[Fanzine Focus XLI] The Travellers’ Digest #8

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 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 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. However, not all fanzines written with the Old School Renaissance in mind need to be written for a specific retroclone. Although not the case now, the popularity of Traveller would spawn several fanzines, of which The Travellers’ Digest, published by Digest Group Publications, was the most well known and would eventually transform from a fanzine into a magazine.

The publication of The Travellers’ Digest #1 in December, 1985 marked the entry of Digest Group Publications into the hobby and from this small, but ambitious beginnings would stem a complete campaign and numerous highly-regarded supplements for Game Designers Workshop’s Traveller and MegaTraveller, as well as a magazine that all together would run for twenty-one issues between 1985 and 1990. The conceit was that The Travellers’ Digest was a magazine within the setting of the Third Imperium, its offices based on Deneb in the Deneb Sector, and that it awarded the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award. This award would be won by one of the Player Characters and thus the stage is set for ‘The Grand Tour’, the long-running campaign in the pages of The Travellers’ Digest. In classic fashion, as with Europe of the eighteenth century, this would take the Player Characters on a tour of the major capitals of known space. These include Vland, Capitol, Terra, the Aslan Hierate, and even across the Great Rift. The meat of this first issue, as well as subsequent issues, would be dedicated to an adventure, each a stop-off on the ‘The Grand Tour’, along with support for it. The date for the first issue of The Travellers’ Digest and thus when the campaign begins is 152-1101, the 152nd day of the 1101st year of the Imperium.

To best run ‘The Grand Tour’, the Referee will need access to The Atlas of the Imperium, Supplement 8: Library Data (A-M), Supplement 11: Library Data (N-Z), Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats (or alternatively, Supplement 5: Azhanti High Lightning), as well as the core rules. In addition, other supplements would be required depending on the adventure, in the case of this issue, The Travellers’ Digest #8, that would be Alien Module 2, K’kree (though it is actually listed as ‘Alien Module 3, K’kree’ in the introduction) and Alien Module 7, Hivers. In addition, Book 8, Robots will be very useful. Of course, that was in 1987, and much, if not all, of the rules or background necessary have been updated since. The campaign is also specifically written for use with four pre-generated Player Characters. They consist of Akidda Laagiir, the journalist who won the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award; Dur Telemon, a scout and his nephew; Doctor Theodor Krenstein, a gifted-scientist and roboticist; and Doctor Krenstein’s valet, ‘Aybee’, or rather, ‘AB-101’. The fact is, AB-101 is a pseudo-biological robot, both protégé and prototype. Consequently, the mix of Player Characters are surprisingly non-traditional and not all of them are easily created using the means offered in Traveller or MegaTraveller. This is addressed within various issues of the fanzine.

The Travellers’ Digest #8 was published in 1987 and is the last to be published in digest format. From the ninth issue it would be larger and have an increased page count, but these were not the only planned changes announced in The Travellers’ Digest #8. They included coverage of Game Designers Workshop’s other Science Fiction roleplaying of the Traveller: 2300. The editorial also highlighted the strengthening relationship between Marc Miller, the creator of Traveller, and Digest Group Publications, and announced the then forthcoming publication of Grand Census, a companion to Grand Survey.

The eighth part of ‘The Grand Tour’ in The Travellers’ Digest #8 is ‘Feature Adventure 8: Shoot-Out at Shudusham’, written by Gary L Thomas and Joe D. Fugate Sr. The publishing date for the adventure is 060-1113, or the sixtieth day of the year 1113, whilst the starting date for the campaign as a whole is 014-1103, or the fourteenth day of the year 1103. The adventure takes place in the Shudusham system of the Core subsector of the Core Sector. The four travellers are just four weeks’ travel away from Capital where they are due to knighted by Emperor Stephon himself! Shudusham is a water world best known for the location where the Shudusham Concords were signed by the Sylean Federation, a century before the founding of the Third Imperium, which governed the types of weaponry which could be mounted on robots. For the past seven hundred years, it has been the venue for the Shudusham Robotics Conference, a year-long event which takes place every ten years and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors and delegates from across explored space. The Shudusham has even built an underwater arcology specifically designed to host the event. OF course, given the nature of the event, both Doctor Theodor Krenstein and ‘Aybee’ are interested to attend.

Of course, nobody expects anything to happen at the Shudusham Robotics Conference, but when a K’kree delegate is accused by the staff of the Hiver Six Eyes booth, relations between the K’kree and the Hiver sour. The travellers get to witness this, but things get stranger when Akidda Laagiir, the journalist, is inadvertently passed a note about a planned theft of a robot. The players and their travellers may think that the intended target is ‘Aybee’, but it turns out that the target is the ‘Baby Bruiser Robot’ model warbot being demonstrated by the Hiver Six Eyes booth. Are the K’kree taking their revenge by stealing the Hiver’s robot? Well, yes, and no. The K’kree are not the only ones interested in stealing the ‘Baby Bruiser Robot’; there is also a local protest group which has decided to take direct action. It will take a bit of work to get all of the travellers involved –and the scenario makes this clear—and to the climax of the scenario. The scenario is quite short, likely taking no more than a couple of sessions to complete, because ultimately, there is not a huge amount of plot to get the travellers involved in. Indeed, almost half of the plot to the scenario takes off-screen and the travellers are likely to be completely unaware of it. Which is exactly how the Hivers like it…

The scenario is decently supported. This includes details of both Shudusham and the Shudusham Robotics Conference as well as full stats and details for the ‘Baby Bruiser Robot’ (it is a tough opponent as you would expect for a warbot), the various NPCs (including both Hiver and K’kree), and the Hiver Explorer starship and the K’kree Xeekr’kir! merchant vessel. There is not a map of the Shudusham Robotics Conference given, but there is a cutaway of the arcology where it is held.

