Miskatonic Monday #364: The Borrowed

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: The Borrowed

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Sean Liddle

Setting: World War II Plymouth

Product: Outline
What You Get: Eleven page, 948.91 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Three Go Mad in Devon (Again)

Plot Hook: How did Daisy the cow leave her field without a trace?

Plot Support: Staging advice

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Sequel to HUM

# Pleasing sense of a rural idyll

# Detailed outline

# Potential for child-like curiosity and terror

# Potential for sequels

# Petraphonia

# Claustrophobia

# Entomophobia

Cons

# No pre-generated Investigators
# Outline rather than scenario

Conclusion

# Engaging low key scenario accross a landscape of secrets

# Detailed outline still leaves the Keeper with lots of work to do, exactly like HUM

Miskatonic Monday #363: Cold Brood

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: Cold Brood

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Mitchell Harrop, Eric Jong, & Alex Shermon

Setting: Ballarat, 1925

Product: Scenario for Terror Australis: Call of Cthulhu in the Land Down Under

What You Get: Sixty-two page, 19.21 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Is this going to be a stand-up fight, sir, or another bug hunt?” – PFC Hudson, Aliens

Plot Hook: “Them! Them!” – The Ellinson Girl, Them!

Plot Support: Staging advice, nineteen NPCs, eight handouts, two maps, and one monster

Production Values: Decent

Pros

# Ballarat, Mythos (Monster) central, Australia?

# Big bug hunt!

# Highly detailed and organised investigation

# Well researched scenario

# Entomophonia

# Ombrophobia

# Selenophobia

Cons

# Ballarat, Mythos (Monster) central, Australia?

# No pre-generated Investigators

# No Investigator motive

# Big bug hunt!

# Not a Mythos scenario

# Needs an edit

Conclusion

# Highly detailed investigation

# Classic big bug hunt!

Operative Disorientation

SLA Industries is the roleplaying game set in a far future dystopia of corporate greed, commodification of ultraviolence, the mediatisation of murder, conspiracy, and urban horror, and serial killer sensationalism. S.L.A. Industries has its headquarters on Mort City, its rain sodden, polluted, and overly populated heart, located on the industrially stripped planet of Mort and surrounded by five Cannibal Sectors, and from here it governs the planet and the World of Progress beyond, encompassing all of known space. It is here the citizens come from far and wide to enlist in Meny to become SLA Operatives and part of the mediatised programme even as they protect SLA Industries and the World of Progress from innumerable threats from without—and some from within. SLA Operatives are the creme de la creme, whose actions caught on camera garner them sponsorship, TV deals, promotions, better missions, and the best weapons that the company can offer. Every SLA Operative is a would be star. You, however are nobody, a fuck-up in the waiting, a wannabe without the brains to realise how shit you are, thinking that you are really hot, when you are just waiting for an actual SLA Operative to slice and dice you without even thinking about it or a serial killer to add you to his kill count and his path to recognition.

This is not the subject of SLA Industries, the flagship roleplaying game from Nightfall Games, but of SLA Borg, a wholly idiotic interpretation of the setting of the World of Progress—in more senses than one—that requires an entirely different and more brutally blunt game system. That game system is Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. What this means is that SLA Borg brings the World of Progress to the Old School Renaissance, though not SLA Industries since the approach to playing both roleplaying games varies widely. Funded via a successful Kickstarter campaign, SLA Borg includes the full rules for creating very disposable anti- or non-‘heroes’, handling actions and combat, a bestiary of foes that are going to be really annoyed if the fuckwits bother them, and the means to facilitate the Broken Biscuits’ probable screwups.

SLA Borg takes the setting deep into Downtown, the home of the Broken Biscuits, the civilian housemates—so think The Young Ones believing themselves to be members of the SPG—who think they are an Operative squad. This is because in the weird architecture of their sector, the housemates have been affected by The Dream, the virulent infection that decays reality. Under the effect of The Dream and the massive influence of drugs—lots of drugs—and alcohol, the Broken Biscuits think they are doing good and daily visit the sector house to collect assignments known as BPNs or ‘Blue Print News’ files from Mr. Slayer in person. Except what is actually happening is that they scrounging ‘BPMs’ or ‘Bus Pass Missions’ off the floor under the eye of a large, black and white cat, which surprisingly looks like Mr. Slayer, and is thus therefore known as Mister Slayurrr. Then they go out, attempt to complete the BPM and so help the local community be a better place, when in actuality, the local community collectively the Broken Biscuits are useless wankers. And if they get hurt, then they can get to Mike’s Kebabs, where they can scarf down donar kebabs consisting of surprisingly aromatic meat of dubious origin doused in sauce so hot they will be glad they keep their toilet rolls in the fridge. All because the kebabs of Mike’s Kebabs are renowned for their healing properties.

