Propping Up Your Pocket

From the moment you see the words “Gleason’s Department Store. Arkham, Mass.” on the lid of the patterned box you know that you have something special in your hands. Open it on the inside of the lid it says “Arkham Leather” above the wallet itself, wrapped in red tissue paper. There is a ‘User Guide: Read Me First’, but honestly, you are not going to read that first. You might look at the ‘Automobile Bail Bond Certificate’ or the ‘Operator’s License’ as issued by the ‘State of New York—Bureau of Motor Vehicles’, with actual headshot photograph attached, but what you are really looking at is the wallet. The brown, real vintage-style leather wallet is also marked with the ‘Arkham Leather’ stamp and inside can be found an embarrassment of riches. There is a ‘Motor Vehicle Registration Card’ issued by The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Dept. of Public Works Registry of Motor Vehicles, a ticket to the ‘Miskatonic University Exhibit Museum’, membership cards for both the ‘Arkham Historical Society’ and ‘The Eye of Amara Society’, a card for the ‘Grafton Diner’, a ‘Locker Rental Assignment—Men’s Gymnasium’ for the local YMCA, a ticket for the ‘Northside Line’ of the ‘Arkham Transit Company’. There is matchbox* for a restaurant, amusingly called ‘The Red Herring’. There are coins and tokens, and even a genuine period key, as well as several dollar bills, and a ‘Prescription Blank National Prohibition Act’ so that the holder can legally drink!

* This is a prop set. Of course, there has to be a matchbox.

The attention to detail is genuinely verisimilitudinous. For example, the card for the ‘Grafton Diner’ has loyalty program punches around its edges, whilst the card for ‘Fennel’s Roadhouse’ has the name ‘Betty’ handwritten on it. The fact that it says, “For Good Time ’Phone 8031’ suggests that this is more than a simple roadside stop offering fuel and lodging.

This then is the Arkham Investigator’s Wallet. It is stunningly stuffed full of things, prop after prop. Things that you and perhaps your players—if you ever let them get their grubby hands on it—are going to be amazed by what they find. Lastly, when you do get to the ‘User Guide: Read Me First’, it explains its use and more. On the back of it is the ‘Arkham Investigator’s Wallet Prop Inventory’, which lists all forty-seven items. Many of them are marked in green, indicating that they can be downloaded and printed out again.

The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society is best known for servicing the great campaigns for Call of Cthulhu with amazing props and objets d’art, such as the Masks of Nyarlathotep Gamer Prop Set and Call of Cthulhu Classic Gamer Prop Set, but with the Arkham Investigator’s Wallet, it has done the reverse. It has provided the Arkham Investigator’s Wallet, not with a campaign, but a scenario which makes use of many of the items to be found within the pockets and folds of the wallet. This is The Dog Walker: A Scenario in 1920s Arkham, inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Shadow Out of Time’. As the title suggests, this takes place in Arkham, so you can make use of Chaosium, Inc.’s Call of Cthulhu: Arkham. It begins with Charlotte Foley, a precocious young dog walker and would-be detective, out walking one of her canine charges behind Christchurch Cemetery when she encounters a man acting strangely as if having some kind of a fit. Rushing to the nearest house—where the occupant, Madge Tomlinson and her friends are discussing plans for the neighbourhood’s annual Halloween party—for help, when she returns, the man has entirely disappeared. All that is left behind is a pair of spectacles and a wallet! What has happened to the man? Charlotte is determined to find out.

The Dog Walker is designed to be played with between two and six Investigators. Six pre-generated Investigators are provided in the book. They include a journalist, a history teacher, a retired cook, a retired professor of physics (with a drinking and gambling problem that may actually help the investigation in certain locations!), and a civil engineer, as well as young Charlotte. This is a nicely genteel selection of Investigators notable for the fact that all but one of them is unarmed, so the scenario is not one designed to be concluded through force of arms. That said, six Investigators does feel slightly too many for the scale of the scenario and perhaps some advice as to which of the six pre-generated Investigators to use with fewer players would have been helpful. The scenario is designed to be played solo, the player taking the role of Charlotte and using the ‘Solo Player PDF’ available to download. Alternatively, a Keeper can run The Dog Walker with the one player who can take the role of Charlotte. Lastly, the Arkham Investigator's Wallet Prop Set does require some customisation and set-up upon the part of the Keeper, removing certain props and adding details to others. The Dog Walker includes full advice for the Keeper as to what needs to be done as part of this set-up. An alternative option might be to combine the scenario with The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection and turn it into an all ‘kids-as-Investigators’ scenario.

The items in the wallet are all clues of course. Some, like the Bail Bond Certificate will hint at the missing man’s background, others such as the key enable easy entry to his nearby home, and still more grant access to otherwise closed locations, the Eye of Amara Society membership card granting the holder entry to the otherwise private members’ society. The clues will take the Investigators back and forth across Arkham, from dives such as Irish mobster Dan O’Bannion’s Lucky Clover Cartage Company to the Orne Library where they might meet Professor Henry Armitage. As the scenario progresses and the Investigators follow up clue after clue, location after location, The Dog Walker becomes a MacGuffin hunt as well. Ultimately though, everything leads back to the missing man and his home.

The Dog Walker is decently supported beyond the solidity of the props from the Arkham Investigator’s Wallet. There is a breakdown of all of the clues and how to prepare them for play—as well as a checklist for those that are pertinent to the scenario, the NPC stats, a timeline, and a map of the Lower Southside neighbourhood where the scenario begins. Physically, the scenario is cleanly laid out, very nicely illustrated (only one piece of artwork lets the look of the book down), and the props to be used in the scenario are also illustrated as well.

