Extra! Extra!

What initially stands out about Deadline – A Clockwork Press: A News-Chronicling & Map-Making TTRPG is its physical presence. It consists of what appears to be a tabloid newspaper that comes in an envelope of its own. So, it has a slightly rough feel to it, even a cheapness to it. However, because what that quality hides is a rather engaging storytelling in which the players get together and create a city and tell its story—or at least the stories that are reported in its newspapers. This is the simple set-up for Deadline – A Clockwork Press, a map-making and storytelling—or rather story reporting—game. In a single session, the players create a city whose origins are medieval and propel it forward into an age of steam-powered industry, corruption, and rebellion, plus a pinch of the arcane. Once that is done, they take it in turns to develop and report stories that explore the city, investigate the benefits and detriments of the new industries, uncover that corruption, and perhaps get a little ensorcelled along the way. It is published by The Wanderer’s Tome, best known for Flabbergasted!A Comedy Roleplaying Game inspired by Jeeves and Wooster and Fawlty Towers, and perhaps could be used to create a city for that roleplaying game as an alternate setting. Deadline – A Clockwork Press is inspired by cities such as Pratchett’s Ankh-Morpork and Lovecraft’s Arkham, and Dunwall and Midgar from the Dishonoured and Final Fantasy VII computer games respectively. It designed to be played by up to four players, but can be played solo. It can also be used to create cities where steampunk and magic is rife for other roleplaying games, to create a city that can have stories written about it, or it can simply be an exercise in creativity and storytelling with geography for a single afternoon.

Deadline – A Clockwork Press: A News-Chronicling & Map-Making TTRPG comes as a twenty-four page newspaper. The players will need one twelve-sided, two six-sided dice, and a twenty-sided die as well as pens and pencils in a variety of colours. In addition, the players will need a City Record (broad)sheet upon which they can record its political climate, power source, primary industry, and arcane influence along with its districts and factions. Plus, a sheet upon which they can draw the map of the city. It is played in two phases, the Establishment Phase and the Chronicling Phase.

In the Establishment Phase, the players discuss what elements of the city interest them and the tone that they want to set. Then they take it in turn to roll for the city environment, its eight districts, political climate, power source, primary industry, arcane influence, notable features, and lastly, they name it. Some prompt a player to draw another element on the map. For example, a crater city is located in the crater formed by an ancient meteor impact with the crater’s wall forming a natural defence and then the player is directed to draw the crater’s edge as the limits of the city. Others prompt a player to answer questions, such as for the city’s primary and trade being arcane research, explaining what areas of arcane research are conducted in the city. The arcane influence is where it begins to get a bit weird, with entries such as ‘Echoes of Past Lives’, ‘Eternal Fog’, and ‘Eldritch Horrors’. Possible notable features include gardens, bridges, fighting arenas, clock towers, and more, and the players add two of these. At the last step of process, there is a helpful table for naming the city. By the end of the Establishment Phase, the players will have created a fully fashioned city with notable buildings and geographical features and more, but none of this is set in stone, the players being free to adjust their creation to their satisfaction.

Then, in the Chronicling Phase, the players get to play with their city. They work as journalists, writing the headlines for events which occur in the city. They need to decide what type of newspaper they work for and what its outlook is and which group in society it usually aligns with. (This also lends itself to the possibility that each player could be writing headlines for a different newspaper rather than the same one, though this is not explored in Deadline – A Clockwork Press.) The Chronicling Phase consists of a series of News Cycles, typically one, two, or three on a playthrough. Each News Cycle consists of six headlines, beginning with an Arcane Headline, followed by four Minor Headlines, and finished with a Major Headline. The Minor Headlines can be political, environmental, unrest, culture & society, infrastructure & innovation, and outsider influence. For example, an Arcane Headline might be ‘Magic Users Hunted’, followed by the Minor Headlines of ‘Civic Protest’, ‘Aberrant Weather’, ‘Masked Vigilante’, and ‘World Showcase’, before ending with the Major Headline of ‘Public Execution’. At each stage, the players come up with headlines and sub-headlines for their newspapers and even though there is a table of suggested headline formats, this is actually not that easy. After all, this is normally the purview of professional journalists and editors, not someone sitting down to play a game and tell a story. This does not mean that it cannot be fun though.

