Solitaire: Exclusion Zone Botanist

Call of Cthulhu is the preeminent roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror and has been for over four decades now. The roleplaying game gives the chance for the players and their Investigators to explore a world in which the latter are exposed, initially often indirectly, but as the story or investigation progresses, increasingly directly, to alien forces beyond their comprehension. So, beyond that what they encounter is often interpreted as indescribable, yet supernatural monsters or gods wielding magic, but in reality is something more, a confrontation with the true nature of the universe and the realisation as to the terrible insignificance of mankind with it and an understanding that despite, there are those that would embrace and worship the powers that be for their own ends. Such a realisation and such an understanding often leave those so foolish as to investigate the unknown clutching at, or even, losing their sanity, and condemned to a life knowing truths to which they wish they were never exposed. This blueprint has set the way in which other games—roleplaying games, board games, card games, and more—have presented Lovecraftian investigative horror, but as many as there that do follow that blueprint, there are others have explored the Mythos in different ways.

Cthulhoid Choices is a strand of reviews that examine other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror and of Cosmic, but not necessarily Horror. Previous reviews which can be considered part of this strand include Cthulhu Hack, Realms of Crawling Chaos, and the Apocthulhu Roleplaying Game.

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The North East Unified Containment & Sylvan Exclusion Zone 502-H is a densely forested area that the government deemed to be a danger to the country and quarantined. All access and egress are denied. Inside the 103 km2 area, the forest continues to grow, but not only grow for its flora mutates and anything, or indeed, anyone, who enters and stays for too long also mutates. Yet the government deems that the North East Unified Containment & Sylvan Exclusion Zone 502-H, or just ‘Exclusion Zone’, is monitored inside and out. It thus orders the bureau to regularly send operatives into the ‘Exclusion Zone’ to monitor and catalogue the new species of plant to be found within its confines. This is not without its dangers. Some of the previous botanists sent into the ‘Exclusion Zone’ have never returned via the ‘Infiltration/Exfiltration Portal’ and rumours says that some who did return were radically changed by their experiences and discoveries within the Exclusion Zone. Operation within the Exclusion Zone is hampered by the inability of all and any electronic or electrical equipment to function within the Exclusion Zone. Operatives are equipped with standard camping and survival gear, a standard handgun, and the means to sketch and record the new plants found within its confines. You are the next operative, the next ‘Exclusion Zone Botanist’.

This is the set-up for Exclusion Zone Botanist: New Agent Handbook – A Solo Drawing & Sketching Game. It is a solo drawing and journalling game in which the player will record both the plants discovered and the experiences of his character, within the ‘Exclusion Zone Botanist’. Published by Exeunt Press, it is very obviously inspired by Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer and The Colour Out of Space by H.P. Lovecraft and so is a horror game involving primarily isolation, but also the danger of body horror and gore. It requires a map of the Exclusion Zone—included in the book, a token to mark the Botanist’s position on the map, a journal or means to record the incursion, and two six-sided dice. As a ‘Drawing & Sketching Game’, Exclusion Zone Botanist also requires pens, pencils, paints, or another means of drawing and colouring. As well as a quiet space, the rulebook suggests that lights be dimmed when the game is being played.

Exclusion Zone Botanist is intended to be played hour-by-hour, hex-by-hex, and has a simple play loop. The Botanist spends one hour in each hex on the map, there being a total of twenty-eight hexes on the map divided into six numbered zones. In each hour and thus each hex, the player as the Botanist will do three things. First, he rolls to see if he has discovered a new plant; second, he rolls to see if the Exclusion Zone has corrupted him; and third, he moves on to a new hex. If he does discover a new plant, he rolls for its details. This includes its size, leaf shape, and leaf arrangement, followed by its unusual plant feature. There are four groups of increasingly weird features, from a plant with black leaves that reflect no light that the Botanist has an urge to touch and which uses some other means to survive than green chlorophyll to a plant with shiny, reflective metal skin under thick bark around which rocks and dirt floats, and then so does the Botanist. Other plants unleash corrupting spores, have caustic berries that kill flora and fauna nearby, and a trunk that appears to be marked by twisted human faces, that the Botanist thinks he might recognise… Whether or not the Botanist discovers a new plant, he determines whether he is corrupted by rolling both dice. If the result of both dice is less than the current ‘Risk Value’, which goes up over the course of a day, that is, the longer he spends in the Exclusion Zone, he becomes corrupted. This shows by the Botanist beginning to itch, and then corrupted again, to have small lumps form under his skin, and then again, followed by tiny sprouts erupting from the lumps… Lastly, the Botanist moves on to a new hex.

Ultimately, there will come a point in the day when the Botanist feels that he has done or found enough or pushed as far into the Exclusion Zone as he can. Then it is case of returning to the ‘Infiltration/Exfiltration Portal’, either by the route he took through the Exclusion Zone or via new route. The latter is more likely if he has discovered some of the weirder, perhaps deadlier, plants to be found in the Exclusion Zone. However, it still takes an hour to move each hex and the Botanist still risks suffering Corruption each and every hour…

Physically, Exclusion Zone Botanist: New Agent Handbook – A Solo Drawing & Sketching Game is well presented. The layout is stark and clean, strange plants lurking, ready to corrupt the Botanist. It is also well written and an easy read.

Exclusion Zone Botanist: New Agent Handbook – A Solo Drawing & Sketching Game reveals itself to have been a drawing game first and a journalling game second. It can be both or one or the other, but as a drawing and sketching game, the Botanist does not need to be a skilled artist to explore the Exclusion Zone. The Botanist can though, approach the drawing and sketching aspect however he wants, use whatever materials he wants, and produce as rough or as finished an illustration of each plant as he wants. There is nothing to stop the Botanist from creating simple drawings or fully realised pieces, and he can even treat the process of playing through Exclusion Zone Botanist as an artistic exercise. And of course, drawing and sketching game, Exclusion Zone Botanist is not only forcing the Botanist to contemplate the fantastic and often frightful flora in the Exclusion Zone, but to visualise and realise them too, to create an image of the source of his horror!

On one level, Exclusion Zone Botanist: New Agent Handbook – A Solo Drawing & Sketching Game is disappointing as there are no revelations or discoveries to be made that explain what the North East Unified Containment & Sylvan Exclusion Zone 502-H is. No secrets or signs, and certainly no indication that any other scientist or botanist has entered the Exclusion Zone before the Botanist. Perhaps the Exclusion Zone corrupts everything brought into its limits or its resets itself every time the Botanist enters or the Botanist is caught in a time loop? Such speculation lies outside the scope of the roleplaying game as written, whilst the lack of answers and revelation only serves to enhance the survival horror and body horror, and of course, the sense of isolation, which lie at the heart of this journalling game. Exclusion Zone Botanist: New Agent Handbook – A Solo Drawing & Sketching Game has the capacity to be truly creepy and unnerving and in asking the player to both visualise and realise that, truly horrifying.