Jonstown Jottings #105: Applefest

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

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What is it?
Applefest is scenario for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. It is intended to be used after the events in and around Apple Lane as detailed in the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack.

It is a thirty-three page, full colour, 1.410 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy, but there are no illustrations and the text does need an edit in places. The single map is decent.

Where is it set?
Applefest is set in Apple Lane and takes place early in Fire Season over the course of Harmony week in the run up to the Ulerian holy week.

Who do you play?

Applefest is designed to be used with any Player Characters, ideally ones who have played through the events of the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack. It is assumed that by the end of that, one of the Player Characters will have been appointed the Thane of Apple Lane, although the scenario accounts for the possibility that this has not happened or has not yet happened.

What do you need?

Applefest requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack. The Glorantha Bestiary and The Red Book of Magic may be useful.

What do you get?
In the wake of the Dragonrise and the Lunar Empire being forced out of Sartar, there has been an understandable resurgence in Orlanthi religious practices and the village of Apple Lane is no exception. Every Fire Season for decades before the Lunar occupation, the community would hold a three day festival which celebrated its most well-known crop in conjunction with the village’s renowned temple to Uleria. It was, until the Lunars invaded, a quiet local affair, but this year it will be different. It will take on a greater significance than ever before as omens speak of ill winds flowing south still from the Lunar Empire, the Storms gods intimate that the old practices be taken up again, and guests from far and wide, including the great and good, and the unknown and the malicious. It will be up to the Player Characters to help marshal events, keep the peace, guide several children on their first ‘hero quest’, help save the day, and ultimately make sure everyone has a good time.

Playing out over the course of three days and nights, Applefest is a busy affair that brings a classic festival scenario to Glorantha and Apple Lane in particular. What would have been an ordinary affair quickly balloons in size as unexpected guests arrive, including a band of Telmori, an Earth Priestess from Kero Fin and her entourage, and Queen Leika and her entourage! In addition, there are traders and entertainers, and significantly if the Player Characters have played through the events of ‘Gringle’s Pawnshop’ in Apple Lane, the return of an old band of foes. Thus, there will opportunities for a barroom brawl, diplomacy, shopping, entertainment and games, a little mystery, some madness, and some active childcare in the field!

Although any ordinary band of adventurers can play through Applefest, this is a scenario that is really going to both interest and benefit a group that includes the thane of Apple Lane amongst their number and which makes the village their home. It is highly detailed and it involves multiple plot threads, both major and minor, plus a lot of NPCs, so the Game Master will need to need to prepare it carefully and be prepared to keep those threads moving and the Player Characters involved. The effort will pay off, ideally with the thane and the other Player Characters burnishing their reputations and helping to restore the spiritual strength of Sartar and its people.

Is it worth your time?

Yes—Applefest is a thoroughly entertaining addition to any campaign set in and around Apple Lane.

No—Applefest is too location specific and too story specific to work elsewhere with ease and the Game Master may be running a campaign set elsewhere.

Maybe—Applefest is too location and story specific to adapt to elsewhere with ease, but there are plenty of ideas and events that could be reworked for a similar event.

Miskatonic Monday #422: The Children of Blackwood

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 Children of Blackwood

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Sean Liddle

Setting: World War II Plymouth

Product: Outline
What You Get: Sixteen page, 1.04 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Three Go Mad in Devon (Again)(Again)(Again)(Again)(Again)

Plot Hook: This Christmas, the rebirth is not one you are going to celebrate

Plot Support: Staging advice, three handouts, and three Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Sequel to HUM, The Borrowed, The Hollow Beneath Clapper Tor, and A Thread Through Stone

# Detailed outline

# Potential for child-like curiosity and terror

# Definitely part of a series rather than a one-shot

# Potential for sequels

# Botanophobia

# Entomophobia

# Oneirophobia

Cons

# No pre-generated Investigators
# No advice on creating teenage Investigators

# Definitely part of a series rather than a one-shot
# A lot of exposition

# No explanation for the Keeper for what is going on

# Needs an edit

Conclusion

# Detailed outline still leaves the Keeper none the wiser
# Ultimately feels like the plot of children’s novel that the players are roleplaying out 