Rather than creating a Biscuit from scratch, a player selects one of the housemates out of the eight included, such as Digglet, a dayglo pink Manchine who thinks he is Digger, the meanest Manchine ever; Toothy Grin, either a giant rat or someone in a giant rat suit, who thinks he is both a mascot for Big Smile Burgers and a giant rat; and Klick’s End Kenny, a glue-sniffing, cider swigging lout. Then he rolls for his Knucklehead Origin, like Asylum Escapee, Plain Ass Scuzz, and Sloppy Drunk Bum, and his Speciality, like Knives Everywhere—really everywhere, Idiot Savant, and Quest Giver, who is really good at scouring the bus terminal floor for BPMs. The Biscuit is then put through a very simple lifepath system which determines adjustments to the stats—Agility, Knowledge, Presence, Strength, and Toughness, and rolls to see if they are actually alien. If they are, they are probably either deluded—actually, more deluded—or faking it.

Mechanically, SLA Borg is quite simple. Actions and attacks require a roll of a twenty-sided die to beat a Difficulty Rating, from incredibly simple or six, all the way up to should not be possible or eighteen, with twelve being normal. Stat ratings are added as necessary. Combat typically requires a roll against a Difficulty Rating of twelve and the combat rules do cover the use of firearms as well as melee weapons. This includes simple rules for handling ammunition. Rolls of twenty are critical and rolls of one are fumbles. The mechanics are player facing, so that a player will roll for his Biscuit to attack and then roll for his Biscuit to avoid being attacked.

So what do you play in SLA Borg? It includes ideas for BPMs of all types—Mauve, Pink, Starch, Bleu, Lemon, Brown, and because Nightfall Games is a Scottish publisher, Tartan and Paisley. There are almost all sixty or so ideas contained in the BPM section. They vary in detail, a few being ready to play, most requiring some degree of preparation. There is a bestiary too and details of various drugs and alcoholic drinks. Despite this, SLA Borg is not really suited to long term play. After all, there is no means of improving a Biscuit, no means of moving up or getting out...

Physically, SLA Borg is very well-presented. The artwork is as good as to be expected for a vaguely SLA Industries-related supplement, the writing is decent, and it gets away with not needing an index with its relatively short page length.

So… SLA Borg is a dumb game. Intentionally so. It is meant to be dumb. You are playing dumb characters, doing dumb things, because they hold dumb beliefs. Yet the Biscuits in SLA Borg are more victims than they are inadvertent monsters (though they may end doing foolishly monstrous things), victims of the World of Progress, victims of the hopelessness, victims of The Dream. Ultimately, they are victims because they actually want to be better and they want to make a difference, because they know that is what a SLA Operative is meant to do in order to get famous, but none of this is attainable and their attempts to do better and be better, are doomed to failure. SLA Borg is dumbass fun, playing fuckups who are going fuck up, just for a ‘Bus Pass Mission’ or two, but at the same time, it does shine a light, from below, on just how rotten SLA Industries and the World of Progress really is.

Mutant Miniature Mayhem II

Since 2015, we have been able to leave the Ark and explore the post-apocalypse, perhaps discover what happened, and even search for somewhere safe to live alongside the different groups. First with the mutants of Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, then with the uplifted animals of Mutant: Genlab Alpha, the robots of Mutant: Year Zero – Mechatron – Rise of the Robots Roleplaying, and with the surviving humans of Mutant: Year Zero – Elysium. These four books consist of campaigns in their own right and they come together in The Gray Death, but the relationships between these diverse groups is not always an easy one and with resources scarce, including artefacts left over from before in the Old Age, it can lead to these very different groups coming to blows—and worse! This then, is the set-up for Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars, a skirmish wargame set in a post-apocalyptic future which takes place in an area known as the Zone.

Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe is a complete skirmish game which comes with everything that you need to play. This includes miniatures, rules, dice, cards, terrain, and more, all designed to be played by two players, aged fourteen and up, and plays in roughly ninety minutes. An expansion, Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics adds a second set of factions so that four players can play. Published by Free League Publishing following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars is notable for a number of things. Most obviously, that it is set in the Mutant: Year Zero universe, and not only that, but it is compatible with the four setting and campaign books for Mutant: Year Zero and the Year Zero mechanics such that it is possible to take a Player Character from one of the roleplaying games and adapt it to Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars. In fact, fans of Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days and Mutant: Genlab Alpha will recognise many of figures in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe as being based on the artwork from those books. As will fans of the computer game, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden. Both Dux, a duck hybrid, and Bormin, a pig hybrid, are included as miniatures in the core game.

Further, it is designed by Andy Chambers, whose wargames pedigree is unparalleled—Necromunda, Battlefleet Gothic, and Warhammer Fantasy Battle for Games Workshop and Dropzone Commander from Hawk Games. Altogether, Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe sounds like an attractive package—and that is before you even get to open the box.

Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics is to date, the only expansion for the game. As with Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars, this comes with can be found ten miniatures, nearly eighty cards, one hundred tokens, ten custom dice, three sheets of cardboard terrain, and a measuring rule. What it does not come with is the rulebook or the map sheet, so the core box is still required to play. The terrain is done in full colour and on heavy cardstock, slotting together easily to create a total of thirteen pieces, consisting of walls, trees, and the ruins of buildings, some of them with an upper floor. The terrain is urban rather than rural, consisting of buildings and walls, with no trees. Notable are the walkways which allow the miniatures to move between buildings above ground level and the damaged remains of a bus, although it could be a train or underground train carriage too. Either way, it is possible to put the miniatures inside it. The terrain also comes apart easily for easy storage. The measuring rule and the tokens are bright and breezy and easy to use and see. The dice consist of two sets, the yellow base dice and the black gear dice, and they are easy to read and feel good in the hand. The cards come in two sizes. The standard size cards consist of the character cards which list each character’s stats, starting gear, and mutations or modules. They are double-sided, one side showing the character healthy, the other when he is bloodied. Other standard size cards depict obstacles and monsters that might be encountered during play, as well as Trigger cards initiate events in a scenario when they are drawn. The small cards consist of the starting equipment, modules, and mutations for the characters, as well as artefacts that can be found and are often being fought over in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars.

Then of course, there are the miniatures. These are done in 32 millimetre, a durable plastic, and divided into two sets of five. One set of five from the Nova Cult Psionicists and one set of five from the Mechatron Robots. All ten miniatures are highly detailed and highly individualised and really stand out in play. As with the miniatures in the core game, they have been given a simple wash that makes them stand out a little more on the table and gives them a matt finish that makes them easier to handle. Fans of the roleplaying games Mutant: Year Zero – Mechatron – Rise of the Robots Roleplaying and Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days will recognise some of the characters portrayed by the miniatures. Lastly, the miniatures, cards, and dice all sit in their own tray which has a lid, for very easy storage. There is even an empty slot on the try in which the game’s tokens can be readily stored.

The scenario booklet for Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics runs to just eight pages and is mostly dominated by the expansion set’s five scenarios. Together they form a linked mini-campaign that plays out across the Zone. A new threat has arisen, one capable of taking control of factions and turning them against each other. This begins with ‘Scenario 1: Monster Bonanza’, which sees more and monsters driven to attack the factions, whilst the true nature of the threat, a murderous mutant chieftain called the Hydra, is revealed in ‘Scenario 2: The Hydra Rises’. In ‘Scenario 3: Escorting the Emperor’, the humans of the Ancients—as depicted in Mutant: Year Zero – Elysium—have returned to build the future of the Dawnworld, but needs protection from the Hydra. In this scenario, the Emperor’s Scrap Carriage—making use of the new terrain piece included in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics—needs to be escorted across the map as it is attacked by Hydra forces, and again, a player’s faction may find itself fulling under Hydra’s influence. The Hydra’s ability to spread his psionic influence is revealed in ‘Scenario 4: Beacons of Hope’, whilst he is finally confronted in ‘Scenario 5: Final Showdown’. All but the first scenario requires a minimum of three players, and all can be played with four players, so at least one of the factions from the core box is required to play through the campaign. They all make use of the Trigger cards to add events and escalate the threat present throughout the mini-campaign.

Each of the two factions in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics are notably different to each other. The Mechatron Robots all have low Survival scores, reflecting their weakness when it comes to avoiding or taking advantage the dangers of the Zone or take of them, whereas the Nova Cult Psionicists are more varied in their ability scores. The Mechatron Robots are also equipped differently to the Nova Cult Psionicists. Where the Nova Cult Psionicists have Mutations such as ‘Puppeteer’, ‘Magnetism’, and ‘Clairvoyance’, the Mechatron Robots have Modules like ‘Pincers’, ‘System Override’, and ‘Grenade Launch’. Each of the models in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics, as in the core game, begins play with a standard Mutation or Module, to which is added a random one at the beginning of play. Other cards add a range of threats and encounters, such as ‘Acid Grass’, ‘Psionic Butterflies’, and ‘Magnetic Field’.

Physically, Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics is very well put together and every is of a decent quality. The cards and the tokens are bright and colourful, the terrain and the map sheet are sturdy if suitably drab, the dice feel good in the hand, and the rulebook is light and easy to read. Above all, the miniatures are superb and really stand out in play, and are pleasingly individual so that you do get attached to them.

Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics opens up a lot of utility and versatility for Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe. New factions and thus new character types, plus new monsters and a new campaign. The only downside to the new campaign is that most of its scenarios require a minimum of three players, limiting its use. There are ways around that, such as the players taking it in turn to control a third faction or playing with two factions each. Of course, there is nothing to stop the scenarios from the core set being played through again, but with the two new factions from Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics. In fact, this a good option if there are only two players and if the players want to get used to playing the new factions before leaping into the campaign in Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics.

If you enjoyed Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Skirmish Mayhem in the Mutant: Year Zero Universe, then Mutant: Year Zero – Zone Wars – Robots & Psionics is definitely going to give you more of what you want.

Magazine Madness 35: Senet Issue 14

The gaming magazine is dead. After all, when was the last time that you were able to purchase a gaming magazine at your nearest newsagent? Games Workshop’s White Dwarf is of course the exception, but it has been over a decade since Dragon appeared in print. However, in more recent times, the hobby has found other means to bring the magazine format to the market. Digitally, of course, but publishers have also created their own in-house titles and sold them direct or through distribution. Another vehicle has been Kickststarter.com, which has allowed amateurs to write, create, fund, and publish titles of their own, much like the fanzines of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest. The resulting titles are not fanzines though, being longer, tackling broader subject matters, and more professional in terms of their layout and design.

