Companion Chronicles #2: The Adventure of the Loathsome Wyrm and the Machrel of the Sea

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, The Companions of Arthur is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon. It enables creators to sell their own original content for Pendragon, Sixth Edition. This can original scenarios, background material, alternate Arthurian settings, and more, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Pendragon Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Pendragon campaigns.

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What is the Nature of the Quest?

The Adventure of the Loathsome Wyrm and the Machrel of the Sea is a scenario for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition which details a request to rid the lands of a knight of a fearsome wyram! However not all is as it seems...

It is a full colour, twenty-five page, 32.72 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy and it is nicely illustrated.

It needs a slight edit.

Where is the Quest Set?

The Adventure of the Loathsome Wyrm and the Machrel of the Sea is set within the lands of a knight whose manor is located on the coast.

Who should go on this Quest?

The Adventure of the Loathsome Wyrm and the Machrel of the Sea requires Player-knights with a good mix of combat and non-combat skills. The Sing skill will be of use in the scenario.

It is best suited for play by a group of Player-knights rather than one or two.

What does the Quest require?

The Adventure of the Loathsome Wyrm and the Machrel of the Sea requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition rules or the Pendragon Starter Set.

Where will the Quest take the Knights?

The Adventure of the Loathsome Wyrm and the Machrel of the Sea starts with the Player-knights being asked by their liege lord to fulfil a request for help from another knight,

Lord Tywyn. He has of late returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to find his lands beset by a dragon, which so far has killed the seven knights sent to deal with it by his wife and defeated himself. No single knight can best it, so he requests that a group try instead.

Both Lord Tywyn and his wife, the Lady Allison, will be keen for the Player-knights to ride out the next day and face the dragon where it lairs near the village of Salthaven. There they will discover that something odd is going on and with some slightly challenging roleplaying discover what has been going on, though there is the likelihood that the players will have realised what this is before their knights! This will lead to quite a nasty confrontation and combat, and following that, a number of interesting moral situations in terms of resolving the scenario. In particular, these are nicely laid out for the benefit of the Game Master and so help in the resolution of the scenario.

In addition, the scenario provides a wide number of NPCs for the Player-knights to interact with, and learn rumours and clues from, both in the manor house of Lord Tywyn and Lady Allison, and in the village of Salthaven. There is also an inventive selection of rewards that the Player-knights can be presented with for dealing with the ‘infestation’ of the dragon. There is also one NPC who could become a most singular wife were a Player-knight so inclined and up to the challenge!

The Adventure of the Loathsome Wyrm and the Machrel of the Sea is inspired by The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea (Spoiler Alert!). This is included in the scenario.

Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?

There is a classic fairy tale feel to The Adventure of the Loathsome Wyrm and the Machrel of the Sea, unsurprising given that its source of inspiration is a folk song. There is the possibility that the players may work out what the plot is before their knights do, but as players they should obviously roleplay what their knights do know. This will enable them to enjoy a nicely engaging adaptation of a folk song into a tale of greed and ambition.

Jonstown Jottings #93: The Gate of Dusk

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?

The Gate of Dusk is a scenario for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha in which the Player Characters are hired to provide protection during a ritual in which the participant wants to prove himself worthy to be king of his tribe.

It is a possible corollary to the scenario, ‘The Pegasus Plateau’, from The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories: Seven Ready-to-Play Adventures for RuneQuest.

It is the first part of a series of scenarios which explores the future of the Locaem tribe.

It is a full colour, forty-two page, 117.50 MB PDF.

The layout is clean and tidy and it is decently illustrated, especially the NPCs.

The cartography is excellent.

Where is it set?

The Gate of Dusk takes place at the titular ruins located at the western tip of lands belonging to the Locaem tribe.

It is set after the DragonRise in 1625 or early 1626.

Who do you play?
The Gate of Dusk does not require any specific character type, but Player Characters who are capable warriors are highly recommended.

What do you need?
The Gate of Dusk requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary, and The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories: Seven Ready-to-Play Adventures for RuneQuest.

The Gate of Dusk also references The Smoking Ruin & Other Stories, The Book of

Heortling Mythology, Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, and the Sartar Companion. None of these are required to run the adventure.

What do you get?

The Gate of Dusk is a tale of intrigue and desperation set after trying times have befallen the Locaem Tribe. Beset by potential rivals, if not enemies all around, the tribe has been greatly weakened by the Dragonrise, which killed both its king, Gavial Brightspear, and many of the heads of the tribes’ clans who would have been candidates to take his place. Several of the clans have put forward candidates to undertake the Crown Tests that will ultimately confirm one candidate as king. This includes the Wind Lords, Farinst of the Richberry Clan and Krulta of the Zethnoring Clan, both rivals. However, Farinst is planning to undergo a ritual at the Gate of Dusk that will improve his chances of being acclaimed king.

The Player Characters will accompany Farinst to the Gate of Dusk and are expected to protect him over night. However, his rival, Krulta, has other plans and by the time the Farinst and the Player Characters arrive, she will already have set them in motion. The Player Characters have the opportunity to explore the Gate of Dusk and potentially realise that something is amiss. The scenario will culminate in attacks on those within the Gate of Dusk. Honour forbids Krulta from killing anyone associated with her tribe, but that does not extend to the Player Characters, nor does it include others who are interested in disrupting the ritual.

Ideally, the Player Characters will be able to protect Farinst and hold off the attackers, whilst Farinst successfully undergoes the ritual. He will become an important contact and possible ally for them. However, this is not the only possible outcome, and The Gate of Dusk discusses these as well as possible adventure hooks for the Player Characters, and the idea that a Player Character might want to pursue the path to become king of the Locaem tribe! The scenario also explores a number of possible sequels and adventure ideas in terms of followup.

In terms of background material, The Gate of Dusk provides an overview of the Locaem Tribe and its most notable members, a detailed description of the Gate of Dusk, the nature of Crown Tests for the Locaem Tribe, and more. There is also a set of twenty-five rather nice foldable characters and defenders, which along with the maps can be imported into a VTT or cut out and used on the table.

Is it worth your time?

Yes—The Gate of Dusk is an easy to set up, one or two session scenario that lays the groundwork for further scenarios and the future of the Locaem Tribe, and good for a Sartar-set campaign.

No—The Gate of Dusk is too combat-focused and either the Game Master is not running a campaign set in Sartar or not near the Locaem Tribal lands, or the Locaem Tribe might be enemies of the Player Characters. (That said, have a king of a rival tribe owing you a favour...)

Maybe—The Gate of Dusk is easy to run and add to a campaign, but its defensive nature feels familiar and perhaps the politics of the plot will not interest the Player Characters?