Physically, Deadline – A Clockwork Press is very nicely, thematically presented as if it was a newspaper. Alongside the multiple tables of prompts there are engaging adverts that definitely feel as if they should be in an actual nineteenth century newspaper. The only issue with Deadline – A Clockwork Press is its physical nature. In newspaper format, it cannot avoid feeling flimsy.

What is interesting about Deadline – A Clockwork Press is that although by the end of a playthrough of its two phases, the result is twofold, one of which is not what you would expect. The obvious one is the creation of a city and its geography; the less obvious one is its history. The city has a history because it is being generated during the play, but only in the broadest of strokes and instead of the history being recorded as is, it is being reported upon and an opinion being formed on each and every incident. The play is not to create history so much as reportage. There is still room to create that history in detail, though perhaps away from the game itself, because that is not what the players are creating in play. Plus, more reportage in the game if the players want to continue with more playthroughs of the Chronicalling phase as many times as they want.

Deadline – A Clockwork Press: A News-Chronicling & Map-Making TTRPG combines an utterly charming physical presence with an intriguingly different approach to map-making and storytelling. It is an entertaining process and the results have potential to be explored beyond the confines of the roleplaying game’s headlines.

Blackmail & Betrayal

If you are one of the few wealthy Drow in the Spire, then the Silver Quarter is where you come to see and be seen. If you are one of the Aelfir in the Spire, then you need deign to descend to such lows as the Silver Quarter, unless you want to rebel and have fun and perhaps even cause a scandal. Famous—or is that notorious?—for its casinos, gambling houses and members-only clubs, the quarter is a renowned hotbed of dubious, if not outright illegal activity that its bosses can pay off the local bosses and local detachment of the city guard to look the other way. At the heart of it all, is Mesye So, a powerful and influential Drow, who controls the Silver Quarter from behind layer after layer of the best security that his money can buy and the best ignorance of his involvement that his bribes can engineer. Still, he hungers for greater power and influence, and perhaps his ambition and his hubris will be his undoing. It is certainly an affront to ‘The Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress’. A council of elders of these freedom fighters—or terrorists—has decided that enough is enough and that a figure such as Mesye So, of their own, should be bent to their cause. They have purchased a base of operations from which a teams of Ministers can operate in the Silver Quarter, a rundown, not quite seedy gambling den called the Manticore. Armed with what they know about Mesye So and other leading figures seen in the Silver Quarter—represented by a handful of newspaper clippings—the Ministers are to gather further intelligence and use to extort and blackmail Mesye So and others in support of ‘The Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress’ and its aims. This is the set-up for The Kings of Silver: A Campaign Frame for Spire RPG.

It is a mini-campaign for Spire: The City Must Fall, the roleplaying game of secrets and lies, trust and betrayal, violence and subversion, conspiracy and consequences, and of committing black deeds for a good cause. It is set in a mile-high tower city, known as the ‘Spire’, in the land of the Destra, the Drow, which two centuries ago the Aelfir—or ‘High Elves’—invaded and subjugated the Dark Elves. The Drow have long since been forced to serve the High Elves from their homes in the city’s lower levels and allowed only to worship one facet of Damnou, the moon goddess, instead of the three they once did. However, not all of the Drow have resigned themselves to their reduced and subjugated status and joined ‘The Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress’, or simply, the Ministry. Its members—or Ministers—venerate the dark side of the moon, the goddess of poisons and lies, shadows and secrets, her worship outlawed on pain of death, and they are sworn to destroy and subvert the dominion of the Aelfir over the Drow and the Spire. Published by Rowan, Rook, and Decard Ltd., Spire: The City Must Fall inverts traditional fantasy, making the traditional enemy in fantasy—the Drow—into the victim, and certainly the protagonist, but not necessarily the hero.