Mavens, Mystery, Murder, & Mythos

Just occasionally, along comes a roleplaying game that makes you sit back and think. A roleplaying game that upends your expectations. Brindlewood Bay: A Dark & Cozy Mystery Game does exactly that. It changes how you think about how you roleplay investigation in mystery games and it changes who you roleplay. The mystery—as opposed to the mysterious, which has always been there—has long been a part of roleplaying, all the way back to The Maltese Clue, the scenario published by Judges Guild in 1979. It really came to the fore with roleplaying games like Call of Cthulhu, Gangbusters, and Justice, Inc. and more recently seen in the GUMSHOE System with roleplaying games such as Mutant City Blues, which combines superheroes with the police procedural. What these all do with the mystery is provide the Game Matron with a plot and a set of clues that the players and their characters investigate and hopefully piece together the clues to uncover the mystery. In other words, there is always a set solution as to who did what to whom and why. And in such roleplaying games, the investigators are detectives and investigators, typically young and in the prime of their careers. Neither is the case in Brindlewood Bay. Instead, Brindlewood Bay asks what if there was no set solution and instead the solution to the mystery could be constructed from the clues uncovered by the players and their characters and would be, if not absolutely correct, then very nearly so? Very nearly so that when hypothesised and put to the suspects, turned out to be case solved? And instead, Brindlewood Bay asks the players not to roleplay police detectives or private eyes, but asks them to take the roles of elderly, retired women turned amateur sleuth in the manner of Miss Jane Marple or Jessica Fletcher.

There is more to Brindlewood Bay: A Dark & Cozy Mystery than just this, but at its heart, this roleplaying game is Murder She Wrote with a semi-improvised plot/mystery and everyone being Jessica Fletcher. Of course, Brindlewood Bay offers more options than just playing Jessica Fletcher, but the idea of roleplaying elderly female amateur detectives is utterly delightful. Published in 2022 by The Gauntlet following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Brindlewood Bay is designed to be played by between two and four players as well as the Game Master and casts the Player Characters—known as Mavens—as retirees in the eponymous small coastal Massachusetts town, a former whaling port that has long since transformed itself into a charming tourist spot. The Player Characters are members of the Murder Mavens, a mystery book club that meets weekly on the top floor of The Candlelight Booksellers every Saturday evening, and has done so for a decade now. Their favourite writer is Robin Masterson, the author of The Gold Crown Mysteries series by featuring the globe-trotting super-sleuth, Amanda Delacourt. As well as their own hobbies and activities, sometimes and much to the chagrin of the local authorities who resent their meddling, the Mavens stumble onto crimes and through a combination of astuteness, savviness, and the fact that old ladies often get overlooked, solve crimes. Brindlewood Bay can be played as a one-shot, but it is really set up to played as a campaign. The campaign unknowingly pitches the Mavens against a dark cult known as the Midwives of the Fragrant Void, Hellenic death cult working to summon the ‘Children of Persephone’, chthonic monstrosities that will bring about the End of All Things. As the campaign progresses, the Mavens and the cult conspiracy will become aware of each other, and ultimately, the Mavens will not only be solving murders, but saving the world too! (Though there are possible other outcomes as well…)

A Maven is defined by five Abilities—Vitality, Composure, Reason, Presence, and Sensitivity—each rated between ‘-3’ and ‘+3’, a name, a Style that reflects her outlook on life as much as how she dresses, and a Cozy Activity that is her favourite hobby. The Style might be ‘Alexis Carrington Colby’, ‘Hippy Dippy’, or ‘Office Hours’, whilst the Cozy Activity will be something like Cooking, Gardening, Knitting, Pointing, or Scrapbooking. It should be noted that Brindlewood Bay is a very American game, so some of the references, especially the Styles may not necessarily be familiar and may require a little research. A Maven also has a Maven Move, a special action or benefit that can be brought into play. For example, the ‘Frank Columbo’ Move means that society’s elite underestimates the Maven and whenever she is amongst the rich and famous, her Meddling Move will always grant her an extra clue; the ‘Dale Cooper’ Move increases a Maven’s Sensitivity and the Keeper—as the Game Master is known—will grant Void Clues in the form of a disturbing dream at the beginning of each session; and the ‘Jim Rockford’ Move means that the Keeper narrates an answering machine message that the Maven receives asking to undertake a task that if completed will earn her Experience Points and will get odder as a campaign progresses. Ironically—and self-admittedly—all of the Maven Moves are named after male detectives, highlighting the lack of strong female roles within the genre. That said, the extra and alternative Maven Moves do include some named after female detectives. All of the Maven Moves are delightfully clever, if not actually witty, and like any good Move in a Powered by the Apocalypse they tell a lot about the Mavens.