As with previous issues of the fanzine, The Travellers’ Digest #8 details the Subsector where the scenario takes place. This time it is the Core Subsector of the Core Sector, including both a map and its data listing, which notably includes Capital, the capital of the Third Imperium. The corollary to this is ‘Core Sector: Library Data’, which provided expanded information for the whole sector. It highlights how the world of Ameros in the Ameros subsector is being used by the megacorporation Hortalez et Cie, LIC to test a fast, century long terraforming project, which is not going as fast as projected, whilst at the Imperial Navy base on Sabsee in the Apge subsector, an advanced fusion/plasma hybrid, dubbed the FGMP-16, has been unveiled. It is full of fascinating details covering an area which is not generally visited as part of Traveller campaigns.

Gary L. Thomas continues the exploration of the characteristics that are part of Traveller’s UPP, or ‘Universal Personality Profile’. In ‘Brains, Not Brawn’, it is the turn of Intelligence to be examined in Traveller. It explores how exactly to view Intelligence in the context of the rules for Traveller and actually takes the Education characteristic into account, looks at how to handle the gap between the players’ own mental acumen versus that of their characters. In this, the Game Master will need to account for what a character knows versus what his player knows, such as Doctor Theodor Krenstein’s skill of Robotics-5 versus what his prospective player will know. Ultimately, the article differentiates between Intelligence as brains, common sense, and quick-wittedness and Education as accumulated knowledge and training, and presents basic skill rolls, using the UTP—or ‘Universal Task Profile’—for both. The article may well be obvious in its conclusion, but it is interesting to see what how parts of the UPP were considered at the time.

The Travellers’ Digest #8 comes to close with a pair of technical articles. The first of these examines the transmission of information in much of Charted Space. ‘Hand Computers’ (actually wrist-mounted) by Gary L. Thomas looks at how the hand computer is used in the Third Imperium and beyond, how information is updated on it, and so on. This is a ‘future tech of the past’ type article looking at how an advanced technological device works in the then very far future, when today, we have very similar devices widely available. The technical specifications are given and how the information is accessed is explored, primarily through a subscription service, which is updated when new starships, typically the Scout Service’s X-Boats, arrive and transmit new data packets to local servers. Of course, there are limitations too, including how a user might search available databases and that does not take into account network problems. The ramifications feel very familiar to today, such as checking a fact to settle an argument or getting the latest weather details, but at the time, this would have been quite literally Science Fiction.

The second and last is ‘Beyond 101 Robots’. In what feels like a very robot-focused issue, The Travellers’ Digest #8 expands upon the supplement 101 Robots with . Five designs are given from the Naasirka corporation. They include a ‘Ship’s Boat Pilot Robot’, a ‘Clerk Robot’, a ‘Servant Robot’, and so on. All decent designs and would fill certain niches in a campaign if so needed.

Physically, The Travellers’ Digest #8 is, as with all of the issues so far, very obviously created using early layout software. However, there is a marked improvement in the quality of the artwork, even so.

The Travellers’ Digest #8 is an enjoyably readable issue. The scenario is perhaps a little too short, but the supporting material is excellent and the ‘Hand Computers’ article is delightfully prescient and archaic at the same time. Overall, a solidly put together issue.

[Fanzine Focus XLI] LOWBORN Issue 3

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 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. Most, but not all fanzines draw from the Old School Renaissance. Some provide support for much more modern games.

Lowborn is ‘An Independent Grim Perilous Fanzine for Zweihänder RPG’. As the subtitle suggests, this is a fanzine for the Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous RPG, published in 2017 and thus modern, but actually a retroclone of another roleplaying game. That roleplaying game is the definitive British roleplaying game, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, published by Games Workshop in 1986.

Lowborn Issue 3 was published in November, 2020. It dives straight in with ‘The Spiral of Stress: An Alternative System for handling Disorders.’ Written by Irene D. B., it presents a different way of tackling the effects of shock and fear, avoiding the potential stigmatisation of mental health issues that more traditional rules systems do not always avoid. It even goes as far as using the Disorders section on the Zweihänder character sheet. Essentially, as a Player Character accumulates Chaos Ranks, his ‘Spiral of Stress’ also increases. When his ‘Spiral of Stress’ exceeds his Will Bonus, the Player Character is forced to retire. In between that, he will also gain general penalties to all of his actions. The suggested means of reducing a Player Character’s ‘Spiral of Stress’ is to go on a Personal Quest, which leads to interesting roleplaying and storytelling possibilities. The opening article is quick and dirty and could easy have been expanded to give some actual examples and perhaps to better explore the positive and (hopefully not) negative effects of undertaking a Personal Quest. This is interesting and useful where the fanzine’s regular cartoon, ‘Those Two Orx’ fails to do anything except take up space. Honestly, it if had to be kept, it could have been halved in size to double the humour, or if not, simply dropped and nobody would miss it.

Peter Rudin-Burgess’ ‘Drama Dice and Pools’ suggests another pair of alternative rules to handle the drama of play in a broad rather than a specific sense. The first is the sue of drama dice. Essentially, using a die to track the progress of the Player Characters’ failures and when the die number reaches a particular threshold, an alarm of some kind is triggered. The second is dice pools, the more challenging the situation, the fewer the number of six-sided dice in the pool. When a failure is rolled, the dice pool is rolled and any six rolled means that a die is removed from the pool. When it is emptied, the alarm is triggered. These are both quite serviceable, offering an alternative to the countdown clock device found in other roleplaying games and in the case of the dice pools, randomising it a little.

