[Fanzine Focus XLI] Cursed Scroll #1

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 began being supported by fanzines, is ShadowDark, published by The Arcane Library. One such fanzine is Cursed Scroll. This is not only a fanzine for ShadowDark, but since it is actually published by The Arcane Library, it is the official fanzine for ShadowDark, fulfilling a similar role as Carcass Crawler does for Necrotic Gnome of Old School Essentials.

Cursed Scroll #1 carries the subtitle of ‘Shadowdark Zine Vol. 1: Diablerie!’. Published in December 2021, the theme for the inaugural issue is all things demonic and diabolic, and this includes both a mini-hexcrawl and a mini dungeon as well as three new Classes, new monsters, and spells. All of which is linked, so that the Game Master is provided with a complete mini-setting and campaign that can be run as is, added to her campaign, or pulled out and used separately. The setting for Cursed Scroll #1 is ‘The Gloaming’, an ancient forest of black trees, moss strewn standing stones, and fog-shrouded marshes, but worse, demons that hatch from the region’s dark marrow trees, forcing inhabitants to cower behind wooden palisades, warily watching for diabolic incursion and waiting for the Knights of St. Ydris to ride forth from Greywall Priory and strike down the demons and dismiss from this blighted mortal realm, as is their mandate. ‘The Gloaming’ is a hexcrawl covering an area of seventeen by eleven hexes, thirty-four by twenty-two miles, roughly seven-hundred-and-fifty square miles. It has tables for rumours and encounters and in ‘The Gloaming Hex Key’, gives detailed descriptions of twenty-five locations across the region. These include crazy Uncle Grigor, a witch who wades barefoot through the bogs collecting leeches for treatment and pickling and who might take on an apprentice who shares the same love of leeches and leechcraft; Victoria, a maternal werewolf who has recently lost her cubs and from her Bone Cave is now plotting to turn the children of a local village into a new pack of werewolf cubs; and the Mud Pit where Ixidian, a swamp dragon, who writhes in the murk and the mud of a deep ravine, greedily awaiting the next sacrifice thrown to him by cultists that have made camp nearby and prey on nearby passing travellers.

Two notable locations include Greywall Priory from where the small order, the Knights of St. Ydris, attempt to put an end to the demons that threaten the region and Bittermold Keep, the former seat of the Bittermold family, its stone walls long melted by the slime which bubbles up deep from under the ground from a shrine dedicated to the primordial ooze, Mugdulblub, poisoning the minds of those it does not melt. These are both expanded in different ways. For the Knights of St. Ydris, there is a new Class, whilst for Bittermold Keep, there is a complete mini-dungeon. ‘The Gloaming’ has a mouldering, muddy feel of a land gripped by lurking horror and foreboding. ‘The Gloaming’ is deigned for First Level Player Characters.

The Knights of St. Ydris is the first of thee Classes in the issue, a cursed knight who follows St. Ydris in embracing the demonic to fight the unholy. Notably, three times a day he can undergo ‘Demonic Possession’ to increase damage done and from Third Level, can lean Witch’s spells. The version of the Warlock Class is radically different to that normally seen in Dungeons & Dragons-style gaming. They are howling warriors and doomspeakers for their patrons, such as Shune the Vile, Mugdulblub, or The Willowman. Each of these grants random Patron Boons, and it is these that the influence what a Warlock can do. For example, Warlocks of Almazzat can temporarily gain advantage on melee attacks and initiative, whilst those of Titania can temporally hypnotise creatures, learn to wield a longbow, and gain protection against hostile spells. The Warlock is not a straightforward Class to play, but requires effort upon the part of both player and Game Master to bring the relationship between Warlock and Patron to life. The Witch Class is more traditional, being described as a cackling crone with milky eyes that can see portents, but also gains a familiar and potentially, the ability to teleport to the familiar once per day, as well as having its own set of Witch spells. All three Classes have their own set of titles that vary according to Alignment, a table of Diabolic Backgrounds, and for the Warlock, descriptions of the Patron options.

