[Fanzine Focus XXXVIII] ShadowFolk Issue One

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. A more recent Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game which right from the start of its appearance started being supported by fanzines, is ShadowDark, published by The Arcane Library. ShadowFolk is one such fanzine.

ShadowFolk Issue One was published by This Is The Weird in April, 2025. It describes itself as an ‘Obscure Folklore Toolbox’ and the first issue is inspired both Ukrainian and Slavic Myth, but has the feel of cosmic horror. It is broken down into three sections, ‘Player Tools’, ‘GM Tools’, and ‘Hex Tools’, but much of the content in ShadowFolk Issue One is actually connected.

The ‘Player Tools’ offers two new Classes. The ‘Kazhennik’ is a member of a species that originated on a strange world of crystallized wood and strange cosmic winds, now lost to them. They have crystalised skin for slightly higher Armour Class, wield a weapon of crystalised wood that inflicts greater damage, and can summon a strange bluish-purple wind that works as a Feather Fall spell. Their strangeness affects others and themselves, such that they avoid civilisation in favour of nature. They give a Close ally a bonus to any roll, but the Kazhennik suffers a penalty when this happens. The other Class is the ‘Netlenne’, a survivalist who can use some nature magic. They have been blessed by nature deities and by teenagers eyes of white orbs and amber colored hair. They loathe reptiles of any kind and at advantage when attacking them, and also have advantage for all nature-related rolls. Their major ability is that they can cast the Shapechange spell to change into any non-reptile creature. They can learn nature-related spells, but not often.

These are odd Classes, outsiders and suitable for campaigns away from urban areas. Mechanically though, what marks them out as different is that they are not Classes that can be taken in addition to an Ancestry. Instead, what they do, much like Basic Dungeons & Dragons did ‘Race as Class’ rather than ‘Race and Class’, is ‘Ancestry as Class’. ShadowFolk Issue One suggests two ways in which this can be done with the Ancestries presented in ShadowDark. One is a hybrid between the Ancestry and the Class in which the Player Characters gains the benefits of another selected every other Level, whilst the other is more of a hodgepodge method that needs some adjustment to the Talent Charts to work with any ease. Both are detailed in ‘Ancestry As Class (AAC)’ in the appendix at the end of the issue.

The ‘GM Tools’ consist of several connected monsters. ‘The Gentleman’ is a dapper demon who who helps forge alliances and agreements between the unlikeliest of groups and deadliest of enemies that always looks so good on paper—and prove to be in the short term. Invariably they go wrong, one side—or both—is betrayed, and so on, so that the chaos of before, is even worse. The Gentleman is always accompanied by two ‘Vyrovik-apes’, undead-like, pony-sized apes that protect their master by being able to teleport between shadows and uttering soul-wrenching howls. They are also unerringly able to track any mortal who gives up his soul to their master. Such souls are transformed into ‘Vyrovik-ki’, short, pig-faced undead chaos fiends that undertake simple tasks because otherwise they can get distracted. Their entry includes a nice table of what they might do when distracted! The other servants of The Gentleman are the ‘Vyrovik-pel’, semi-corporeal winged demons that understand all languages and lurk on rooftops and in allies, collecting all manner of gossip and rumour. What the Game Master has here is suite of demons that can lurk in a city, collect rumours and information that The Gentleman can use to his advantage. The monsters could have done with a few hooks or ideas on how to implement them in a campaign, but these are reasonable tools to start with.

The ‘Hex Tools’ continue the support for the earlier content in the fanzine. ‘Korrine Village’ provides a settlement for the Kazhennik, grown from the forest floor from dead wood turned into a crystalline substance. It is more an overview, but in a page it manages to pack in a quick description of Kazhennik culture, three personalities, and a couple of hooks. There is not a great deal of detail, but it could serve as a rest stop or the home of a Kazhennik Player Character. More attention is paid to the ‘Isle of Mt. Smersh’, the home of The Gentleman from one world to the next. It is heavily mountainous, The Gentleman’s sanctuary, a castle of white obsidian sits atop the island’s highest peak and is marked with endless mazes and tunnels, the whole complex guarded by clockwork machinations and chaos fiends. It is littered with the remains and sometimes devolved descendants of civilisations that The Gentleman has manipulated into their destruction. The remainder of the island consists of thick jungle broken by standing stones, temple of the rain gods, and a silent statue that appears different to everyone who looks upon it. The Game Master will need to develop the specific sites herself to really make full use of them, although the two included monsters—the Mayan Warrior and Child of Zorro—give the island more of a Pulp action Central American feel rather than an ancient island of Chaos.

Physically, ShadowFolk Issue One is a good looking first issue. The very nice artwork contributes towards that appearance, the issue does need an edit.

ShadowFolk Issue One is an ambitious first issue, providing an interesting pair of Classes that do not fit the pattern of traditional Classes in ShadowDark, as well as a setting and a great villain that the Game Master can add to her campaign. However, it is not apparent until quite a way into the fanzine that the various articles are connected and designed to be used together. Perhaps some time could have been spent explaining this at the start? Similarly, ‘The Gentleman’ feels underwritten in terms of actions and motivations and again, more time could have been devoted to developing that for the benefit of the Game Master. Overall, ShadowFolk Issue One does show promise, but the content needs a little more development.

[Fanzine Focus XXXVIII] Book of Misery Vol. 2

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. A more recent Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game that fanzines are being based upon and inspired by is Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance retroclone designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing.

Book of Misery Vol. 2 is a fanzine for Mörk Borg written and published by Gizmo in February, 2023. It contains a mix of options for both players and the Game Master. This includes new Classes, weapons, monsters, and a dungeon that can be easily brought into play and all done in the artpunk style that Mörk Borg is notorious for. It opens with the first of four Classes. The ‘Wise Zealot’ ardently spreads the word of the two-head basilisks, driven by a key belief such as ‘The End is near. Nothing can stop it. However, it is needed for the vitality of the world.’ or ‘Any written word that doesn’t see the basilisks in a positive light in heresy.’ With him, he carries a holy relic, such as a gem-encrusted drinking cup that turns any liquid placed in it turns into pure drinking water, or a terrible amulet that mocks passersby mercilessly, but lets the ‘Wise Zealot’ cast powers at an advantage. The ‘Witch Hunter’ is a version of the classic Puritan figure, agile and with good reason to hunt witches like, “At the age of ten, a witch named Hela, killed your dog in your ritual. He was your best friend. You took up arms to hunt and kill, her easiest way to find her? Kill every witch.” He is armed with such things as a crossbow or silver stakes and flashpowder or a silver sword, the latter good versus hags and witches.