Machenesque Mysteries

In the wake of the Great War, men brought the horrors of the trenches on the Western Front home with them. Yet there was no respite, for there were horrors on the home front. As the Jazz players trumpeted a new golden age and the Bright Young Things danced into the light, some returned to the dark, bucolic wilds of Wales. Promises of sleep free of terrible memories lead to labour of another kind to build edifices deep mountains, of solitary walkers dragged away by creatures out of legend never to be seen again, of young girls playing with new friends in the woods only to return the following day having aged years, of witch-driven cults dedicated to ancient practices that promise healthy harvests. Others returned to the metropolis to become ensnared in dark doings in grimy alleys and fog-shrouded back streets, dank basements, and behind the façades of genteel clubs and societies. Scientists explore beyond the rationality of reason in pursuit of knowledge that only their ancestors understood the dangers of. The Cult of Dionysus spreads its influence as it inducts civil servants and other officials into its ranks. Creatures out of myth and legend prey on the lonely and the lost, unnoticed amongst the city’s teeming masses. There are signs of the occult and weirdness everywhere if you know what to look and have had your eyes opened. There is worse beyond, for on the other side of the Veil lies the Otherworld, which goes by many names—‘TírnAill’ in Ireland, ‘Annwn’ in Wales, ‘Avalon’ in Arthurian legend—and is a strange and twisted domain, home to gods whom our ancestors gave form and name, such as Arawn, Pan, Nodens… There are points where the Veil between this world and the Otherworld is at its weakest and that is when the influence of the Otherworld begins to seep through and worse, even let its gods in.

Fortunately, there is a group of people who know about the Otherworld and investigate signs of the weird and the horrific and the terror it triggers. The Gold Tiberius Society was founded in 1906 as a collective to investigate such occurrences and as these took their toll upon the founding members, it began to look for new members at the beginning of the Jazz Age. Those it invites are of independent means and have the time and inclination to investigate, delve deep into the society’s archives scattered across London, and continue working on the Scarlet Map, a geographical representation of the Veins that seem to connect and criss-cross the capital as well as lead back into the Welsh countryside.

This is the set-up for The Terror Beneath: An Investigative Roleplaying Games of Weird Folk Horror. Published by Osprey Games, best known for roleplaying games such as Hard City: Noir Roleplaying and Jackals – Bronze Age Fantasy Roleplaying, it is written by the author of Romance of the Perilous Land: A Roleplaying Game of British Folklore. It is roleplaying game based on the works of Arthur Machen, the Welsh horror writer, author of books such as The Great God Pan, The White People, and The Inmost Light, who explored themes such as decadence, the degeneration of the human soul, the corruption of the innocent, scientists combining technology with the occult, the revelation that murderous beings from the other side lie behind common folklore, pagan practices to ancient deities, and more. There are elements of folk horror here, but also eldritch horror, such that Machen’s work is seen as a precursor to and influence upon the works of H.P. Lovecraft. The latter is important in The Terror Beneath in several ways.

The Terror Beneath is written for use with The GUMSHOE System, most notably used in the roleplaying game Trail of Cthulhu, published by Pelgrane Press. Originally designed for the roleplaying games, The Esoterrorists and Fear Itself, the concept behind The GUMSHOE System is that investigative scenarios are difficult to run with most role-playing games. What it does is make sure that not only are the clues needed to push the story and the investigation forward easy to find, but also that the Investigators are competent to find them. Further, if the players and their Investigators want more information, they can look for it and if they have the area of expertise and the points to pay for it, they find that too. Then it is up to the players to interpret what their Investigators have found. The Terror Beneath uses the most recent version of The GUMSHOE System, most recently seen in Cthulhu Confidential and Night’s Black Agents: Solo Ops. What this means is that Investigative Abilities do not have points, but instead have Pushes, which the player can spend to gain the extra information or a benefit. Nevertheless, this means that The Terror Beneath is compatible with Trail of Cthulhu, Pelgrane Press’ roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror, and as its inspiration is the precursor to much of Lovecraft’s fiction, it has links to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition published by Chaosium, Inc.. For example, Noden appears in the Keeper Rulebook for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, and Machen’s ‘Little People’ appear in the scenario, ‘Plant Y Daear’, in the anthology, Sacraments of Evil.

In terms of framing, The Terror Beneath is set during the 1920s though much of Machen’s fiction was written and takes place before the Great War. The Gold Tiberius Society is a device designed to facilitate investigations and provide a reason for the Investigators to delve into the horrors that lurk in the shadows. It is thus set a decade before Trail of Cthulhu, which takes place in the Desperate Decade of the thirties, but it shares the same squalid metropolis as Bookhounds of London and perhaps a reverence for Britain with Fearful Symmetries. Perhaps as the Roaring Twenties draws to a close, a campaign for The Terror Beneath could dovetail into one or the other, if not both?

What The Terror Beneath does share with Trail of Cthulhu is Modes of Play. In Trail of Cthulhu, these are ‘Pulp’ and ‘Purist’. In The Terror Beneath, they are ‘Terror’ and ‘Pulp’. In ‘Terror’ mode, the Investigators can suffer less Shock and fewer Injury Cards than in ‘Pulp’ Mode, which is slightly more forgiving. That said, The Terror Beneath draws a distinction between ‘Terror’ and ‘Horror’. Terror is the feeling of dread and uncertainty before the actual horror is revealed, and it is this terror that the Game Master should be striving to invoke in her players and their Investigators.

An Investigator in The Terror Beneath is defined by two types of Abilities—Investigative Abilities and General Abilities. Investigative Abilities, such as Assess Honesty, Essayist, Folklore, Occultism, and Streetwise, are used to gain information. If the Investigator has the Investigative Ability, he receives the information or the clue. General Abilities, like Driving, Fighting, Health and Sense Trouble, are more traditional in that their use requires dice to be rolled and a test passed to determine the outcome. He also has a name and a Drive, which motivates the Investigator to expose himself to the terror of the horrors that lie out there, such as ‘Adventure’, ‘Duty’, or ‘Morbid Fascination’. Investigator creation is actually easy and fast. A player selects an Occupation Kit like Antiquarian, Museum Curator, and Scientist, and combines it with a Background Kit such as Conscripted Soldier, Farmhand, Munitions Factory Worker, and Shipbuilder. The Occupation Kit provides the Investigative Abilities, whilst the Background Kit provides the General Abilities.

