Xanthophobia II

Call of Cthulhu is big in Japan. Bigger than Dungeons & Dragons and the Japanese devotees of Call of Cthulhu have their official campaign from Chaosium, Inc., that enables them and devotees around the world to explore a significant period in recent Japanese history. In doing so, they find a country at the height of its economic dominance at the end of the electronic era, unknowingly threatened by insidious memetic virus that finds vectors in prayer books and manga and dreams, mapping on its pattern onto the psyches of its victims who then will seek to spread it wider. It wraps itself around faith and culture and hope, but is utterly alien. That threat is the King in Yellow, drawn from the short story collection by R.C. Chambers, The King in Yellow, and re-interpreted for the ‘Bubble Economy’ period in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest as the Prince of Pale Leaves. This is not the first time that Call of Cthulhu and Chaosium, Inc. have visited Japan, the supplement, Secrets of Japan being published in 2005. In more recent years, the Miskatonic Repository has become an outlet for titles written by Japanese authors, such as Japonism 2024. Similarly, it is two decades since Chaosium, Inc. explored Hastur and the mythos of the King in Yellow with the campaign, Tatters of the King, published in 2006.

The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest: Encountering the King in Yellow in 1980s Japan is a published by Chaosium, Inc. for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and notable for a number of factors. One is that it is a modular campaign, one that can be expanded with The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising: Encountering the King in Yellow in 1980s Japan, simply ran as is, or run as sperate, standalone scenarios. In fact, the two are companion volumes. The second is that the supplement is co-written by residents of Japan, including the Sons of Singularity—responsible for The Sassoon Files: A Sourcebook for the Call of Cthulhu and GUMSHOE Role Playing Games and Journal d’Indochine—and Chaosium, Inc. Which gives it an authenticity and a strong sense of place. Third, almost like a meme itself, the scenarios in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest can be played over and over again, as the players and their (new?) Investigators search for an alternate ending. Of course, the Prince of Pale Leaves can twist and change and learn, so that what might have worked in a previous playthrough (alternate timeline?) is not guaranteed to work in the current one.

As with its sister volume, what The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest is not, is a sourcebook for Call of Cthulhu in Japan in the late eighties. It does contain a glossary of terms in the appendix and it does contain source material and useful they are too. The source material covers Japan and its work-orientated culture during the period, examines the life of the working adult and the student, the divide between the generations and its consequences, organised crime, transportation, and more. That more focuses on the technology available, noting that personal computers and pagers are widely available, the Internet has yet to appear, mobile phones are rare, and weapons even rarer! So, no firearms, and despite what some might think, no swords—and definitely no Ninja! The downside to The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest not being a sourcebook book for Call of Cthulhu in Japan in the late eighties is that there is little in the way of advice for creating Investigators for the period. Even then, it only extends as far as telling the Keeper that Investigator should be able to speak Japanese and players to avoid the discriminatory cultural biases endemic to the period, though that was beginning to change. This leaves the Keeper and her players to be inventive should they want to create their own Investigators or have to create replacements in the event of Investigator death. Unlike in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising, no pre-generated Investigators are provided in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest and the Keeper will likely want to refer to The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising for those if needed.

There are two notable additions in terms of the mechanics specific to the campaign. The first is Exposure Points gained through exposure to the Sutra of Pale Leaves, whether through glancing at it, reading it, hearing it being read, and so on. As they are gained—whether by an Investigator or NPC—those exposed begin to fixate on Sutra of Pale Leaves, suffer dreams and altered perception, gain creative inspiration, and even begin to see the Prince of Pale Leaves. These are the very least of the effects of continued exposure, whilst The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest suggests that Sanity loss and severe orders suffered are ‘side effects’. Surprisingly, being exposed can have its rewards such as unexplained luck and being immune to Sanity loss, though these come at the cost of more Exposure Points. All this reflects the effects of the memetic virus rewriting the code in the sufferer’s brain. Exposure Points are kept secret from the players and count up in contrast to Sanity points counting down. The second addition is more distinctly defined and numbered ‘Endings’. Running from ‘0: Party Wipe (Failure)’ and up, these categorise player success in a scenario and are a common feature of scenarios in Japan where they enable players to simply communicate how well they did in a scenario. Strangely, this number gives a scenario what are effectively ‘winning conditions’, which is at odds with almost any description of how roleplaying works. However, they explicitly support the replay value of the scenarios and campaign since having achieved an Ending and a value in one playthrough, the players can playthrough the scenario with the aim of achieving a different Ending and ideally a higher value.

In addition to being different in how it spreads its influence, the ‘Mythos’ threat and its associated cult are also different in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest. The cult—the Association of Pale Leaves—is mad and dangerous, but it is not murderous. In other words, no sacrifices before altars at the dead of night at propitious times of the year. It can resort to violence when protecting its interests and its assets, but in the main, what it wants to do is proselytise. To that end, the Sutra of Pale Leaves and its different versions play a bigger role in the campaign than the cult itself, and although the cult is detailed, the focus of the scenarios in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest is not on the cult itself, but rather on the twistings of the memetic transmission of its master’s message. Where this means that in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising there is no real beginning or no real ending, that is not the case in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest. It has a definite ending in which the Investigators the vents that its subtitle suggests from coming to fuitition.

Similarly, the Prince of Pale Leaves is surprisingly human in its form and face even if it is alien. It is also calm, calculating, and confident, never angry, never Machiavellian, but it is manipulative and several of the scenarios revolve around the Prince of Pale Leaves’ manipulation of the Investigators. In other words, it has none of the sardonic and manipulative qualities of Nyarlathotep, and so perhaps requires much more subtle roleplaying upon the part of the Keeper.

Narratively, the campaign adds ‘Confidants’. These are inspired by Jackson Elias of Masks of Nyarlathotep fame and are designed to serve as hooks, facilitating the involvement of the Investigators in the plots. Several are given, both general and scenario-specific, but the main one is a special agent of the Public Security Intelligence Agency, the equivalent of Japan’s FBI, but the others include a Buddhist monk and abbot, and heiress-turned anti-occult crusader. Their use is not mandatory, but they will flavour and influence how the Investigators are introduced to each scenario and potentially grant them access to various resources. Both The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising and The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest share the set of Confidants, but some of them are only available if the Investigators have played through the scenarios in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising where they initially appear rather than at the start of either campaign. For the players, the campaign includes Lore Sheets which provide them with information about Japan and its culture that their Investigators would ordinarily know.

Although there are four scenarios in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest, only three of them make up the campaign proper. The three-part campaign consists of a two-part, set a year apart with a scenario in between. This provides it with a structure into which the Keeper can slot the other scenarios from The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising. This sets up a campaign that balances the drive of the Prince of Pale Leaves and his cultists in the Association of Pale Leaves to bring their plans to fruition at the climax in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest versus exploring the transmission of their message and its effects upon various parts of Japanese society. The campaign overall is not a long one, and if the extra scenarios in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising are not used, it is an even shorter mini-campaign.