More monstrous is the ‘Renegade Sanguine’, essentially a vampire for Mörk Borg. The Class has higher Toughness and Presence and also a Renegade Sanguine ability. This includes fangs as natural weapons that inflict a six-sided die’s worth of damage or with ‘Raise Thrall’, which grants the ‘Renegade Sanguine’ the ability to raise a corpse for several hours per day. The oddest of the four Classes is the ‘Reborn Fungus’, a mushroom given human form, perhaps created by a witch in a ritual gone wrong and abandoned or sacrificed by the cult his family belonged to. ‘Reborn Fungus’ might emit an ‘Ominous Glow’ of faint blue light or commit ‘Mind Theft’ by releasing spores to temporarily control others. The four Classes offer a mix of the ordinary and the outré. The weirdness of the ‘Reborn Fungus’ and the creepiness of the ‘Renegade Sanguine’ are in keeping with the styles of Mörk Borg, whilst the ‘Wise Zealot’ and ‘Witch Hunter’ are more direct in how they are likely to be played.

‘Monsters and Beasts’ describes thirteen entries, but gets off to an underwhelming start with the Amphiptere, a simple flying lizard. Fortunately, the other entries are more interesting. The ‘Runner’ has the body of a dog, demon’s claws, and a misshapen human skull for a head, that stalk the land and have to be killed in blow of their screams will summon more! ‘The Flail King’ is arrogance personified, accidently summoned by an egocentric scholar, which then killed him. ‘The Flail King’ always attempts to persuade everyone that they are the evil ones. Besides a flail attack, it also has a disorientating eye beam and a nasty bite. The ‘Lamia’ is a creature of legend that poses as a malformed building and fires magic missiles. Why? This is a question never answered in too many of these monster entries, and so they are only slightly more interesting though and feel like they are monsters simply for being monsters’ sake, with little to them to really warrant the Game Master using them in her game. The collective ‘Creatures of the Woods’, which include the ‘Will-O-The Wisp’, ‘Bark-eating arachnid’, and ‘Scorned Spirit’ are simple and easy to use. More detailed and thus actually more interesting are the ‘Rot Mana Drinker’ is an obese, lich-like creature obsessed with magic to the point that they eat it—and those that carry it, and the ‘Demön Lörd of Törture’ (or is it pain, the entry is not quite clear), who descends upon towns and villages and divides them into cultists who worship him and then torture those who refuse to. Overall, a disappointing selection.

‘Places To Go, People To See’ is more useful. ‘Sheila the Crafter’ is a combined trader and quest giver who will buy all manner of bodily remains and can upgrade black powder weapons and other interesting things. The problem is that the description is all about the sales, but not about the quests. So the Game Master will need to extract them from what she has on sale as best see can, such as goblin blood for the goblin blood poison. ‘Rurik IV’ is a warrior for hire, Kash a ‘Pirate Demon’ who has given up her piratical ways and come travelling inland to look for something, although the description does not say what. Unfortunately, and again, these suffer from being underwritten and will need some development upon the part of the Game Master.

The ’Magic Items’ include the ‘Book of Fungus’, a dangerously compelling book that grants the user the ability to cast a fungal spell each time they read it, but fail to cast the casting once too often and they have to eat the book. The ‘Flail of the Great Devil Lord’ was created and wielded by a forgotten warrior, who defeated a demon and attached its head to a chain. It is incredibly heavy, so harder to hit with, but it can do a lot more damage. These are all decent enough.

Rounding out Book of Misery Vol. 2 is ‘The Slaughter Tunnels of Pumpkin Valley’. It details of band of wildfolk who have devolved after years of being cut off in a dungeon below a pumpkin swamp. The Player Characters wake up to find themselves prisoners and have to escape, so this is an easy one to add to a campaign, even to the point of their waking up first thing to discover themselves in this predicament! Effectively ‘dungeon of the cannibals’, this is a serviceable affair.

Physically, Book of Misery Vol. 2 adheres to the artpunk style of Mörk Borg. For the most part it works, but some of the founts selected do make the titles difficult to read.

Book of Misery Vol. 2 is even more of a mixed bag than Book of Misery Vol. 1. The Classes are decent enough, but rest is too underdeveloped and too underwritten to be of immediate use to the Game Master. If she puts some work into the content, then it might be another matter, but why should she have to?

[Fanzine Focus XXXVIII] Crawling Under A Broken Moon Issue No. 8

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and her group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons,RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another popular choice of system for fanzines, is Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, such as Crawl! and Crawling Under a Broken Moon. Some of these fanzines provide fantasy support for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, but others explore other genres for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. One such fanzine is the aforementioned Crawling Under A Broken Moon.

Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 8 was published in in July, 2015 by Shield of Faith Studios. It continued the detailing of post-apocalyptic setting of Umerica and Urth which had begun in Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 1, and would be continued in Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 2, which added further Classes, monsters, and weapons, Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 3, which provided the means to create Player Characters and gave them a Character Funnel to play, Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 4, which detailed several Patrons for the setting, whilst Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 5 explored one of the inspirations for the setting and fanzine, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, whilst Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 6 and Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 7 continued that trend with another inspiration, Mad Max, with a look at vehicles of all types. Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 8 marks a radical shift in content and style, but one that will be familiar to the Old School Renaissance.

The setting has, of course, gone on to be presented in more detail in The Umerican Survival Guide – Core Setting Guide, now distributed by Goodman Games. The setting itself is a world brought about after a rogue object from deep space passed between the Earth and the Moon and ripped apart time and space, leaving behind a planet which would recover, but leave its inhabitants ruled by savagery, cruel sorcery, and twisted science.

Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 8 contains the first part of an A to Z for the post-apocalyptic setting of Umerica and Urth, the second part appearing in Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 9. There was a phase of producing to A to Z guides, such as The Dungeon Alphabet from Goodman Games and The Wilderness Alphabet: A Collection of Random Charts, Tables, and Ideas for use with various Games of Imagination. In each case, the entries in these supplements were not simple guides or descriptions of their subjects, but as the subtitle of the latter book suggests, were instead tables that the Game Master or Judge could roll on—sometimes more than one—to randomly determine elements of the setting such as the description of a door or an altar, the look of an NPC, the contents of a chest, and so on. These tables can be used in play, at the table, the Game Master rolling on them as needed or she can consult them as part of her preparation. This particular issue runs from ‘A is for Aliens’ to ‘M for Mutants with every table being accompanied by a short description and instructions as to what dice to roll.