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Senet is a print magazine about the craft, creativity, and community of board gaming. Bearing the tagline of “Board games are beautiful”, it is about the play and the experience of board games, it is about the creative thoughts and processes which go into each and every board game, and it is about board games as both artistry and art form. Published by Senet Magazine Limited, each issue promises previews of forthcoming, interesting titles, features which explore how and why we play, interviews with those involved in the process of creating a game, and reviews of the latest and most interesting releases. Senet is also one of the very few magazines about games to actually be available for sale on the high street.

Senet Issue 14 was published in the spring of 2024 and is physically notable for its four-part, split cover inspired by the game Art Society and some classic pieces of artwork from around the world. The editorial highlights the fact that 2024 marked the fiftieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons and that as well as being the first and most successful roleplaying game, it has had its own influence upon boardgames, the editor noting that the first Eurogame inspired by Dungeons & Dragons—2012’s Lords of Waterdeep—was the editor’s first Eurogame. Which means that the editor has been playing Euro-style games for less time than you would think and playing roleplaying games for longer than you would think! Plus the article is a bit of nostalgia upon his part.

The issue proper begins with highlighting some of the forthcoming games with its regular preview, ‘Behold’. There is an unintended theme running through the previewed games, the board game Nature exploring evolution through a series of modules; players finding undiscovered animals on an unexplored mythical island and establishing nature reserves for them in Wondrous Creatures; and critters living in ice floe villages fighting monsters in FLOE, and that is animals and creatures of various kinds. The combat continues in Tibetana, but this is a game in which the aim is to grow by spreading cultures rather than being a game about war without confrontation. It is the most intriguing of titles previewed in the issue, though perhaps not as quite as intriguing as in previous issues of the magazine. ‘Points’, the regular column of readers’ letters, contains a mix of praise for the magazine and a discussion of gaming culture, including suggestions of how to interact with other gamers by focusing on them rather than oneself and a quick report on board game display at the Young Victoria & Albert museum in London. It shoehorns in more letters in than normal, rising from four to five, but as with the previous issues, there is scope here for expansion of this letters page to give space to more voices and readers of Senet, and so build a community. ‘For Love of the Game’, continuing the journey of the designer Tristian Hall towards the completion and publication of his Gloom of Kilforth—and beyond. Here he looks at what to do after the game has been fulfilled via Kickstarter and what the options are if a designer wants to keep the momentum going for his game. As Hall points out, the designer is in sales now. The question is, how more life is there in this journey and should space be made other voices?

The tried and tested format of the magazine continues in Senet Issue 14: Two interviews, one with a designer, one with an artist, and one article exploring a game mechanic whilst another looks at a game theme. It is a format that works well since it throws a light on different aspects of the hobby and its creators. The mechanic in the issue is ‘Conflict of Interest’. Dan Thurot examines the prisoner’s dilemma, the classic scenario in game theory that shows why two rational individuals might not cooperate, even if it is in their best interest to do so. It begins with its historical origins and development by the RAND Corporation and sees how it has been extended into board game design. In doing so, it hits some classic board game designs from the last seventy years. Most notably, Diplomacy, but also Cosmic Encounter from EON and its subsequent reimplementation, Avalon Hill’s Dune. The article looks at the balance between self-interest and the needs of the group, often expressed as the semi-co-operative style of play, and what becomes clear is that the mechanic is used to explore some really interesting themes. In Cosmic Encounter, Dune, and Diplomacy, this was the balance of power, but in games like We’re Sinking! A Pirate’s Dilemma and HMS Dolores, it is about the division of loot, and in the very recent Molly House, from Wehrlegig Games, this is between the need to maintain a group lifestyle and being forced to inform.

Dan Jolin also conducts the issue’s first interview in ‘Larger Than Life’. This is with Brazilian board-game illustrator Weberson Santiago. His artwork was first seen in the international version of Coup, but his art, which he describes as possessing personality, has been seen since in The Bloody Inn, a game of murderous innkeepers from 2015; Avalon: Big Box, a re-implementation of The Resistance: Avalon, the Arthurian version of The Resistance, set in the same universe as Coup; and Kelp, the octopus versus shark game previewed in the previous issue of the magazine. The style is varied, but there is a theatricality and a little of the gothic to much of the artwork on show here. What is always enjoyable about these interviews is that they give an artist the chance to talk about his inspirations and how he interpreted a project.

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the world’s first roleplaying game, Senet Issue 14 does not sidestep into the world of roleplaying, but explores how the world’s first roleplaying game has sidestepped into board games. In ‘The Advance of D&D’, Matt Thrower goes all the back to the first Dungeons & Dragons-inspired, but not an actual official Dungeons & Dragons board game, Dungeon!, before looking at more modern implementations. It points out how Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition was more board game like with its grid-based play, annoying some of the roleplaying game’s players, but attracting board game players in its board game implementation, starting off with Castle Ravenloft. Many of the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired board games are battle rather than dungeon-based, so Lords of Waterdeep is one of the most radical designs to be based on the roleplaying game. This has interesting history, having been developed during lunch hours, but to date, the application of Dungeons & Dragons in board games has mainly been on battles rather than subtler conflicts as in Lords of Waterdeep. The article also suggests some other board games inspired by roleplaying games, but the inclusion of a trading card game like Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, feels like a stretch. Overall, an interesting read that explores Dungeons & Dragons-inspired board games which do more than simulate roleplaying or offer very light roleplaying.