The campaign opens with ‘The Bridge Maiden – Part One’, set in 1987. The Investigators are hired or asked to look for a missing person, Umezono Minoru, ostensibly by his sister, Kaho, it may be by others. A small-time businessman with big dreams, as the investigators look into his history and activities, including interviewing his family—his sister in particular, co-workers, employees, and even a local Yakuza representative, it quickly becomes apparent that he is not the golden boy that his parents think he is. However, as bad as his apparent reputation is, he is still a victim here, having been severely affected by The Mandela of the Divine Eye, an artefact that the Association of Pale Leaves has installed in a local payphone! Ultimately, the scenario switches from the Investigators tracking down a missing person to tracking down a monster not quite hiding in the sewers. The scenario also lays the tracks for ‘The Bridge Maiden – Part Two’, which leaves a few plot points hanging that will not pay off until that second part and it is disappointing to literally make Umezono Minoru a monster before and after his transformation without leaving room to get a glimpse of humanity. Potentially though, there may be some emotional payoff come ‘The Bridge Maiden – Part Two’. Otherwise, ‘The Bridge Maiden – Part One’ is a direct, relatively easy investigation.

The middle scenario, ‘Wonderland’ is not. A horrific crime in a school seems inexplicable at first, but is somehow linked to the fascination that some students have for a MUD—a ‘Multi-User Dungeon’—called ‘Wonderland’. Inspired by Alice in Wonderland and promising to be highly immersive, it sets up an interesting roleplaying situation where only the older players are really going to know what a MUD was and how it worked. Consequently, there will be players who know as much about them as their Investigators do, given that in 1988, a MUD would have been at the cutting edge of computer technology, and thus both will be encountering them for the first time. ‘Wonderland’ leans in part to the ‘Hikikomori’ or ‘shut-in’ culture of Japan’s youth, promising its users the opportunity to be greater than themselves, but secretly acting as another vector for the influence of the King in Yellow. This includes the Investigators when they log on—and long on again, as it will take multiple attempts to discover the nature of the threat that it represents, potentially leading to them being hollowed out much like the student users. This will earn the Investigators more Exposure Points and bring them into direct contact with the Prince of Pale Leaves, not as the Yellow King, but White King in keeping with the mythology of Alice in Wonderland. Ultimately, the Investigators need to find a way to stop the unsurprisingly creepy developer from distributing Wonderland across the country. ‘Wonderland’ is creepily, horribly modern interpretation of then modern eighties technology

Weirdly, the scenario presents a wholly different set-up with the teachers at the school as the Investigators looking into the horrific incident triggering the scenario rather than being NPCs to be interviewed as in the default set-up. This would be fine for a one-shot, but it would take some adjustment to use this cast of pre-generated Investigators with the other scenarios in both The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising and The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest.

‘The Bridge Maiden – Part Two’ brings the campaign to a close, but starts in slightly underwhelming fashion. Part of the issue is that the primary clues are contained in The Mandela of the Divine Eye which the Investigators will have first encountered in ‘The Bridge Maiden – Part One’, but have to wait until now to fully examine. It also ties back to Kaho, the sister of the missing Umezono Minoru, who at the end of ‘The Bridge Maiden – Part One’ simply ignored the Investigators instead of paying them or even thanking them. She is a fashion designer suddenly with a successful line of clothing which seems to have strange effects as the Investigators discover in the pedestrian paradise of Harajuku when a group of young dancers in the street suddenly begin dancing in concert and attack another girl. All of them, it turns out, are wearing clothing designed by Umezono Kaho. Was she actually part of the cult along or simply does her fashion brand have the backing of the Association of Pale Leaves? Unlike other scenarios in the campaign, this actually gives the Investigators a chance to interact with the cult leader on a formal—and above all, civilised basis. He proves to be articulate and amenable, though of course, still insane. He even invites the Investigators to a grand fashion launch down by the bay. 

This is the setting for the grand finale as the Association of Pale Leaves creates a rainbow bridge—the bridge of light—out over the bay directly to Carcosa that will enable the Prince of Pale Leaves to descend to the Earth. It is a startlingly majestic, if off kilter, manifestation, effectively a summoning quite unlike that seen in any campaign for Call of Cthulhu. Its staging is enjoyably cinematic too, set on a radiant bridge over Tokyo Bay as helicopters buzz about and the Prince of Pale Leaves travels down from Carcosa in a driverless Cadillac!

Thematically, both The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising and The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest have both been exploring some of the consequences of the Bubble Economy in Japan in the late nineteen eighties with its ambition, technological advances, and so on. The fourth and final scenario in the book is ‘The Fixer’. This is not part of the campaign and it is not like any of the previous scenarios in either book. It opens with the Investigators as homeless and destitute, living on the streets. Thus, for them, the ‘bubble’ has burst. They can be the Investigators from the previous scenarios, but need not be. The scenario is based on ‘The Repairer of Reputations’, the short story from Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, and instead of going to a ‘Repairer of Reputations’, the Investigators go to a Fixer. He promises to help, but in return for several favours. This is to destroy the reputations of five figures in Tokyo—a CEO, a Shinto priest, a police detective, a Yakuza street boss, and a politician—that each in turn has reneged on a deal with the Fixer. What is interesting about this is that the Investigators are entirely free to go about this in any fashion that they want using the information that they learn about each target. So, it is much more freeform and player-led than just about any other Call of Cthulhu scenario. Of course, it makes clear that the scenario is about ‘Hobos, Not Murder Hobos’.

However, as each of the five is successfully and satisfyingly (none of them are nice people) targeted, there are strange consequences. One of these is the transformation of the Fixer himself, the other is the transformation of Tokyo itself. These are from the past and the future, the latter including the appearance of a cat café fifteen years before the first one and a maglev hyperloop replacing the Tokyo subway. Not only that, but the Fixer also fulfils his promises, though not as the Investigators might expect. Instead of being restored to their former lives, they find themselves being appointed officials at the court of the Prince of Pale Leaves! So, what is happening here that the Investigators are both protagonists and antagonists, they are instigating the Mythos threat as much as they are investigating it. Ultimately, they will be (or should be) the ones to clean up their mess, but when and how, is again, up to them. Initially, this looked to be a disappointing affair, but upon close examination, ‘The Fixer’ is an original way of approaching the King in Yellow mythos, explicitly tying it to what the Investigators have lost and want again, and asking them how much they are prepared to sacrifice for their selfishness. Further, as much as ‘The Fixer’ does not specifically have to run after the events of ‘The Bridge Maiden – Part Two’ and the official end of the campaign, it actually works as a great epilogue to the campaign, the Prince of Pale Leaves reaching out one last time to tempt the ones who thwarted him.