Later in the issue, Irene D. B. offers her own development of this with ‘Chaos Overclocked’. This is to roll percentile dice when the six face is revealed and an alarm is triggered, but instead of it being triggered, the Game Master rolls to see if its triggered. It is a counterpoint to the certainty of the alarm being triggered when the six face is revealed, but this really, is a boxed text for the first article given its own article, which seems unnecessary. Plus, ‘Drama Dice and Pools’ already provides a perfectly good random means of triggering an alarm or other effect with the dice pool idea.

The feature of the issue is ‘Cytoplasm’. This is a scenario by Ignacio M, a locked room mystery in which the Player Characters wake up to find themselves in the attic of a house which as they explore, they will find out that they are trapped. Designed as one-shot, but it could easily be added to any campaign, the Player Characters have to explore the house, examine its furniture and fittings, search for secret doors, and find clues as to where they are, what is going on, and how they get out. This is nicely detailed puzzle box of a scenario that includes decent floorplans of the house and good descriptions of each location. Although they do not know it initially, the Player Characters are up against the clock as the thing trapping them inside attempts to squeeze itself in through whatever gaps it can find. Fortunately, there are multiple ways of getting out if the Player Characters can find them or solve the puzzle. The scenario is let down by the fact that none of the rooms are marked with numbers to link them to their descriptions in the text, so it is just slightly more difficult to run than it should be. Anyway, good puzzle box adventure than relies on brains rather than brawn.

Irene D. B.’s ‘Perilous Tactics: The Death Hedge’ is the first in a series of article that examine the combat tactics for various creatures from the bestiary from the Zweihänder Core Rulebook. It breaks down and analyses the stats for the Death Hedge, an immobile, sweet-smelling rose bush, mutated by the Aether Winds into a deadly ambush predator. The author manages to get two tightly packed pages of material out of this one twisted plant, which surprising given that it only has the one attack, its flailing, thorny branches, does not tend to attack humanoids, and is otherwise, mindless. It is exhaustively overwritten and really could have done with advice on how to use it in a scenario as much as in combat. There are hints throughout, but really, this series could have better launched with an entry from the Zweihänder Core Rulebook that actually does use tactics and would be more of an interesting opponent than a flailing bush.

With ‘Elementalist Professions (Element Bending)’, Lilith Grishaw presents several Professions from her Homebrew Setting of Andelos. In the setting the Elementalist is an innate magic user who learns to harness control of abilities connected to a particular element— Air, Earth, Fire, or Water. Over time they can go on to embody their connected element as a Master of the Element, but their training also includes some martial skills too otherwise they would be vulnerable on the battlefield. As they further specialise, they become either a Master of Metal for an earth elementalist, a Moon Warrior for water elementalist, a Nomad of an air elementalist, or a Phoenix Lord for a fire elementalist. The article explores both the benefits and demands for each path and there is a lot to work with if the Game Master and her players want to have a combination of specialist spellcaster-warrior in their campaign. Further, despite it being taken from a specific setting, there is nothing to impede the Game Master adapting to her own campaign.

‘Grim & Perilous Mass Combat’ by A.R. Kavli gives rules for handling mass combat in Zweihänder, expanding upon a simple contested Warfare skill roll. It requires a small amount of effort setting up, considering scale, goals, the nature of the units and their Warfare values, and more, most notably the number of Success Levels required by each side in order to win. Exceptionally good and exceptionally bad rolls also necessitate a roll on the ‘Tides of War’ table that gives some random event. The Game Master is encouraged to narrate the outcome of any battle just as she would any individual brawl or skirmish, but the ‘Tides of War’ table gives a long list of options that will make the mass combat memorable.

Chuck Kranz’s ‘Random Sewer Encounters’ starts of silly with “Youthful sewer dwelling terrapin creatures” and “A rat-like master” and strays very far from that. The last quarter of Lowborn Issue 3 is devoted to ‘Grim & Perilous Saints of the Holy Roman Empire’ by A.R. Kavli which takes Zweihänder not back to its historical roots so much as the historical roots of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. It is an exhaustive list of the Catholic, Protestant, and Pagan saints found in the Germanic states of the Holy Roman Empire amidst the Thirty Years War. There is guidance on how to proclaim a saint and petition a saint, and a a list of over one-hundred-and-twenty-five saints! The idea is that every Player Characters will have been dedicated to a saint at birth, but gains no bonus from doing so. However, by attuning himself to a saint, a Player Character can petition his saint to gain Fortune Points. These can go into a group pool shared by all of the Player Characters or be linked to a particular attribute favoured by the saint, or the Player Character might have to petition directly for a boon or blessing. All this requires a roll using the Folklore Skill Focus for the saint. Every one of the saints is associated with a feast day, a Fortune Point-linked attribute or skill, and what saintly gift the saint might grant. For example, Reinold is the Patron of stonemasons, a monk placed in charge constructing an abbey at Köln, but murdered by jealous stonemasons. His feast day is January 7th and he grants Fortune Points via the Tradecraft skill, as well as the gift of being able to “Flip to Succeed all Scrutiny tests to find hidden passages, traps, or other mechanical secrets for 24 hours.” There is a delightful variety to the range of saints and their gifts listed and this could easily be ported into a Zweihänder that does not have the ties to the Thirty Year War. The likelihood is that almost no-one would notice, but if they do, it would only be a matter of changing a few names to make the list fit the campaign world. Overall, a very nicely researched article that will add to the background of any campaign as well as the individual Player Characters.