The entries begin with the most complex of the tables, ‘A is for Aliens’ and ‘B is for Barter Goods’, requiring more than a single roll in each case, but most require only a single roll. Most entries consist of items and locations that can be found and added in the moment, such as “T-shirts with offensive language, pants with ‘Sassy’ written on the backside, and something called “Capri’s”. It’s no wonder the world ended. Moth-eaten clothes. 1d100 buttons, 2d30 zippers, and 2d24 pieces of cloth.” in ‘G is for Garbage’ or “Hunter’s Stew - An old standby of whatever was caught, captured, foraged, or found thrown into a pot with water, ground grain, and maybe a seasoning or two. Only a 1-in-20 chance of choking on a bit of bone, talon, or button. Value: 4cp per bowl the first day, 2cp per bowl after that.” under ‘E is for Edibles’.

Other tables lend themselves to a longer and greater effect upon a campaign. For example, “When the world fell apart, select government officials retreated into underground bunkers to wait out the cataclysm. With no end in sight, life in the bunker broke down into barbarism. After 1000 years, a new force has emerged from the bunkers. Calling themselves the “Shadow Government”, this faction uses ancient technology and robotic soldiers to subjugate the surrounding communities.” from ‘F is for Factions’ and “A former weapons factory, this lab has been converted into a makeshift ammo factory. There are weird and slightly radioactive powders around the place. There is a 20% chance of moving any of the highly valuable firearm parts that a minor radiation hazard will be stirred up. Make a mutation check after 1d10 hours of checking through this location.” for ‘L is for Laboratories’. There are entries where the authors are having some fun with us, as the “A small mainframe computer that is already running. The screen shows obscure coordinate information and an alert box will pop up requesting “CONFIRM TARGET [YES/NO?]”.” entry for ‘C is for Computers’.

Physically, Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 8 is as serviceably presented and as a little rough around the edges as the other fanzines in the line. Of course, the problem with Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 8 is that much of its contents have been represented to a more professional standard in the pages of The Umerican Survival Guide – Core Setting Guide, so it has been superseded and superseded by a cleaner, slicker presentation of the material.

Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 8 is by nature bitty and disparate with its numerous different entries and writeups. It is not an issue to read through from end to end, but to consult from time to time in search of something that will make a Judge’s game just that little bit more interesting and more exciting, which all of its entries have the ability to do. Further, because there really is no specific setting detail given in its various tables, the contents of Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 8 will work with a lot of other post apocalyptic roleplaying games and not just the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game or Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic.

Companion Chronicles #14: The Adventure of the Thunder Knight

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

—oOo—

What is the Nature of the Quest?

The Adventure of the Thunder Knight is an adventure supplement for use with Pendragon, Sixth Edition.

It is a full colour, nine page, 1.32 MB PDF.

The layout is a little untidy and it is not illustrated.

Where is the Quest Set?

The Adventure of the Thunder Knight is suitable to run with any campaign for Pendragon, Sixth Edition. It begins with the Player-knights urgently on their way back to court, the default being Salisbury, but it can be set anywhere to suit the Game Master’s campaign.

Who should go on this Quest?

The Adventure of the Thunder Knight is suitable for knights of all types.

What does the Quest require?

The Adventure of the Thunder Knight requires the Pendragon, Sixth Edition rules or the Pendragon Starter Set. If the expanded content is sued, then the Pendragon Gamemaster’s Handbook will also be useful, but not essential.

Where will the Quest take the Knights?

The Adventure of the Thunder Knight begins in classic fashion, with the Player-knights being challenged by a knight to joust before he can let any one of them cross a bridge which lies on their route back to court. He explains that he is bound to challenge everyone crossing this bridge until he has atoned for his sins, although he will not explain why he is bound to this task, what his sins were, and what exactly he has to do to achieve atonement.

The second half of the scenario involves discovering the curse that the Thunder Knight is under and how it came to befall him. Unfortunately, the scenario provides the background, an explanation of the cause and the solution to the curse, as well as what might happen if the Player-knights attempt to lift the curse in a nicely atmospheric scene, but what it does not do is provide the means for the Player-knights to get to the point in the scenario where they can discern that background, determine the cause, and discover the solution. Such means are suggested, but the Game Master is expected to create this aspect of the scenario herself.

One of the default suggestions as to why the Player-knights are rushing back to court is that they have come to alert their liege lord that a Saxon raid is imminent and reinforcements are needed. The scenario includes details of this battle, should the Game Master want to run it.

Should the Knights ride out on this Quest?

The Adventure of the Thunder Knight is a short, straightforward adventure, or would be, were it actually complete. The Game Master can detail the scenes that the author omits, but should she really have to? The Adventure of the Thunder Knight is a solid, one-session scenario that is easy to add to a campaign, but essentially, the scenario is rushed and the author skips over the middle and less interesting bits of the scenario, leaving the Game Master with more work to do do than the scenario really should.

Miskatonic Monday #352: Mount Katahdin’s Shadow

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: Mount Katahdin’s Shadow

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Christopher Capone

Setting: Maine’s 100 Mile Wilderness, USA, 1988

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Sixty-eight page, 98.09 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: The horror on the hike
Plot Hook: Terror on the Appalachian Trail, madness in Maine

Plot Support: Staging advice, seven pre-generated Investigators, ten NPCs, eleven handouts, seven map, and three Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Decent

Pros

# Linear set-up funnels the Investigators into an interesting and increasingly tense situation

# Horrifying encounters with wildlife gone wrong

# Playtest notes and background material included

# Scales back to be run as a convention scenario

# Foniasophobia

# Arachnophobia

# Sciurophobia

Cons

# No Investigator backgrounds given their supposed connections

# Needs a light edit

Conclusion

# Blood on the trail leads to terror from beyond!

# Linearity of the scenario funnels the tension and the terror

Another Alternative

Tales of the Valiant is a roleplaying game with a political history. Published by Kobold Press—best known for the Free City of Zobeck and Midgard settings—Tales of the Valiant was a response to the changes that Wizards of the Coast were rumoured to be making in January, 2023 which would have given the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition tighter control over third-party published content. Other responses included the development of the Open RPG Creative Licence, which included the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Second Edition (Remastered), but Tales of the Valiant is based on ‘Black Flag Roleplaying’, an alternative and open gaming system built from the sections of the Creative Commons licence related to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. It is designed to be conversant with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, but not beholden to it. The initial two volumes for Tales of the Valiant—the Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide and the Tales of the Valiant Monster Vault—were published via a Kickstarter campaign.

Of course, Tales of the Valiant offers and supports Dungeons & Dragons-style play and that it is conversant with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, means that Dungeon Master and players of the latter can easily adapt to it. It is an action-orientated roleplaying game which takes place in the Labyrinth, a multiverse of infinite words connected by a maze of magic. What these worlds have in common each other and in common with Tales of the Valiant, is that they have magic, that adventurers are heroes and their adventures are heroic, that they are full of unusual places, peoples, and phenomena, that factions and organisations plot, and that conflict, in which heroes stand up against impossible odds and save the day through cunning, might, and magic, abounds. All of these are intended to foster good storytelling and good roleplaying, whether that is in a published setting or one of the Game Master’s own creation. Of course, whilst Tales of the Valiant is a Class and Level roleplaying game that offers Dungeons & Dragons-style play and there are plenty of similarities between Tales of the Valiant and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, there are plenty of differences too.

The Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide provides the core rules for the game plus descriptions of some monsters and magical items, so that from the one book, the Player Characters have something to fight and some treasure to find. The bulk of the book though is devoted to the thirteen core Classes in Tales of the Valiant. These are Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard—all classics of the roleplaying genre—and they are joined by a new Class, the Machinist. These all go up Twentieth Level and their descriptions include a suggested ‘Quick Build’ and an explanation as to why members of each Class become adventurers. They also have two Subclasses, except for the Cleric, which has three Domains--Life, Light, and War. So, for the Barbarian has Berserker and Wild Fury, the Druid has Shifter and Leaf, Fighter has Spell Blade and Weapon Master, and the Wizard has Battle Mage. Every Class also has two Heroic Boons to choose from at Tenth Level, so the Fighter has ‘Defiant’ which means that his player can choose to have his character succeed at a Saving Throw if he failed one, whilst ‘Unstoppable’ enables him to end the various conditions he is suffering from. For the Thief, ‘Escape Artist’ reduces any damage he receives when making a Saving Throw against to nothing if the Saving Throw made and by half if not, whilst ‘Jack-of-all-Trades’ enables him to choose Talents from any list. (Talents are organised into magical, martial, and technical lists.) Of course, in addition to the six classic attributes—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, a Player Character will have a Lineage, Heritage, and Background. Since the Player Character is meant to be heroic, by default, these are rolled on four six-sided dice each and the lowest dropped, but other options are given. The Lineage represents a Player Character’s blood ties and hereditary traits, the equivalent of Race or Species in other roleplaying games; Heritage is a Player Character’s upbringing and cultural origins; and Background what a Player Character did before becoming an adventurer.

There is much that is familiar with the Classes of Tales of the Valiant, but of course, every Class has been tweaked and small adjustments made to it. For example, the Druid has ‘Nature’s Gift’, an innate Class ability that enables the Druid to heal a number of times equal to a Player Character’s Proficiency Bonus and since it is not a spellcasting ability, it can be whilst the Druid is transformed by the Wild Shape Class ability. Also, a Druid can ‘Draw Power’ from Wild Shape to recharge spells and with ‘Nature’s Grace’, a Druid ignores the need for food or water and cannot be magically aged.

All Classes gain a choice of Heroic Boon at Tenth Level and the Druid has the choice of ‘Rite of the Kingdom’ and the ability to communicate with any animal or ‘Rite of the Shaper’, which grants a use of Wild Shape prior to combat if the Druid has none. The Monk can not only deflect missiles, but if the damage they would do is reduced to zero, the Monk can catch them and throw them back—which is cool, whilst the Paladin can ‘Lay on Hands’ on himself as a bonus action, replaces ‘Fighting Styles’ with ‘Martial Action’—as does the Fighter, though that Class has more options, either ‘Guard’ with a shield or ‘Wind Up’ for a powerful attack, and has the ‘Divine Smite’ feature limited to once per turn. The Warlock has the ‘Eldritch Blast’ cantrip shifted to a Class feature, uses the Charisma bonus to attack rather than Strength or Dexterity with Pact of the Blade, casts a more powerful version of Find Familiar with Pact of the Chain and allows the familiar to attack without any of the Warlock’s actions, has a range of Invocations that either enhance ‘Eldritch Blast’, grant a spell-like effect, and more.

All of the Classes have a range of changes like this, but the wholly new Class in the Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide is the Mechanist. It is intended as an inventor, maker, or engineer, but one that can also fight. ‘Eyes of the Maker’ enable the Mechanist to identify magical items, its properties, and how to use it, which is really powerful, whilst ‘Shard of Creation’, fashioned by the Mechanist, can be used to gain inspiration or be transformed into a useful object. ‘Augment’ enables the Mechanist to make an object adhesive, collapsible, enhance the user’s perception, empowered and thus magical, propulsive to increase its speed, and so on. The two Subclasses are the Metallurgist, which specialises in combat and engineered armaments, whilst the Spellwright is an enchanter, tinker, and crafter. This Class is both new and demanding in terms of the amount of effort that a player will need to invest in it to get the most out of it. The player of the Mechanist Class literally needs to be inventive in how he uses the features of the Class, rather than adhering to the more constrained and tightly defined features of the other Classes.

The Lineages consist of the Beastkin, Dwarf, Elf, Human, Kobold, Orc, Syderan, and Smallfolk. The Beastkin requires further definition by the player in terms of what animal features his character has, whilst the Syderan are plane-touched, whether through parentage or a magical upheaval, the choices being Celestial or Fiendish in nature. Lastly, the Smallfolk are either Gnomes or Halflings. The Heritages—some of which are recommended for particular Lineages—include Anointed, Cosmopolitan, Diaspora, Nomadic, Salvager, and Supplicant. The Backgrounds include Adherent, Artist, Criminal, Homesteader, Maker, Outcast, Rustic, and so on. The Lineages and Heritages provide some standard traits, whilst the Backgrounds provide further proficiencies, some equipment, a talent, and a reason to adventure. There is a good selection here, the Heritages and Backgrounds, in particular, enabling players and Game Master alike to mix and match and so create traditional or non-traditional fantasy characters as is their wont.

Spellcasting in Tales of the Valiant is drawn from four sources, Arcane, Divine, Primordial, and Wyrd. The Bard, Sorcerer, and Wizard draws from the Arcane; the Cleric and Paladin from the Divine; the Druid from the Primordial; and the Warlock the Wyrd. Spells are organised in Circles rather than Levels, but the various schools of magic remain as standard. In addition to cantrips and standard spells, casters also know rituals, spells take a minute or longer to cast. Classes who know rituals record which ones they can cast separate to their standard spells. For the most part, the spell list will look familiar to other fantasy roleplaying games, with the exception of a few new additions. For example, Gear Barrage, which conjures a burst of magically propelled gears!