Name: Winifred Messam
Drive: Show-Off
Occupation Kit: Bright Young Thing
Background Kit: Silver Spoon
Investigative Abilities: Charm, Culture, Inspiration, Society
General Abilities: Athletics 5, Composure 7, Driving 4, Fighting 5, First Aid2, Health 6, Mechanics 0, Preparedness 2, Sense Trouble 1, Sneaking 0

There are some notably different Investigative Abilities. ‘Dérive’ is the ability to notice the strange changes and differences in London from walking the streets regularly, whilst ‘Essayist’ represents the writer's ability to navigate literary London, understand its numerous figures and their relationships, and present a coherent argument on the page and in person.

Mechanically, an Investigator in The Terror Beneath only spends Pushes for Investigative Abilities to gain extra clues beyond the basic, and then points from the General Abilities to perform actions. In general, an Investigator does not necessarily fail in a task, but instead fails forward, perhaps finding another way to approach the task or succeeding with a complication. A Push is used in conjunction with an Investigative Ability. For example, if used in conjunction with Linguistics, the Investigator might acquire an occult tome for a better price, set up a working relationship with an expert philologist, notice that a tome is a palimpsest, and so on. Once spent, there will be moments in play when the points from General Abilities and Pushes can be refreshed.

Combat in The Terror Beneath is designed to have a narrative flow and be brutal. Initiative order is determined by the number of points from the Fighting General Ability invested in the fight and then the progress of the fight is tracked by the margin between the Difficulty number for the foe and the die result each player rolls. Individually, if the result is less than the Difficulty number, then the Investigator will suffer the effects of the foe’s Minor Injury or Major Injury Card, depending upon how low the margin is. If the result is equal to, or higher than, the Difficulty number, then the Investigator succeeds and the player can narrate how his Investigator carries out the objectives set out at the beginning of the fight. If it is three or more, it is kept at three and the Investigator will receive a Fight Benefit, such as a Push or a refreshed General Ability, at the end of the combat. Even if the Investigator succeeds, he still suffers a Toll, the effect of actually fighting the foe. Typically, this will be a levy of a single General Ability Point, which can come from Athletics, Fighting, or Health. At the end of the round, the running total the margins determines if the fight is going in the Investigators’ favour or against them.

Injuries are handled as Injury Cards, which can be Major or Minor. For example, the Minor Injury Card for a Hound of Annwn is ‘Annwn Bite’ and the Major Injury Card is ‘Annwn Paralysis’. Mental hazards require a Composure test and, on a failure, the Investigator will suffer a Minor Shock or a Major Shock. For example, when the Investigator enters a foreboding place, the Minor Shock is ‘Foreboding Place’, but the Major Shock is ‘Terrible Place’. These typically last for the length of an investigation, and impose penalties upon an Investigator’s actions. An Investigator cannot have three Injury Cards or three Shock Cards, although he could have two of either. However, if the third and final Card is an Injury Card, the Investigator is dead, or loses grip on reality if a Shock Card. Either way, the player has the opportunity to narrate the outcome. The Terror Beneath lists all of the Shock and Injury Cards in the back of the book.

Combat focuses on brawling rather than shootouts. In fact, there are no stats for guns in The Terror Beneath, but this does not mean that they are not present in the Roaring Twenties it portrays. Rather they are in the hands of NPCs rather than the Investigators. For example, the Gangster is armed and it is possible for an Investigator to be shot. This is represented by a Minor Injury Card and a Major Injury Card, ‘Grazed’ and ‘Shot’ respectively. Melee attacks are handled in the same way, such as the ‘Cudgel Blow’ and ‘A Thorough Thrashing’ Injury Cards. There is thus a brutality to combat and the Investigators are trying to avoid suffering damage and its deleterious effect as much as inflicting it on their foes or stopping what they are doing. Combat in The Terror Beneath is something to be avoided.

Similar to a Mental hazard, it takes a Composure test to perform sorcery and if failed the caster suffers a Major Shock. There may also be a Toll on the caster’s Athletics, Fighting, or Health, even if successful. This can be one, two, or three points, so it is often better to cast spells as a group. Some spells require a higher Bleed value for the spell to be cast without penalty. The list of spells in The Terror Beneath is not extensive, but this is not a roleplaying in which the Investigators will be casting a lot of spells.

In terms of setting and background, The Terror Beneath presents a broad overview, that over the course of the book looks at Arthur Machen’s fiction, weird folk horror investigations, the Gold Tiberius Society, and both London and Wales, the two contrasting locations for Machen’s fiction. For London there are descriptions of the various cults and secret societies in the city, whilst for Wales there are the places of power in the rural countryside and the pagan cults found there. Both cults and societies provide numerous human threats with links to the Otherworld and the terrors that the Game Master can develop as the basis for her scenarios. Besides the gods of the Otherworld and numerous creatures drawn from folklore and definitely dark and dangerous, there is advice for the Game Master on handling both Terror and Horror, primarily by building points where Terror might strike into a scenario, building backwards from the horror to create the mystery and basis of the investigation, laying out clues, and so on.

The Terror Beneath includes a scenario, ‘Mystery: Don’t Sleep’. The Investigators are called in to look into the sudden disappearance of a London dock worker. This is set in the capital—there is no mystery set in rural Wales in The Terror Beneath—and takes the Investigator into the communities of London’s docks and veterans of the Great War to discover the consequences of a secret military project conducted during the war. It explores Machen’s theme of misused science and its vile consequences.

Physically, The Terror Beneath is a relatively slim book. The book is well written, though lightly illustrated with dark, murky artwork which swirls with threat and peculiarity.

The Terror Beneath is published at a time when the interest in folk horror continues to grow and grow, yet it offers more than that. Its horror is eldritch and ancient, verging on the unknowable, yet rooted in folkloric explanations for the unknown, so there is a familiarity to elements of it. This is more cultural in origin as opposed to the unknowable we have learned from the pen of H.P. Lovecraft and through roleplaying games such as Call of Cthulhu and Trail of Cthulhu. Setting The Terror Beneath in the Roaring Twenties means that we can explore a period normally associated with Lovecraftian investigative horror and do so without the negative aspects of Lovecraft’s writings. Ultimately, The Terror Beneath: An Investigative Roleplaying Games of Weird Folk Horror enables us to explore the horror of Arthur Machen, his precursor, primordial and peculiar, veiled and vile, and regarded as the first modern writer of the genre.