The Kings of Silver: A Campaign Frame for Spire RPG is not a traditional roleplaying scenario. It foregoes the traditional construction with prewritten encounters that the Player Characters play through one after another. Nor does it not suggest any plot or story threads, something that other campaign frameworks for Spire: The City Must Fall, such as Eidolon Sky: A Campaign Frame for Spire RPG do. Instead, it sets up a situation, that is, a chief villain (and others) who are going to be the targets of the Player Characters’ actions, and a base of operations from where the Player Characters will operation. Instead of briefing given by the council of elders, the Player Characters are furnished with a set of newspaper clippings. These include titles such as ‘New Captain of the Watch Appointed in Silver Quarter’, ‘Temple Brawl Kills Five’, ‘Mr Silver Quarter: Looking for Love?’, ‘Midwife Murderer Walks Free’, and ‘Walks-On-Light Drinks Docks Dry!’, from which the players and their characters are going to extract clues about their targets and begin to formulate a plan or two. There is a total of fourteen such clippings and they are all presented as handouts for the players. They tell the players and their characters about the doings of not just Mesye So, but also the extremely wealthy Lay-Deacon Stride-Out-Harmonious; Hestra Wander-The-Lost, famous for being famous who wants to even more famous; and Loq Walks-On-Light, a rebellious Aelfir, who might just turn on his own. Each of these and other NPCs is nicely detailed as why they are so important to the cause of ‘The Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress’, how they differ from other Aelfir, what they desire and what they despise, and what could the Player Characters get from them. Each is also accompanied by some suggested where they might be encountered, but in some cases such as Lay-Deacon Stride-Out-Harmonious and Hestra Wander-The-Lost, what they do not come with is stats. This is deliberate, since they are combatants and if they are being fought, then the probability is that the Player Characters’ blackmail and/or exhortation attempts are going poorly.

The Player Characters also receive The Manticore, the gambling club from which they will be operating. This is nicely detailed in a couple of pages, with a particular emphasis placed upon the staff. They are only given the simplest of descriptions each, but that leaves room aplenty for the Game Master to develop them according to the needs of the campaign. The players and their characters are free to leave the day to day operation of The Manticore to the staff, but they can also have their characters get involved with both of its operation and the staff and their lives, which could open up a lot of roleplaying possibilities.

The Game Master is supported with advice on running The Kings of Silver and given several tables to roll on as a source of prompts and ideas, including ‘Which House Is This Drow Noble Claiming To Come From?’ and ‘What’s The Name Of This Gambling House/Club, And What’s Interesting About It?’. There is a list too of the primary places in the Silver Quarter. Although what might happen in between is not discussed, there is an examination of the possible endings to the campaign as well as its set-up. These look at the ultimate possible consequences of the Player Characters’ actions, not all of them good.

Lastly, The Kings of Silver presents six pre-generated Player Characters. They include a Bound, one of the vigilantes who bind small gods into their weapons, who can infiltrate locations with ease; a night-club singer who is secretly a Blood-Witch with a long history of terrifying others; a Knight of the North Docks with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the city’s public houses who has brought his daughter with him as his squire; an ex-masked servant able to move amongst high society; an ex-embezzler good at cutting deals; and an ex-priest turned confidence trickster. They all come with their own character sheets.

Physically, The Kings of Silver: A Campaign Frame for Spire RPG is well presented and its contents are neatly organised and easy to reference, done in an easy-to-grasp style from start to finish. The news clippings each have a page of their own enabling the Game Master to print or copy them and once in play, the players can consult them again and again.

Although it is of scenario length, The Kings of Silver: A Campaign Frame for Spire RPG is very much a campaign framework, with a beginning and an ending (or endings). It is a juicy set-up, with lots for the players and their characters to think about, whilst giving them complete agency as how they act upon the set-up and the information that it gives them. After that, the campaign is primarily player driven as they decide how their characters will act against the NPCs they are targeting, with the Game Master supporting and reacting to those decisions. There is no set length to the campaign either, the length likely depending upon the players’ decisions and how many of the NPCs their characters will move against. The Kings of Silver: A Campaign Frame for Spire RPG lays out the basis for an entertaining campaign, but where it goes is entirely up to the players.

Friday Fantasy: They’re Making Hostage Sausage at the Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant!