Physically, The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest is very well presented and written. The artwork ranges from the ukiyo-e style of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries to modern manga and much in between, most notably bitmapped-style for many of the images in ‘Wonderland’, echoing some of the look of The Matrix a decade early.

If The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising is not a campaign in the traditional sense for Call of Cthulhu, then The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest is. A mini-campaign to be sure, but a campaign still, and one that can be greatly added to with the scenarios from the first book if the Keeper wants. The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest is a very good campaign, exploring the manifestation of the King in Yellow in a culture of optimism, greed, ambition, and rapid technological development, in an age that feels almost as alien as the King in Yellow himself.

[Free RPG Day 2026] Three Days to the Big Easy

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

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Quick-starts are a means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps two. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

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What is it?
The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure is the quick-start for the Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game, the roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror derived from Arkham Horror board game and Arkham Horror Living Card game from Fantasy Flight Games, both of which are derived from the original version of the Arkham Horror board game published by Chaosium, Inc. in 1987. It is published by EDGE Studio.

The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure is a thirty-two page, full colour booklet.

How long will it take to play?

The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure includes the scenario, ‘Three Days to the Big Easy’, a short scenario which can be played through in one session.

What else do you need to play?
The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure needs a set of six six-sided per player, plus a lot more for the Keeper and some dice of a different colour.

Who do you play?
The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure includes six pre-generated Investigators. They consists of a bruising gangster with connections to the O’Bannion connections; a larcenous White Russian countess; an African American trumpet player (who has the Knack ‘Dead Man’s Stomp’ in a nice nod to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying); a supernaturally resilient singer; an intuitive violinist; and a magician who knows a little too much lore.

How is an Investigator defined?

An Investigator in Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game is primarily defined by ten skills—Agility, Athletics, Intuition, Knowledge, Lore, Melee Combat, Presence, Ranged Combat, Resolve, and Wits. Of these, Lore is how much an Investigator knows about the occult and how to apply it, if necessary. Skills are rated between two and six. He has a variety of Knacks, special abilities that might grant him extra dice, alter the number of dice rolled, allow special actions, cast spells, rerolls of the dice, and more. There is a wide variety of Knacks, even presented in the six pre-generated Investigators in Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure.

An Investigator also has a Personality Trait, such as ‘Reserved’, ‘Ambitious’, or ‘Outgoing’. These can have a positive and a negative effect in play.

Lastly, an Investigator has a pool of six-sided dice, typically six. These are used and refreshed from one scene to the next and they represent a combination of an Investigator’s effort and health. In the case of the latter, when an Investigator is injured, he loses dice, limiting his actions until he can rest, heal, and receive medical attention.

How do the mechanics work?

When a player wants his Investigator to undertake a Complex action, such as climbing a fence in a chase, shooting cultist in a gunfight, researching a newspaper morgue for clues, or casting a spell, he takes as many dice as he wants from his pool and rolls them, comparing the results with the skill being used. For each die result equal to, or greater than, the value of the skill, a success is scored. In general, only a single success is required to achieve whatever an Investigator wants to do, but more successes are needed to trigger the effects of some Knacks.

In general, only a single success is required to achieve whatever an Investigator wants to do. Complex actions can also be rolled with Advantage or Disadvantage, rolling with one more or one less die in either case, but removing the lowest result on any die if at Advantage or the highest if at Disadvantage.

In addition, an Investigator has a supply of Insight points. These can be spent to add an additional success to a complex action, take a Complex Action with Advantage, to add a narrative element to a scene, or to avoid certain trauma.

Play itself in Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game is handled as a series of scenes, either Narrative or Structured scenes in which Simple and Complex Actions are attempted. Narrative scenes rarely involve peril, and allow an Investigator to undertake Simple Actions without his player needing to roll dice, whereas Structured scenes do involve peril or great difficulty, such as a combat scene or a confrontation with the Mythos, require a player to roll for both Simple and Complex Actions.

How does combat work?

Combat uses the same mechanics, with damage being inflicted in two ways. Primarily by reducing a defendant’s dice pool, limiting his capacity to act, wounding him if the dice pool is reduced to zero, after which he can strain himself to restore his dice pool to full at the cost of suffering an Injury. The other way is by a weapon specifically inflicting an Injury. Injuries are determined by rolling on the Injury Table. These are rolled on a single die, to which are added the number of injuries already suffered. Since the Injury roll is made on a single die, it takes a lot of injuries—at least five—before someone can be killed straight off. There is no little grievous Injury in the meantime, but it is difficult to kill a defendant and certainly an Investigator.

How does Horror work?

The way of handling Horror Damage or exposure to the cosmic truths of the universe is more interesting, though similar to that used for injuries. When an Investigator suffers Horror Damage—whether from a spell cast at him, seeing a creature of the Mythos, or reading a horrific tome—his player replaces a number of dice in his dice pool with Horror Dice equal to the Horror Damage suffered. Horror Dice work exactly like normal dice in a player’s dice pool and can be lost if an Investigator suffers damage. However, should a player roll a one on any single Horror Die, his Investigator gains a Trauma. The rolls a single die and consults the Trauma Table, adding one for each one rolled on the Horror Dice. Where an Investigator is physically resilient, the same cannot be said mentally. It is a lot easier in comparison to get Horror Dice, roll ones, and suffer Trauma and since there are fewer results on the Trauma Table, for an Investigator to be ‘Lost Forever’.

Horror Dice can be healed from one round to the next, as well as by certain Knacks and spells, replacing them with standard dice. This is an action though and in a Structured Scene, the Investigators might not have the opportunity. Whereas injuries can be healed though, traumas cannot, although they can recede over time. The combination of Horror Dice and Trauma is intriguing as a means of handling the escalating danger of being exposed to cosmic threat, but it does feel undercut by the ability to heal Horror Dice within a scene.

What do you play?

The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure includes the scenario, ‘Three Days to the Big Easy’, a short scenario which can be played through in one session. The scenario primarily focuses on interaction and action in terms of its play and there is not a great deal of scope for investigation. In the main, the Investigators are reacting to violent events, appearing to discover the culprit, only for it to occur again. This is interesting, but not interesting enough. There is never really a chance for the Investigators to fully work out what the cause of the situation, only identify its source. And that source is another of the problems with scenario. The source is a vengeful spirit in a cigarette lighter. There is no denying that ‘Three Days to the Big Easy’ is a horror story and the situation is horrifying, yet at the same time, its source is so ordinary, it feels banal. Anyone playing the scenario and expecting a Lovecraftian source or threat is going to extremely disappointed.

Is there anything missing?
No. The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure is complete as is.