To create a Maven, a player chooses a name, Style, and Cozy Activity, as well as defining her Cozy Little Place. She assigns a single point to one of her Abilities and chooses one Maven Move. The creation process is simple and easy and made all the easier by fitting onto a third of the character sheet that is as much worksheet as character sheet and by the step-by-step process being explained by the section that takes both the Keeper and her players through the first session of Brindlewood Bay from set-up through safety tools and character creation to the first mystery and beyond.

Name: Pearl

Style: Jackie O

Cozy Activity: Charity Events

STATS

Vitality 0 Composure +1 Reason +1 Presence +2 Sensitivity -1

MOVES

Jonathan Hart

Mechanically, Brindlewood Bay uses a stripped down version of Powered by the Apocalypse, the mechanics first seen in Lumpley Games’ Apocalypse World. To undertake an action or ‘Move’, a player rolls two six-sided dice, adds one of his Maven’s Stats, adds his Maven’s Investigative Style and aims to roll high. The results are either ‘No’, ‘Yes, but...’, ‘Yes’, and ‘Yes and…’. A result of six or less is a ‘No’ and lets the Keeper add a Complication; roll between seven and nine, and the result is ‘Yes, but…’, and successful, but comes with a Complication; a roll of ten or eleven and the result is a ‘Yes’; and a result of twelve or more and the Move is ‘Yes and…’, indicating that there is a bonus to the Move. A Complication hinders the Maven’s investigative efforts and is primarily played by the Keeper as a Reaction to a Maven’s action. This Reaction can be environmental such as the Maven getting lost, aggressive and have the killer attack the Maven or sabotage her efforts, or social, like being threatened with being blackballed at the country club. A Reaction at night will place a Maven in greater danger than one in the day, and it even possible for a Maven to be killed. One special Reaction, allowed just once per mystery, is ‘Cut to Commercial’ when the Keeper lets the player of an imperilled Maven narrate a commercial of some kind (there are prompts), when the story returns, the Maven will have found a way to succeed.

Unlike most versions of Powered by the Apocalypse, the rules in Brindlewood Bay include an Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic. Thus, when a Maven has the Advantage, which can come from her Style, Cozy Activity, one of her Maven Moves, or the situation, three six-sided dice are rolled instead of two, and the best used. Conversely, when she is at a Disadvantage, her player rolls three dice and keeps the lowest two. Another difference between other roleplaying games using Powered by the Apocalypse and Brindlewood Bay is that it does not make use of Playbooks, each of which provide an archetypal character and its associated Moves. Instead, Brindlewood Bay provides a standard set of seven Moves that all of the Mavens can use. The first four Moves—‘The Day Move’, ‘The Night Move’, ‘The Cozy Move’, and ‘The Meddling Move’ are all to do with collecting Clues. The primary difference between ‘The Day Move’ and ‘The Night Move’ is that failure and Complications are likely to be more dangerous at night. ‘The Cozy Move’ is when the Mavens share a moment over a Cozy activity and in the process discover a clue that will help, but not conclusively, solve the mystery. ‘The Meddling Move’ is when the Mavens actively look for a clue.

The fifth and sixth Moves are more specialised. ‘The Gold Crown Mysteries Move’ occurs when a Maven says, “This reminds me of something that happened to Amanda Delacourt!” and together the players work out how the current situation recalls a scene from one of Robin Masterson’s mystery novels. It can only be done once per mystery and must refer to previously unmentioned entry in the series, but always results in a Yes and…’ outcome, whether an action or an addition to the mystery. It is thus a powerful move. ‘The Occult Move’ is used whenever a Maven attempts an action related to the occult and somehow tied to the Midwives of the Fragrant Void. This is unlikely to be used in the opening stages of campaign as the Mavens are unlikely to be aware of the Midwives of the Fragrant Void. It will often justification as why a Maven might attempt it and it is not without its dangers.