A Positive Apocalypse II

Dreams and Machines is a post-apocalyptic future set on another planet. One that has suffered not one, but two calamitous events. The world is Evera Prime, settled as one of Earth’s colonies following the establishment of the Gateway that enabled relatively fast travel between the Earth and Evera Prime. The first disaster the colonists faced was when the Gateway stopped functioning, cutting off contact with Earth, forcing them to adapt and survive on their own. The second would come centuries later, after the colony had prospered and developed, establishing Project Builder, a programme to develop resource and power control that was so successful that it would usher in a golden age of post-scarcity and rapid scientific advancement. Then the Builder and its connected systems began to glitch. It stopped anticipating the needs of the people of Evera Prime, and worse, when scientist tried to fix the problem, it turned on them, unleashing its Mech servants and its armoury in a conflagration in which cities would be destroyed, the landscape pockmarked with craters, populations atomised, and worse. Two centuries have passed, and the people of Evera Prime survived and then thrived, hoping one day that a way would be found to make contact with the Earth again. The broad background to the setting are detailed in the Dreams and Machines: Player’s Guide, which also includes the rules for character creation and action, as well as some of the technology of the setting, a mix of high-tech nanotechnology and low-tech scrap, the former almost having magic-like properties.

The Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide expands upon the Dreams and Machines: Player’s Guide, both in terms of setting and rules, as well as guidance for running the game. Published by Modiphius Entertainment, this is a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game of exploration and hope, in which the Player Characters delve into the ruins of the past, examine old technology, and protect the many surviving communities against attacks by the Wakers, the robots still working after the events of the apocalypse, and waiting for the moment they detect survivors and the use of advanced technology, to activate and stalk and attack as the last fragments of their programming dictate, the creatures mutated by the affects of the apocalypse, and the Thralls, humans wrapped in loops of wire and marked with ash and paint, who boil up out of the ground to aggressively raid and steal food and technology from the communities.

The Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide begins with an exploration of the setting, its history and timeline, its geography, and its factions. There is an overview of technology in the setting, the stats and details of individual devices given in the Dreams and Machines: Player’s Guide. Overall, this expands upon the material given in the Dreams and Machines: Player’s Guide, most notably in developing and detailing more of the factions’ backgrounds. This covers their origins, views on technology, what others think of them, and so on. The various views on technology vary widely from faction to faction, such as the Everans accepting, but not developing technology, the Archivists actively searching for new old technology, and the Dreamers loathing technology. The one faction that is in effect, new here, are the Conduits and the Thralls, barely mentioned in the Dreams and Machines: Player’s Guide. Here they are greatly expanded upon. ‘Thralls’ are the name that the surface dwellers, that is, the Player Characters and others, give to the Conduits. The Conduits are a highly religious group who worship and embrace technology and believe that the Builder saved them from the worst of the war, their fanaticism driving them to raid the surface. They work in secret to restore the technology of the past and the Builder’s network, working from their secret base in the Dark City. Only a very little is known about the Dark City, the Archivists having some knowledge as to why the Builder’s War started, but not necessarily knowing if that is connected to the Dark City and the Conduits.

These are only some of the secrets explored in Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide. Also detailed is the history of the Builder and why it was built, and what its current status is now. This is as fragmented and widely dispersed pieces of code, attempting to make contact with each other and rebuild. For most people on Evera Prime, the Builder was intrinsic in triggering the war, and whilst the environmental effects of the war can be found everywhere, the most obvious holdover from the Builder War are the innumerable robots which litter many parts of the landscape, nothing more than mouldering heaps of junk until they receive the right signal, activate, and go on murderous rampages. Such occurrences are rare, but this does not stop most people on Evera Prima fearing the Wakers, as such robots are known. Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide also reveals two further hidden aspects of the setting. One is the human involvement in the Builder’s War, whilst the other is the involvement of another ‘agency’. Although the book talks about this ‘agency’ and its involvement in events leading up to the war, it does not actually reveal the identity of what the ‘agency’ is, and nor does it examine how the Player Characters might eventually discover that and other secrets of the setting.

In terms of running the game, the Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide provides the Game Master with some excellent advice. It not only covers her responsibilities, but also examines the uses of Truths in play, how to frame scenes and action, handling Threat and how to spend it, and more. In particular, it notes that Threat—the means by which the Game Master can enhance the actions of her NPCs, monsters, and villains—can be used to cajole characters into action when their players are dithering, such as when coming up with a plan, and that it is in the interest of players to give the Game Master points of Theat. This is done when the players have run out of Momentum to give their characters an advantage, and whilst it obviously benefits any opposition that they might face, what the Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide makes clear is that it benefits the story too, building tension and making confrontations dramatic. There is advice too on the use of Safety Tools and of Spirit, a Player Character’s inner reserves of concentration and stamina, typically only used in desperate situations.

The advice for the Game Master is both slick and helpful, even well practised. Which should be no surprise given the number of 2d20 System roleplaying games that Modiphius Entertainment has published. Where it disappoints though, is in the lack of advice in terms of what stories the Game Master will tell, what type of scenarios she should be creating for her players. Obviously, the Game Master can draw heavily from the post-apocalyptic genre, but the Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide does not explore what makes a Dream and Machines post-apocalyptic story different from that of any other post-apocalyptic story.

The Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide does provide a range of NPCs, creatures, adversaries, and other threats. This includes flora and fauna native to both Earth and Evera Prime, as well as mutants. Only the one Earth creature, the Horse, is given stats, though others like the Tiger are mentioned, whilst native fauna includes the Akriti, a nomadic tree that migrates in herds. The arachnid Cryptid, the Prowlcat with its overlapping plates instead of fur, and the wolf-like Snarlback with its extendible mouth, are examples of the Mutant creatures found on Evera Prime. Technology comes in the form of the Nano-Geist, a nanogram capable of interacting with the world as part of its programming, and the Locus, a nanogram tied to an individual location or building. There are random tables for nanogram actions, as there are for Waker functions, which are also detailed in the book. Lastly, there are stats and details for NPCs, including Thralls.

The Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide provides a broad overview of the continent of Nedrestia, but goes further in describing a region where the Game Master and her players can begin play. It focuses on New Mossgrove, a trade and exploration hub located in the Regid-Kasteel region, near Kasteel city ruins. Both the ruins of Kasteel and of the mini-city, Sanktejo, provides environments to explore, whilst New Mossgrove serves as a base and source of rumours and possible tasks. It is also the starting point for the included adventure, ‘Secrets in Lost Rios’. This is a sequel to the scenario in the Dreams and Machines Starter Set, but ‘Secrets in Lost Rios’ can be adjusted so that the Game Master need not have had to run the scenario in the Dreams and Machines Starter Set. It opens with New Mossgrove having suffered a Waker attack, a rare occurrence that puts everyone on edge. (This attack is actually the climax to the scenario in the Dreams and Machines Starter Set.) The Player Characters are hired by an Archivist to search for a friend who led an expedition into the wilderness who is missing and is presumed dead. The only known survivor of the expedition was killed in the Waker attack on the town. The expedition was investigating a laboratory in the former resort town of Los Rios, once standing between two rivers, but now between two ravines. There is scope for some decent encounters between New Mossgrove and Los Rios, but when they get there, they discover that someone has already got there before them—a band of scavenging Thralls! The Player Characters will need to drive them off in order to investigate the laboratory fully and confirm that the missing friend is there. The scenario includes some rather ideas as to what happens next and also some ideas for some further adventures. Overall, it is a decent adventure, but probably better as a payoff for the scenario Dreams and Machines Starter Set.