Is it easy to prepare?
Yes. The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure is easy to grasp and prepare.

Is it worth it?
Yes and no. The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure is playable and presents an engaging set-up and potentially horrifying scenario. Ultimately, the repetitive structure of the scenario and its avoidance of anything Lovecraftian and satisfying explanation as to the situation for the players and their Investigators—especially in what is a one-shot—means that it not fulfil its set-up as much as it could.

The Three Days to the Big Easy: A Quickstart Adventure is available from EDGE Studio.

Decyphering Dionosaurs

One-hundred-and-fourteen years ago, the Time Machines screamed and self-destructed. In the process, they trapped twenty-thousand Commuters sixty-five million years in the past in the Cretaceous Period. Worse, at some point in the future, the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event will kill everyone and almost everything on the planet. In the century since the ‘Last Commute’, the survivors of the ‘Gre-Vakian c trials’ mission have adapted to their world, cut off from their homes in the twenty-fourth century and no longer able to rely upon their employers, the interstellar conglomerate, Space and Time, Interglobal (SATI). Their home, Grevakc, is spread out over two continents, Laramidia and Appalachia, divided by the Western Inner Sea, on what would be one day be the North American continent. They now breed dinosaurs, many people taking them as companions often controlled via cybernetic implants, whilst dinosaurs in the wild still remain a threat. A wide range of technology is used, a mix of that developed in the Cretaceous from leather, scales, fur, and bones, and future advances such as smart fluids, wetweave, piezotextiles, and more. Advanced arms, armour, and technology remain the province of SATI, suspected of holding caches in its bases across Grevakc, some of which are known, many of which are hidden. SATI dominates the few cities and many of the towns that have arisen since the ‘Last Commute’, its membership dominated by descendants of original SATI employees, working to maintain its grip on advanced technology whilst also trying to restore the ability to time travel and either go home or make contact with the corporation in the future. However, they opposed by the ‘Butterflies’, a guerrilla group, inspired by Ray Bradbury’s short story, ‘A Sound of Thunder.’, that is staunchly anti-technology and opposed to any use of time travel technology, working to ensure that Humanity in the Cretaceous Period dies out in the upcoming Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event and thus preventing them altering the evolutionary time path. A more recently founded organisation is the ‘Genesix Fellowship’, a religious group that openly preaches about its desire to find the ‘Garden of Eden’, seeing the destruction of time travel technology as God’s punishment for Humanity’s failure to find it, believing that the secret to its location can be found in dinosaur DNA, and knowing that when it is found, God will repair the time machines. One of the side effects of the destruction of the Time Travel machines—or perhaps the attempts by scientists to restore it—are ‘Time Anomalies’. Appearing as glitches or flickering mirages, they can last from a few hours to even years and are known to drop technologies, objects, and information from the future in the form of cyphers, artifacts, and remnants, and these are a steady supply of things from the future.

This is the set-up for Predation, a Science Fiction campaign involving dinosaurs, time travel, dinosaurs, cybernetics, dinosaurs, post-apocalypse, dinosaurs, and dinosaurs. Published by Monte Cook Games, it is a setting for use with Cypher System, first seen in Numenera in 2013. This is a setting which gives the players new character options, a new paradise to explore, secrets to discover, potentially a mystery to solve, and most fun of all, dinosaur companions! Or of course, it could be used as a means to add dinosaurs to other Cypher System roleplaying games and settings—in fact, The Way of the Dinosaur: Converting Predation for Numenera and The Strange is a complete guide to that—and it could be used as world that the Player Characters or ‘Recursors’ could visit in The Strange. In general though, this is a setting that stands alone, primarily because it presents a world that that is genuinely different and original.

In terms of character options, Predation makes multiple changes to what a player can play, whilst still adhering to the standard format that the Cypher System uses describe and encapsulate a Player Character. This is “I am a [adjective] [noun] who [verbs]”, where the noun is the character’s Type; the adjective a Descriptor, such as Clever or Swift, that defines the character and how he does things; and the verb is the Focus or what the character does that makes him unique. There are four Types—Karn, Tec, Pteryx, and Osteon. These roughly equate to the Warrior, Adept, and Explorer respectively, whilst the Osteon fulfils the social role. Plus, unlike the Adept, the Tec deploys science rather than magic. The Karn is also capable of fighting dinosaurs as well as other threats. There are only five now Descriptors—‘Daring’, ‘Empirical’, ‘Savage’, ‘Slick’, and ‘Volcanic’. These are mostly self-explanatory and it is easy to tie these to particular Types, such as an Empirical Tec, a Slick Osteon, or a Daring Pteryx. The exception is ‘Volcanic’, meaning a character who bides his time and then acts big or explosively, giving up actions to inflict greater damage when he does attack, but is always slow to act.

Similarly, there are four new Foci. These are ‘Plays God’, ‘Predates’, ‘Self-Evolves’, and ‘Walks with Dinosaurs’. ‘Plays God’ means that the Player Character employs genetics and cloning to grow, develop, and engineer dinosaurs; ‘Predates’ means he grows claws and teeth and more to hunt and fight more like a dinosaur; ‘Self-Evolves’ enables him to make a better version of himself through bioengineering and cybernetics; and ‘Walks with Dinosaurs’ means that he prefers the company of dinosaurs and can communicate with them. In addition to a list of Foci appropriate to the setting, Predation lists several Foci that are problematic and ways around them. For example, ‘Builds Cyborgs’ replaces ‘Builds Robots’ because there are no robots in the setting (they did not travel well from the future); ‘Moves Like a Raptor’ replaces ‘Moves Like a Cat’ as there are no cats—traditional pets—in the setting; and ‘Sees Through Time’ is adjusted to take account of the Time Anomalies so that a Player Character can see through time rather than travel through time.

The ‘Walks with Dinosaurs’ Focus highlights another feature of the Predation setting. Effectively, it effectively replaces the ‘Control Beasts’ Focus. Beasts, and dinosaurs in particular, play a big role in the setting and further, every Player Character has a dinosaur companion. This can be a Tyrannosaur, Raptor, Ornithomimid, Ceratopsian and Ankylosaur, Pterosaur, or even an Early Mammal type and stats and abilities which will develop as a Player Character does. Each has a personality trait, like Clever, Curious, or Intimidating, which grants their Player Character an asset when attempting certain tasks, but comes with its downsides too. For example, a Timid Companion grants an asset on all stealth actions, but is likely to runaway and hide from danger. The dinosaur companion is treated like another Player Character rather than an NPC, but instead of it being roleplayed by the player whose character it is companion, it is roleplayed by the player to his left. So every dinosaur companion is a player character, but roleplayed by someone else.