It is notable that Charlotte, the young girl and dog walker who makes the discovery of the lost wallet that triggers the mystery in The Dog Walker: A Scenario in 1920s Arkham is a fan of detective stories and Sherlock Holmes in particular. This is because the story itself is reminiscent of one of the best Sherlock Holmes stories, or rather one of the best pastiches. This is The Abergavenny Murder, the first episode in the second series of The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which continued the very fine BBC pairing of Clive Merrison and Andrew Sachs as Holmes and Watson—and Clive Merrison and Michael Williams before that—with stories based on cases mentioned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but never expanded upon. In The Abergavenny Murder, the duo are at home at 221b Baker Street with nothing to do and lamenting the lack of crime to investigate, when a man rushes into their sitting room and drops down dead. Holmes and Watson then have forty-five minutes in which to solve the crime entirely based on the man’s corpse in front of them and what is on his body. It is a delightful ‘ship-in-a-bottle’ style episode and two-hander, displaying all of the personalities of the two men and the author’s inventiveness.

The Dog Walker feels much like this, though much more expansive than four walls of the sitting room at 221b Baker Street, and of course, having a wallet of clues to go on rather than a corpse and the contents of its pockets. Quite so too, since it would hardly be the done thing for young Charlotte to discover a corpse! That though highlights an issue with the scenario in that how does the adult world react to the inquisitiveness of a twelve-year-old? Apart from one NPC whose reaction to Charlotte may play an important role in the scenario, the issue is not addressed.

The Dog Walker: A Scenario in 1920s Arkham is a charmingly parochial mystery, its revelations hinting at the true nature of the universe, rather than fully blasting the minds of the Investigations with its actual uncaring majesty and the insignificance of humanity’s place within it. In fact, the scenario is almost gentle by other scenarios’ standards, there being only the one possible Sanity check in its telling. Which, of course, is how it should be given that Charlotte Foley is just twelve. All of which is supported by the Arkham Investigator’s Wallet and its marvellous props—of which, it should be noted, The Dog Walker: A Scenario in 1920s Arkham uses barely half, enabling the Keeper to return to the wallet to create his own mystery or the author to write a sequel. Above all, together The Dog Walker: A Scenario in 1920s Arkham and the Arkham Investigator’s Wallet are a wonderfully crafted combination that will provide a thoroughly enjoyable and engaging evening’s worth of detective work that will introduce one young lady to the mysteries of the cosmos.

[Free RPG Day 2024] Across the Veil of Time

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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2024 Free RPG Day Module: Across the Veil of Time is Goodman Games’ only contribution to Free RPG Day 2023. It is a scenario for use with the publisher’s highly popular Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and written by the author of the very good Dungeon Crawl Classics #101: The Veiled Vaults of the Onyx Queen (though it should be noted that this is the second scenario by the author to use the word ‘veil’ in the title, so either he should stop now or use ‘veil’ in the title of every scenario from now on as his motif). Across the Veil of Time is designed for First Level Player Characters and can be played through in a single session or so. It is thus a slight affair, though one in which the entirety of time is in danger.

The scenario begins with the Player Characters on their travels reaching a village only to find it devoid of inhabitants. It appears that the village has been abandoned, except for a note on the door of a local haberdashery, “ENTER THE SHOP”, written in the hand of one the Player Characters and on a scrap of his cloak too! What is going on and how did the strange note appear on the door of a shop that the Player Characters have never seen before, in a place that the Player Characters have been to before? This is only the start of the strangeness in Across the Veil of Time. The Player Characters are thrown back in time again and again before they can gather enough clues to have any idea as to what is going on. The scenario ramps up the weirdness and will see the Player Characters racing along a bridge over the Sands of Time, trying not to fall in or be knocked off, and then up the ‘Clock Tower at the Centre of Time’, which of course, looks like a grandfather clock, though one with a cosmically horological mechanism at its heart rather than a simple clockwork. Here they will battle the ‘Time Lord’, the temporal demon, responsible for the situation, hopefully avoid blows from his nasty ‘grim’ Reaper, and save both the other person responsible and the universe!

Time [sic] constraints mean that Across the Veil of Time is a linear adventure. After all, it is designed to be played in a single session. However, it is really a series of puzzle-locked locations. Solve one puzzle and the Player Characters can move on to the next location. It is also very action and combat orientated, and there is very little scope for anything else. For a scenario with such tight playing time constraints, that really is the primary issue with Across the Veil of Time—no room for interaction or roleplaying. There is potential for expansion, especially early on in the scenario, if the Judge wanted to develop it, adding to its time and horological themes, and perhaps adding that the missing interaction and the NPCs necessary for that. Then, if the Player Characters are successful, then everything resets itself, the universe is safe, and all they will be left with is a slight sense of déjà vu… Appropriate, but paltry in terms of reward for having saved the universe.

Physically, Across the Veil of Time is very well presented. Both maps and artwork are decent and handouts, a surprising number for a scenario as short as this, are also good.

2024 Free RPG Day Module: Across the Veil of Time is easy to set up and run, being better as a convention or demonstration scenario. Its theme of facing time running backwards is intriguing, but the format constraints of the scenario being designed for a short, single-session playing time means that it is not explored enough. Without those constraints, the them could have been explored to greater effect and the scenario could have been much, much better. 2024 Free RPG Day Module: Across the Veil of Time is full of thematic potential, but it is just not allowed to fulfil that and so it is just all too slight.

Miskatonic Monday #295: A Sliver of Starlight

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. 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.

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Name: A Sliver of Starlight

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Daniel Chadborn

Setting: New York State, 1983

Product: Weird Haunted House One-Shot
What You Get: Forty-five page, 7.19 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “If you want to see an endangered species, get up and look in the mirror.” – John Young

Plot Hook: A haunted house (or inspiration) attracts the all too curious.

Plot Support: Staging advice, two NPCs, four pre-generated Investigators, and twelve handouts.

Production Values: Decent

Pros

# Multiple set-up options

# Decently done clues and events

# Easily shifted to other locations

# Staged, step-by-step plot

# Easy to adjust to other eras and locations

# Oikopobia

# Eisoptrophobia

# Trypophobia

Cons

# Maps could have been better and clearer

# Needs an edit

# Staged, step-by-step plot

Conclusion

# Clues and events engagingly unsettle the investigation

# Staged, step-by-step haunted house plot that leads elsewhere (and back again)

Miskatonic Monday #294: The Assignment

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. 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.