Physically, Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide is well presented, the artwork is good, and the writing is really easy to read. Like the Dreams and Machines: Player’s Guide, it has been scribbled on as if it was a child’s journal or diary.

The Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide, as intended, completes the core of the roleplaying game with the Dreams and Machines: Player’s Guide. It decently expands upon the information given in the Dreams and Machines: Player’s Guide, coupled with well-practised advice, but the extra information only goes so far. There are still secrets to the setting to be revealed, and there is a lack of advice for creating adventures specific to the setting of Evera Prime that would have been helpful too. That though will have to wait for the Dreams And Machines: GM’s Toolkit. In the meantime, if the Game Master wants to create her own content, Dreams And Machines is probably best suited to someone who already has experience of writing her own adventures. Overall, the Dreams And Machines: Gamemaster’s Guide is a nicely accessible and solid book for the Dreams And Machines Games Master.

Gloombusters

In the aftermath of a post-apocalyptic event, there is only one thing standing between the fate of the survivors and the ever-encroaching, ever-hungry, evil known as The Gloom, and that is the Samurai Goths! Which is about as much background as there is in Samurai Goths of the Apocalypse, a roleplaying of gonzo survival horror inspired by the Gothic musical culture that grew out of the Punk movement in the late nineteen seventies. All that matters is that the Samurai Goths look good and know where their tessen, tanto, shuriken, and katanas are. Published by Uknite the Realm, this is a straight-to-DVD action movie of a roleplaying game in which the Samurai Goth face the Gloom and fight creatures like the ‘Danger Louse’, the ‘Tornacrow’, and the ‘Eyelasher’, all before coming home with their shopping for a nice hot cup of tea or a glass of absinthe or a snakebite and black.

A Samurai Goth in Samurai Goths of the Apocalypse has a Goth dynasty, a Samurai weapon, three attributes—‘Samurai’, ‘Goth’, and ‘Apocalypse’, and then a Name, Nature, and Band. The latter is the name for the Samurai Goths’ group as a whole. The seven Goth Dynasties are the Corporate Goth, the Cybergoth, the Gothabilly, the Pastel Goth, the Romantic Goth, the Traditional Goth, and the Western Goth. Each Dynasty provides a Free Ability and an Action Point Ability, the latter needing the expenditure of Action Points to use. For example, the Traditional Goth has the Free Ability of ‘Levitate’, simply floating in the air, and the Action Point Ability of ‘Trailblazer’, which lets them give an ally an extra ally and add a bonus to their own next attack, whilst the Cybergoth has the Free Ability of ‘Neon Night’, a temporary light, and the Action Point Ability of ‘Sonic Rave Blast’, which lets them let out a sonic blast of industrial goth rave music which knocks prone all enemies close by. Similarly, each Samurai weapon has its own Action Point Ability, such as the ‘Counterstrike’ of the katana and the ‘Pinning’ of the Yari.

The three attributes—‘Samurai’, ‘Goth’, and ‘Apocalypse’—correspond to ‘Combat’, ‘Persona’, and ‘Survival’ respectively, and are rated one, two, or three. The Samurai Goth will also have Talents, such as Truck Driver, Accordionist, Charming, and Medicine, but these are selected during play rather than during the creation process. Overall, the process is very quick and easy, a player having only to make a handful of choices.

Name: Buffy Hayes
Nature: Perky
Band Name: Resist The Bitter Cabaret
Goth Dynasty: Traditional Goth
Samurai 2 Goth 3 Apocalypse 1
Feathers: 1
Willpower: 6
Goth Dynasty Abilities: Levitate (Free), Trailblazer (Action Point)
Samurai Weapon: Tessen (Deflect)

Mechanically, Samurai Goths of the Apocalypse used the CONSUMED6 game system. This uses six-sided dice that the players roll, rather than the Gloom Weaver, as the Game Master is known in Samurai Goths of the Apocalypse. To have his Samurai Goth undertake an action, a player rolls a number of dice equal to the appropriate attribute. A Talent, if appropriate, can add an extra die, as can an ability from a Dynasty. The highest die result counts, and if the result is four, five, or six, the action is a success, but a failure if the highest result is a one, two, or three.

Combat in Samurai Goths of the Apocalypse expands on this quite a bit. Initiative is a simple roll of a single die, a success indicating that the Samurai Goths act first, a failure indicating that they act second. When in combat against the Gloom, it has two effects upon the mechanics. The first is that rolls of six explode and enable a player to roll another die, whilst the second is that rolls of one consume the highest success. If any successes are left over, the number of successes indicates the amount of damage inflicted on the enemy, whilst if there only failures left over, the number indicates the amount of damage suffered by the Samurai Goth.

In addition to standard actions, Weapon Abilities and Goth Dynasty Abilities can be activated by expending Action Points. Weapon Abilities cost two Action Points to activate and Goth Dynasty Abilities cost one. A Samurai Goth has a maximum of three Action Points and is earned by inflicting damage and as a Gloom Weaver reward during play. A Samurai Goth also has ‘Feathers’. He starts play with one and earns more by completing missions, up to a maximum of six. They can then be spent to alter a single die rolled by an ally by a single pip, but more feathers will alter it by more. Once earned, ‘Feathers’ reset between adventures.

When a Samurai Goth suffers damage, it is deducted from his Willpower. He can only suffer a total of six damage, but if he suffers a seventh, the corruptive influence of the Gloom, he will fall unconscious and suffer a ‘Gloomagen’. This means that the Gloom has infected and mutated him. For example, ‘Stygian Sight’ means that one of the Samurai Goth’s eyes has swollen and becomes with a swirling pool of complete blackness, meaning that he can see in the dark and even great distances. The Samurai Goth’s Willpower then resets to six. However, a Samurai Goth can only possess two Gloomagens. If a third would be suffered, the Gloom consumes him and he becomes one of its servants!