The tweaks continue with the equipment. Weapons have ‘Options’ that provide extra effects beyond mere damage, such as ‘Bash’ for the club or ‘Hamstring’ for the scimitar. So, a successful ‘Bash’ causes the target to have disadvantage on its next attack whilst ‘Hamstring’ reduces the target’s movement. The other ‘Weapon Options’ are Disarm, Pinning Shot, Pull, Ricochet, and Trip, all of which give a player choices other than just damage and can make play that little bit more dynamic. Armour can have properties like ‘Cumbersome’ and ‘Natural Materials’, the latter meaning that the armour is immune to the types of effects that metal armour suffers from. The magical items include a new degree of rarity, that of ‘Fabled’. These only include a few items such as Blood Spike Armour, Book of Names, the Ring of the Flamekeeper, and Quickfinger Gloves. These are wondrous items, very rare, gained through the play of the story and the narrative, rather than through random events, which grow with a Player Character as he gains Levels. For example, the demonic Blood Spike Armour lets the wearer attack with its spikes as a bonus action, but attuned at Fifth Level, the spikes also inflict additional necrotic damage, at Ninth Level, there is a simple bonus to Armour Class and to hit and damage with the spikes, at Thirteenth level, the bonus increases and the wearer can make a nearby creature frightened, and lastly, at Seventeenth Level, the bonus increases again. Effectively, these ‘Fabled’ items—which unlike the other magical items listed, do not have a price attached, are designed to stay with a Player Character and become part of his story.

In terms of playing the game, relatively little is changed. The core mechanic still consists of rolling a twenty-sided die and adding the total of the attribute bonus and Proficiency Bonus when it applies, to beat a Difficulty Class. These range from ten or ‘Easy’ to twenty-five and higher for ‘Very Hard’. The Advantage and Disadvantage mechanic introduced in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, remains, but this is joined by a new mechanic, that of ‘Luck’. Luck is gained for failed attack rolls and Saving Throws, as a reward for clever, interesting play, and for surviving difficult encounters or achieving story goals. This is up to a maximum of five points. It can be spent on a one-for-one basis to improve rolls or at a cost of three Luck, a player can reroll the twenty-sided die in any check. The rules encourage a player to spend the Luck. If a Player Character has five already and more is earned, then the player has to roll a four-sided die and reset it to that new value. Also covered here are the rules and the guidance for social, exploration, and combat encounters, essentially the core of game play, whilst downtime activities take in carousing, crafting, researching, training, and working. In the case of crafting, researching, training, and working, these open up the opportunities for the Player Characters. Traditionally, Classes such as the Wizard would spend months on researching spells or creating potions and the like, whilst the other Classes had no similar options. Now they can research for information, earn money, craft non-magical items, and actually learn a new language or gain a proficiency in a new skill, tool, weapon, or armour. Of course, it takes both time—at least a year—and money to undertake this training, but it gives options for Player Characters who traditionally did not have anything to do whilst others were occupied in their projects.

Rounding out the Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide is a set of three appendices. In turn these explain the roleplaying game’s Conditions that a Player Character or NPC or monster can suffer, entertainingly illustrated/demonstrated by Kobolds; detail the ‘Gods & Pantheons’ of not just the Labyrinthian Pantheon, but also some fantasy historical ones like the Egyptian, Greek, and Norse pantheons; and a selection of creatures. The latter is not extensive and does not include any intelligent humanoids. The main entries are to provide support for the various Classes, such as a mount for the Paladin and a familiar for the various spellcasting Classes. Although the ‘Gods & Pantheons’ are nicely detailed, they do include numerous Domains that are not listed for the Cleric Class, limiting their use straight out of the book. The appendix does include a disclaimer, stating that they will be detailed in future books, but their inclusion is tantalisingly frustrating at his point.

There are a couple of oddities in the book. Multiclassing is an optional rule, but is explained before the Classes, whilst the magical items are given at the end of the equipment chapter rather than in their own section. The ‘Playing the Game’ chapter is placed before the spellcasting section rather than perhaps at the end of the book where it could have been more easily accessed.

Physically, the Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide is cleanly, tidily laid out. The artwork is excellent and in addition, throughout the book, there are sections of advice for the player which further explain the rules or make suggestions how to get the best out of Tales of the Valiant and its rules. For anyone new to the style of play that Tales of the Valiant offers, this is all very useful.

The Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide is a solid introduction to the first ‘Black Flag Roleplaying’ game. There are a lot of little tweaks and changes to how this plays compared to similar fantasy roleplaying games, but the fundamentals of that play remains unchanged, which only serves to make it all the more accessible. The overall effect of those changes in the Tales of the Valiant Player’s Guide is that Tales of the Valiant is a cleaner and perhaps leaner roleplaying game offering classic fantasy roleplaying.

Terminator Terror III

The war against Skynet and its rise focuses on three time periods. The first is the morning in America of Ronald Reagan’s nineteen eighties as Kyle Reese tries to protect Sarah Connor, whilst the second is the New World Order of Bill Clinton’s nineteen nineties as the rogue T-800 tries to protect her and her son, John, as well as target the Cyberdyne Systems Corporation. The third is the Dark Future of the twenty-twenties and beyond, as John Connor leads the Resistance against the robotic forces of Skynet in a post-apocalyptic future decades after Judgement Day. These periods have been explored in the campaign, The Terminator RPG: Campaign Book and Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG for The Terminator RPG from Nightfall Games. Yet there is a fourth period, one which has not been explored in the roleplaying game to date, that of the years following August 29th, 1997—Judgement Day. This is a period when mankind finds itself reeling from the nuclear strikes from both the USA and Russia, from the disintegration of society and collapse of civilisation, from the years of nuclear winter that followed, and eventually, from the realisation that what had been really responsible, had not been the various nation’s governments, but the machines they had put in charge, machines that were hunting them, killing them, herding them, and ultimately, attempting to manipulate the timeline that ensure the survival of Skynet.

The Terminator RPG: Resist! – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG is a slim supplement that explores the years leading up to Judgement Day and the opening years of the Dark Future. This is not wholly confined to the USA and Russia, for it also explores the fates of numerous countries and the histories of the numerous Resistance forces that rose from the ashes, and in doing so, it visits some unexpected locations. Plus, in addition to exploring the rise of MIR and the Resistance in Russia, the supplement provides rules for creating Spetsnaz Player Characters and describes the equipment used by the Spetsnaz and the Russian Technocratic Union, the machinery fielded by MIR, and Skynet’s early assets that crept out onto the battlefield. Lastly, there are rules for survival and scavenging for survivors picking over the bones of the civilisation that once was. Depictions of this Dark Future in The Terminator franchise, right from the opening moment in The Terminator when the foot of a T-800 steps on and crushes the skull of one poor victim amongst a pile of skulls, have always been grim. Make no mistake, the depiction of this Dark Future in The Terminator RPG: Resist! is equally grim.