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Name: The Assignment

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Marco Carrer

Setting: Cthulhu Invictus

Product: One-on-One Scenario
What You Get: Ten page, 310.87 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Sometimes a femme fatale lives up to her name

Plot Hook: A Finder doesn’t always want to find what he’s looking for
Plot Support: Staging advice, one pre-generated Investigator, four NPCs, one handout, floorplans, and one Mythos creature.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Scenario for The 7th Edition Guide to Cthulhu Invictus: Cosmic Horror Roleplaying in Ancient Rome

# One Keeper, one Investigator one-shot

# Short, one session noir-style investigation

# Plot could be adapted to a Noir-style setting

# Strigiformophobia

# Necrophobia

# Teraphobia

Cons

# Needs a good edit

# Familiar noir-style plot

Conclusion

# Short and bloody noir-style investigation

# Serviceable and easy to use

Numenera’s Destiny

Numenera Destiny changes the way in which Numenera Discovery is played and the why it is played. Set billions of years into the future after multiple, highly technological and advanced civilisations have risen and fallen, Numenera is a Science Fantasy roleplaying game of exploration and adventure in the very far future of the Ninth World. In the course of this adventure and exploration, the Player Characters discover secrets, protect communities, and recover and make use of the technologies of the past—Artifacts, Cyphers, and Oddities—to continue to learn and explore. Numenera Destiny, the companion volume to Numenera Discovery, provides a core motivation for the Player Characters, the means to support that motivation with new Character Types and mechanics, new Foci and Descriptors, rules for creating, supporting, and developing Communities, breaking down Cyphers and rebuilding them to new purposes, plus new organisations and creatures, and lastly four scenarios. This motivation centres on the Community. Where in Numenera Discovery it might be a place that the Player Characters simply pass through or come to rescue of, with Numenera Destiny, the Player Characters become part of that community. They protect it. They lead it. They develop it. They build a better future for themselves and the other members of the community, and in the process, they create rather than just scavenge.

Numenera Destiny begins with the new character options. The three new Character Types are the Arkus, the Wright, and the Delve. The Arkus is a natural leader, potentially head of a community, an army, or even a faith, but ultimately a charismatic and social Character Type. The Wright builds and crafts, able to interpret plans and devices found in the ruins of the past, and using ‘Iotum’, scavenged components, design and create cyphers, artifacts, and installations. They are more than mere scholars—they are doers. The Delve is the ultimate explorer of the ruins, but also highly skilled in extracting the ‘Iotum’ that the Wright needs to build. The Arkus begins play with ‘Demeanour of Command’ which forces others to listen to him when not in combat and is naturally a ‘Community Leader’, which increases a community’s rank when he is present. He has precepts which grant him an advantage when dealing with others, such as telling an uplifting ‘Anecdote’ or having a ‘Connection With an Organisation’. Later on, an Arkus can gain followers. The Wright is Trained in Crafting Numenera, and when actively working as a ‘Community Builder’, it improves a community’s infrastructure, is ‘Always Tinkering’ and can create new random Cyphers. He has Inspired Techniques like ‘Right Tool for the Job’, crafting temporary tools from Iotum, gain ‘Extra use’ from an installation or artifact without triggering a depletion roll, and ‘Scramble Machine’ for devices nearby. The Delve spends less time in a community than the other Character Types, and is Trained in ‘Salvaging Numenera’ and as a ‘Community Explorer’, improves its capacity to find resources, open new trade routes, and so on. He has ‘Delve Lore’, which includes ‘Find the Way’ when he is lost and ‘Familiarise’ which enables him to study a region and gain temporary benefits whilst there. Of the three new Character Types, Delve is actually the least interesting, especially at Tier One. Fortunately, the Type gets more interesting at higher Tiers.

It is notable that all three new Character Types have core Community abilities that get better as they improve in Tier. However, Numenera Destiny goes further by providing Community abilities for the three core Character Types from Numenera Discovery. Thus, the Glaive has ‘Community Defender’, the Jack has ‘Community Fixer’ which improves a community’s health or infrastructure Ranks, and the Nano has ‘Community Scholar’, which also improves a community’s health or infrastructure Ranks. Together this balances the old Character Types with the new, though the additions are not as interesting as those for the new Character Types, especially as the Community abilities for the Jack and the Nano are identical.

Numenera Destiny adds thirty-five new Descriptors. The majority of these are designed to support the three new Character Types. Thus, the ‘Articulate’ aids the Arkus who emphasises speech, ‘Beneficent’ is for the Arkus who wants to help, and ‘Civic’ is about working with the community. ‘Curious’ is for the Delve who wants to know more and ‘Risk-Taking’ if he pushes his luck. ‘Imaginative’ and ‘Industrious’ both suit the Wright. Of them all, it does feel as more of them support the Arkus rather than the other Character Types. Similarly, there are over thirty new Foci, and again many support the community and leadership aspect of Numenera Destiny, like ‘Imparts Wisdom’, ‘Shepherds the Community’, and ‘Wields Words Like Weapons’. There are fewer which specifically support the roles of the Wright and the Delve, though ‘Builds Tomorrow’ is exception for the Wright, whilst others such as ‘Adjures The Leviathan’, giving a character control over one of the horrors to be found in the ruins, ‘Dances With Dark Matter’ which grants substance and control of shadows, and ‘Emerged From The Obelisk’ which changes the character’s body structure from flesh to crystalline all support the strangeness to be found beyond the walls of the community in the Ninth World.

Not all of these character options presented in Numenera Destiny are necessarily new. For example, the Arkus and the Delve are similar to the Glint and Seeker Character Types respectively from Character Options 2, whilst several of the Foci and Descriptors originally appeared in Gods of the Fall and Expanded Worlds and other supplements. However, they have been adjusted and redesigned to fit the new edition of Numenera Discovery and the companion volume, Numenera Destiny. It is still possible to play using the earlier iterations or concepts of these Character Types and Foci and Descriptors, but the updated and redesigned versions are more interesting and supportive of the emphasis in Numenera Destiny.