The Witch spells are a good mix. For example, Bogboil transforms an area of ground into a boiling, muddy bog of quicksand; Broomstick enables the Witch to fly; Cat’s Eye lets her see invisible creatures and secret doors with eyes that have turned to slits; and with Curse, she can instil curses such as horrible boils and warts, a constantly shrill voice, always losing at gambling, an irrational fear, and so on. Most work better with the Witch Class rather than the Knights of St. Ydris, and a player with a Knight of St. Ydris character may want to work with the Game Master to select the spells that he thinks is appropriate.

Many of the monsters in Cursed Scroll #1 can be found in ‘The Gloaming’ or ‘The Hideous Halls of Mugdulblub’. They include the Marrow Fiend, the wolf-like demons that hatch from the area’s marrow trees; Howlers, cannibalistic Halflings with sharpened teeth; and the Tar Bat, which an oil tar that it will set alight by flying into open flames and potentially doing more damage. Also included are stats for two of the Warlock’s possible Patrons, Mugdulblub and The Willowman.

The last entry in Cursed Scroll #1 is ‘The Hideous Halls of Mugdulblub’. This is a one-level dungeon for First Level Player Characters, the squelchy, acid-scarred dungeon below Bittermold Keep. The factions in the dungeon include devolved members of the Bittermold family; Howlers, Halfling cultists dedicated to Mugdulblub, whose leader is happy to let all dissolve if it will defeat the Bittermolds; vengeful Catfish mutated by Mugdulblub who are annoyed about being sacrifices; and Mugdulblub himself, who considers only the survivors worthy of worshipping him. The dungeon comes with rumours, but the Game Master may want more to get her players and their characters involved. The dungeon itself is clammy and muculent with barely a dry surface and plenty of sludge and mud underfoot. It is good for a mini-campaign as part of ‘The Gloaming’ hexcrawl, but can be run separately. Whether run separately or as part of the hexcrawl, the dungeon should take two or three sessions to fully explore.

Physically, Cursed Scroll #1 adheres to the style of ShadowDark. Thus, it is clean, tidy, and laid out. The illustrations and cartography are also good.

What is a so good about Cursed Scroll #1 is that it is a complete package, a mini-supplement all of its very own. That means that it is also easy to drop into a campaign and easy to add to. For example, the more recent Dark Visions and The Tower of Six would work well with this. Cursed Scroll #1: Shadowdark Zine Vol. 1: Diablerie! is a good first issue packed with playable content for ShadowDark.

[Fanzine Focus XLI] Crawling Under A Broken Moon Issue No. 11

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 the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. One such fanzine is the aforementioned Crawling Under A Broken Moon.

Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 11 was published in in January, 2016 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 and Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 6 continued that trend with another inspiration, Mad Max. Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 7 continued the technical and vehicular themes of the previous issue, whilst also detailing a major metropolis of the setting. Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 8 and Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 9 were both a marked change in terms of content and style, together presenting an A to Z for the post-apocalyptic setting of Umerica and Urth. Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 10 switched back to more traditional content by focusing on monsters.