The supplement opens with a dismantling of the nuclear doctrine that arose with the involvement of Skynet as third, if secret, antagonist. So Mutually Assured Destruction is no longer a deterrent, military and industrial targets are no longer a priority, and of course, it is no longer an exchange of fire between East and West because Skynet and MIR have thoroughly penetrated the command-and-control networks. The latter means that missiles are being fired at targets within their own country of origin; that Skynet targets sites where biological and chemical weapons are stored—including gaining control of the Centre for Disease Control in the USA; and then using the means and protocols for handling disasters, such as those established by FEMA in the USA, to effectively herd survivors and disaster management teams together and then specifically target them! Beyond these Dark Years, this desire to control continues as Skynet begins fielding Hunter Killer units and the first Terminators that herd the survivors into camps. Parallel to this, John Connor remains in hiding, often with many other survivors covering for him, but making broadcasts that begin to spread the truth about the threat that many survivors as yet remain truly unaware of…

Also discussed are the groups that do survive, some surprising, some not. Of course, the Doomsday Preppers and the Militias, though their individualistic streaks mean they are ill suited to co-operation when the Resistance begins building networks. The Mormons are better prepared to survive, but not to face the raiders, whilst the isolated nature of the Amish, Indigenous, and similar communities mean they are all but ignored by Skynet and often build nations that would survive beyond the Dark Years. US survivors would also flee north and south. In Mexico, this would trigger the Second Mexican-American War, which ultimately leave the country in the hands of the drug cartels who had transformed themselves into feudal war and slave lords, whilst in Canada, the survivors have been firmly driven out of the cities and the oil fields of northern Alberta turned into a hellhole supplying Skynet with petroleum resources.

As damaged by Judgement Day and what followed next as much as North America, the situation in Russia is different because there is not one single controlling A.I., but several, each one a separate node of MIR with a different attitude towards humanity, and also towards Skynet. This includes nodes which actively favour humanity, others that manipulate it, and some which want to destroy it, and like some Soviet-era collective, the nodes do not always agree on what action to take. So, there is likely to be a more erratic overarching feel to any campaign set in Russia, whilst still being organised on the ground with the rise of the Russian Technical Union, which claims, but does not hold all of the territory that was once the Warsaw Pact. The background, politics, and capabilities of the Russian Technical Union are backed up with the means to create Spetsnaz Player Characters. They are much more of an organised military than the Resistance in North America, and to reflect that, Spetsnaz Player Characters receive extra training represented with Supplemental Training Plans, including ‘Contact and Outreach’, ‘Long Range Reconnaissance’, ‘Refugee Support Training’, ‘Repair and Salvage Operations’, and ‘Opposition Sabotage’.

Details of what happened in the wake of Judgement Day for several other countries are also given. France managed to hold out initially due to the fact that its military infrastructure was not tied to Skynet via NATO, but eventually biological warfare followed by direct assault with Hunter Killer units from England via the Channel Tunnel saw first Calais captured and then the rest of France. What remains of any resistance in Germany hides out in the dungeons below the ruins of Castle Drachenfels(!), its leader rejecting contact with the American Resistance and blaming John Connor for Judgement Day.


The future of the United Kingdom—or the ‘Dis-United Kingdom’—is also detailed. In some ways, this feels the most traditional of post-apocalyptic futures in The Terminator RPG: Resist! in that the government is re-established in Birmingham following the destruction of London and Manchester. A chemical gas attack by Skynet followed by attacks by Hunter Killer tanks forced the survivors to flee west, first through Wolverhampton, and then where Brummies traditionally went on holiday—Wales. The survivors of the United Kingdom have fled where they always have when invaded—into the fringes of the country. The survivors in Scotland are cut off from the rest of the country the irradiated Lowlands, whilst in Wales, the survivors reopened, hid in, and expanded the country’s old coal mines. The resistance is a combination of remnants of the British Army, Welsh nationalists, and surviving elements of the IRA, with the frontlines being the fringes of Birmingham. Called Glyndwr, the slightly fractious resistance has one secret weapon—the Welsh language!

Perhaps the most interesting countries detailed are Ghana and the Philippines. Although West Africa was scarred by the effects of Judgement Day, it was not specifically targeted by Skynet. It took a decade for the region to begin to recover and be targeted by the machines. Skynet has occupied Ghana’s Volta region for its hydroelectric plant and begun strip-mining the region for its resources. In response, the West African Coalition of former states in the region, originally established to provide humanitarian aid, has transformed into a resistance movement. Communication between the resistance groups is maintained by Runners who carry messages and distribute information. This is the basis for a different type of campaign, focusing on the Runners and their movement and journeys. The Athletics, Endurance, and Stealth skills are strongly recommended for Player Character Runners, as are language skills given that some ninety are spoken in the region, but they can be anything beyond that. To this are the new skill, ‘Lore: Region’ and new Traits, ‘Forced March’ and ‘Regional Polyglot’. The latter enables a Player Character to better learn and understand the numerous languages in a region. That said, a list of some of the languages spoken in the region would have been useful, but the Director will definitely want to do more research for any campaign run in the region, and that would include languages.

In the Philippines, the hope for survival is tied to the Pag-asa, literally ‘hope’ in Tagalog. The Pag-asa is actually a former Ohio-Class submarine about to be decommissioned when Judgement Day occurred and since it was not armed with nuclear missiles, overlooked by Skynet. Instead of returning to fight and likely die for the USA, the crew elected to support the Philippines and now it spearheads the Resistance all across southeast Asia. Similar treatments are given for Oceania, including Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific, as well as Central and South America. These are broader treatments, and not quite as interesting as the write-ups of the other countries.

Besides expanding the setting of The Terminator RPG into an immediately dark and nasty era, The Terminator RPG: Resist! provides rules and mechanics for prosthetic limbs and wheelchairs and for surviving in the wastelands of the Dark Years and beyond. These cover scavenging, the use of toolkits, finding ammunition from bullets to bombs, armour and clothing, and more. It includes the finding and fixing up of a dwelling, especially in the face of apocalyptic weather, and notes on foraging and hunting in the deadly new era. In terms of support, descriptions and stats are provided for Skynet’s early war forces, such as the RTAV Robotic Tracked Attack Vehicle and the RV-12 Dart Microdrone. Also given are Skynet’s post-millennial forces, such as the Cyberdyne Systems Series 100 Robotic Infantry Unit, and the forces of MIR and some of the equipment field by the Spetsnaz.

Physically, The Terminator RPG: Resist! – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG is a good-looking book. The artwork is excellent and the layout clean and tidy. However, the book does need an edit in places and feels slightly rushed.