For the Gloom Weaver, there is a set of tables for creating Gloom monsters, some sample Gloom monsters, a table of prompts, and that is it. Which is underwhelming to say the least. For a roleplaying game designed for quick play, it does leave a lot for the Gloom Weaver to do in terms of setting and missions for her Samurai Goths to play through. Worse, there are a couple of pages devoted to just art—and as nice as that is—they could have been better used to support the Gloom Weaver. So yes, this is disappointing, but in terms of setting, the simplest thing that the Gloom Weaver could do is actually set her Samurai Goths of the Apocalypse campaign in a twisted, post-apocalyptic version of her own neighbourhood or somewhere that is familiar to most of her players. Then take that community and have it changed and twisted by the Gloom-laden apocalypse and use it to drive plots.

Physically, Samurai Goths of the Apocalypse is a black and neon affair. The book is easy to read and the artwork is suitably scrappy and cartoonish.

Samurai Goths of the Apocalypse is a quick-to-learn, throw down and play kind of roleplaying game. It is a cheesy combination of stereotypes and action that reeks of high-concept, low budget films and offers a few sessions worth stand against the Gloom storytelling once the Gloom Weaver has her setting and a scenario or two in hand.

Friday Fantasy: The Veiled Dungeon

Given the origins of the roleplaying hobby—in wargaming and in the drawing of dungeons that the first player characters, and a great many since, explored and plundered—it should be no surprise just how important maps are to the hobby. They serve as a means to show a tactical situation when using miniatures or tokens and to track the progress of the player characters through the dungeon—by both the players and the Dungeon Master. And since the publication of Dungeon Geomorphs, Set One: Basic Dungeon by TSR, Inc. in 1976, the hobby has found different ways in which to provide us with maps. Games Workshop published several Dungeon Floor Sets in the 1980s, culminating in Dungeon Planner Set 1: Caverns of the Dead and Dungeon Planner Set 2: Nightmare in Blackmarsh; Dwarven Forge has supplied dungeon enthusiasts with highly detailed, three-dimensional modular terrain since 1996; and any number of publishers have sold maps as PDFs via Drivethrurpg.com. Loke BattleMats does something a little different with its maps. It publishes them as books. To date, this has included the Big Book of Battle Mats: Rooms, Vaults, & Chambers, the Big Book of Cyberpunk Battle Mats, The Dungeon Books of Battle Mats, The Wilderness Books of Battle Mats, The Towns & Taverns Books of Battle Mats, and Castles, Crypts, & Caverns Books of Battle Mats. However, The Veiled Dungeon is something a little different, something more like Dungeon Planner Set 1: Caverns of the Dead and Dungeon Planner Set 2: Nightmare in Blackmarsh.

The Veiled Dungeon is a boxed set containing a set of maps, encounter cards, and a book of encounters and monsters, all of which can be used in the adventure in the book or used by the Dungeon Master to create her own encounters. It is designed as both toolkit and ready-to-play adventure and comes decently appointed in whatever way the Dungeon Master wants to use it. The adventure itself, ‘The Raiders of the Cerulean Ruins’, is designed for Player Characters of between Third and Fifth Level for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. It comes as a boxed set containing twenty separate maps, forty monster cards, and a reference book.

The maps are done on double-sided seventeen by eleven light card sheets, in full colour and marked with a grid of one-inch squares. All are suitable for use with both wet and dry markers. They include hallways, corridors, dormitories, storerooms, workrooms, crumbling bridges over yawning magical chasms, grand staircases, magical circles, ziggurats, shattered rooms, courtyards and entrances, and more. They are bright and colourful and done in the style recognisable from maps from Loke BattleMats. They are also compatible with them, meaning that they can be used alongside all of the publisher’s maps to expand the playing area and add variety.

The monster cards are also double-sided and done in full colour. On the front is an illustration of the creature, which of course, can be shown to the players when their characters encounter them, whilst on the back is its full stats for easy reference by the Dungeon Master. There are one or two NPCs, such as the Veteran Scholar, but the rest are all monsters. Many of them are animated objects—animated objects to be found in the scenario—and it is clear that the author has had a lot of fun naming and designing them. There is the ‘Animated Scroll Storm’, which acts like a swarm of paper that inflicts paper cuts and on a critical can cast a random cantrip; ‘Bad Dreams’ is animated bed that inflicts ‘Things that go bump’ damage and if a target is prone makes them fall asleep ‘Night, Night!’; and ‘Belligerent Bookcase’, a ‘Vindictive Teacher’ that makes attacks against targets with an Intelligence of twelve or less at Advantage and will then ‘Throw the Book’ at them! The most fun, at least in terms of names, is the ‘Chest of Jaws’, that likes to grapple its targets and steal small items with ‘’That’s Mine’ and then hangs on with ‘Lockjaw’ for both Advantage and extra damage. The animated furniture is especially fun and all of the pieces could easily be used elsewhere—as could many of the monsters.

The Reference Book for The Veiled Dungeon is initially somewhat confusing. Is it, or is it not, a scenario called ‘The Veiled Dungeon’? Well, sort of, but first what the Reference Book does is actually break down the elements of the dungeon, not necessarily to help the Dungeon Master run the pre-written version which follows later in the book, but to help the Dungeon Master create something of her own, but still similar. The elements common to both the adventure contained in the box and the one that the Dungeon Master might create include the myth of the Veiled Dungeon and its invasive fog that shifts and walls that move. How scholars keep discovering it and as they dig deeper, becoming obsessed with exploring further, arousing the interest of a deity of madness and obsession, until they make one terrible discovery, and the fog is unleashed, wreathing its way through the complex, changing and twisting the walls and rooms and letting deadly new monsters in!

The Reference Book then takes the Dungeon Master through the different elements of the adventure. This begins with the maps and then provides tables for creating motivations, persons and organisations that might employ the Player Characters, the size of the dungeon and variations upon it, and then multiple different encounters. It breaks these encounters down area by area rather than by individual locations. The last part of Reference Book consists of the bestiary for ‘The Veiled Dungeon’. From ‘Activated Rope’, ‘Animated Scroll Storm’, and ‘Arcane Golem’ to ‘Veteran Scholar’, ‘Unwelcome Rug’, and ‘Wyrmspawn’, every monster gets a decent write-up, typically a paragraph in length. The more major monsters, like the ‘Malevolent Veil Fiend’ and the ‘Sentinel Statue’, get much longer write-ups, as befitting the threats they represent.

