The Clouds Above

The Earth’s skies above are lost in a sea of roiling grey clouds, lit by lightning storms, and boiling with pollution. The world’s skies have been hidden for as long as anyone can remember and no one can remember why. There are those who are brave enough to leap into the air and explore what is to be above the clouds, piloting aeroplanes or dirigibles, searching for treasures said to be found there. Some do return with such treasures, but others come with none, or driven mad from their experiences. This is the setting of What Lurks Above, a micro roleplaying game of pulp exploration and danger in a neo-Victorian post-apocalyptic setting. Published by Parable Games—best known for the horror roleplaying game, Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown, it includes simple easy rules, including for both characters and vessels, and combat between them.

A Player Character in What Lurks Above has four stats—Fortitude, Courage, Intellect, and Agility. These are rated by die type. So, one has a six-sided, eight-sided, a ten-sided, and a twelve-sided die. It is as simple as that. He has a Vigour equal to his Fortitude die size.

The Cook
Fortitude d6 Courage d12 Intellect d10 Agility d6
Vigour 6

To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls the die for the appropriate stat and aims to roll high. The Skipper—as the Game Master is known—sets the difficulty by choosing a die type. The larger the die type, the greater the difficulty faced by the Player Character. If the player rolls higher, his character succeeds, but if the Skipper rolls higher, the character fails. The Vessel, whether an aeroplane or a dirigible, also has four stats, which again are assigned die types. The four stats are Hull Integrity, Engine Power, Radar Range, and Weapon Systems. Combat is also handled as opposed rolls, with the winner inflicting damage to the loser’s Vigour. Bare firsts inflict one point of damage, an antique sabre three points, a missile eight points, and so on. If a Player Character’s Vigour is reduced to zero, then they are dead. NPCs and bigger creatures can have higher Vigour values than the die types.

To power play, What Lurks Above offers a series of prompts in a set of tables. These consist of tables for ‘Discoveries’ and ‘Enemies’. Entries for the former include ‘A castle in the sky run by automata who continue to serve their long dead masters’ or ‘A basking shark with a city in its mouth’ and work as scenario hooks, whilst entries for the latter include a ‘Fog Brain’, a floating sphere of fleshy cloud with hanging moss tentacles, and a ‘Flock of Seagull Warriors’ with a penchant for everyone’s leftovers! The Skipper simply has to roll on both to have a prompt to get an adventure started.

Physically, What Lurks Above is a simple tri-fold pamphlet. It is surprisingly and decently illustrated and is an easy to pick up roleplaying game. Overall, What Lurks Above is a very bare bones game, but that allows room aplenty for the Skipper and her players to develop the world as they want.