The issue’s designer interview is with David Thompson. In ‘The Good Soldier’, Alexandra Sonechkina interviews the co-designer of Undaunted, the squad-level infantry wargame set in Normandy. The notable feature of his designs, nearly all of them with other designers, is how they focus on the individual. He talks about how the original design came about and then how the Science Fiction version of the Undaunted series, Undaunted 2200: Callisto, was developed. Another good interview which really piques the interest in the designer’s titles.

‘Unboxed’, Senet’s reviews section covers a wide range of games. The most notable are of Le Scorpion Masqué’s Sky Team, the two-player, limited communication board game of landing passenger aeroplanes and of the ecology and climate control-themed, 2024 Kennerspiel des Jahres Winner from CMYK and co-designer, Matt Leacock, Daybreak, and it is the latter that is ‘Senet’s Top Choice’. The inspiration for the issue’s cover, Art Society, is reviewed too, as The Fox Experiment, the new game from Elizabeth Hargreaves, the designer of the highly regarded Wingspan. The review strays into roleplaying a little with Acturus’ Endless Destinies: The Clockwork City, but with a card rather than dice mechanic, but its inclusion reflects another cross section of interesting games put under the lens.

As is traditional, Senet Issue 14 comes to a close with the regular end columns, ‘How to Play’ and ‘Shelf of Shame’. For ‘How to Play’, ‘Lord of the flies: how to win at Hive’ by Joe Schulz, in which he explains how he switched from judo following a shoulder injury to the two-player game Hive in 2015 and has since been world champion four times. Lastly, Pasan Fernando and Damian Armitage, the duo behind Meeples Abroad, pull out Merv: The Heart of Silk for their ‘Shelf of Shame’ and discover a strategic, city-building game and the wealth of options it offers.

Physically, Senet Issue 14 is shows off the board games it previews and reviews to great effect, just as you would expect. It contains a good mix of interesting and informative articles, ‘Conflict of Interest’ showing off a surprising mix of games that the prisoner’s dilemma has been applied to and ‘The Advance of D&D’ explores another side of the roleplaying game in its anniversary year. This is all backed up by some informative reviews. Senet Issue 14 is another good issue with a wide rage of content in a well presented package.

Friday Fantasy: Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord

In the heavens there is a war between the Stars, between the stars of light and darkness, and of life and consumption. The black hole stars called ‘Photovores’ seek to consume all other Stars, and where they cannot, they cajole others to steal and enslave the other Stars. They are opposed by all other Stars, led by the wise White Dwarf Stars. When a Photovore dies, its death echoes across the heavens and echoes on worlds as lightning. On the world of Zós, the death of the most evil of Photovores, Pséphtes, struck a boy and in time, the ghost of Pséphtes corrupted him and helped him become Photiós, the King known as ‘The Pantokrator’. His most loyal and fouled servants, the Corrupted Men, spread and controlled time through their Timekeepers, interfaces between space and time, from which hatched The Pantokrator’s other minions, the Spider Lords. The Pantokrator raised armies and took to the skies, murdering Stars and enslaving Planets, even personally stabbing in the heart, Ánthraka, the much beloved Moon of Zós. In response to the rise of The Pantokrator’s empire, the Stars attacked its many colonies and even Zós itself. Their mightiest weapon was Átmos, the Stellar Wind, which brought an austere nuclear winter to every world it touched. A hatred for the Stars grew in the heart of Pséphtes and his puppet, The Pantokrator, and even as they were driven back to the world of Zós, they plotted to restore their empire. Yet as they do so, the Star whose light bathes Zós is dying and there are those who plot in spite of The Pantokrator, seeking to replace the Star with something manmade, a Sun whose light and warmth can be taxed and thus fund The Pantokrator’s desire for empire again. Even then there are those who would take advantage of this plot to instigate a seemingly never ending solar eclipse and elevate themselves to sit alongside Pséphtes!

This is the background for Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord, one of the strangest of adventures for Dungeons & Dragons—for any edition, let along Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Hit Point Press, it is based upon Astromythos: Book One – World Art Book, an epic mythology presented in heroic verse created by artist and author, Jon Sideriadis. Thankfully, Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord is not in heroic verse, but it is epic in scale and requirements. It is designed for a party of Tenth Level Player Characters, who by the end of the campaign, will reach Fifteenth Level. The scenario combines cosmic horror and—very—high fantasy in a universe that is biological on an astronomical scale and will see the Player Characters crossing the dead bones of a dying world and plunging quite literally into the heart and bowels of a mountain before ascending to the heavens to confront a mistress Spider Lord at the heart of her lair, from which she woven a web around the Sun and planet of Zós. All of which is depicted in stunning artwork which captures the cosmic mythology of the setting. And the Game Master is definitely going to want to show the artwork in Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord to her players, so that they can grasp the alien grandeur of the Astromythos through which their characters are journeying. (There is, though, a deck of spell and item cards, which do show off the author’s artwork, but this is a campaign or scenario that really warrants a book of artwork to show the players, a la S1 Tomb of Horrors.)