The Terminator RPG: Resist! – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG is a slim book and perhaps a few more pages could have been included to round out its content with some scenario hooks or campaign outlines or something similar. More so for the descriptions of less familiar places such as Ghana or the Philippines, which would make their details easier for the Director to use and develop. Nevertheless, there is a lot of good content in The Terminator RPG: Resist! – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG, expanding the scope of The Terminator RPG in both interesting new regions and theatres of action and a truly horrifying and grim period of the setting’s future. It would be interesting to see actual campaign content for all of these new settings, but The Terminator RPG: Resist! – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG provides a very scary starting point for the Director to develop her own scenarios.

Solitaire: Aces Over the Adriatic

There is something utterly romantic and beguiling as you soar through the skies above the azure waters of the Adriatic, the sun glinting off your wingtips, the wind rushing past your head, and the roar of the engine in your ears. Higher, faster, the dreams of your nation embodied in the sleek frame of the machine in your hands, for a moment you are free. Free of the demands of national pride and prestige, free of expectations, and maybe even free of the memories that you can never truly escape, no matter how fast or how high you fly… And then you turn over and dive. Dive back down to the exaltation of the crowds, to the popping glare of the press, to be amongst the men and women placed on a pedestal who are your peers and like you, know the freedom of flight, and to return to the horrors of your past and the creeping horror of Fascism along the shores of the Adriatic.

In Aces Over the Adriatic: A Solo RPG, you are that pilot. Perhaps a veteran of the Great War, mourning the loss of comrades, your skill and experience has put you at the controls of a seaplane, an entry into the ongoing Coupe d’Aviation Maritime Jacques Schneider, a biennial race for seaplanes and flying boats. You race for your country, but you also race for the memory of your friends lost in combat and you race for the love and glory of flying. Yet the speed and manoeuvrability of your machine may also see you undertaking missions facing pirates that are a threat the skies over the Adriatic, delivering urgent mail to Milan, or carrying contraband in sealed cases. Published by Critical Kit, Ltd, a publisher best known for Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG, this is actually a French roleplaying game written in conjunction with the Musée de l’Hydraviation in Biscarrosse, France. It is semi-historical in that in addition to being inspired by the technical innovation and the romance brought about by the Schneider Trophy in the interwar years, it is also inspired by the Studio Ghibli film, Porco Rosso.

A Pilot in Aces Over the Adriatic: A Solo RPG is defined by his Nationality, Age, some Personality features, a personal distinctive feature, a distinctive feature for his aircraft, and a Perk. Nationality will also determine the Pilot’s name and possibly the type of aircraft he is flying, whilst age will determine whether or not he served in the Great War. The Perk can apply to the aircraft, such as ‘Military-grade weapons’ or ‘Speed’, or it can apply to the Pilot like ‘Calm’ or ‘Daredevil’. He also has values for Gauge, Glory, and Nostalgia. Gauge represents the amount of damage that both Pilot and aircraft can withstand; Glory is the Pilot’s fame and ambition, as it rises, the Pilot will gain Perks, a nickname, and honorary titles; and Nostalgia is the Pilot’s link to his past and if it grows too high, the Pilot may suffer from melancholy and if it reaches ten, will forces them to hang up his flying helmet and goggles.

Name: Otillie Gottschalk
Nationality: German
Age: 31
Nickname: None
Honorary Title: None
Personality: Clever, Chatty, Clumsy
Distinctive Features: Pet Dachshund, ‘Rudy’
Aircraft’s Distinctive Features: Dark Blue
Perks: Intuition
Gauge: 4
Glory: 0
Nostalgia: 0

Actions and Questions are handled in a straightforward manner. An answer to a question can be determined by a simple roll of a six-sided die, but there is a table of more nuanced answer options included. For actions, A Pilot in Aces Over the Adriatic: A Solo RPG employs the ‘Push System’. When the player wants his Pilot to undertake an action, he rolls a six-sided die. This is the ‘Initial Die’. It is impossible to fail on the roll of the ‘Initial Die’. A result of four or less is a ‘Weak Success’, or a success with consequences, whilst a result of five or six is a ‘Strong Success’. It is as simple as that, but what if the player rolls a ‘Weak Success’, but wants a ‘Strong Success’? he can then roll a which can lead to a failure. The results of the ‘Push Die’ are added to the results of the ‘Initial Die’. If the total is still less than four, it is still a ‘Weak Success’ and the player can roll another ‘Push Die’; if it is five or six, it is a ‘Strong Success’; and if it is seven or more, it is a failure. Effectively, the Pilot is constantly pushing the envelope and there is a chance that it can be pushed too far.

The play of the games flows back and forth between Missions and Memories. A mission might be to ferry a wealthy passenger to Venice or help cover the story of another famous pilot for the Pilot’s national press. A Memory can come from any activity, such as visiting a city or whilst a Pilot repairs his aircraft, and might be about the war, friends, past loves, and so on. Both require a roll to succeed. Each Mission has four Challenge Points and the player rolls to reduce these, a ‘Strong Success’ reducing two, ‘Weak Success’, and a failure, none. The faster a player can reduce the Challenge Points, the more Glory his Pilot will be rewarded. Glory can be spent to gain more Perks and as the total Glory accrued rises, the Pilot will gain a Nickname and an Honorary Title. However, results of a Failure and a ‘Weak Success’ both reduce ‘Gauge’ the joint measure of damage that a Pilot and his aircraft can suffer. Pilot and aeroplane can keep flying as long as their Gauge is one or more, but if it is reduced to zero, they will crash.

A Memory takes place between Missions. If successful, it can restore Gauge and refresh Perks used. However, in the process of reliving a Memory, a Pilot gains Nostalgia and if that ever rises to ten, the Pilot will retire. In addition, it is possible to have a Flashback during a Mission, which works similar to a Memory and also increases Nostalgia. So there is a balance here between keeping flying and succeeding and getting lost in reminiscence. And of course, throughout, the player is writing a journal—or is that keeping a logbook?—of the story of his Pilot and his aeroplane over the skies of Europe. It is here Aces Over the Adriatic: A Solo RPG that comes into its own in supporting the Player.

Aces Over the Adriatic: A Solo RPG is rich in background detail. There are descriptions of Europe in the interwar period, Fascist Italy, seaplanes and flying boats, the Schneider Trophy, and more. These descriptions are more overview than detail, but they are enough for the player to start with. Besides the table of Missions, there is ‘The Control Tower’ which provides tables for weather conditions, iconic places, NPCs including historical pilots and sponsors, generating pirate group names, and more. All of which the player can use to generate details and elements of his Pilot’s life in and out of the cockpit and as it is logged. There is advice too on how to play Aces Over the Adriatic: A Solo RPG, the author suggesting, for example, that the player control and tell the stories of multiple Pilots at once as if writing a drama, and on how to make the play harder or easier.