The seventh Move is the ‘Theorise’ Move. This happens at the end or near the end of the game when the Mavens gather their collected clues and deduce the identity of the murderer. The roll is only modified by the number of clues and secrets found so far, minus the Complexity of the murder. This is most radical and innovative element of Brindlewood Bay. The Keeper will have a body and then lists of locations, suspects, and clues that make up the mystery, but will know neither which of the suspects committed the crime and which of the clues are important. In fact, when the Keeper does give the players and their Mavens a clue, she picks a clue from the given list based not on which seems the most significant, but on which seems the most interesting. The Mavens are free to search for clues and talk to suspects and when clues are revealed, it is the players and their Mavens that assign meaning and significance; effectively ‘play to find out what happens’ through the emerging story of the investigation.

There are two further actions which involve a Maven ‘putting on a Crown’. ‘The Crown of the Queen’ explores the femineity of the maven via a flashback to a scene involving the Maven’s late partner or a relative, a private moment, a recent romantic or sexual situation, and so on. Each can only be used once and enable a Maven to escape adversity or a dangerous situation as well giving the player to think about and roleplay a different side to his Maven. ‘The Crown of the Queen’ actions can be triggered in any order, whereas ‘The Crown of the Void’ must be triggered in order. There are fewer of them and they represent the growing influence of the Midwives of the Fragrant Void’s upon the Maven. If they are all ticked off, the last one forces the Maven to retire from play as she is lost to the Void…

Brindlewood Bay includes several ready-to-play mysteries. Each includes a description of the mystery, a way to present it, moments that the Keeper can use to set the scene or add tension, lists of suspects, clues, and locations, and a Complexity value. This ranges between six and eight and represents the number of elements of the solution that the players and their Mavens need to discuss and hypothesise before they can make the ‘Theorise Move’ without a penalty.

Now Brindlewood Bay can be played as a one-shot mystery in which the mavens investigate a mystery, but that mystery is always going to be mundane, because in the long term there is the greater mystery, the conspiracy and aims of the Midwives of the Fragrant Void. That conspiracy is the most detailed part of the Brindlewood Bay background, but unlike the clues of the mundane mysteries, the clues behind the conspiracy and its Mythos—known as Void clues—slip out inadvertently, sort of accumulating to the point where the Mavens and their players being to realise that something else is going on. It is likely at this point that the  ‘Occult Move’ comes into play, it is likely that the Mavens being to dabble in occult in order to understand and stop the Midwives of the Fragrant Void, it is increasingly likely that a Maven might die, and it is even likely that a Maven might join the Midwives of the Fragrant Void. The descriptions of the Midwives of the Fragrant Void and The Children of Persephone do flirt with Lovecraftian influences, and perhaps one group might want to bring those into play more, but the Midwives of the Fragrant Void is more of cosmic threat than a Lovecraftian one. However without this conspiracy, Brindlewood Bay cannot be anything other than best suited for one-shot play as narratively it has no scope for development.

The advice for the Keeper in Brindlewood Bay is extensive and detailed, and particularly helpful in guiding the Keeper through the shift in perspective and playstyle that Brindlewood Bay demands. And then helpful in guiding her player through that same shift. Storytelling games have been around for over two decades now and when first published, they also represented a shift how a roleplaying game was played and considered, but the shift that Brindlewood Bay demands of its Keeper and player is even bigger. Not just how a roleplaying game was played and considered, but also how a mystery is investigated and played out and how the decisions of the players and actions of their Mavens determine the story and build the world around them. The advice also covers the structure of play and the structure of the campaign, it breaks down the anatomy of a mystery, and it gives an extensive guide on how to run the first session and thus first mystery of Brindlewood Bay. It takes the Keeper and her players through the Maven creation process, explains to them what to expect, and shows the structure of play, providing a template that the Keeper will return again and again.

There is not so much a learning curve to Brindlewood Bay so much as an adjustment, and the book does a fine job of helping everyone through that. However, the downside is that upon first reading Brindlewood Bay, the reader is left wondering how to create a Maven. Literally everything in the game—the situation, the Moves, the Conspiracy, and the given Mysteries—is presented before the actual process of Maven creation. This is given in the ‘Session One’ guide at the very back of the book. It is fine once you known it is there, but there is also nothing at the start of the book to say that it is. The character sheet for the Maven does help with her creation, but neither that or other sheets for the roleplaying game, like ‘The Dark Conspiracy’ worksheet is included in the book.

Physically, Brindlewood Bay is clean and cozy. It is well written and engaging, but the illustrations by Cecilia Ferri are stunning, veering between showing the Mavens joyously having the time of their cozy lives and the foreboding nature of the conspiracy at the heart of the roleplaying game.