There is, though, the matter of getting the Player Characters to the start of the scenario. The suggested hooks all boil down to the Player Characters beginning the scenario in the dungeons of King Photiós’ meteor castle on Zós and their being summoned to his court to be sent on a mission. They might be natives to Zós, but there is no suggestion as to what a native of Zós might look like in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition given in Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord. The extremely otherworldly nature of Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord lends itself to it being run as if it were a shared dream, but the reality of Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord also suggests that it could be run in conjunction with any setting involving alternate planes or travel between the stars, most obviously the Planescape Campaign Setting or Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, or their more modern iterations.

At the beginning of the scenario, the Player Characters are directed by King Photiós to fetch Dulos, a man whom the rather unpleasant monarch tells them is key to the restoration of his kingdom. This requires a journey, first on a train pulled by a biomechanical heart—the Artery Railway—and then on foot through the Flayed Wood to Nanókora, a poisoned village of bone. There are few if any survivors, but Dulos is one of them, and whilst he will thank the Player Characters for rescuing him, he will also plead for their aid. He will tell them of the truth of King Photiós’ evil and that only by allowing the trees to grow once again can the world of Zós be saved from his poison. Dulos will join the Player Characters if they decide to help him—King Photiós will attempt to kill them as thanks for their help even if they decide otherwise, and Dulos will guide them through much of the rest of the scenario. Travelling under what is now a perpetual solar eclipse, Dulos directs the Player Characters up the nearby mountains to find someone who can help recultivate the trees, but when their way back down is blocked, they are forced to make a detour into the mountain itself. The caves themselves have a very organic feel and layout, though it may not necessarily be obvious to players and their characters unless they map it out.

Once they are free of the mountain, having been captured by a two-headed ogre of cratered rock and been thrown into his pot along the way in classic fantasy style, the Player Characters enter the Skeletal Wood and search for the Zenith Door, a magical door in the sky which should open at noon daily and allow travellers to be transported into orbit and beyond. However, the perpetual solar eclipse means that it remains permanently closed, so another route is needed. This is aboard a garbage barge, for which its captain which charge a fortune, but it will get the Player Characters to the heavens to first confront one Spider Lord, Lord Skurigelos, in his dead asteroid lair and then another, Lady Klevastis, his mistress in her Horned Moon Keep on the lunar surface, after having penetrated the moonflesh mines. As befitting their Spider Lords, both asteroid lair and castle are overrun by spiders and festooned with webs, although they are not the only threat that the Player Characters will face. There is the possibility of their being captured in the asteroid lair and having to escape a torture chamber, but the exploration in both locations will culminate in a confrontation with a Spider Lord. The final fight in the scenario is incredibly tough, and unless they spot and take advantage of Lady Klevastis’ weakness, there is the possibility of a total party kill. (If that happens, it is almost worth playing through this part of the scenario again, as it might emphasise the dream-like nature of Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord.)

There are some suggestions as to how to continue the scenario, which will require no little development by the Game Master, but in this and the scenario itself, the Game Master is decently supported in Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord, something that is really useful given how different the nature of the scenario really is. This includes a good overview of the background to the setting and the scenario itself, as well as a list and descriptions of the scenario’s named NPCs. The first of the scenario’s three appendices describes new magic items, the second its bestiary, and the third, its new spells. The new magic items include some fearsome weapons, like Bone Divider, a Moonflesh great axe that requires a Strength of twenty to wield, is enchanted by Tidal Force so that it knocks opponents back thirty feet with a blow, and on a natural twenty cleaves an opponent in two in a shower of sparks and stardust! The bestiary describes some twenty-seven new creatures, including ‘Clock Mites, Mites of Many Colours and Neon Corruptors of Time’, ‘Spider Ghouls, Half-Man/Half-Spider Failed Experiments of Lord Skurigelos’, and ‘Star-Slayers, Dreaded Warriors of the Pantokrator King and Superhuman Slayers of Stars’, some of which should find their way into other cosmic or planar settings for Dungeons & Dragons.

Physically, Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord is incredibly well presented with fantastic artwork that will amaze the reader. Depictions of things such as ‘Opticos, Asteroid Abomination, Lord of the Opticons and the Spies of Photovóros’, all blue-grey and beautiful eyes looking in different directions, is genuinely creepy, even Gilliam-esque, whilst elsewhere, there is a dark religiosity to the artwork.

Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord is a linear scenario, one that is not difficult to run, but given the fearsome nature of many of the foes, difficult to overcome by the players and their characters. It is also difficult, or at least awkward, to add to a campaign easily, given the cosmic nature of its fantasy. Running it as a dream is likely the easiest way, since it requires the least explanation and will have the least effect upon an ongoing campaign, and it can be run alongside an existing campaign. In whatever way a Game Master decides to run it, Astromythos: Lair of the Spider Lord is a genuinely fantastical scenario played out on an astronomical-biomechanical scale with some amazing imagery.

