal for an earth elementalist, a Moon Warrior for water elementalist, a Nomad of an air elementalist, or a Phoenix Lord for a fire elementalist. The article explores both the benefits and demands for each path and there is a lot to work with if the Game Master and her players want to have a combination of specialist spellcaster-warrior in their campaign. Further, despite it being taken from a specific setting, there is nothing to impede the Game Master adapting to her own campaign.

‘Grim & Perilous Mass Combat’ by A.R. Kavli gives rules for handling mass combat in Zweihänder, expanding upon a simple contested Warfare skill roll. It requires a small amount of effort setting up, considering scale, goals, the nature of the units and their Warfare values, and more, most notably the number of Success Levels required by each side in order to win. Exceptionally good and exceptionally bad rolls also necessitate a roll on the ‘Tides of War’ table that gives some random event. The Game Master is encouraged to narrate the outcome of any battle just as she would any individual brawl or skirmish, but the ‘Tides of War’ table gives a long list of options that will make the mass combat memorable.

Chuck Kranz’s ‘Random Sewer Encounters’ starts of silly with “Youthful sewer dwelling terrapin creatures” and “A rat-like master” and strays very far from that. The last quarter of Lowborn Issue 3 is devoted to ‘Grim & Perilous Saints of the Holy Roman Empire’ by A.R. Kavli which takes Zweihänder not back to its historical roots so much as the historical roots of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. It is an exhaustive list of the Catholic, Protestant, and Pagan saints found in the Germanic states of the Holy Roman Empire amidst the Thirty Years War. There is guidance on how to proclaim a saint and petition a saint, and a a list of over one-hundred-and-twenty-five saints! The idea is that every Player Characters will have been dedicated to a saint at birth, but gains no bonus from doing so. However, by attuning himself to a saint, a Player Character can petition his saint to gain Fortune Points. These can go into a group pool shared by all of the Player Characters or be linked to a particular attribute favoured by the saint, or the Player Character might have to petition directly for a boon or blessing. All this requires a roll using the Folklore Skill Focus for the saint. Every one of the saints is associated with a feast day, a Fortune Point-linked attribute or skill, and what saintly gift the saint might grant. For example, Reinold is the Patron of stonemasons, a monk placed in charge constructing an abbey at Köln, but murdered by jealous stonemasons. His feast day is January 7th and he grants Fortune Points via the Tradecraft skill, as well as the gift of being able to “Flip to Succeed all Scrutiny tests to find hidden passages, traps, or other mechanical secrets for 24 hours.” There is a delightful variety to the range of saints and their gifts listed and this could easily be ported into a Zweihänder that does not have the ties to the Thirty Year War. The likelihood is that almost no-one would notice, but if they do, it would only be a matter of changing a few names to make the list fit the campaign world. Overall, a very nicely researched article that will add to the background of any campaign as well as the individual Player Characters.

Physically, Lowborn Issue 3 is decently presented. The layout is tight in palces, but the artwork is decent.

Lowborn Issue 3 is solid support for the Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous RPG. In particular, the scenario, ‘Cytoplasm’, is a testing puzzle box, whilst ‘Grim & Perilous Saints of the Holy Roman Empire’ can be used as is or as a model for the Game Master’s own campaign. Either way, it can add further depth and detail to a campaign and make it more interesting.