Specifically for the Wright, Numenera Destiny provides detailed, but surprisingly simple salvaging and crafting rules. Anyone can engage in salvaging as they explore the Ninth World, but in the main, the Wright will be at an advantage over other Character Types when he does so. In addition to gaining Cyphers and shin (the catch-all currency of the Ninth World), a successful Salvage Task check will yield ‘Iotum’. This is the catch-all term for scavenged parts, which might be, “silvery canisters filled with colourless goo, or bubbling fluid contained within etched stronglass canisters the size of small houses.” Iotum are then used to construct all manner of devices and installations. ‘Iotum’ can be random items—and there is a table for that accompanied by descriptions of each ‘Iotum’ type—or they might be something that the Wright is looking for. This is particularly likely if the Wright is attempting to construct something from a specific plan. Determining if the scavenger has found the ‘Iotum’ he wants requires a second Salvage Task check. That then is all there is to the salvage rules with more detail devoted to the salvage found than the mechanics of finding it.

The crafting rules are more complex, but not by much. Whether an object or structure is commonplace or numenera, the latter meaning it will have abilities like a cypher or an Artifact, it has as an Assessed Difficulty representing how difficult it is to construct and how long it will take to complete. However, if a numenera object or structure, the Assessed Difficulty is higher. To actually craft an object or structure requires multiple Crafting Task checks, that is, one subtask for each level of the Assessed Difficulty. So, for a Level 3 Cypher, the player has to roll a Crafting Task at difficulty one, then difficulty two, and so on. This can be reduced by a Wright’s Training and abilities, but not Effort as that has an immediate rather than a prolonged use. The same mechanics are used for repairing items, making modifications, and more. The rules are backed with numerous plans, from wooden walls and stone keeps to waterskimmer and windrider vehicles. (Rules for vehicle combat are included in the appendix.) The new Cyphers include several that will help a Wright when crafting, such as ‘Crafter’s Eyes’, thick lenses that when worn provide informative diagrams that help with a construction task or helps the community like the ‘Hiding Alarm Nodule’ that when attached to a building sends it out of phase if it is struck by sufficient force, such as that which might occur during a siege.

A community itself has a Rank and several statistics. These are Government, its leadership and organisational structure; Health, representing the number of able-bodied occupants; Infrastructure, its buildings, roads, and so on; Damage Inflicted, the damage it can do against another community or a horde—either NPCs or beasts; Armour, which protects attacks by other communities or hordes; Modifications are abilities particular to the community which might be a unique building, NPC, or skill; and Combat, which consists of abilities similar to Modifications, but combat-related. It is possible that the values for all will change over time due to circumstances internal and external, and once it is large enough, it can conduct Community Actions. This might be to open up trade with another community, send the militia to the walls to defend against a horde, dealing with disasters, and so on. Here again, Numenera Destiny keeps things simple. A community with a higher Rank wins, whether that is in negotiating a trade agreement, withstanding an attack by a horde, or surviving an earthquake. That though is if there are no Player Characters involved. If there are, the different Character Types enhance the various stats for a community, the Player Characters can undertake some of the community actions, and the Player Characters can invest themselves in the community’s future. The Arkus can lead and speak for it, the Wright can improve and repair it, the Glaive can protect it, whilst the Delve, the Jack, and the Nano can support everyone’s endeavours.

The advice for both Game Master and players is that a community—whether is one that the characters have adopted or founded—is not simply there for the characters’ benefit. (If it is, it more likely to be based occupied and run by the Player Characters.) Whilst the Player Characters do gain from living in a community, the other inhabitants will gain also, and the interaction with the inhabitants will not be all one way, even if the Player Characters’ fostering of community places them in positions where it can direct its future. There are suggestions too on the types of adventures that can be run based around the adoption or founding of a community, as well as how a community might be laid out, and a lengthy list of long-term tasks that the Player Characters can undertake. Some are general like building up food or water stores, enhancing a community’s happiness, or even raising a child, whilst many others are specific to a Character Type. An Arkus could ‘Demonstrate Grace Under Pressure’ or ‘Cultivate Followers’, whilst a Delve would ‘Prospect for Iotum’ or ‘Find Specific Iotum’. Add in the table of random events and Numenera Destiny provides the means to run a campaign grounded in a community which could last years, both in terms of play and in the setting itself. The advice to that end is excellent.

As well as rules for creating and running communities, Numenera Destiny describes several actual communities of varying sizes that the Player Characters might encounter in and around the Steadfast, the starting area for Numenera, and then in the Beyond. They include a nomadic community that rarely stays in one place for more than a few years as the inhabitants follow the shambling mountain-like Dream Titans; an arcology that migrates up and down the Sea of Secrets off the coast of Steadfast; and a mountain city over which floats an enormous artifact called the ‘Changing Moon’, the façade and interior of which constantly changes and is the subject of study by scholars. There are several descriptions of smaller communities too, less detailed and intended to be used as ‘Starter Communities’ that the Player Characters can adopt, protect, and develop. All come with their own stats and they can just as easily be used as locations to be added to the Game Master’s campaign. Added to this are details of various organisations, including notable members, facilities, and benefits of membership. They include the Amber Gleaners, a network of scholars, explorers, delves, and other travellers who share knowledge of the routes and locations they discover with each other; the Order of Healing, a relatively new offshoot of the Order of Truth, whose members travel the Steadfast and the Beyond, offering healing and medical aid; and the League, an organisation of envoys that foster communication between communities and the benefits of civilisation, though some wonder if it has an ulterior motive…

Besides providing an array of new Cyphers and beasts and NPCs, again all of which are designed to support stories and adventures around communities—whether as allies, enemies, or hordes, Numenera Destiny includes four scenarios. ‘The Door Beneath the Ocean’ is a community-starter scenario as the Player Characters come to the rescue of refugees fleeing both an active volcano and a cruel slave keeper, and then decide where to establish a new home for them. ‘Trefoil’ gives the Player Characters the opportunity to go and hunt for a particular type of iotum, but the situation where it can be found is more complex than the rumours say it is. In ‘Red Plague’, the player Characters come to the aid of the village of Glaww whose inhabitants are suffering from a deadly disease, but to save them, they will benefit from the skills of a Delve and then a Wright. Lastly, ‘Terminus’ scales up, being designed for higher Tier Player Characters with plenty of playing background behind them and the time to build up a stock of resources. These are necessary when they discover a dangerous threat that is first a problem for their community and then the world. This fourth scenario is the least immediately useful, as its requirements are much higher, but the others work as good set-up for a community-based campaign.