This has its challenges. It is not a new idea, originally appearing in White Wolf’s Wraith: The Oblivion with another player roleplaying a Player Character’s dark side, his Shadow, and then seen more recently with John Wick’s WIELD: Chronicles of the Vatcha. It doubles the number of Player Characters at the table, though of course, the actual Player Characters dominate play with their dinosaur companions getting time in the spotlight. A dinosaur companion though does not simply take orders as if it is an adjunct to the Player Character, but instead a player must interact with the player roleplaying his dinosaur companion and he must roll to see whether his dinosaur companion agrees to his request. This need not be for every action and it does get easier as both Player Character and dinosaur companion gain experience. This changes some of the dynamic around the table and increases the amount of extra play and effort that a player has to put into the game. Not only is he roleplaying his character and understanding what he is capable of, he has to roleplay and understand what another Player Character’s dinosaur companion is capable of, he needs to know what his own character’s dinosaur companion is capable of. Plus, the need to persuade a dinosaur companion to act can slow play. The last challenge is that this is a style of play rarely seen and unfamiliar to most roleplayers and, even there is an example of it in play, it will take some adjusting to.

In terms of equipment, Predation is underwhelming. There is a good discussion of the materials available, a mixture of future technology brought from the future and developed since as well as that adapted from what can be harvested from the now. The future technology includes smart fluid and piezotextiles, wetweave produced from genetically modified orb weaver spiders, and solarium, an artificial biofilm that absorbs solar energy to heal itself, whilst shrilk film is made from shrimp shells and spidersilk proteins to create, a thin, clear material as strong as aluminium , but biodegradable. Anything made from furs, scales, and leather is cheap and easy to find, but advanced technology can be very expensive, especially if it came from the future. Included are body upgrades, augments, and enhancements, such as nightvision, cybernetic limbs, and cybernetic limb or tail, but the list at just five entries is disappointingly short. The Game Master may want to consult the Cypher System’s Cyberpunk supplement, Neon Rain, for further ideas. Another issue is that the gear is a bit bland when it really could have done with some branding.

Cyphers, artifacts, and remnants are also something that is changed for the Predation. Cyphers are vestigial remnants of far-future technologies, sciences, and information storage systems that have slipped into the past and can be found in the Time Anomalies. When he walks through a Time Anomaly, Cyphers map themselves onto the Player Character’s DNA and when activated erase themselves afterwards. For example, a ‘Biological Plait’ releases a compound that weaves itself into the user’s blood, brain, and musculature for effects such as temporally increasing his Might, Speed, or Intellect Pool, training him in a skill, and so on. ‘Dinosenses’ enhances his senses when it comes to dinosaurs granting an asset when studying, understanding, and communicating with dinosaurs. ‘Timeseeker’ enables the use to detect Time Anomalies nearby, determine their intensity, and know how they will last. Artefacts can appear with greater abilities, but also have limited use and same can appear that not working at all. Many carry the SATI logo, which marks them as company property, but if not in the possession of a SATI employee, then such marks will be erased. Examples include the ‘Bibliotheca’, a disk that when embedded under the skin enables the user to download a digital book that works as an asset on an area of knowledge for twenty-four hours; ‘Microbial Mood Ring’ which reads the user’s gut bacteria and changes colour if there is an environmental hazard nearby; and a ‘Sky Map’ that provides an augmented reality version of the night sky to grant an asset when predicting the weather, navigating the world, and astronomy.

Remnants are items spat out by the Time Anomalies that have no actual game effect or use as they are neither weapons, armour, or devices. In general, they can be anything from a ‘Broken mug with MARS LANDING ’21 written on it in English’ to a ‘Hollow rubber creature that squeaks when compressed’. They can be sold, but in the main, they enforce the idea that not everything coming out of the Time Anomalies is useful, simply adding flavour and detail to the setting rather than anything else.

The setting of Predation is richly detailed with a good overview, and a gazetteer that covers both Laramidia and Appalachia, its factions and its secrets, societies, and more. Of course, in terms of the setting, what we are really here for the dinosaurs. The bestiary describes many new additions, many of which have or can have upgrades like physical armour, sharper claws, electrode brainwiring, subvocal speech systems, and even cybernetic limbs. In general, the Game Master will probably want to refer to the Cypher System core rulebook for dinosaurs unaugmented, as most here do have some cybernetics or have been genetically altered or bred. The Acroplocerex (ankylosaurus or Euoplocephalus) is typically heavily armoured with hydraulic armour to serve in SATI convoys; the Argoraptor, trained to operate in packs by SATI; Nerezza are gliding raptors using as scouts and silent thieves; Supersauri, composite dinosuars derived from numerous genetic materials and planned as SATI superweapons, but are fearsome whether in the wild or under control; and Teslasaurus, ankylosaurs injected with electric eel genetic materials in the hope of creating docile bioelectrogenesis hosts to biologically power base facilities, but made aggressive by the process and they are used for mobile energy defence and offence. All of these dinosaurs reflect the changes in scientific knowledge about them, so that many are brightly coloured and have feathers. This does not mean that they are strictly scientifically accurate, and they do not need to be, the point being that this is a Science Fiction roleplaying setting and the nod to scientific accuracy is still present. Combine these with dinosaur entries from the Cypher System core rulebook and the Cypher System Bestiary and the Game Master has a lot to play with.

The advice for the Game Master covers the nature of time travel in the setting and how strong the Science Fiction should be, as well as giving some campaign seeds in addition to the ‘Reading the Bones’ boxed sections with gives numerous adventure seeds. It makes clear that the setting focuses primarily on mission-based play rather than simple exploration as in other Cypher System settings. The advice also expands greatly upon the secrets of the setting as they pertain to SATI—something not accorded to ‘Butterflies’ and the ‘Genesix Fellowship’, although SATI and what its plans were for the ‘Gre-Vakian c trials’ mission underpin the setting as a whole, whereas the other two factions are more straightforward. However, the explanation given in ‘SATI’S Big Mystery: A Guide For GMs’ only gives part of the mystery as definitive, leaving parts of it for the Game Master to decide. The supplement makes clear that the ramifications of whatever discoveries the Player Characters make—and there are big ramifications—lie outside the scope of Predation. However, it leaves the setting with big questions that the Game Master is very likely going to have to answer in the long term because they are questions that the players and their characters are going to ask and want answers to. Why did the Time Travel machines break down? What was the purpose of the ‘Gre-Vakian c trials’ mission? Can the Time Machines be repaired? Can the people of Grevakc escape to the future and what happens if they do? Or is Grevakc doomed to be destroyed by the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event and become lost footnote in history like the Roanoke colony? In some ways, what Predation really describes is a richly detailed campaign set-up with the endgame very much in the Game Master’s hands.

Lastly, the Game Master is given an introductory adventure, ‘Promised Land’. It takes place in a town best known for its dinosaur wrestling and has the Player Characters looking for a top-ranking dino-wrestler for a mutual friend of theirs. The clues lead them out into the nearby jungle and the discovery of a Time Anomaly and other secrets. It is a decent scenario.