In the far north, on the slopes of Mount Khamois stands the city of Olgendsongrad. It is a city that has helped to make the world a safer place from the Chaotic dragons, campaigning against and capturing these aerial menaces that swoop from the sky to steal flocks of sheep and herds of cattle and raze villages and expect princesses to be delivered, bound, but screaming to their cave entrances. It is city that has grown rich and fat on capturing, breeding, and butchering black, blue, green, red, and white dragons and making use of every single body part and organ. Of course, wizards and sorcerers queue up to buy a ready supply of draconic components for their spells and research—even from other realms and dimensions, but more popular is Dragonmeat™! Kept fresh in easy to open and easy to carry tins, Dragonmeat™ is a wonder of the age. A single tin will keep a man fed for week and keep him happy and ready for work. Except the wheels of the Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant have ground to a halt and there no more fat dragon corpses going in and no more tins of Dragonmeat™ rolling off the conveyor belts. The Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant, located in the old Highroad King’s former state of the art prison, is silent and under siege. The authorities and the city’s three competing militias—the Copperbreath Guards and Copperbreath Riot Troops (both of whom would rather be collecting fines and/or bribes), the Bronzeclaw Dragoon Bravos with their wing-clipped hellfire-spouting draconic steeds (who would rather be invading another country), and the Silverwing Scouts (who would rather be in the air, looking cool)—are stuck outside, unable to get in because of Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant’s magical defences. Inside, some of the workers have halted work, revolted, and are demanding some rights. They have also taken hostages. Which makes breaking in and beating up the uppity workers a whole lot more difficult. If there were no hostages, the militias and the city authorities would only to worry about damage to the processing plant.

Enter the Player Characters, because amongst all of this mess, someone wants them to break in, end the siege, rescue the staff, and even smuggle in a sociologist! That is not all though, other people want to know what Dragonmeat™ is really made of, smuggle out as many tins as they can, grab some CARAT (Citizen Appraisal and Review According to Treasure) medallions (used for identification and status in Olgendsongrad), and more. The good news is that each one of these objectives pays well—very well. The bad news is that the Player Characters have about four hours (probably less) to get in, do what they need to do, and get out again before the authorities decide to get even more heavier-handed than normal…

Imagine if the world of How to Train Your Dragon got industrialised and then unionised, and then you wanted to run Ocean’s 11 in that world in a factory with Stephen King’s The Mangler at the heart of it. Then you turn it into an adventure using the retroclone of your choice. Pretty much what you would have is They’re Making Hostage Sausage at the Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant!.

They’re Making Hostage Sausage at the Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant! is from TheMerry Mushmen. Published following a Kickstarter campaign along with Drought Dragon Desolation, this is an adventure for OldSchool Essentials from Necrotic Gnome and is designed to be played with characters of Third and Fourth Level. It is a heist adventure. The Player Characters attend a briefing from their employer—by remote—and then case the joint, decide how they are going to break in, and then get out again, whilst attempting to achieve multiple objectives inside what is an arcano-mechanical dungeon. It can be played in a single session, and there are notes on how to do that, but that is a challenging prospect given how busy an affair this is and how detailed the Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant and its environs are. It is primarily designed to be played through in four or five sessions, giving the Game Master to bring the city of Olgendsongrad to life and her players and their characters the opportunity to enjoy its industrial weirdness.

What the scenario does not include is a full description of the city of Olgendsongrad. Instead, the introduction, ‘Olgendsongrad – City of the dragon butchers’, is more of a travelogue that takes the players and their characters in through the ‘Gate of the Three Golds’ (dedicated to the three gold dragons that inaugurated its status today) and to the dive that is the Lowlives Hostelry and The Old King’s Bones where they can find a room and then get a drink from the owner’s undead staff—five skeletons with a limited understanding of spoken Common—for which he has a ‘Perpetual Licence to Necroanimate on the Premises’. There is an overview of the city, but it is limited. Instead, the scenario focuses upon the set-up and the location of the heist. This includes the weird briefing that the Player Characters will receive, details of the factions and persons/beings inside and out with interest in what is going on in the Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant. There some delightfully weird individuals here—a Pigeon Army for hire, a bowler hat-wearing sentient crab on secondment from another plane, and the Kobold Sociologist who wants to accompany the Player Characters on the heist—for the Game Master to portray.