There are moments in a roleplaying session when the players will say something about the current storyline or situation and the Game Master will think to herself, “Oh that’s good. That is so clever and better than what I had thought of, I am going to steal that.” Brindlewood Bay does not so much make that implicit as make it part of its play. It shifts the standard mystery roleplaying set-up from having to find the clues and work out what they mean with the Game Master knowing the answers to finding the clues, working out what they mean, and then giving them meaning. And then it hands the process of that deduction not into the hands of traditional action hero detectives, but to grannies and little old ladies, asking the players to roleplay from the perspective of the older woman and use charm and wits and insight to solve the crime rather than fists and guns. Both demands are radical, but delightfully so. Brindlewood Bay: A Dark & Cozy Mystery Game is a wonderfully cozy, brilliantly innovative game that genuinely asks us to think differently about how we play and who we play.

Age of Athena

It is an age of chaos. The once mighty city-states of Greece have become isolated refuges, sanctuaries against the monsters and creatures and bandits and undead that roam beyond their walls, preying upon the weak and ravaging the land. In response, the people cry out for help and beseech the gods of Olympus. Yet only one of their number hears their cries and only a handful of men and women answers her appeal for heroes. She is Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, strategic war, handicraft, and the city, the daughter of Zeus who sprang from his head fully formed. They are the Demigods, born of divine and mortal parentage and so granted some of the gifts of the gods and they stand fast, ready to answer the hollering for help, the need to fight the legendary monsters of the age, to protect the innocent and the helpless, and to seek out adventure. This is the set-up for Warriors of Athena, a skirmish scale miniatures wargame from Osprey Games. Written by the designer of the highly regarded Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City, it is a game in which a player creates a Warband, consisting of a Hero and several Companions, the number ranging between one and seven (depending upon the number of players, the more players, the fewer the number of Companions in a Warband), and takes them on quests set by Athena. What is notable about Warriors of Athena is that it is not designed to be adversarial, that is, one player or more players playing against each other as is traditional in miniature wargames. Instead, it can be played in one of four modes. First, it can be played in Solo mode against the game itself, with the player controlling his miniatures and the actions of the monsters and other threats as well as when random events taking place being determined by the rules. Second, it can be played co-operatively, with two or more players and their Heroes and Warbands working together to complete a quest. Third, it can be played with an Oracle. This is another player who will control the actions and movement of any threats as a referee. Fourth, the Oracle not only controls the actions and movement of any threats as normal, but also runs scenes in between which do not take place on the table of terrain where all the action happens. Instead, they are run in the theatre of the mind in the same way that a roleplaying game would be run. In the latter mode, Warriors of Athena develops one of the particular aspects of skirmish level miniatures wargaming, which is the strong identification that a player will develop with the members of his Warband. The Hero and his Companions will grow and change as result of their successfully fulfilling Quests and so will a player’s investment in them.

At the core of the game are two books, both needed to play. Warriors of Athena: Heroes gives the core rules for the game, including how to create a Warband consisting of the Hero and his Companions, running combats, and handling campaigns and rewards. Warriors of Athena: Quests explains how to create and run Quests, a bestiary of threats, and four ready-to-play multi-scenario campaigns. In addition to the rules, a player requires miniatures, both to represent his Warband and monsters and creatures, some terrain and buildings such as temples, a pack of ordinary playing cards, a twenty-sided die, and a play area, roughly thirty inches square. Warriors of Athena can be played using any scale miniatures and miniatures from any manufacturer (though North Star Military Figures does manufacture a range of miniatures to support the rules). If a player is new to wargaming as a hobby, the advice on the set-up and play area might be a bit light, but an experienced player will have no problems.

A Hero has six stats—‘Move’, Fight’, ‘Shoot’, ‘Armour’, ‘Will’, and ‘Health’. He will also have a Parentage, which will determine who his divine parent is and what his Gifts are, as well as potential Weaknesses. Gifts can a Heroic Ability, such as ‘Call Curse’, ‘Limited Flight’, or ‘Lunge’, bonuses to Stats or skills, or a mixture of all three. A Weakness can be an Enemy, Madness, Inhuman Appearance, and so on. Many of the Gods provide multiple different Gifts and Weakness. In Co-operative mode, this means that different Heroes can be half-brothers and sisters as they share the same divine parent, but a different mortal parent means different Gifts. Given the philandering ways of many of the gods, this is perfectly in keeping with Greek myth. All Heroes start off with same values for their stats, a player increasing his Hero’s Fight or Shoot and Will or Health by one each. He then rolls on the ‘Hero Parentage Tables’ to determine his Parentage, Gifts, and possible Weaknesses. He selects another five Gifts (the option is given to roll for them and in-keeping with the setting, let fate decide) and then divides fifteen points between eight skills—Artistry, Athletics, Diplomacy, Hunt, Navigation, Perception, Strength, and Trickery. A player also has some Wealth with which to equip his Hero. Lastly, a Hero has a Fate Pool of Threads which lets his player to reroll any die roll. He starts with two Threads.