Physically, Predation is well written, well presented, and accessible. The artwork is as good as you would expect for a book from Monte Cook Games and the writing is engaging.

There is a lot about Predation that just makes you go, “That’s cool.” A great set-up of being trapped in the past, dinosaurs and dinosaur companions, augmented dinosaurs, and mysteries—big mysteries. Yet as enticing and as entertaining as this setting is, it is the big mysteries where it leaves the Game Master and her players wanting more. A sequel, a whole campaign, something that pushes the setting forwards towards the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event, but in the process gives answers and explanations and perhaps closure. Instead, it leaves the Game Master to really develop that and that is a lot of work and it might not lead to answers that everyone is happy with. (To be fair neither would a commercially published campaign, but it is less likely.) This makes Predation sound like a bad product, but it is definitely not. It has everything for the Game Master and her players to start playing and exploring the setting and potentially for the Game Master to write a campaign.

Predation is great setting. It is fresh and exciting and original. It is the Planetary Romance genre done in the past where the players and their characters get to have exciting adventures with dinosaurs and explore a verdant paradise. Whether there is hope or an end is ultimately up to the Game Master.

[Free RPG Day 2026] An Afternoon Outing

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

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Quick-starts are a means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps two. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

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What is it?
The Dungeons & Kittens Quick Start: An Afternoon Outing is the quick-start for the Dungeons & Kittens RPG, published by EDGE Studio.

The Dungeons & Kittens Quick Start: An Afternoon Outing is a thirty-two page, full colour booklet.

How long will it take to play?

The Dungeons & Kittens Quick Start: An Afternoon Outing includes the scenario, ‘An Afternoon Outing’, a short scenario which can be played through in one session.

What else do you need to play?
The Dungeons & Kittens Quick Start: An Afternoon Outing needs three six-sided dice per player.

Who do you play?
The Dungeons & Kittens Quick Start: An Afternoon Outing includes five pre-generated Player Kittens. These are presented on bright and breezy character sheets which include an explanation of the basic rules, the background for each Player Kitten, and explanations for their spells.

How is a Player Kitten defined?

A Player-Kitten in Dungeons & Kittens has three abilities—Strong, Smart, and Cute—and one or more skills. These include ‘Draw & Paint’, ‘Hiss & Growl’ (brawling and intimidation), ‘Read Sky & Stars’, ‘Scratch!’ (for melee combat) and ‘Shake Your Booty’ (for athletics and acrobatics). A Player-Kitten either has a skill or he does not, and if he does, it gives Advantage on a roll. He will also have a Character Trait, a descriptor that can work as an advantage or disadvantage. He can carry up to five ‘Purr-ecious’ items in his backpack and can use ‘Meowgic’ and thus can cast spells.

How do the mechanics work?

When a player wants his Kitten to undertake an action, the Storyteller—as the Game Master is known in Dungeons & Kittens—selects the appropriate ability and the player rolls three six-sided dice. Each die result that is equal to or less than the ability counts as a Success. An Easy action requires one Success, a Medium action requires two Successes, a Difficult action requires three Successes, and a Legendary action requires four Successes. If the player rolls a number of Successes equal to the difficulty of the action, his Kitten succeeds. Fewer Successes than the difficulty and the player has a choice of simply failing to succeed without consequences, whereas no Success and the action is definitely a failure. If a player rolls three of the same number, his Kitten gains an edge, whether the roll was a success or failure. If a Kitten has Advantage, his player rolls four dice, but only two dice if he is at Disadvantage. A player can re-roll one or more dice with the right ‘Purr-ecious’ items.

Each Player Kitten has a Trait, such as Brave or Curious. It can be used in two ways, once ach session. One is to grant Advantage, the other, when it gets a Kitten into a dangerous situation, his player can give a Furr-endship point to another player. A Furr-endship point can be spent on one of two ways. First, to ensure that a single dice roll succeeds. Second, with a big hug and purring in their ear, to give one Heart—the equivalent of Hit Points in Dungeons & Kittens—to another Player Kitten. To regain spent Furr-endship points, a Player Kitten must spend time with his fellow Player Kittens away from adventuring and doing other things.

How do catfights work?

Combat or ‘Catfights’ in Dungeons & Kittens consist of two types. In a ‘Fang Catfight’, a Player Kitten attempts to intimidate, frighten, or convince another rather than hurt them, whereas in a ‘Claw Fight’, the aim is to hurt them. When a Player Kitten enters a ‘Claw Fight’, the stress causes him to lose a Furr-endship point due to the stress! Without a Furr-endship point, a Player Kitten cannot fight. In general, the Player Kittens act before anyone else, but if a Player Kitten takes an aggressive action, the Storyteller chooses who acts nest. If a Kitten takes a non-aggressive or helpful action, his player decides who acts next. Possible actions include Help to give Advantage to another Kitten; Hinder to give Disadvantage; Attack to reduce an enemy’s Heart points, whether in a ‘Fang Catfight’ or a ‘Claw Fight’; and Interact and Move. 

At any point, anyone caught in a Catfight can surrender and that is always respected. However, an opponent must surrender if his Heart points are reduced to zero in a ‘Fang Catfight’, but in a ‘Claw Fight’, he may seriously injured.

How does Meowgic work?

Every Player Kitten knows some Meowgic, has a spellbook, and can cast spells. To have his Kitten cast a spell, a player rolls dice against the Ability given for the spell. For example, the spell Slipper Patrol, requires a single Success against the Strong Ability and with a success, the caster and his fellow kittens can walk and run without hurting their legs or paws.

What do you play?

Dungeons & Kittens Quick Start: An Afternoon Outing provides plenty of support for its scenario, ‘An Afternoon Outing’. This includes a description of the background, that it is post-apocalyptic setting in which mankind has long since disappeared, leaving some animals with the gift of speech and imagination, the ability to anticipate and predict, and the capacity to invent. It is set in and around the Kingdom of Cats, ruled by the insatiably large and lazy King Walter from his tower in Cat Tree City. King Walter’s most unfair law is the ‘Exile of Kittens’. This exiles young kittens from the kingdom on the pretence of an initiation quest, supposedly to return to King Walter with a great treasure in hand. King Walter supposedly draws the names of the young kittens to be exiled at random, but everyone knows this is a lie. The Player Kittens are the latest to have their names drawn by King Walter.