The tools are there for the Dungeon Master to create her own version of ‘The Veiled Dungeon’, but the Reference Book also includes its own pre-written adventure, essentially the designer’s own version of ‘The Veiled Dungeon’. This is ‘The Raiders of the Cerulean Ruins’. The Cerulean Ruins are an important ‘Site of Special Arcane Interest’—or ‘SSAI’—currently being excavated by the Yore Institute. The latter hires the Player Characters to investigate the complex after contact has been lost with its staff and students. It is part-scholar, part-archaeological dig, that gets increasingly darker and weirder. The Player Characters will initially gain some information about the status of the complex from a former employee who has turned ‘ruin raider’, but it does not quite prepare them for what they find. Much of the fittings and furniture have been twisted into malevolent monstrosities and there is a growing sense of madness and chaos, the deeper the Player Characters go. Progress through the dungeon is intentionally compartmenalised. This is done by making the Player Characters need to find keys to unlock particular sections of the dungeon. This is not only a device to have the Player Characters explore every section, but also to prevent them from haring through the dungeon, so forcing the Dungeon Master to clear the table of one set of maps and then set up another.

In the epilogue to the adventure there is an interesting line: “One of the scholars also points out that they have uncovered rumours that might lead to another set of ruins similar to this one!” Which, should the players and their characters follow up on, would enable the Dungeon Master to use the tools to create a new version of ‘The Veiled Dungeon’ of her own, which almost exactly, but not like The Cerulean Ruins. What happens if the Player Characters do follow up on this lead is not explored in the Reference Book, sadly, since some overarching plot could have provided more motivation and storytelling possibilities than simple repetition. Nevertheless, ‘The Raiders of the Cerulean Ruins’ is a good scenario with a decent mix of exploration and combat and a few clues to help the players and their characters work out what is going on.

Physically, The Veiled Dungeon is a handsome boxed set. Everything is well presented. The artwork is excellent and the cartography is as good as you would expect.

The Veiled Dungeon is a slightly odd product, both an adventure and a toolkit to create similarly themed adventures. It perhaps could have done with advice to connect the adventures or provide a bigger plot perhaps, so that the Dungeon Master would have found it easier to create and link, if that is what she desires, the variants upon ‘The Veiled Dungeon’. Nevertheless, whether she is running the included ‘The Raiders of the Cerulean Ruins’ or a version of ‘The Veiled Dungeon’ of her own devising, the contents of The Veiled Dungeon are going to look good on the table.

The Other OSR: HOWL

Sailing in search of work—the ruler of a distant port is said to be offering a generous reward for investigating a great dungeon under the city—the Player Characters find themselves aboard The Erebus, when it is caught in a sudden storm that brews in ferocity until it and its crew, as well as the Player Characters are dashed onto a desolate shore marked only by cliffs! When they awake, cold and sodden, half the crew are dead and half the crew are missing, drag marks in the rough sand the only indication of their fate. As the Player Characters stare up at the cliffs a pair of glowing red eyes appear over the lip and a brutally bulky creature stares down at them before letting out a thunderous howl that shakes their very souls! This is the start of HOWL: A Horror Adventure of Dark Folklore for Cairn. Published by By Odin’s Beard, best known for Runecairn Wardensaga and We Deal in Lead, it was previously available as The Howling Caverns, written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, but has now been adapted to the micro-clone, Cairn. The name of the ship, The Erebus, the high cliffs, and the howling beast all lend themselves to certain inspirations and HOWL is upfront about them. This is a scenario inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the Yorkshire port of Whitby where Dracula came ashore after travelling aboard The Erebus, English folklore, and Ravenloft, the classic horror setting for Dungeons & Dragons.

HOWL: A Horror Adventure of Dark Folklore for Cairn begins with the Player Characters aboard The Erebus and have the opportunity to help the ship’s crew and so perhaps help save the ship. Of course, that does not happen, but they may be able to keep some of the crew alive who will help them later ashore. What they also discover once they wake up from the shipwreck, they find a number of skeletons that rise to attack and once defeated, they learn from a note carried by one of the skeletons that they have been cursed! A Barghest—perhaps the beast on the cliff—is abroad and is stalking them. The only solution seems to lie up the narrow cliff path and onwards to the nearby village of Krasnaloz. What is quickly apparent is that the village is run down and its inhabitants disaffected, but they are forthcoming about the Barghest and its legend. This is, that last night, after three days of violent storms, lightning struck a tree and when it fell, it opened up a cave out of which it is said that the Barghest exited and let out its first howl!

The Player Characters have the opportunity to gather more background and clues, many of them freely given by the few staff patrons of the amusingly named ‘The Slaughtered Lamb’. This includes too, the possible means of lifting the cure that they are under and even an offer of help from a bard who recently lost her partner to the Barghest. Other clues can be gathered at a ruined temple, long fallen into disuse, before the Player Characters set out to investigate the caves located in the countryside to the north of the village. Bar a possible encounter or two in the wintery surrounds, the Player Characters will quickly arrive at the cave and begin to explore its depths. The first few chambers in the network show signs of occupation, but have clearly been abandoned, whilst the later ones show signs of exploration and hide secrets. Only in the last chamber will the Barghest be found and in confronting the creature, some secrets will be revealed.

The adventure is linear, but well designed and atmospheric. In the first part, there is a definite feeling of the cold and isolation on a bleak coast, whilst the dungeon itself is a contrasting split between a lair and a magical retreat. The former having abandoned, whilst the latter is being explored, a mixture of puzzles and traps with a dose of the weirdness of the deep thrown in. Altogether, the scenario should provide three or so sessions to play through, a single taking the Player Characters from the shipwreck to the village and the second two sessions into the cave system. At the end though, HOWL may leave the players and their characters unsatisfied. There is resolution, but not one likely to leave them happy. In part, this is due to the fact that HOWL is the first part of an extended campaign, and as yet, the sequel, Colossus Wake, has not been adapted from Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. In part, because the Player Characters are going to feel manipulated by the end of the scenario and without that sequel, there is no way in which they can address the issue themselves.

Physically, HOWL is very cleanly and tidily presented. The layout is excellent and although the location descriptions for the cave do not include individual excerpts from the main dungeon map, there is a relationship diagram showing the links between one room and another. The artwork is decent and the maps are good too. The NPC and monster stats are listed at the back, so the Game Master will need to flip back and forth.

As a scenario for the Old School Renaissance, HOWL is easy to adapt to other retroclones, but as a scenario for Cairn, with a little effort, it could easily be adapted to Into the Odd and run more like a scenario for Masque of the Red Death and Other Tales. Overall, HOWL: A Horror Adventure of Dark Folklore for Cairn pleasingly combines Gothic horror with fantasy horror in a very easy-to-use format.