Physically, Lowborn Issue 3 is decently presented. The layout is tight in palces, but the artwork is decent.

Lowborn Issue 3 is solid support for the Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous RPG. In particular, the scenario, ‘Cytoplasm’, is a testing puzzle box, whilst ‘Grim & Perilous Saints of the Holy Roman Empire’ can be used as is or as a model for the Game Master’s own campaign. Either way, it can add further depth and detail to a campaign and make it more interesting.

[Fanzine Focus XLI] The Beholder Issue 6

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 how 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. As new fanzines have appeared, there has been an interest in the fanzines of the past, and as that interest has grown, they have become highly collectible, and consequently more difficult to obtain and write about. However, in writing about them, the reader should be aware that these fanzines were written and published between thirty and forty years ago, typically by roleplayers in their teens and twenties. What this means is that sometimes the language and terminology used reflects this and though the language and terminology is not socially acceptable today, that use should not be held against the authors and publishers unduly.

The Beholder was a British fanzine first published in April, 1979. Dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it ran to twenty-seven issues, the last being published in July, 1981. It was popular and would be awarded ‘Best Games Fanzine’ at the Games Day convention in 1980. After the final issue of The Beholder, the editors would go on to release a number of anthologies which collected content from the complete run of the fanzine such as Beholder Supplement Glossary of Magic, which collected many of the magical items which appeared in the fanzine and collated them into a series of tables for easy use by the Dungeon Master, and Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2, the first of several scenario anthologies.

The Beholder Issue No. 6 was published in September 1979. It is heralded as the DragonMeet II edition and even has a competition that would be run at the convention. The editors—Michael Stoner and Guy Duke—implore readers to submit ides for the forthcoming monster issue, likely to be Issue 7 or Issue 8, but otherwise, the issue covers a broad of Dungeons & Dragons-related topics. There are dungeons and adventures, monsters and more. This issue is very much a grab bag of topics and articles, and so varies in quality. It is not entirely clear as to who wrote what in the issue.

The first article is ‘Sounds’. This explores the role of generic sounds in dungeons and their possible effects. They range from ‘Laughter’ and ‘Howling’ to ‘Singing’ and ‘Bangs’. The possible effects are obvious, such as ‘Groaning’ making the Player Characters uneasy and if a Saving Throw versus magic is failed, imposing a penalty on to hit rolls, and even lowering their Morale. It feels overdone, but the effects could be lessened essentially to provide atmosphere in a dungeon. This is followed by ‘Runes’, which is interesting because it is not simply a reiteration of classic Norse Runes done for Dungeons & Dragons Dwarves or Elves. Essentially, they are one-use magical gold runes that when slapped onto a surface have particular effects. For example, ‘Rune of Tremors’ is slapped on the floor or ground, and when it vanishes the ground begins to shake, slightly at first, and then with increasing intensity, causing localised earthquake. A ‘Rune of Resurrection’, which is an evil run, will restore someone to life, but will turn one of the undead to dust! Weirdly, Runes are clever and will actually try to teleport away if someone tries to identify magically, or even activate itself if it has an effect that would work that way. There are some intriguing ideas here, but the ramifications of the way in which they are set-up are not as fully developed as they could be.

The monsters in ‘Monster Summoning’ are not particularly interesting. They include the Chameleonmen, evil humanoids that have all the abilities of a Chameleon; the Giant Chameleon, a ten-foot version, but otherwise the same as the normal reptile apart from the powerful tongue which as a stun effect; similarly, the Giant Snail; the Tarhospehk is a bovine creature with a human face and ivory horns summoned to guard ancient tombs, burial barge, and pyramids; the Living Hole which lies in wait for the unwary, waiting for them to fall in and dissolve in the acid at the bottom; the Mushroom which uses its head to attack; the Sound Eater, which looks like the demon, Juiblex, and uses its tentacles to suck up sound and so grow Hit Die by Hit Die; and the Flame Spirit. None of the monsters really stand out and ultimately feel as if they should be thrown into a table of random monsters rather than be used to populate a setting, let alone a dungeon. The Giant Snail and the Tarhospehk are attributed to Barney Sloan later in the issue.

‘DM’s Corner’ is the first of a series new to The Beholder. This gives good advice for the then prospective Dungeon Master such as placing tougher monsters deeper into the dungeon, theming levels if not the whole dungeon, make the dungeon tough for the players and their characters, that monsters do not always wants to fight to death, and ensure that it is fun to play. It gives a checklist for the Dungeon Master to work through prior to the campaign, much like a ‘Session Zero’, and also an example of play in a living dungeon as well as an analysis of it. The advice is solid and would have been useful at the time, but would likely have been repeated at the time as it subsequently has. The example of play and its analysis is interesting as it illustrates how the monsters in the example, a tribe of Kobolds, are acting intelligently and used the Player Characters’ mistakes against them. Overall, good advice for 1979, and solid advice today, if familiar.

There are two scenarios in The Beholder Issue No. 6. The first is ‘Micro-Dungeon’, a well-designed little Kobold lair whose occupants make good use of their terrain. So, there are rocks that they can roll down a slope onto any intruders, a big Kobold hides in ambush ready to block of their movement with a Wand of Web, and so on. Apart from a group of Living Holes, which are a much deadlier threat, this is a low Level addition that could be run as is, or added to an existing dungeon without too much difficulty.