Physically, Numenera Destiny is very well presented and put together. Although it needs a slight edit in places, the book is well written, and everything is easy to grasp. Above all, the artwork is excellent and this is a great looking book.

Numenera Destiny is not absolutely necessary to play Numenera Discovery. Yet Numenera Destiny offers so many great options in terms of what you play and how you play, taking a campaign in a different, more involved direction, and giving scope for the players and their characters to become more invested in the Ninth World, that ultimately, it really does feel as if it is definitely going to be wanted.

Dune Dénouement

If a licensed roleplaying game is based around a big story, the question is, how does its publisher address that story? Does it ignore it in favour focusing upon the setting instead? Does it incorporate it into the roleplaying game and make it a feature? The problem being that the events of the big story are inviolate and no matter what the players and their characters do, they cannot change them. Does this then undermine character agency? The One Ring: Roleplaying in the World of Lord of the Rings from Free League Publishing sets its stories between the two pillars of the intellectual property it is based upon, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, giving it a sixty-year window in which a campaign can be set. Similarly, Green Ronin’s A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying: A Game of Thrones Edition, based on George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series is set a century before the events of the books. Victory Games published multiple scenarios for James Bond 007: Role-Playing In Her Majesty’s Secret Service, most of them quite tightly based on a particular film, but written in such a way that if the players followed the actions of James Bond in the films, their characters would fail. Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: The Roleplaying Game, published by Modiphius Entertainment, does all of these—and more, for it has a more difficult path to tread.

Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: The Roleplaying Game enables the players to create characters who are members of a noble house and roleplay them as they work to improve the fortunes of their house. Those fortunes are bound up in Arrakis, the desert world that is the source of the Spice Melange that underpins the economy and structure of the Known Universe. Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune began their story with a big ‘what-if?’. What if the Player Characters’ was appointed control of Arrakis instead of House Atreides and so supplanted House Harkonnen? The consequences and ongoing story were explored in Masters of Dune, but with the Fall of the Imperium Campaign Sourcebook, the players, their characters, and the campaign collide head on with the events of Dune—as depicted in the book and on screen—and ride that sandstorm all the way through to the unleashing of a great change. Their story will weave in and around the secret compact between the Emperor and House Harkonnen to unseat House Atreides, the rise of Muad’Dib, the fall of the Imperium, and the Jihad that followed. The Player Characters cannot change any of these events through their actions, but what they can do is explore some of the consequences to what happens on Arrakis that would otherwise take place in the background, participate in them, in the process tell their own story. That is their agency.

The Fall of the Imperium Campaign Sourcebook requires some set-up if run as a sequel to Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune and Masters of Dune. The Herald of Change will come to the Player Character’s house and announce that the Emperor has awarded stewardship of Arrakis to House Atreides. This still sets up the events of Dune since House Harkonnen hates House Atreides and the Emperor can use that hatred to destroy a rival. The Player Characters will also maintain a presence on Arrakis, though no longer a major one, and will likely have formed a relationship with House Harkonnen—whether as allies or enemies—especially if their house replaced the Harkonnens in Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: Agents of Dune. The relationship between the Player Characters and House Harkonnen, and possibly with the Emperor himself, is important throughout the plot of the Fall of the Imperium Campaign Sourcebook. This is because it is one way in which the characters—and more importantly, the players—are forced to make choices that do not adhere to the plot of the novel as the characters are only aware of the obvious events rather than the secret events. So, what the Player Characters are aware of is that House Atreides has lost and House Harkonnen has won, and thus the question is—even though they as players know that Paul Atreides has survived—who does their house ally itself with? And then in the aftermath of the fall of House Corrino, how closely and openly do they ally with the new Emperor?

Fall of the Imperium consists of four parts which will take the Player Characters and their House from the Imperium through to the Ascension of Paul Muad’Dib. It opens with ‘The Gathering Storm’ with the replacement of House Harkonnen as the siridar governor of Arrakis by House Atreides and with the perceived weakening of the Harkonnens, House Ecaz seeks the Player Characters’ aid in taking its revenge for a past feud. Here, for the first time, there appears a theme that runs throughout the campaign—making alliances. There is always a choice of choosing between an alliance with or against House Harkonnen, but this like so many of the other choices throughout the campaign is never morally black or white. There are always advantages and disadvantages to any choice that the Player Characters have to make, which will extend from their dealings with House Harkonnen in the opening and middle parts of the campaign to their interaction with Emperor Shaddam IV in its climax and Emperor Paul Muad’Dib in the aftermath. Either way, the Player Characters will initially discover evidence of House Harkonnen’s stashing away Spice, but there is little that they can do with the information before events get out of control as the Player Characters trace a killer in the desert—with the unexpected help of the Spacing Guild—all the way to Kaitain. Yet before the Player Character can do anything with information they have gained, they return to Arrakis and get embroiled in the swirling mass of Harkonnen troops, backed up by the Emperor’s dread Sardaukar, as they assault House Atreides on Arrakis.

If ‘The Gathering Storm’ funnels the Player Characters down onto Arrakis in a maelstrom of death and destruction, ‘Muad’Dib’ opens up both the campaign and the Known Universe. As House Harkonnen takes control and then ever tighter control of Arrakis, the flow of Spice lessens and house after house is forced to look to other sources. In their hunt for a secure source, the Player Characters will find themselves visiting a variety of locations, such as a ski lodge, where when assassins strike, they will have to escape via ski bikes in James Bond style! The other way in which the campaign opens up is strategically, as play switches to Architect mode, the Player Characters directing house agents on a variety of missions. Although not discussed, these are easily expanded so that the players could roleplay these missions rather than handling them as straightforward dice rolls. After the Player Characters gain proof of how extensive House Harkonnen’s coverup of its Spice mining and reportage, they find themselves the subject of Imperial interest. This is nasty fraught situation and there is no option in terms of what to do with it, as the Player Characters find themselves entertaining the Emperor’s most dangerous representatives—Count Fenring and Lady Margot—and even negotiating with Baron Vladimir Harkonnen!