A player has a pool of Recruitment Points to spend on purchasing Companions to complete his Hero’s Warband. A Companion has the same Stats as a Hero, though their values will vary wildly. They include warriors such as Archers, Barbarians, and Slingers, other Companions like Hunters, Thieves, and Songmasters, members of uncivilized species such as Centaurs and Satyrs, and even animals like Boars, Raptors, and Weasels!* Not all of a Hero’s Companions are going to accompany him on a Quest, but a player is free to choose which ones he wants to accompany his Hero. This allows a player to build up a stable of Companions he can choose from each time his Hero undertakes a Quest.

* Sorry, but I just want to shout, “Go! Go! Battle-Weasel!”

Name: Dionysodoros
Parentage: Dionysus
Gifts: Burning Eyes, Deadeye, Command Undead, Backswing, Ironskin, Waterlung
Weaknesses: Beauty

STATS
Move 6 Fight +4 Shoot +1 Armour 9 Will +3 Health 19

SKILLS
Artistry +4 Athletics +4 Diplomacy +1 Hunt +1 Navigation +0 Perception +1 Strength +4 Trickery +0

Once a scenario has been set up—and Warriors of Athena: Quests covers that in more detail—a game is played as series of turns. A turn consists of four phases. These are the ‘Hero Phase’, the ‘Creature Phase’, the ‘Companion Phase’, and the ‘Event Phase’. When activated, a miniature can take two actions, a standard action and a simple action. A simple action typically involves movement, whilst standard actions include attacking and any other thing that a Hero might want to do when activated. There are no hard or fast rules on this. Stat or skill checks are made by rolling a twenty-sided die and adding the appropriate Stat or skill, the aim being to roll equal or exceed a given Target Number. A roll of a one is always a failure, whilst a roll of twenty is always a success.

Combat is handled as a series of opposed rolls. Both combatants roll the die and add their Fight Stats, plus any other bonuses, whether from magic, reach, and so on. The combatant who rolls the highest Combat Score is the winner. Damage modifiers, typically from weapons, are added to the winner’s Combat Score and the defender’s Armour value is deducted from it. The resulting value indicates how much damage is inflicted and deducted from the defender’s Health. Some weapons and monsters will multiply this value two or three times. The combat rules also allow for critical hits which do more damage, weapon reach, breaking weapons, and more. Ranged attacks work the same way, but use the Shoot Stat.

One important action that a Hero can do is to activate a Heroic Ability. Every Heroic Ability has a Utilisation score, which a player rolls against to activate the Heroic Ability. Successfully activating a Heroic Ability costs Strain, typically a single point, which is deducted from a Hero’s Health.

If Warriors of Athena is being played with an Oracle, then that player controls the actions of the evil creatures in the scenario. Otherwise, there is a simple chart for determining their actions, typically either to try to attack or move to a target point representing some kind of objective. The advantage of the solo and co-operative modes is that they are easy to set up and play, but the disadvantage is that the player or players will know what the scenario involves and who the enemy are. However, the advantage of playing with an Oracle is that the player or players have no idea what their Warbands are going to be facing. The other advantage is that if the players want to—and Warriors of Athena: Heroes makes it clear that it completely optional—the Oracle can run Scenes in which the players can roleplay their Heroes.

Warriors of Athena: Heroes also covers injury and death—Heroes can suffer permanent injuries, and Experience rewards gains for completing objectives within a scenario. These can apply to both Heroes and Companions, but in terms of Experience, progression and benefits accrue at a slower rate for Companions. During play, a Hero may be searching for and find various types of tokens. These are Food Tokens, Clue Tokens, and Treasure Tokens. Clue Tokens will help progress the scenario, but treasure Tokens allow for a roll for treasure at the end of the scenario. This will typically result in wealth, but magical items, including potions, talismans, arms, armour, and more can be found. Another way gaining a magical item, invariably a talisman of a god, is by making a sacrifice to the gods. Fans of Jason and the Argonauts will be pleased to find included is the Dragon’s Tooth, which can be thrown to the ground and sown to have a warrior grow on the spot!