If ‘Micro-Dungeon’ is serviceable, then ‘Of Brae-Land and Wold’ is a much more sophisticated and interesting affair. Designed for Player Characters of Third to Fifth Level, it is a Tolkienesque pastiche directly inspired by the flight of the Hobbits from Bree eastwards towards to Weathertop as detailed in The Fellowship of the Ring. The scenario is a hex-crawl across the region north of the road, starting at the village of Brae-bank, with the Player Characters as agents of the Gods having to contend with ‘The Evil Forces of Static Economy of Brae-land and Wold’. Or simply, the Foe. They will be sent out again and again by the mysterious Wayfarer (and definitely not Aragon, and nor is the fake Wayfarer who attempts to ambush them) each time to find one of the three ‘Forces’, artefacts that they need to cast into the Spring of Romen and so help them defeat ‘The Evil Forces of Static Economy of Brae-land and Wold’. The Player Characters will be harried along the way by ‘Black Riders’ as they travel back and forth.

‘Of Brae-Land and Wold’ is expansive, but not as easy to run as it could be. Although there is advice on running it, the scenario is densely presented and difficult to parse and so challenging for the Dungeon Master to present to her players. It does not help that the maps provided for the scenario are a little too difficult to read in the case of the area map and in the case of the other two, are not of the adventuring locations for the scenario, but of notable villages in the scenario’s version of not-Middle-earth. Which means that Dungeon Master has to work harder to visualise the adventuring locations and try impart that to her players. Given the influence of Tolkien and Middle-earth on Dungeons & Dragons, it is no surprise to see a scenario like this appear in a fanzine, but it is just a little too ambitious. Lastly, in keeping with Middle-earth and Tolkien, there is very little treasure to be found and so the scenario recommends that the Game Master reward the Player Characters with a generous Experience Point bonus as recompense.

Surprisingly, given that it is a fanzine, what The Beholder does not have is a letters page. A letters page can be a boon and a bane. It can help foster a sense of community around the fanzine and it is a good way to fill a page or two of each issue, but the content has to be carefully curated lest it devolve into a fractious bearpit. The Beholder Issue No. 6 introduces a ‘Letters’ page. Kept to a single page, it is not so much a letters page as a ‘Questions & Answers’ page in response to some of the feedback that the editors have received. The answers in turn explain why a month is not put on each issue (because the editors wanted to avoid issues slipping from schedule and to avoid dating issues); why the fanzine does not do dungeon write-ups, that is, write-ups of a group exploring a dungeon (popular at the time, and the reason the editors had not included them because it was something another fanzine, Underground Oracle, was renowned for and they did not want to step on, but with that then being no more, dungeon write-ups would be included in future issues); and the call for more dungeons, especially competition dungeons (the editors say that the dungeons are popular, but appear to want to include non-dungeon scenarios too, and planned to include competition dungeons in the future). Oddly, no one letter writer is named and the result is not very much not what you would expect a traditional letters page to be.

‘Info’ is really an extension of the editorial inside the front cover, highlighting upcoming events and giving some corrections. The penultimate article ‘Alignment’ highlights how Alignment is the most controversial part of Dungeons & Dragons, and so the article gives some suggestions as how the editors play them. This is with tight interpretations of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition’s Alignment. Thus, Chaotic Evil is “One for psychopaths.”, whereas Chaotic Neutral is easy in that a Player Character of this Alignment act randomly, his player roll for choices and actions at each and every turn. Lawful Good is described as, “…[p]robably the most sickening of alignments.” as its adherents are typical nice guys. The result is an article that is likely to be as controversial as any other on the subject, especially given the rigidity of it interpretations.

The issue comes to a close with ‘Mini-Review’. This is a thumbnail review of the classic, S1 Tomb of Horrors. It opens with, “TSR continue to turn out dungeons at an impressive rate. Of these the best so far is, without doubt, S1 Tomb of Horrors.” It highlights the need for high-Level Player Characters and says that, “This is a thinking man's dungeon, packed full of tricks and traps many of which are fatal if tackled wrongly.” The review is short, and more helpful than insightful. S1 Tomb of Horrors is, of course, one of the most reviewed and analysed of scenarios for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. It is interesting to see what someone thought about the scenario at the time, but does not add anything of note to the discourse about the scenario.

Physically, The Beholder Issue No. 6 is slightly untidy in places, but readable. The layout is tight and that does make it difficult to read in places. The illustrations are reasonable, but the cartography, certainly for the scenario, ‘Of Brae-Land and Wold’, does not support the issue as well as it should. The cover is notable as having been drawn by Simon Washbourne, later designer of roleplaying games such as Lashings of Ginger Beer.

The Beholder has a high reputation for content that is of good quality and playable and in coming back to these issues, it is clear that these early issues do not yet meet that reputation. There are highlights in any issue, but not yet the consistency of that reputation, and The Beholder Issue No. 6 reflects that as a whole. This is because there are no real highlights in the issue and the potential highlight, the scenario ‘Of Brae-Land and Wold’, fails to meet the ambitions of its authors. The Beholder Issue No. 6 is possibly worth picking over for some of its ideas, such as ‘Runes’, but this is only a serviceable issue at best.

[Fanzine Focus XLI] The Hobonomicon #2

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 another DM 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 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 choice is Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game.