Events hurtle towards a climax as the flow of Spice from Arrakis dwindles and the Landsraad Council is divided over what to do about House Harkonnen’s growing mismanagement of Arrakis. The failure forces everyone to act, the Emperor coming directly to Arrakis and the Player Characters manoeuvred into intervening on their own. ‘Fall of the Imperium’ will culminate in the scenes in the Imperial throne room as Paul Maud’Dib confronts Emperor Shaddam IV and reveals himself as Duke Paul Atreides. The campaign takes an interesting change of tone as a regime change institutes a degree of uncertainty in how the Imperium works. Loyalties old and new are tested again and again as the old order faces a whirlwind of change, part of its fuelled by the new Emperor’s desire for revenge. In turn, the Player Characters are ordered to enact that revenge on an ally, scour the old Imperial capital in search of art, secrets, or people—or a combination of all three before the jihad falls upon it, even clear their names. If the Player Characters have more choice in this last part of the campaign, then their actions have more consequences, potentially leading to their own deaths or even the destruction of their house.

Rounding out Fall of the Imperium is ‘Adventures in the Era of Muad’Dib’. This is guidance on running and playing Dune – Adventures in the Imperium: The Roleplaying Game in the era of the new Emperor. This includes advice on portraying Paul in this period, on what the altered priorities are of the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild, and the role of Paul’s new faith. This is represented mechanically by a faction template for the Qizarate and a number of associated Talents. The advice for the Game Master highlights the dangers of the Jihad, the autocracy of Paul’s reign as Emperor, and the possibilities of conspiracy and counter-revolution. The advice short, but solid, and doubtless, a whole supplement could be devoted to this. There are also some scenario hooks for the Game Master to develop.

The is very much a book of two halves, one half consisting of acts one and three—‘The Gathering Storm’ and ‘Fall of the Imperium’—and other half acts two and four—‘Muad’Dib’ and ‘War Across a Million Worlds’. In ‘The Gathering Storm’, the Player Characters are being pushed towards history and then in ‘Fall of the Imperium’, they are riding its waves, whereas in both —‘Muad’Dib’ and ‘War Across a Million Worlds’, they have far more freedom to act. The consequences are greater, especially in ‘War Across a Million Worlds’, but they do have more freedom to act. Similarly, in ‘War Across a Million Worlds’ the writers have greater freedom in their writing, no longer quite hemmed in by the plot of the novel. Whereas in ‘The Gathering Storm’ and ‘Fall of the Imperium’, the Player Characters are constantly coming up against that plot, encountering events portrayed in Dune, but at a distance or being involved in events that take place offscreen. The latter are more effective then the former, but in places it feels as if the Player Characters are there to witness what was not explicitly written down. The worst example of this is the attack on the sietch by the Sardaukar in which Paul’s first son, Leto, is killed, which the Player Characters are forced to accompany. There is almost nothing that the Player Characters can do to change the outcome, effectively meaning their agency is undone by plot immunity. Fans of Dune may well enjoy having their characters present at many of these scenes, but too often they feel like exposition that only serves to highlight the difficulties of writing a campaign set in and around the events of a great novel.

Physically, the Fall of the Imperium Campaign Sourcebook is very well presented. The layout is clean and tidy and the artwork is excellent.

The Fall of the Imperium Campaign Sourcebook is an ambitious attempt to do the impossible—write a roleplaying campaign based on the events of the seminal novel that the roleplaying game is based upon. Fortunately, that ambition is fulfilled and the result is a campaign, that at its best, is often morally difficult and full of challenging situations, which takes the Player Characters through the events of Dune and beyond. At its worst though, are the situations with a lack of agency which relegates the characters and their players to the role of spectators. Nevertheless, if the Player Characters and their House survive the events covered in the Fall of the Imperium Campaign Sourcebook, then they really will have awoken.

[Free RPG Day 2024] Second Contact

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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In 2017, Paizo, Inc. published Starfinder: First Contact, a preview of and teaser for its then forthcoming Starfinder, the Science Fantasy roleplaying game which takes the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game forward thousands and thousands of years and to the stars. So it is most appropriate that as a preview of and teaser for the forthcoming Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Second Edition, Paizo, Inc. has released Starfinder: Second Contact for Free RPG 2024. Where the task of Starfinder: First contact was to introduce the new roleplaying game and highlight some of the differences between it and the Starfinder Roleplaying Game, the task of Starfinder: Second Contact is to reintroduce us to the Starfinder Roleplaying Game and highlight some of the differences between it and the Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Second Edition as seen in the Starfinder Playtest Rulebook.

The introduction highlights how the Starfinder Roleplaying Game is going to evolve to be in line with Pathfinder, Second Edition, before jumping straight into ‘What’s New?’. These start with elements and skills that appear in the monster descriptions given in the booklet’s following pages. For example, the ‘Integrated Weapons’ appears in the entry for robots and new skills include Computers and Piloting used by both the Asteray and the Glitch Gremlin. Similarly, several of the spells are used by those creatures. They include Delete, a spell used to remove a limited amount of data, whilst the cantrip, Recharge Weapon, reloads a weapon with a round’s worth of ammunition upon a touch. The new weapons are a couple of laser guns, whilst the rest of the Starfinder: Second Contact is really all about the monsters. These start with the Asteray, Fey Tricksters born where the void and the First World overlap, they wander space looking for distractions and starship crews to consume, and end with the Cybernetic Zombie, which might have an arm cannon or a shriek module or repair nanites! In between, there are Security Robots, Glitch Gremlins—which of course, want to cause mayhem, Laser Wolves, and Ferrofluid Oozes, sentient puddles of ferromagnetic fluids that interfere with technological devices of all sorts. Every creature is given a full page description, stats, and an illustration.

Like the earlier Starfinder: First Contact, there is little to the background of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game to Starfinder: Second Contact. There is mention that Golarion, the setting for Pathfinder, is missing, that rumours arose during the Drift Crisis of super-size versions of Ferrofluid Ooze, capable of consuming whole ships, and that the AbadarCorp is responsible for the manufacture of most robots in the Pact Worlds, becoming a byword for guaranteed quality, but making their weakness commonly known so that criminals and spies can take advantage of them.