In addition, Dungeons & Kittens Quick Start: An Afternoon Outing provides advice on being a Storyteller and being a good player. These are both well written sections and easy to grasp, but unlike almost any other quick-start, they need to be read by all of the players. This is because in Dungeons & Kittens Quick Start: An Afternoon Outing, more than one player will take a turn being the Storyteller. However, the scenario is short and it only includes two points when the it instructs the current Storyteller to handover the scenario to another player and at each point, the new Storyteller has to go and read the advice on being a Storyteller and then prepare the next scene. It is a nice idea, but does not quite work. There are five Player Characters and only three opportunities to be the Storyteller, so not everyone is going to get a go. Plus, there is going to be delay in play as the new Storyteller prepares to run the next scene. Not so much of a problem for the experienced Game Master, but for anyone new, they are being put on the spot.

The ‘An Afternoon Outing’ scenario is a flashback to an event early in the Player Kittens’ exile and consists of two scenes in which problems have to be solved with a confrontation in the third. In the opening scene, one of the Player Kittens falls into the pool of water around which they are all playing. The idea here is that the player of the Kitten who falls into the water is actually the first Storyteller, which gets around the problem of that player and his Kitten not having as much agency since his Kitten has fallen into the water. It also means that running it with a single Storyteller sets up a scene one player can do anything because his Kitten has fallen into the pool and is drowning. Effectively, ‘An Afternoon Outing’ is built around a good idea, but limits who can participate in it, and if the Storyteller wants to run the scenario because it limits the opportunity for everyone to have a go at being Storyteller, it introduces the problem of a lack of agency.

In spite of this problematic set-up, ‘An Afternoon Outing’ is well written with lots of advice for running each of its three scenes, whether that is making suggestions as what the Player Kittens might do in all three scenarios and how the NPCs that arrive might act in the third scene. Where the Player Kittens have to solve problems in the first two scenes, in the third scene, they confront minions of King Walter and ultimately decide the fate of the item that caused the situation in the first place. The advice is also good in that it has lots of questions that the Storyteller can ask her players and the situations are nicely detailed. The tone is also friendly and positive, making it suitable to be run for younger players.

Is there anything missing?
No. Dungeons & Kittens Quick Start: An Afternoon Outing is complete as is. 

Is it easy to prepare?
Yes. Dungeons & Kittens Quick Start: An Afternoon Outing is easy to grasp and prepare.

Is it worth it?
No. Dungeons & Kittens Quick Start: An Afternoon Outing is really a likeable quick-start, easy to learn and teach, and suitable for younger players. Even the included scenario is a good introduction to Dungeons & Kittens, but unfortunately, the design structure does not deliver its core concept to every player, and in adhering to its design structure, it makes it challenging for it to be run as a standard scenario.

The Dungeons & Kittens Quick Start: An Afternoon Outing is available from EDGE Studio.

Friday Fantasy: Outcast Unseelie and the Ooze Between

Four centuries ago, the dwarves mining the Brackenhoorg struck the mountain’s knotted nexus of lye lines and in the process caused the mine to be flooded with verdigrint ooze. As a consequence, the Dwarves shut the mine down and closed it up before fleeing the mountain. Four weeks ago, fey lord and vintner, Slaveral, steered his planar-travelling villa into the mountain and crashed it into the mines. Four months ago, he accidentally attempted to poison the Unseelie Queen with a cold-iron-laced bottle and after she turned him and his servants into giant bugs, banished him from the realm of the fey. Inside, Lord Slaveral, now an elephant-sized flea, drank deep of the verdigrint ooze and oozed himself into a coma. Yet Lord Slaveral is not without his followers beyond the confines of them mine and now, following a rockslide that exposed the gatehouse to the mine, a band of his cultists has entered the old mine to worship and free their lord. The cultists are not the only ones to learn that the mine is accessible once again. The wizard Calamastes is said to be prepared to pay for a rubbing of an old Dwarven Everstone located in the mine; the mine boss, Dericka Horn, recalls stories of burrowing creatures that worked the Brackenhoorg and wants an intact egg; local Halfling, Kasden Orchenhopper, claims his son went into the gatehouse with his ‘bug-faced’ friends and wants him found; and the Onyx Ducke is said to have donated a Staff of Healing to the Brackenhoorg before the mines flooded. Anyone of these could be reason enough to want to explore Brackenhoorg.

This is the set-up for Outcast Unseelie and the Ooze Between, an ooze overlaid, gunge gooped, slimed slathered scenario from Slime Mind Studio for use with ShadowDark, the retroclone inspired by both the Old School Renaissance and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition from The Arcane Library. Funded via a Kickstarter campaign, it presents a weird, cloyingly sweet miasmic dungeon for a party of Player Characters of First to Third Level. As they enter the former mine, the Player Characters will discover every surface is covered or encrusted with a green slime (not the Green Slime monster of classic Dungeons & Dragons fantasy) that oozes out of cracks, drips from the ceiling, and pools on the floor. Worse, it adheres to metal, blood, and fire, eating into metal and covering it with a patina that leaves weapons severely weakened and armour inflexible, as well as attracting bugs, slugs, and snails that get super drunk on its sweetness. Places are infested with Perish Lillies, a plant with a red flower and blood-sucking thorns that can release a sparkly, psychedelic pollen! Verdigools, ooze-drowned dwarves, lurk here and there; the Goolette, a hulking, slavering lizard dripping green slime stalks the halls; and jolly, murder-living cultists dedicated to Slaveral, seek new victims to sacrifice when not enjoying the steamy shrine/spa where everyone in the mine can enjoy the relaxing pool of warm saliva!

The design of both the scenario and the dungeon is dominated by the colour green with splashes of red here and there. The dungeon itself is very nicely designed. The mine level sits atop the remains of Lord Slaveral’s damaged inter-planar villa and its grounds. Every entry is presented in a clear, easy format with bullet points that enable the Game Master to work straight from the page. Sound plays an important role in the dungeon, such as the occupants of a neighbouring room which can hear loud noises made by the Player Characters, slurping sounds from another room, and so on. There is a dynamic feel to the dungeon, at least in terms of its physicality. There are some fantastic locations such as a tunnel which is blocked with scarlet lilies that have blood-sucking thorns and if cleared will regrow if it has a source of blood—and there happens to be the corpse of cultist entangled in its roots; an ‘Ooze Cascade’, an emerald waterfall of verdigrint ooze that has been frozen by a fireball-slinging cultist whose body is encased in the waterfall(!); and the ‘Steamy Shrine’ filled with green steam created from a mix of verdigrint ooze aerated by a spit spewing mask worn by a statue and due to a widely-known curse that turns the tongue into a grub that east everything, is treated as neutral ground. In general, the mines level is more interesting than that of Lord Slaveral’s shunted villa.