Friday Faction: Dungeon Crawler Carl

The LitRPG genre appears to have got a loot box of its own with the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman. LitRPG—or ‘Literary Role Playing Game’ is a genre of fiction in which the protagonists of the story are in a computerised game world, one that they are aware of being in, and have an understanding of the mechanics of the game world they are in. The term itself is barely more than a decade old, but it can be argued that books such as the 1978 Quag Keep by Andre Norton and the 1981 Dream Park by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes are its precursors. With Dungeon Crawler Carl, the genre reaches a wider audience as the reader follows the exploits of an ordinary joe and his ex-girlfriend’s super-precious show cat, as together they attempt to survive a mega-dungeon and in the process save the world. The result is a knowing satire of roleplaying that combines the fish-out-of-water oddness of Douglas Adams’ The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with the bureaucratic cruelty of Stephen King’s The Running Man.

The book opens with the destruction of the Earth, although not all of it, and not by a Vogon Constructor fleet. The Borant Corporation, an alien company from outer space, has bought the planet’s mineral rights and because no-one put in an objection, has flattened every building and turned the inside of the planet into a megadungeon with eighteen levels that the remaining fourteen million survivors of the planet must fight their way through. Of course, not everyone is going to survive, and the book maintains a running count that rapidly decreases as the secrets and lethality of the dungeon are revealed. All of which will be broadcast to the galaxy as one big reality video event—Big Brother or Survivor in a dungeon, if you will. This is how the purchasing corporation plans to recover its costs in the short term, focusing on the exploits and travails of the survivors who do well as Dungeon Crawlers. One such is Carl, ex-Coast Guard marine mechanic, who happens to be outside in the freezing winds of Seattle when the flattening occurs, wearing a leather jacket, no trousers, and a pair of crocs. His choice of clothes, certainly the lack of trousers and proper shoes, becomes a running joke throughout the book. As does his means of fighting—kicking and applying explosives to almost any situation, and his navigating his way around the interface. The latter is done as a computer roleplaying game interface that plays out in the minds of the Dungeon Crawlers.

The reason he is outside is Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk. This is the prize-winning show cat belonging to Beatrice, Carl’s girlfriend. Quickly after Carl finds himself in the dungeon, Princess Donut gets uplifted and turned from a pet into a Dungeon Crawler, and thus into a character in her own right, whilst Carl is classified as her bodyguard. After getting a briefing in a Safe Room, Carl and Donut set out to explore and find an entrance to the next level down, taking down mobs and bosses on the way. As they progress, Carl and Donut learn that there is much more to the dungeon than at first seems. It is built on a regular floorplan with blocks with district bosses rather than something more organic in design and the Artificial Intelligence behind the dungeon tailors the loot boxes that both Carl and Donut receive. So, Donut receives items that enhance her Charisma—after all, she is a princess—and lots of torches, whilst Carl receives items that enhance his feet and ability to stamp and kick, but is never destined to receive any trousers. There are daily updates on the dungeon that occur in response to the Dungeon Crawlers’ actions, television shows which Carl and Donut get scheduled to appear on once they begin to get famous and accrue followers, and politics playing out behind the scenes that this first book only hints at, but which will likely play out in the subsequent books in the series.

In terms of character, Carl himself, does not entirely come across as being wholly likeable. More of an everyman than a hero, in keeping with the genre, he is both aware of Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder and uses that knowledge to his advantage. Given the circumstances, it is understandable that he is exasperated, sometimes angry, by his situation, and that extends to his attitude to his girlfriend, Bea, who is first revealed to be cheating on him and then promiscuously cheating on him. It is a note of poor characterisation, not just in terms of Carl, but also of Bea, upon the part of the author, and it is not the only negative portrayal of women in the book. Several of the monsters, especially the boss monsters are more gross caricatures of women than monsters. Yet, Carl is driven to be the hero, to want to help the survivors from the old peoples’ home that was nearby his home and get them down to Level Two and then Level Three. To do that, he is forced to kill a lot of monsters, including a nursery of goblins, and he does feel guilty about it in exactly the opposite way that the average player of Dungeons & Dragons likely does not. The need to kill to Level up to survive almost assuages the feelings of guilt that Carl suffers from these actions, whilst the revelation that many of the monster denizens are literally waiting in fear for a dungeon crawler to turn up and kill them all, does the exact opposite.

In comparison, Princess Donut is a more interesting and likeable character even though she has the morality and attitude of a cat, uplifted to sentience and full expression. Princess Donut is often more insightful and aware than Carl is, but as a cat she is self-centred and embraces the fame of being a social media star where Carl bridles against it.

Dungeon Crawler Carl combines horror and humour, but not always effectively. The megadunegon as reality and what Carl and Donut have to do is the source for both, but it emphasises the horror more than the humour, which is from the absurdity of the situation. Both begin to weary after a while from the repetition of both and the book being just a little too long to really sustain either. The humour is also a bit too obvious and just not sharp enough to be really satirical, rarely getting above being amusing rather laugh out loud or clever.