Being a release from Paizo, Inc., it should be no surprise that Starfinder: Second Contact is a slickly produced and well-presented booklet. Much like with Starfinder: First Contact for Free RPG Day 2017, Starfinder: Second Contact is very technical in nature in comparison to the other releases for Free RPG 2024. Nevertheless, Starfinder: Second Contact is a solid introduction to the technical elements of the roleplaying game, one aimed more at fans of the roleplaying game rather than the general roleplayer.

[Free RPG Day 2024] Death Out of the Stars

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Death Out of the Stars is a scenario for Plague Bearer: Dark Fantasy Roleplaying. This is the fantasy version of Zombicide Chronicles: The Roleplaying Game. Published by CoolMiniOrNot and Guillotine Games, Plague Bearer: Dark Fantasy Roleplaying is the roleplaying adaptation of Zombicide: Black Plague, the medieval adaptation of the board game of Zombicide, 2nd Edition, which of course, is given its own roleplaying game with Zombicide Chronicles: The Roleplaying Game. The scenario is short, playable in a single session, and can be played using the Plague Bearer Quickstart Rules, which also has the six pre-generated adventurers needed to play. Death Out of the Stars can also be run as a sequel to ‘Blood and Wine’, the scenario in the Plague Bearer Quickstart Rules or simply be inserted into the Game Master’s campaign.

Death Out of the Stars begins en media res. The Player Characters—or Survivors—are on the run, being chased by a large horde of the undead, their only route forward being to cross a wooden bridge to Nahum Island. Fortunately, the wood of the bridge is rotten and collapses under the weight of the charging corpses, dashing them onto the rocks below. Unfortunately, the wood of the bridge is rotten and collapses under the weight of the charging corpses, trapping the Survivors on the island. The island is heavily wooded and with its steep cliffs and rocky shores, would be to be ideal holdout against the cadaver cavalcade which has arisen elsewhere in Wulfsburg. Unfortunately, the island too seems bereft of the living, although its undead strangely bloodless when compared to those of the mainland—grey of pallor as if drained of colour and wasting away to dust. Similarly, buildings are rapidly deteriorating and collapsing into piles of dust. Consequently, it looks like Nahum Island is not the refuge that the Player Characters might have hoped that it would be. They must face more zombies—even if they are different to the ones across the water—and discover what is happening on Nahum Island before making their escape, ideally after having dealt with the problem.

Horror fans may well recognise the reference in the scenario’s title and Death Out of the Stars certainly has a Lovecraftian feel to it. If one half of the scenario is the cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft, the other half is the corruptive influence of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, as if a lump of Warpstone had fallen from the sky. This gives the scenario an unsurprisingly grim tone, far less cartoonish than that of Zombicide Chronicles: The Roleplaying Game. Still, as befits a scenario set within a Zombicide setting, there is still scope for bloody—or in this case, dusty—action.

Physically, Death Out of the Stars is very well presented. The scenario is decently written and both the artwork and the maps are excellent.

Death Out of the Stars is a weird and creepy scenario in between the blasts of sword swinging, mace bashing action as the Survivors hold back the members of the cadaver cavalcade and try and work out what is going on on Nahum Island. It is a pleasing shift of tone from the often-cartoonish style of Zombicide Chronicles: The Roleplaying Game and is a solid addition to any Plague Bearer: Dark Fantasy Roleplaying campaign.

[Free RPG Day 2024] A Journey in Eana -1

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Fateforge: A Journey in Eana -1 is an introduction to Fateforge: Epic tales in the World of Eana, the epic, swords & sorcery, high magic setting for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Studio Agate—best known for Shadows of Esteren, the award-winning dark, horrific, and low fantasy roleplaying game—this introduction looks at the game line itself and what it offers, each of the four core books, the setting and its cosmology, and a scenario, ‘Super Digger 12000’. It opens though, with an introduction to the line and what marks it out as different, in particular its modularity in terms of atmosphere, the Game Master and her players having choices such as ‘Action’, ‘Dark’, ‘Gritty’, ‘Intrigue’, and ‘Mystery’, so that they get the type of game that they want to play. There are new archetypes keyed to the twelve base classes of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, optional rules such as sparing and wounding, background creation, geomagic where the flow of magic can vary from location to location, and more. Noted also is how Wizards of the Coast’s decision to end the OGL in 2023, since retracted, affected the future of Fateforge: Epic tales in the world of Eana as an ongoing series, however, the first four books—Fateforge: Epic tales in the World of Eana 1. Characters, Fateforge: Epic tales in the World of Eana 2. Grimoire, Fateforge: Epic tales in the World of Eana 3. Creatures, and Fateforge: Epic tales in the World of Eana 4. Encyclopaedia—are still published under the terms of the OGL and Studio Agate has made all four ‘Pay What You Want’.

The description of the world of Eana focuses on the Fateforge, integral to the mythology of Eana. Said to be hidden in the depths of the world and at the centre of a massive maze, its most renowned ability is that of birthing gods of those that find it and use, though it is also said to grant wishes. Those that search for it are the ‘Fate-Chosen’, though not all ‘Fate-Chosen’ do go in search of it. The ‘Fate-Chosen’ are different from ordinary men and women, whether they have been chosen by the gods, are the descendants of the ancients known as the Travellers, driven by their own will, or simply lucky, they posses great powers and great skill. They are in turn looked upon with admiration, envy, or fear. The Player Characters are, of course, ‘Fate-Chosen’. In addition, there flavour and detail about the world of Eana, including a slight description of Geomagic, how magic can vary in intensity from one place to another and Canker, a corruptive force whose origins and nature are as much feared and discussed as the location of the Fateforge and the origins of the ‘Fate-Chosen’ are debated. Altogether, it feels like a series of snapshots and very much a potted overview of the setting rather than a coherent write-up. In fact, the descriptions of the four books and the differences in terms of mechanics are more accessible.