Crawling Under A Broken Moon fanzine No. #11 brings a sense of humour to the issues of the fanzine with ‘Worship, Umerica Style!’ by Tim Bruns and Reid San Filippo. It presents fourteen new on the Patrons of Umerica. These are kept quite stripped down to a simple rules bonus for their adherents, a list of favoured weapons, creatures considered unholy, and suggestions as how adherents worship. Unlike Patrons for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, there are no specific Disapproval mechanics, no spells, and the like. Instead, there are inventive creations drawing on pop culture. These start with a musical trio of Classica, goddess of Rhythm and Order, Kizz, whose worshippers hunt for ‘Enlightened Awesomeness’ and are particularly keen on the axe as a weapon, and their supposed love child, Technos Discos, the chaos god of music and terrible bringer of beats. There are some lovely touches here, such as the clerics of Santa, the jolly avatar of giving, hope, and joy, prefer to use weapons that use ammunition because shooting ammunition is an act of giving, whereas $ or ‘Cash’, impartial goddess of barter and wealth prefer weapons that do not expend ammunition because it is expensive, unless it can be recovered. Of course, in the post-apocalyptic future of Umerica, there gods of petroleum and its products, Petrolex, and mutations, Nuka, the Mother of Mutants, whilst Elmos is the Evil Puppet Master and corrupter of children! In places, you do wish that there was more detail to these gods, but otherwise this is an enjoyably tongue-in-cheek pantheon that inventively interprets the past of Umerica—and our present.

For ‘Racial Recast’, David VC reinterprets the Halfling of classic fantasy for the Umerica setting with ‘Feral Urchin – An alternative for Halflings in CUaBM’. Instead of Hobbits or Halflings, these are runaway children who answered the call of whispers from someone called Pann, thought to be “past the second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning.” How barbaric they become depends on their Alignment. The Chaotic Wildchildren are known for their abundant Luck, though things around them tend to break, and for flying into a berserk rage called a ‘Wild Rumpus’ when they become beast-like. The Neutral Slingers are crack shots, whilst Lawful Nerds are skilled with Weapon Tinkering, Bot Repair, Computer Use, Vehicle Repair, and General Tech. Of the three, the Slinger is really a bit one-note, but the other two have a more scope in what they can do.

‘Weapons of the Wasteland’ details more arms and armour of the setting, much of it scavenged from the past. For example, Protective Sports Gear is the equivalent of padded armour, whilst ‘Retread Armour’, made from tire treads attached to heavy cloth is equal to studded leather armour. The rare armour includes the Silver Suit and Bubble Helm, which combine to make a whole, very light suit, Force Field Belt, and Power Armour. Common homemade weapons include Can Grenades, Chainsaws, Compound Bows, Pipe Guns, Scrap Guns, and more.

‘Cheap, A.K.A. damaged, goods’ divides items down into Not Bad, Bad, and Total Crap. Each has a higher fumble roll, but at a reduced cost. If an item breaks, there are rules for a quick fix, which can be done on the fly and requires a few supplies like duct tape or instant epoxy. However, this will only last a few rounds or until a fumble is rolled.

The inspiration for David VC’s new Class is, of course, the film Tron. ‘The Hologram’ is an A.I. contained in a Frisbee-like and sized disc. Long since separated from Cyberspace, they can use the disc to both attack and defend, are energy dependent, and can hack computers and explore them as if they are cyberspace. A Hologram will die if the Disc is destroyed, but from Fifth Level onwards, can create a backup. Every Hologram has an Occupation, what their purpose was originally, which could be a video game character, business/financial program, medical, intelligence gathering bot, and so on. Each Occupation provides a Disc symbol, purpose, suggested appearance, and some tools, much a Player Character for a character funnel. This adds some variation and should influence how a player roleplays his Hologram character.

The issue comes to a close with more entries in the ‘Twisted Menagerie’. These include the ‘Scorpionoid’, a greedy, mercenary creature that can get addicted to caffeine-based soft drinks. This is followed by ‘By the way… When deities call in a favor’, a fun table of requests that a deity might make of one of his followers, but definitely a Cleric! The entries vary according to Alignment, but they are a fun way to spice up a Player Character Cleric’s life.

Physically, Crawling Under A Broken Moon Fanzine Issue No. 11 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. 11 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. 10 is an enjoyable issue with lots of sly, slightly silly humour that help bring aspects of the Umerica settings to life. The opening ‘Worship, Umerica Style!’ article is really good, the issue’s highlight bringing the role of the Cleric to the fore with entertaining background material. Although that article is very specific to the Umerica, setting that there is still plenty in the issue that will work with 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.