Physically, Warriors of Athena: Heroes is cleanly and tidily presented. It is an easy read, and everything is well explained. There are surprisingly few shots of the game in play, that is, photographs of miniatures on the table, in the book, in comparison to normal artwork. That artwork is excellent though, often depicting scenes of action and combat that you would want to see enacted on the table.

Warriors of Athena: Heroes is only one half of Warriors of Athena, but the rules its presents are simple, fast-playing, and easy to understand. Its skirmish scale makes it all the more accessible, as does the fact that it draws upon the familiar Greek mythology. Its scale allows for greater investment in the adventures and successes and failures of a player’s Hero and his Warband, but also allows for the possibility of some roleplaying too with the addition of an Oracle. Warriors of Athena can be played a simple skirmish scale miniatures wargame, but with the presence of the Oracle, it becomes a wargame with light roleplaying elements or a very light roleplaying game with strong wargaming elements. Effectively, a roleplaying/war game hybrid.

The Other OSR: Shipbreaker’s Toolkit

It is curious to note that since its original publication in 2018, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG from Tuesday Knight Games has been reliant upon the single rulebook, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG – Player’s Survival Guide. First as a ‘Zero Edition’ and then as an actual ‘First Edition’. Curious, because despite the horror roleplaying rules detailing no alien threats and giving no advice for the Warden—as the Game Master is known in Mothership—the has proved to be success, with numerous authors writing and publishing scenarios of their own as well as titles from the publisher. What the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG offered was a stripped down, fast playing Science Fiction system that supported a number of sub-genres. Most obviously Blue Collar Science Fiction with horror and Military Science Science Fiction, the most obvious inspirations being the films Alien and Aliens, as well as Outland, Dark Star, Silent Running, and Event Horizon. Yet the authors of third-party content for the roleplaying game have also offered sandboxes such as Desert Moon of Karth and Cosmic Horror like What We Give To Alien Gods, showing how the simplicity of Mothership could be adjusted to handle other types of Science Fiction. This combination of flexibility and simplicity has made it attractive to the Old School Renaissance segment of the hobby, despite Mothership not actually sharing roots with the family of Old School Renaissance roleplaying games derived from the different editions of Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, at best, Old School Renaissance adjacent.

With the publication of the Mothership Core Box and the Mothership Deluxe Box following a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2024, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG has a complete set of rules for what is its first edition. The includes rules the construction and option of spaceships with Shipbreaker’s Toolkit, monstrous threats with Unconfirmed Contact Reports, and a guide for refereeing the roleplaying game in the form of the Warden’s Operations Manual.

—oOo—

The Shipbreaker’s Toolkit fulfils a void in the rules for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. For despite the fact that as the title suggests, the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG is a Science Fiction roleplaying game and that spaceships play an important role in its primary inspiration, which have been until the publication of the Shipbreaker’s Toolkit, no actual rules for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. The Shipbreaker’s Toolkit presents all of the rules that a Warden and her players are going to need for handling spaceships in the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG. This includes designing them, operating them, running them in combat, repairing them, and so on. If the Player Characters in Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG own or operate a spaceship, it is their collective home from home, their base of operations, and/or their means of making a living. It is, of course, also their means of transport from place to another, one scenario to another. It can be a millstone around their collective necks if they need to make repairs or cannot make the mortgage payments. In the hands of the Warden, a spaceship is a means of travel as well as an opponent (or source of opponents), a potential mystery, and so on.

The good news is that the Shipbreaker’s Toolkit keeps its rules short and simple. A spaceship in the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG has three stats—Thrusters, Battle, and Systems—and just like a Player Character’s attributes, they are expressed as percentiles. In addition, a spaceship is rated for its Hull (the amount of Megadamage it can withstand), how much fuel it carries, the number of Warp Cores its is fitted with indicating how far it can jump in hyperspace, how many cryopods and escape pods it has, how much it carries, the number of crew and what their positions are, how many hardpoints it has and what it is armed with, and so on. All of which is recorded on a ‘Mothership Ship Manifest’ sheet.