The scenario in Fateforge: A Journey in Eana -1 is ‘Super Digger 12000’. This highlights another aspect of the setting not covered elsewhere in the introduction—technology. The mercadin—or merchant—Nevrec, has hired craftsmen to create a revolutionary digging machine that he hopes will open up shorter trade routes underground! The Player Characters are hired to aid and protect the drill’s maiden voyage with its crew of Drow, Duergar, and Svirfneblin. As the unique magic and steam-driven vehicle drives down into the bowels of Eana, the Player Characters should begin to feel that it the journey is not going quite as planned. First, it pierces a kheg nest full of eggs and is then ambushed by a Duergar force! There are some other fun encounters along the way, including having to hunt rust monsters for enough chitin to repair the underground drill. The scenario is linear and short, and as written looks to be fairly combat heavy. Combat is not the only solution to every situation, though, and the Player Characters will also have to interact with the vehicle’s crew and leader. It is a decent enough scenario, although it feels rushed in places. The main issue is the lack of suggestion as to the Level of the Player Characters it is written for. From the monsters included, it should be for Player Characters of Seventh and Eighth Level.

Rounding out Fateforge: A Journey in Eana -1 is a bestiary of all of the NPCs and creatures that appear in the scenario. The NPCs are given as archetypes rather than named NPCs, which does mean that they feel underwritten. That said, the descriptions of their personalities and motives are given in the text of the scenario. The monsters are all decently done, many of them decently illustrated, such as the Rust Monster Matriarch.

Physically, Fateforge: A Journey in Eana -1 is very well presented and the artwork is fantastic. Yet as written, it is intriguing rather than informative, the details about the world given a very broad treatment. As a result, Fateforge: A Journey in Eana -1 is underwhelming as an introduction to the world of Eana and the reader may simply want to bypass this and download Fateforge: Epic tales in the World of Eana 1. Characters.

Home Front Horror

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It is pitches the Allied Agents of the Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance into a secret war against those Nazi Agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. They are willing to risk their lives and their sanity against malicious Nazi villains and the unfathomable gods and monsters of the Mythos themselves, each striving for supremacy in mankind’s darkest yet finest hour! Yet even the darkest of drives to take advantage of the Mythos is riven by differing ideologies and approaches pandering to Hitler’s whims. The Black Sun consists of Nazi warrior-sorcerers supreme who use foul magic and summoned creatures from nameless dimensions to dominate the battlefields of men, whilst Nachtwölfe, the Night Wolves utilise technology, biological enhancements, and wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) to win the war for Germany. Ultimately, both utilise and fall under the malign influence of the Mythos, the forces of which have their own unknowable designs…

Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Seventh-Inning Slaughter! is a short, but very different adventure for the roleplaying game. It takes place on the fourth of July, 1943—America’s Independence Day!—and far away from the war in Europe. Inspired by films such as A League of Their Own, Bull Durham, and Field of Dreams, it takes place at a baseball match at Beyer Stadium in Rockford, Illinois, between the Rockford Peaches, one of the four original professional teams making up the new All-American Girls Baseball League, and the Kinosha Comets. Not only that, but the president, Franklin Roosevelt, is there to watch the game as well! Unfortunately, so is Jörg Becker, a Nazi sorcerer, determined to prove both himself a capable agent to his Black Sun masters and thus get promoted, and that no-one is safe from the reach of Nazi Germany, not even thousands of miles away on American home soil. In addition to a period flyer for the baseball game itself, the scenario does come with four pre-generated Player Characters. Two of these are baseball players on the Rockford Peaches roster, so that they can be involved in the game as it is played and the scenario progresses. This enables some of the Player Characters to be involved in on-field events whilst the others can get involved in off-field events. That said, the progress of the game is given from one innings to the next so that it can be tracked even as the Player Characters investigate elsewhere in the stadium. What it does mean though, is that Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Seventh-Inning Slaughter! can either be played as a one-shot or as an introduction to Achtung! Cthulhu with its events serving as the Player Characters’ first encounter with the Mythos, in addition to being played as part of an ongoing campaign. The latter is the most difficult option to work, primarily because the Game Master will need to explain why agents of Section M, Majestic, and the Resistance are in the USA in 1942 rather then in Europe. Members of Majestic would be easier to explain, but several options are suggested, such as being debriefed by Majestic or undergoing training close by.

The scenario is staged over the course of the game’s seven innings, with stranger and stranger and deadlier things happening as the game progresses from one innings to the next. Food turns rotten and writing with worms, a foul ball inflicts an injury on someone in the crowd, a lightning storm gathers and a dog turns insane, a player suddenly begins to vomit, and more… The events get nastier and bloodier as the scenario progresses. In response, the Player Characters are likely to finds themselves chasing strange occurrences and horrible events back and forth across the stadium, the one constant being that the same man—or someone like him—keeps appearing again and again. Of course, this is no coincidence, Jörg Becker, using versions of himself to spread uncertainty and horror around the stadium until he is ready to bring his plan to fruition. This is to summon up something ghastly and take Nazi Germany’s revenge upon the USA for entering the war by striking directly at the president! Preventing this, though, will be a challenge for the Player Characters. This will either because they have little to no experience with the Mythos or they have come for a relaxing day out and so are not as fully equipped as they would be if they were on a mission to fight the Secret War against the enemy’s occult agents. That said, the pre-generated Player Characters do have access to some weapons—if not immediately to hand, then close by—and they do include an occult scholar capable of casting a spell or two.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Seventh-Inning Slaughter! is cleanly and tidily laid out, and comes with a map of a baseball stadium. It does not have any artwork beyond the flyer for the baseball game.

Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Seventh-Inning Slaughter! is different, an initially unassuming and undemanding affair that grows increasingly fraught and frightful as the full powers of its antagonist are realised. There is not much that the Player Characters can really do to stop Jörg Becker’s plans until it is almost too late, but they will be kept busy until then doing a lot of clean-ups of the ‘little’ horrors he sows into the stadium, and hopefully by then, they will armed and ready. Overall, Achtung! Cthulhu Mission: Seventh-Inning Slaughter! is an entertaining change of locale and circumstances combined with a swirling morass of Mythos events leading to the big finale as you would expect.