Companion Chronicles #1: The Tree Hazardous

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, The Companions of Arthur is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon. It enables creators to sell their own original content for Pendragon, Sixth Edition. This can original scenarios, background material, alternate Arthurian settings, and more, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Pendragon Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Pendragon campaigns.

—oOo—

What is the Nature of the Quest?

The Tree Hazardous – Three Mini Adventures for Pendragon 6th Edition is a scenario for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition which details a minor quest deep into the forest that can be used as side quest or adventure and played through in a single session.

It is a full colour, twenty page, 2.54 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy and it is nicely illustrated.

Where is the Quest Set?

The Tree Hazardous is set northeast of Hertford, deep in the Quinqueroi Forest in Logres. It can very easily be shifted to the forest of the Game Master’s choice.

Who should go on this Quest?

The Tree Hazardous does not require any specific type of knight. However, a good range of skills is required, and each the three mini-quests tests not only tests a range of skills including combat skills, Singing, and Play (Instrument), but also features one or more sets of Personality Traits in the course of their encounters.

It is best suited for play by one, two, or three Player-knights, each of whom will undertake an individual quest when encountering the ‘Tree Hazardous’ of the title.

What does the Quest require?

The Tree Hazardous requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition rules or the Pendragon Starter Set.

Where will the Quest take the Knights?

The Tree Hazardous opens with the Player-knights already having learned of the local legend of the Tree hazardous, which tells of the unusually large yew tree deep within the forest and the supposedly strangeness high up in its branches. With a little time searching, they will be able to locate this tree and as daylight ebbs away and the Tree Hazardous is found, the Player-knights each hear voices from high up in the branches. In climbing the tree and going to investigate the voices will lead the Player-knights to one of the three mini-quests that make up the meat of the scenario.

The three mini-quests are ‘The Ivy Knight’, ‘The Bird Chorus’, and ‘The Devil Squirrel’. In ‘The Ivy Knight’, the Player-knight will have his ‘Valorous/Cowardly’ Traits tested when he is faced by a knight who wishes to escape a curse. ‘Honest/Deceitful’ and ‘Modest/Proud’ are the Traits tested in ‘The Bird Chorus’ as the Player-knight gets to sing or play and engage with some musical birds, whilst ‘Merciful/Cruel’, ‘Trusting/Suspicious’, and ‘Valorous/Cowardly’ are tested in ‘The Devil Squirrel’ as the Player-knight attempts to save both a young boy from the clutches a squirrelly sinister threat and themselves from a similar fate. Each of the three is quite different in tone. Thus, ‘The Ivy Knight’ is quite mournful; ‘The Bird Chorus’ veers between joyous and ever so slightly menacing, and ‘The Devil Squirrel’ is dark and dangerous. All end not only with their possible Glory awards, but also several loose ends that the Game Master and the Player-knights can follow up.

All three mini-quests are clearly presented, so that the Game Master could run them together with a group of three Player-knights, each tackling a different mini-quest. Alternatively, the Gamemaster can take any one of the three mini-quests and present it on its own in a one-on-one session with the player and his knight. All three also make clear which personality Traits and which skills are involved so that not only is each mini-quest easy to run, but easy to tailor to a Player-knight and his personality Traits and skills if the Game Master chooses to do so.

Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?

Although there is an element of utilitarianism to collection in that its contents can be run in a single session for a handful of Player-knights or extracted so each of its mini-quests can be run for a single player, The Tree Hazardous – Three Mini Adventures for Pendragon 6th Edition presents three nicely written and engaging little quests that will test both the knights and their players. Their format and their length mean that whether as a single mini-quest or all three, The Tree Hazardous – Three Mini Adventures for Pendragon 6th Edition is quick and easy to prepare and slot into a campaign.

Jonstown Jottings #92: Night at the Sunshine Inn

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.

—oOo—

What is it?

Night at the Sunshine Inn is a scenario inspired by Night of the Living Dead for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha in which the Player Characters are hired by an Issaries merchant to guard a shipment of ore being transported from Jonstown to Boldholme.

It is a possible sequel to the scenario, ‘A Rough Landing’, from the RuneQuest Starter Set.

It is a full colour, seventeen page, 3.66 MB PDF.

The layout is a bit tight and it is lightly illustrated.

The cartography is excellent.

It needs an edit.

Where is it set?

Night at the Sunshine Inn begins in Jonstown, but will take the Player Characters east to the Old Tarsh Road and from there to a stop at the Sunshine Inn overnight, before (supposedly) travelling onto Boldholme.

It is set after Scared Time, 1625.

Who do you play?
Night at the Sunshine Inn does not require any specific character type, but Player Characters who are capable warriors are highly recommended.

What do you need?
Night at the Sunshine Inn requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack, and the RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary.

What do you get?

Night at the Sunshine Inn sets up a tale of revenge as the Player Characters find themselves at an inn which is suddenly attacked in the night. their initial challenge will be in properly arming themselves and donning their armour as the Chaos of the attack plays out around them. The Player Characters will need to hold off three waves of attacks from a band of Scorpionmen and their allies over the course of the night. Effectively, this is ‘tower defence’ style scenario, though much like the Zombies mode for the Call of Duty computer games, the Player Characters have access to timber, nails, and a hammer so that they can board up broken doors and windows between attacks. It echoes the classic ‘Gringle’s Pawnshop’ from Apple Lane.

By the time morning comes, the fact that their employer never turns up—he was supposed to join them at then Sunshine Inn—and the person he wanted them to meet at the inn is not there, should suggest to the players and their characters that something very odd is going on here. The likelihood is that the Player Characters are going to want to ask him some questions. He is a rather shifty-looking character, so that may tip the players and their characters off to the fact that he is up to no good.

Night at the Sunshine Inn is a simple scenario, primarily combat focused, though there is opportunity for roleplaying and interaction with the other customers at the Sunshine Inn. The Game Master may want to reduce the Reputation reward as it is a little high and since its climax is the defence of a single location, actually run it as a battle with miniatures to keep track of everything as there are a lot of combatants. One aspect not explored is what happens to the Sunshine Inn afterwards and what effect the attack has upon the fortunes of the Goodhaven clan that own it.

Is it worth your time?

Yes—Night at the Sunshine Inn is a quick and dirty scenario that provides a single session of action and combat that can be easily inserted into a campaign or run as a side mission when a player or two cannot make it.

No—Night at the Sunshine Inn is simplistic and combat-focused and the antagonist may be too shifty for the players to trust him, let alone their characters. Plus, the Game Master may not yet have run the scenarios from the RuneQuest Starter Set.

Maybe—Night at the Sunshine Inn is easy to run and add to a campaign, and may serve as a change of tone and pace between more interesting and sophisticated adventures.