The Hobonomicon #2 was published for GenCon 2022 and differs differs greatly from its previous issues. It still heavily features the artwork of Doug Kovacs—and others, but there is much less gaming content in its pages. The first two issues focuses upon the flight and survival of refugees from the planet of Punjar, in the very far future of the fabled city of Punjar, setting for many of Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics line of scenarios, particularly those for Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. The Hobonomicon #0 presented ‘Escape from Planet Punjar’, a classic Character Funnel, in which Zero Level characters going out on their first adventure to hopefully survive and return as First Level adventurers. What happens after the surviving Player Characters escape the lightless, lawless bowels of the ecumenopolis that is Planet Punjar is explored in The Hobonomicon #1.

The Hobonomicon #2 does not explore what happens next and is not a continuation of either ‘Escape from Planet Punjar’ or ‘Meat Planet’ from The Hobonomicon #1. What it does continue is the previous issues’ comic strips. ‘Dreams of a Klartesh Fiend’ continues the drug induced nightmares written by James MacGeorge and drawn by Stefan Poag, whilst Doug Kovacs’ ‘Death of a Reaver’ continues the telling of the backstory of one of the members of ‘The Band’, the cast of adventurers who have appeared in the artwork for the Dungeon Crawl Classics line. Here the hero, having dealt with the bandits in her way in the previous episode and now with a captured prisoner, Ratface, attempts to find out why she was attacked. It is an engaging story whose only problem is that there is a long wait between issues. Both are followed by ‘Never Trust a Wizard’ by Stefan Poag, which is actually longer than both together! It tells the tale of a young woman who is driven to kill a sorcerer and take his head back to a wizard because he is holding her partner hostage. This is a tale of revenge and bloody violence as you would expect within the Dungeon Crawl Classics milieu. It is very well done, and a fun read. Together, the three comic strips take up half of the issue.

The actual gaming content in the issue begins with ‘Verses of Natraz’ which together with ‘The Missing Mercurial Magic’ extends the range of spells in The Hobonomicon itself. For example, Burning Glyphs causes glyphs in green living fire to appear above the target’s head and lights up the area and makes him easy to spot, whilst Bat Country summons a screeching swarm of neon psychedelic bats that cause those caught up in their flight to flee unless they make a Saving Throw versus Will. ‘Verses of Natraz’ includes a fantastic piece of artwork by Jeff Easley. Further spells are fully detailed Dungeon Crawl Classics fashion. These include Corporeal Engloblement which changes a wizard’s body into a sphere for various effects such as a one-ton rock, causing a sonic boom as it expands and suddenly contracts, and so on; Gnormby’s Plasmatic Force Phlanges creates a force hand; and Immolation shrouds the caster in protective magical flames. Other spells include Shadow Poppet, Thraxil’s Gift, Path of the Worm, and Name of the Beast.

‘Return to Magic Mystery’ lists twelve alternatives to giving NPCs and monsters the same spells that Player Characters have access. For example, a bolt of burning or freezing irritation that is so itchy, it reduces the target’s Armour Class, whilst ‘Empathic Shackles’ forces a target’s rolls to be in alignment with another character, meaning that the target’s player cannot roll higher than the other character. Thes effects are all fun and inventively different, so should surprise the players and their characters. Lastly, ‘1D12 Beastmen’ gives three sets of stats for the ‘Feral Beastman’, the ‘Savage Beastman’, and the ‘Towering Beastman Monstrosity’, but backs them up with twelve fantastic illustrations of different beastmen. All the Judge has to do is roll the die, determine what the beastman looks like and attach some stats. It is very basic, but the artwork adds flavour aplenty.

Bar the cover—which is done in colour, front and back, inside and out—as with previous issues, The Hobonomicon #2 is heavily illustrated in black and white throughout. The artwork is excellent, ranging from grim to gruesome, from daft to disturbing, but it all fits.

The Hobonomicon #2 is a fanzine of two halves, one with the gaming content, one without. Both are good in their own way, the new spells and magical effects are nicely inventive, but there is nothing here that a Judge and her gaming group has to have. It is good, but not good enough, and it does not help that the gaming content is essentially all spells and nothing else. Before that, the comic strips are enjoyable, but again no more. Ultimately, The Hobonomicon #2 is an issue of the fanzine that is for the collectors and the fans of Dungeon Crawl Classics rather than an must have issue.

[Fanzine Focus XLI] Carcass Crawler Issue #0

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 DM 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. Then there is also Old School Essentials.

Carcass Crawler is ‘The Official Fanzine Old-School Essentials zine’. Published by Necrotic Gnome, Old School Essentials is the retroclone based upon the version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons designed by Tom Moldvay and published in 1981, and Carcass Crawler provides content and options for it. It is pleasingly ‘old school’ in its sensibilities, being a medley of things in its content rather than just the one thing or the one roleplaying game as has been the trend in gaming fanzines, especially with ZineQuest. To date, Carcass Crawler #1, Carcass Crawler Issue #2, Carcass Crawler Issue #3, and Carcass Crawler Issue #4 have all focused on providing new Classes and Races, both in ‘Race as Class’ and ‘Race and Class’ formats as well as general support for Old School Essentials.

Carcass Crawler Issue #0 is an exception in one or two ways. Published as part of the Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Kickstarter campaign in November, 2020, it focuses almost exclusively on new Races and Classes with relatively little general support for the retroclone and was only available as part of the Kickstarter. Primarily, it presents eight new Classes, but it does ask the question, “Too Many Classes?”. The combination of Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy and Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy offers numerous Classes, all of them the roleplaying game’s variations upon traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style Classes. From issue to issue, Carcass Crawler offers more and more choice, but is it too much? The answer to the question is a bit of a prevarication, suggesting out that lots of groups like lots and lots of Classes because they like the choice, whilst also suggesting that the choice could be restricted according to the nature and flavour of the campaign the Game Master is running. The latter is not a new idea, but it would be fascinating to see the idea put into practice for Old-School Essentials with a set of campaign frameworks that see and explain the use of both standard Classes for Old School Essentials and those drawn from the pages of Carcass Crawler.