There can be no doubt that Outcast Unseelie and the Ooze Between is delightfully foul, fetid, and fuggy in its atmosphere and ambiance, but the scenario does not quite work in terms of storytelling. To begin with, the hooks are underwritten, and apart from the missing Halfling, Meck, do not personalise the reasons why the Player Characters would want to delve very far in the Brackenhoorg. Of course, the Brackenhoorg has only recently opened up, so chronologically, it might be challenging to develop interesting hooks, but once the Player Characters are in the mine, the scenario does not go out of its way to pull them in. Relying upon a combination of player and character curiosity is not enough. The environment itself is off-putting, the green verdigrint ooze encrusting everything and making equipment harder to use, impeding their progress and given that Outcast Unseelie and the Ooze Between is meant to be a puzzle dungeon, the puzzle aspects of the dungeon are really pushed into the background, as are, to a lesser effect, the Fey aspects of the dungeon. Further, it is not easy to bring the aims of the NPCs into play in the dungeon. Which is disappointing given that they are behind what has happened so far in the mine. There is a timeline of events that will happen if the Player Characters do nothing, but these have very little effect upon the mine as a whole. What it more needed is a stronger idea of the events that will happen and what the NPCs will do if the Player Characters actually do something. For example, what if the cultists and their leader fail in their plan to sacrifice another NPC? The major NPCs are presented in an accessible format, which does include motivations, but it is simply not enough.

Physically, Outcast Unseelie and the Ooze Between is superbly presented. The layout, the artwork, and the cartography are excellent, contributing to so much of the atmosphere of the scenario.

Marvellously mucculent and oozily original, Outcast Unseelie and the Ooze Between is a genuinely atmospheric and different dungeon. It should be, could be, a great dungeon, but ultimately, the Game Master needs to develop its plot and the aims of the NPCs to make them easier and more obvious for the players and their characters to engage with them. Do that and Outcast Unseelie and the Ooze Between has the chance to really shine with an oily sheen as it deserves and be a truly memorable adventure.

[Free RPG Day 2026] Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne

Now in its nineteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2026 took place on Saturday, June 27th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Unfortunately, due to vagaries of International Customs, Free RPG Day in the UK did not take place until Saturday, 22nd August.

This review is possible due to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham.

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The Rat King Returns! For Free RPG Day 2026, Goodman Games published an adventure that was special in three ways. Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne is a scenario that celebrates Goodman Games’ twenty-fifth anniversary by bringing back a villain first seen in 2003 with Dungeon Crawl Classics #1: Idylls of the Rat King, the first adventure it published for the Dungeon Crawl Classics line. Second it celebrates the twenty or so years of Free RPG Day that tells the story of its genesis. Third it celebrates the contributions of Goodman Games to Free Free RPG over the years, with a gallery of every cover of every title donated to Free RPG Day in that time on the inside front and back covers. Sadly, they are presented in black and white, but nevertheless, it is still see them good in one place.

The scenario, Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne, is written to be systems neutral, but includes stats and write-ups for its NPCs and monsters for the publisher’s own Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. With the inclusion of the latter, the scenario works well with the recent Fifth Edition Fantasy #31: Idylls of the Rat King, but with the inclusion of the former, Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne marks the first time that the Rat King saga has been written for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. It is designed for a party of First and Second Level Player Characters and can primarily be used in one of two ways. The first is as a sequel to the events of Fifth Edition Fantasy #31: Idylls of the Rat King, taking place a few weeks or months later, using the same Player Characters. The second is as sequel as sequel to Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King, the saga of as a whole, taking place decades later. Of course, it can also be used as a standalone scenario, but either way the scenario can be played through in a single session.

The scenario opens with the Player Characters once again in the village of Silverton, the site of ‘Idylls of the Rat King’. Of late, there has been no merchant traffic along the road to the north to the city of Soulgrave and the village’s constable has not returned after having gone to investigate. (Oh, how the village has suffered.) A dwarven merchant claims that Lawrence Gannu, the Wererat and Rat King that threatened the village as an act of revenge that played out in ‘Idylls of the Rat King’. There are numerous rumours to gather, but quickly the local miner’s guild offers a reward and the Player Characters are on the road to the Silverton Mines (once again).

What the Player Characters discover is a much changed mine. It is smaller, no longer infested with either Goblins, Wererats, or Goblin-Wererats, let alone a vampire. That vampire though, Serrenna Valuois, who was long buried deep below the Silverton Mine, and who may or may not have been killed at the end of ‘Idylls of the Rat King’, has direct influence upon the mines as they are now and the scenario. Her hatred and her thirst, long left unslaked in the centuries of her imprisonment has been reflected and manifest in the Unslaked, a horror that has instilled occupants of the mines and creatures nearby with increasingly debilitating thirst that can only be quenched by fresh blood. There are several encounters throughout the mine where the Player Characters encounter victims of the Unslaked, who will attack randomly upon sight and several where they will be touched by the Unslaked and influenced by its thirst, as well as the possibility that, they too, might be influenced. Magical healing will definitely lift the effects of the Unslaked, but there are means of resisting the effect, the exact details of which are left to the Dungeon Master or Judge to decide.

The scenario packs a lot into a short space. There are the constable and his colleagues to rescue, plenty of call-backs to ‘Idylls of the Rat King’ to discover, and not one showdown, but two! The last one is with the Rat King himself—and that actually might set up a sequel. Of course, there already is a sequel in the form of Dungeon Crawl Classics #27: Revenge of the Rat King and Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King, but there is potential for the Rat King to be revisited in future scenarios.

Rounding out Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne is ‘The Secret History of Free RPG’. This is a two-page interview conducted by Stu Horvath—author of Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground: A Guide to Tabletop Roleplaying Games from D&D to Mothership—with Joseph Goodman and the Aldo Ghiozzi. It is a pleasing little read that captures the beginnings of an annual fixture of our hobby.

Physically, Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne is well presented. Both the artwork and the cartography are decent too.

Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne is a short, horror scenario that fleshes out more of the Rat King and his saga, whether that is as part of the saga, or as a sequel. Players who have played the previous scenarios will enjoy the call-backs, whilst for those new to it, it could be their introduction to the saga with ‘Idylls of the Rat King’ run as a flashback. Or it could be simply run as a one-shot. In whatever way the Dungeon Master or the Judge decides to run Pretenders to the Rat King’s Throne, it shows that there are yet more stories to be told in the fight against the Rat King.

Miskatonic Monday #453: The Man Who Sold the World

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.

—oOo—

Name: The Man Who Sold the World

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Authors: Maverick Haenze & James Bunnell

Setting: London, 1973

Product: One-shot

What You Get: Twenty-nine page, 5.35 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: David Bowie In the Mouth of Madness

Plot Hook: Moondust is missing!
Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, thousands of NPCs, two handouts, and three Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# From sleaze to stardom and beyond!

# One-shot convention scenario

# Straightforward to run

# Phonophobia

# Blenophobia

# Melophobia

Cons

# Linear plotting
# Obvious mystery

Conclusion

# Per ardua ad astra

# Sparkly glam rock horror from outer space!