Unlike many journalling games, Aces Over the Adriatic: A Solo RPG has the scope to be more than just a solo game. The rules are simple and straightforward and the content in terms of setting and support is potentially more than enough for a Game Master—Air Marshal?—to run Aces Over the Adriatic: A Solo RPG as a storytelling game for a small group of players, whose Pilots could simply be rivals, members of a squadron, or even an aerial circus.

Physically, Aces Over the Adriatic: A Solo RPG is a beautiful little book. There are plenty of period photographs and the book is well written. The character sheet is a little busy, but it has everything on there that a player needs to know, including the basics of the rules.

Aces Over the Adriatic: A Solo RPG does over romanticise its setting a little, content to let the spectre of Fascism hang in the background rather than engage with it and so leaving the darker elements of play to the Memories of the Pilot and thus in the past rather than in the now. Thus, despite being based on the history of the Interwar Period, it leans more towards the fantasy of its other inspiration, the Studio Ghibli film, Porco Rosso, in its play. To be fair though, bringing that into play would have been challenging and since the player is telling the story of his Pilot, he is free to bring those elements into play if he wants to. Nevertheless, Aces Over the Adriatic: A Solo RPG is an utterly charming roleplaying game and an utter delight for fans of history, especially aviation history.

Sample Dungeon Redux II

At its heart, the Old School Renaissance is about emulating the style of play of Dungeons & Dragons from forty and more years ago, and about exploring the history of Dungeons & Dragons, so it is always fascinating to see what its adherents will find after ferreting around in the archives. Beneath the Ruined Wizard’s Tower is a perfect example of something surprisingly brought back to the attention of the Dungeons & Dragons-playing audience. Beneath the Ruined Wizard’s Tower is not wholly new, but an extension of an old dungeon, that of the ‘Sample Dungeon’ which originally appeared in the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, published in 1977, and edited by the late Doctor J. Eric Holmes. What Doctor Holmes did was edit earlier example rooms and develop them into a coherent dungeon design, a ‘starter dungeon’ complete with backstory, context, and reasons for the Player Characters to venture into its depths. The ‘Sample Dungeon’ itself has previously been visited and expanded upon with The Ruined Tower of Zenopus. That though, brought it up to date with the modern incarnation of the rules, having been written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, Basic Rules, which are free to download from the Wizards of the Coast website. This means that it is also compatible with, and could be upgraded to, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and of course, with some effort, could easily be adapted to the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice. Beneath the Ruined Wizard’s Tower is not written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition though, but instead for use with BLUEHOME: Fantasy Roleplaying Game, the retroclone designed to emulate the version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons written by Doctor J. Eric Holmes.

Beneath the Ruined Wizard’s Tower is a dungeon level designed for a party of Second Level Player Characters, who should, by the end of it be close to, or have reached Third Level. It is designed to be slipped in under the ‘Sample Dungeon’, expanding it physically, whilst also expanding the story strands and possibilities from the nearby town, Portown. There are essentially three of these and they are built into the design of the dungeon level if not into the town itself—that task is left up to the Dungeon Master to design and develop. These threads consists of a band of smugglers operating out of some caves who find themselves under the sway of, and giving tribute to, an Undead Corsair, now a Wight, who wants to be reunited with his wife, Lemunda the Lovely, who might be alive elsewhere; a Temple of the Rat God, where members of a secret society in Portown, come to worship in the hope of becoming a wererat; and a Pre-Human City, or at least, a very small part of it. What is present here is a very tiny part of that city, the suggestion being that Zenopus, the wizard whose disappearance is never explained in the ‘Sample Dungeon’, came here to study the city and might be somewhere in the city still. There are certainly signs of his activity in that area of the dungeon, including a wizard’s laboratory full of old alchemical experiments and an exhibit room with various trophies mounted on the walls.

This gives the dungeon three areas which are distinct in terms of flavour and feel. ‘The Haunted Sea Caves’ is where the smugglers hide their contraband and try to avoid the brine zombies that lurk here. They are damp and salt-stained. ‘The Temple of the Rat God’ is smoky, candlelit, and ridden with rat droppings, whilst ‘The Pre-human City’ hints at what lies beyond the limits of the ‘Sample Dungeon’. It replicates the Bronze Mask from the ‘Sample Dungeon’, that the Player Characters can also ask questions of, and if the players and their characters can solve a mathematical puzzle here, they can gain the means to activate ‘The Crystal Portal’, the means to travel back and forth across the dungeon and even possibly, into the city below… (It has to be said, that this mathematical puzzle relies on player knowledge, so is not something that the character might know.) Between all three and connecting them is ‘The Crystal Labyrinth’, a maze of caves in which it is all too easy to get lost in, be blinded if some casts a Light spell, and oddly, not feel the need to eat or drink.

There are some nice moments in the dungeon, such as when facing the Rat God cultists, not all of them being devout enough to want to fight anyone, let alone the Player Characters, and a prisoner, being kept drunk on brandy and cake, refusing to believe that she is being fattened for sacrifice! The dungeon even has its ‘Dungeon Constable’, appointed to patrol the dungeon—or at least the easily accessible parts—and prevented unauthorised adventurers just coming and going. Which lends itself to the suggestion that adventurers or others have been entering the dungeons and the town wants to regulate their comings and goings, though this aspect is never really developed.

However, the touches of inspiration like this are not quite good enough to get over the problems that Beneath the Ruined Wizard’s Tower has in terms of presentation. To begin with, the scenario’s three different areas and their associated plots could have better explained up front rather than Dungeon Master ‘Read to find out’ and there is a flatness to the writing that leaves the Dungeon Master with a lot of effort needed to bring it to life a bit more than it does. The map does not help in this manner. Whilst clear and simple, there is not a lot of detail to it, the inclusion of which might have helped the Dungeon Master portray the various rooms and their environments. The main problem though, is trying to find particular locations. This is because, in keeping with the keying of the ‘Sample Dungeon’, every location is lettered rather than numbered. The selected font is not easy to read and further, every empty room is marked with a ‘E’ for empty, so looking for the right letter and the right room quickly becomes a challenge. There are fourteen rooms just marked ‘E’ and thus not only cluttering up the dungeon, but not really adding anything to it.

Physically, Beneath the Ruined Wizard’s Tower is a plain affair. The map is decent, though not marked in an easy-to-read fashion.

Ultimately, is Beneath the Ruined Wizard’s Tower, as written, a worthy sequel or addition to the ‘Sample Dungeon’? The answer would have to be a no, which is a shame as there is both some nice details in Beneath the Ruined Wizard’s Tower and scope for a solid adventure within its pages. That though, will need some extra effort upon the part of the Dungeon Master to both fit it into her campaign and lift it out of the ordinary.

—oOo—

With thanks to James Fullard.