Carcass Crawler Issue #0 offers eight new Classes and three new fantasy Races. The first of the new Classes is the Arcane Bard, surprisingly inspired by the version of the Class found in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition! It is less than a variant upon the Druid, but more of a jack-of-all-trades Class which combines the abilities of the Fighter, the Magic-User, and the Thief. The Class’s songs can have an ‘Anti-Charm’ effect, cast arcane spells from Second Level, has various Thief-like skills, and in particular, has the ‘Lore’ skill that enables the Class to know about monsters, magic items, or heroes of folktale and legend. The Beast Master is alternative warrior to the Ranger, the Class forging strong bond with animal companions coming to be able to view their eyes and communicate with them empathically. The Changeling Class offers the chance for a player to roleplay a Doppelgänger! The Changeling’s ‘Beguile’ skill enables the Class to speak highly persuasively in an almost Charm-like effect, at least temporarily, and with ‘Shape-Stealing’ can mimic the forms of others, unconscious or slain, an effect lasting for one Turn per Level. The Chaos Knight can ‘Command the Dead’, effectively the reverse of the Cleric’s ‘Turn Undead’, cast spells at high Level, gains an Infernal Steed, and daily, touch a victim to ‘Life Drain’ and heal himself with the drained Hit Points. Essentially, the Chaos Knight is the equivalent to the classic anti-Paladin concept.

Where the Classes in Carcass Crawler Issue #0 gets interesting is the Mage, which instead of Vancian magic uses a skill system like the Thief Class. It is inspired by Tolkien’s Gandalf the Grey, and has the skills of ‘Detect Magic’, ‘Open/Close’ doors and locks, ‘Rally/Fear’, ‘Read Magic’, and ‘Suggestion’, as well as a powerful Mage’s Staff and even a magical bonus to Armour Class and limited ability to heal others. Although the Class can cast spells from scrolls, it is much, much less of the artillery-style Class seen elsewhere in other iterations of Dungeons & Dragons, offering more flexibility overall, but less damage output. The Mutoid is an odd Class that mixes in some Thief skills with abilities granted by the mismatched body parts of various creatures. For example, ‘Beast Ears’ gives better hearing, ‘Clawed Hand’ an improved unarmed attack damage, and ‘Sticky tongue’, which enables a Mutoid to grab a nearby object and even attack with it. Of the eight Classes featured in the issue of the fanzine, this is perhaps the least interesting and feels more as if it should be in a post-apocalyptic setting.

The Mycelian takes a classic of Dungeons & Dragons fantasy and turns it into a character Class. This is the Mushroom Men found in underground caverns everywhere and as a Class is a maximum of Sixth Levels Class that can spray pacifying or hallucinogenic spores daily, has a Infravision, no need to eat or sleep only rejuvenate daily, and gains increased damage and Armour Class as it grows one foot Level by Level. At Sixth Level, its ‘Fungal Reanimation’ enables it to reanimate human corpses as fungal zombies! Lastly, the Warden is a non-magical version of the classic Ranger. The Warden has better ‘Awareness’ and less easily surprised, and is better at ‘Foraging and Hunting’, ‘Pursuit’, ‘Surprise Attack’ in the wilderness, and ‘Tracking’.

Of the previous eight Classes, the Changeling, the Mutoid, and the Mycelian have adhered to Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy and done ‘Race as Class’. In other words, there is no separation of Race and Class. The three fantasy Races Carcass Crawler Issue #0 offer the alternative which adheres to Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy and does ‘Race and Class’. This gives greater flexibility and greater skills for all three Races.

The ‘Expanded Equipment’ lists and describes thirty-three items, from Backpack, Barrel, and Bedroll to Whistle, Wine (two pints), and Wolfsbane (one bunch). Serviceable.

Physically, Carcass Crawler Issue #0 is well written and well presented. The artwork is excellent and the cartography good. It sets the template for future issues.

Ultimately, Carcass Crawler Issue #0 is a problematic issue of the fanzine. Not because it is bad, because it is not. It actually sets the template for the issues that have followed and its content is eminently playable. Rather, the problem is that it was an exclusive to the Kickstarter and is no longer available. Perhaps there is scope for an Old School Essentials Class Companion which would reprint the Classes in this effectively ‘lost’ issue and other issues to reach a wider audience? In the meantime, if you have access to Carcass Crawler Issue #0, the equipment list is useful and the Classes offers more choices for your classic fantasy roleplaying.

[Fanzine Focus XLI] The Dragon Horde Issue #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. However, the vicissitudes of time and taste along with publisher decisions and in many cases, the publication of newer, hotter retroclones that capture the imagination of the Old School Renaissance means that some retroclones fall out of favour and so are no longer actively supported, whether that is by their publishers or their fans through fanzines. Such is the case with Labyrinth Lord. Fortunately, modern digital publishing means that many of the fanzines published for Labyrinth Lord and other, now less popular retroclones, are still available to download, and just like the fanzines of the early years of the hobby, they are still worth examining because their content is compatible with even the most contemporary of retroclones. One such fanzine is The Dragon Horde.