Interstellar space travel in the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG is achieved via hyperspace, a typical journey taking between two and twenty days. There is the danger of relativistic time dilation with every space trip, which more likely the longer the distance travelled. Hyperspace can only be entered or exited at Jump Points a safe distance—typically equal to two-weeks’ travel time—outside of a star system. Travel in hyperspace is handled automatically whilst the crew and passengers are in cyropods. Ships are categorised Class 0 to Class V. Class 0 vessels are shuttlecraft, shuttles, fighters, and dropships, whilst Class V vessels are medium military ships, exploration vessels, and troopships. A crew of a merchantman might operate a Class II medium commercial like a freighter, a team of scientists might be assigned to a Class V Exploration Vessel, and a squad of marines might be assigned to a Class V Troopship.

The Shipbreaker’s Toolkit details nine starships as well as various spaceships. They include a Raider for pirates, Executive Transport, Freighter, Patrol Craft, Salvage Cutter, Corvette, Jumpliner, Troopship, and Exploration. Each one has its own stats, a decent illustration, a good idea of the ship’s layout rather than deck plans, and some extra details. All of the vessels are long rather than squat and quite open in their construction. The extra details really do add to the nature of the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG future. For example, the Patrol Craft also includes details of how customs inspections are handled along with possible contraband that might be found; the Salvage Cutter includes the Law of Salvage; and the Jumpliner describes what a typical space journey is like for its passengers. All of which can be brought into play as needed.

There is no means of handling ship construction in the Shipbreaker’s Toolkit. Rather, the Warden and her players are expected to pick a ship off the shelf and modify it, as necessary. There is a large table of Upgrades which can be added to most vessels such as ‘Agar Cushioning’ to help reduce Cyrosickness or an ‘Enhanced A.I.’ to improve a ship’s Systems’ stat. There is space on the ‘Mothership Ship Manifest’ sheet to note these in addition to the standard details as well as draw some simple deck plans.

Mechanically, to have a character operate a ship, his player rolls against the Thrusters, Battle, or Systems stats as appropriate, just as he would for a stat for his character. A player can add an appropriate skill rating as well. For example, the Pilot skill can be added to Thrusters to manoeuvre the spaceship and Systems and Asteroid Mining when scanning for mineral deposits. The rules also cover scanning and sensors, communications, distress signals (with a table to roll on indicating how long before the signal is picked up and someone comes to investigate), and of course, combat. Ship-to-ship combat is designed to be short and deadly. A round can be minutes or hours, and if either ship elects to pursue or evade, it requires the expenditure of fuel. Damage, whether from autocannons, laser cannons, or missiles, is inflicted as Megadamage. The Hull rating protects against Megadamage, but once destroyed, the amount left over is added to a roll on the Megadamage Table. This can result in ‘Navigation Offline’, damaging navigation data and preventing Thruster Checks, a ‘Hull Breach’ which forces all aboard to make a Body Save or suffer a Wound, or simply ‘Abandon Ship! (in less than ten minutes). Overall, fast-playing, and brutal.

Encountering space aliens and engaging in spaceship combat is, of course, stressful. Unfortunately, so is operating a starship. There is constant need for maintenance and the chance that issues will arise. Failing a Maintenance Check can lead to a Stress Check and for Owner-Operator, there is a new Save called a Bankruptcy Save. Rolled every quarter or year, failure and critical failure ends up with the crew and/or owner owing a massive debt to the wrong people. Even successful Bankruptcy Save gives limited options—purchasing one Minor Upgrade for the ship, paying for one Minor Repair for the ship, paying each crewmember several months salary, or investing to improve the Bankruptcy Save for next quarter. A Critical Success provides better options.

Physically, the Shipbreaker’s Toolkit is clearly written and easy to read. The illustrations are decent and the rules are supported by examples of play. The only thing that the book might have benefitted from is clearer and more deckplans.

In terms of the future of the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG, the Shipbreaker’s Toolkit makes clear that being an operator-owner is difficult and expensive, and spaceship combat is really dangerous. Operating a vessel for a corporation, institute, or the military means avoiding some of the expense at least, but it does not give the Player Characters the same sense of freedom. In whatever way the Warden and her players want to involve spaceships in their Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG game, the Shipbreaker’s Toolkit has them covered with a solid set of uncomplicated rules that still leaves room for Warden input.

Friday Fantasy: Tower of the Black Pearl

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perfidy & Profitability

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

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

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

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

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

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

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