Dungeon Crawler Carl ends almost midsentence, or at least mid-decision, rather than on definite conclusion or cliffhanger, so there is no impetus to start reading the next book if the reader has not decided already. Any reader who is not a roleplayer, whether of tabletop roleplaying games or computer games, is less likely to do so, whereas role-players are more likely to do so, since the series is squarely aimed at them, they are going to get the references, and really, there is not a lot of fiction aimed directly at them anyway. For them, the fact that they can buy this at their local bookshop is a bonus as is the fact that they might see the series adapted for television.

Dungeon Crawler Carl is an amiable read, a very knowing poke at traditional roleplaying played out on an absurd stage. It does not quite outstay its welcome, but it could have been sharper and leaner.

Miskatonic Monday #362: Bunny The Eldritch Slayer

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—

Name: Bunny The Eldritch Slayer

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Andrew Edward

Setting: Late nineties teen television

Product: Scenario for Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos
What You Get: Sixteen page, 2.30 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Not the Buffy you know

Plot Hook: Rescue the Bunny in lurve...

Plot Support: Staging advice, five Scoobies, two NPCs, three handouts, one map, one Mythos spell, and one Mythos monster

Production Values: Decent

Pros

# Great cover

# It knows, you know, and it knows you know

# Either a loving pastiche or a knowing rip-off

# Gelotophonia

# Turophobia

# Ephebiphobia

Cons

# Vangelis

Conclusion

# Cheesetastic pastiche or parody that does what you expect

# Cultist-punching action in a pink highlighter love letter to a nineties classic

Miskatonic Monday #361: HUM

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—

Name: HUM

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Sean Liddle

Setting: World War II Plymouth

Product: Outline
What You Get: Six page, 173.34 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Three Go Mad in Devon

Plot Hook: What is the source of the constant HUM in the forest?

Plot Support: Staging advice

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Pleasing sense of a rural idyll

# Detailed outline

# Potential for child-like curiosity and terror

# Potential for sequels

# Misophonia

# Entomophobia

# Hylophobia

Cons

# No pre-generated Investigators
# Outline rather than scenario

Conclusion

# Engaging low key scenario with intriguing sense of an idyll spoiled

# Detailed outline still leaves the Keeper with work to do

Jonstown Jottings #97: A Broo Did It And Ran Away

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha 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?

A Broo Did It And Ran Away is “A 5 page plot with 2 parts” for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha which presents a short mystery that the Game Master can run as a single session’s worth of play or possibly longer.

It is a two page, full colour 534.26 KB PDF.

The layout is tidy, the artwork rough, but serviceable, and it does need an edit.

The scenario hook can be easily be adapted to the rules system of the Game Master’s choice.

Where is it set?

As written, A Broo Did It And Ran Away takes place in the same lands as the Player Characters’ clan. This can be in Sartar or any settled land. Ideally, it should be located adjacent to a forest and near some hills, and it should be run during Earth Season.

Who do you play?
A Broo Did It And Ran Away does not suggest any specific character type, but as it ends in a fight, combat capable Player Characters are recommended and ideally, it should not include a Storm Bull, as an NPC fulfils this roll and drives the plot.

What do you need?
A Broo Did It And Ran Away requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha only. The RuneQuest: Glorantha Bestiary may be useful, but is not essential to play.

What do you get?

A Broo Did It And Ran Away does give the scenario’s antagonists away in its title, but it is easily adapted to a campaign and run in a single session. It opens with the Player Characters helping out their clan during earth Season by getting the harvest in, working the fields owned by Adestra and her husband, Barkos. When a Storm Bull starts attacking the field that the Player Characters are working, claiming that it is tainted with Chaos, then something odd has to be going on. To investigate, the Player Characters will need to calm the Storm Bull and look round the field, and beyond. Adestra seems nervous. Is it just because there is a Storm Bull claiming that one of her fields is tainted by Chaos or does she know something more?

Ultimately, the Player Characters’ investigation will force to Adestra to respond. She may confess all or she may make an attempt to solve the problem herself. Either way, the clues will point to a hermit who has recently moved into the area and begun living in a nearby cave. Confronting the hermit will reveal who and what she actually is and lead to a nasty combat in a confined space. This requires careful adjustment by the Game Master to match the threat with the combat capabilities of the Player Characters.

However the scenario ends, the Player Characters should learn that Adestra has been a fool rather than evil. Nevertheless, give what she has done, there should be consequences. This will be handled by the chief of the clan, but it may be an interesting situation to roleplay if one of the Player Characters is the clan chief or even just the Thane of Apple Lane.

Is it worth your time?

Yes—A Broo Did It And Ran Away presents a combination of a small mystery, a small, but brutal combat, and a small dilemma that can easily dropped into a campaign on clan lands and played in a single session.

No—A Broo Did It And Ran Away is just a tiny bit too silly, perhaps too brutal a fight, and a Game Master’s campaign may necessarily take in clan lands.

Maybe—A Broo Did It And Ran Away is serviceable enough and perhaps a scenario that the Game Master might want to keep is her back pocket to run in between other scenarios or when not all of her players are present.