The Dragon Horde Issue #1 was published in July, 2013. What is apparent from the start is that this is a fanzine inspired not by the cut and paste, hand typed fanzines of the seventies and early eighties, but by the fanzines that appeared in the mid- to late-eighties with the appearance of the first commercially available Desk Top Publishing software. Thus, it has a look and feel of a booklet done on a dot matrix printer, which make it a little hard to read. This is confirmed in the author’s editorial and so the fanzine deals a double dose of nostalgia with the combination of its look and content. Published by New Big Dragon Games Unlimited, it states on the front that it is, “A Publication Dedicated to Tabletop Role-playing Games”, which given that it is primarily written for one retroclone, is a stretch. The other single content in the issue that is not for Labyrinth Lord is for the author’s own generic roleplaying game resurrected from the same period that inspired the fanzine, The System. The article, ‘Familiars Found – Guidelines for Spellcaster Familiars in New Big Dragon’s Universal RPG The System’ is serviceable enough and so mechanically light that it could been for almost any retroclone let alone the publisher’s own roleplaying game. Consequently, the inclusion of an article for a roleplaying game other than a retroclone is surprisingly unobtrusive and is really just another article about familiars that is, well, familiar. Otherwise, the stats given in the rest of the issue are written for use with Original Dungeons & Dragons, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, and Basic Dungeons & Dragons.

The issue begins with ‘The Monster Roster’ and a pair of monsters. The ‘Leech-Man’ is exactly that, a man-sized, man-shaped version of the leech, whilst the ‘Beguine’ is a Neutral Good hybrid-Race that combines Elves and Halflings. The ‘Leech-Man’ is the more interesting of the two and could easily be added to a campaign as a monster in a swampy or cave-like environments, whilst the ‘Beguine’ does not fulfil any real purpose. The ‘d30 FEATURE’—drawn from The d30 DM Companion—is ‘Where Does the Weapon Hit?’ gives a quick and dirty means of handling hit locations using a thirty-sided die, modified by attacker’s height, and allowing for the possibility of different armour being worn in different locations.

The very basic map of ‘Yal Caramon’ is accompanied by ‘Lerdyn Chrisawn’s Chronicle’, a history of the continent. This discusses the several thousand years of the continent via the more than fifteen thousand volumes of Chrisawn’s Chronicle. The volumes are mostly written as a series of poems and epics before becoming more ordinary and prosaic as much of the continent settled down, became peaceful and organized, and then being upended when the Chaos came and the south-western lands were broiled for a thousand days as if under as many suns. Unfortunately, the most recent volumes have been stolen away, suspected by many as means to hide the culprits for the Chaos. As a very brief history, this is actually quite interesting and has the potential to be expanded and developed into something playable. However, there is no sense of place or geography to either really and it would require no little development to be something more.

The following NPC Class in ‘New NPC Class: Chroniclist’ does fit the setting though and could be added to others. The Classes specialises in languages, learning a new one every Level, and at later Levels gain the abilities of Memorisation and Insight, able to detect true meaning in someone’s words, and Comprehension, able to decipher unknown texts. From Second Level, the Chroniclist gains a ‘Branch’ at every Level, each one an area of geographical, cultural, military, and social knowledge. The deeper the knowledge of a Branch, the more exacting a question a Chroniclist can answer. Effectively, the Chroniclist is variant of the Sage NPC Class, but focuses on linguistics and anthropology as much as history and geography. They are very specialised, but very powerful within that specialisation.

The scenario in The Dragon Horde Issue #1 is ‘The Undertemple of Arkon – An Adventure for Characters Levels 1-3’. The Player Characters are engaged to investigate the remains of a temple which was founded by a cult dedicated to a large, very charming cat known as ‘Shadowcat’ and thrown down by the locals when the cult too large and too much of a threat, and where culists have recently returned. The dungeon does have a cat-theme running through it, but is often repetitive. The cultists are definitely back and definitely evil, even sacrificing the Bugbears which had taken up residence to feed to the reluctant panthers! The final battle against Arkon could have been better handled, since his major ability relies on his enemies looking into his eyes, and there is no real explanation as to what Arkon is beyond a big panther, what his cultists want, and so on. Underwritten without those explanations and serviceable with them.

Better still—and likely best of all in the issue—is ‘Seven New Magical Weapons’. This does what it describes, but is inventive. For example, Fumbleblade is a +1 dagger that forces the defender when struck on a roll of a natural twenty to drop everything in his hands, and Sickening Sword, a +1 longsword that inflicts, with a failed Saving Throw versus Poison, to temporarily suffer nausea and a penalty to hit. These are different and add some pleasing variety to the usual mix of magical weapons.

Lastly, ‘Who Speaks What: A Languages Spoken Crib Sheet’ is exactly that, a quick guide to the languages spoken by Dungeons & Dragons fantasy races and ‘Who’s in the Tavern: Tables to Fill the Tables at the Local Tavern’ provides a set of tables for rolling up tavern patrons. Both useful in their own way.

Physically, The Dragon Horde Issue #1 is as ever so slightly rough as you would for a fanzine using the early desktop publishing software. Problematically, this is intentionally so, such as with the choice of typeface which does make the fanzine challenging to read. The artwork is decent though, especially the cover.

The Dragon Horde Issue #1 is a love letter to the author’s past and the fanzines of his youth, and it does suffer for it. It is not as easy to read as it should be and its content is not as well realised as it could because of the lack context or background. There are bits and pieces in the issue that a Game Master might want to pick over, but they are far and few between, and given, this is not a fanzine that has yet found its voice or knows what it is yet.

[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.