There is also timeline which serves as a countdown of events that will trigger the longer it takes the Player Characters to execute the heist as well as tables of events, alerts, and the environment inside the Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant for when it is quiet or the workers inside are alerted. The Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant is described in some detail as you would expect. It continues the scenario’s combination of dark fantasy and unfettered industrialisation, from the rooftops and towers of the former castle down to the sewers and dungeons below ground, now turned into breeding pens for the stunted, wing-clipped dragons. The high degree of detail does mean that the Game Master has a lot to prepare, in particular, understanding how the Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant would normally operate and how the players and their characters might go about planning and executing breaking in, and then impart the information that both would need to know to do that without revealing too much information or bias. It does not help that there is no advice on how to do that or no-one included who might be able to give information about possible ways in. The Game Master may well want to prepare an NPC or two who might be able to furnish the Player Characters with this information when they go looking.

In addition to the fully mapped Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant, the scenario also includes several appendices. These in turn, list the possible side effects of eating too many tins of Dragonmeat™; new magical or special items, like the AutoXbow 2000 (which gives the choice of four shots before reloading or one shot before reloading at +4 to hit and damage) and Goblin’s Eyeballs (candied meat that when consumed grant infravison for twelve hours, but a penalty to sight checks during the day); and the full list of people and dragon in the adventure; and names of people and places of Olgendsongrad. The penultimate appendix consists of a short scenario, ‘Smuggling Gig’, in which the Player Characters are hired to smuggle a dozen tins of Dragonmeat™ out of the city, which can be run as a prequel to the main scenario in They’re Making Hostage Sausage at the Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant!. The last appendix consists of a full set of ‘Ogender adventurers’. These are intended to be used replacement characters or as hirelings. They all have slightly weird and wonky backgrounds as befits the setting. It is a pity that there is not a set of pre-generated Player Characters included as they would have helped some of the toe and weirdness of the setting more personal.

Another issue with They’re Making Hostage Sausage at the Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant! is that its setting, an arcano-mechanical, industrialised city, does not fit the typical fantasy setting, and neither does its satirical tone. Which is a pity because there a lot more of the city of Olgendsongrad to explore and likely more adventures to be had. That said, its northern or Scandinavian-style setting does actually make it easier to place in a world, even if the other elements do not. One option might be the Midderlands setting from Monkey Blood Design, which does have a similar tone and could have suitable places to locate Olgendsongrad. Of course, the Game Master devise more of the setting as directed or fit the scenario into her setting, making the adjustments, as necessary.

Physically, They’re Making Hostage Sausage at the Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant! is as well presented as you would expect a title to be from The Merry Mushmen. The artwork is good, but perhaps a little busy. The cartography is good too.

They’re Making Hostage Sausage at the Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant! is not a traditional city supplement or a traditional scenario either. It leaves much of the city of Olgendsongrad to the imagination or until the publisher sets more scenarios there and the scenario is one that requires planning and speed upon the part of the players and their characters. To be fair, the scenario does not actually need a great of information about Olgendsongrad, since as a heist scenario, the Player Characters are meant to get in and get away, rather than hang around to see what happens next. In comparison to the previous scenarios from this publisher—Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow and The Horrendous Hounds of Hendenburgh—this is spikier where they are sharper. In addition, it is also harder to set up and run than either of those two scenarios because there is more information to impart to the players and their characters, and unfortunately the scenario does not help with that as it should.

They’re Making Hostage Sausage at the Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant! is an entertaining scenario which introduces a weird, off-kilter fantasy setting that you definitely want to know more about. A meat processing plant is a great setting for a heist and if she can put the effort to prepare the scenario as it needs, both the Game Master will have a lot of fun with They’re Making Hostage Sausage at the Dragonmeat™ Processing Plant!.

Cthulhoid Choices: The Rats in the Walls

H.P. Lovecraft’s 1923 short story, ‘The Rats in the Walls’, tells of an American, Delapore, the last descendant of the De la Poer family, inherits the family estate of Exham Priory in England following the Great War and much to the dismay of local residents, decides to restore the estate. Once they have moved in, both Delapore and his cat are plagued by the sounds of the eponymous ‘rats in the walls’. Together with several friends, including the comrade of his son who died in the war, Delapore investigates the source of the sounds and following a series of dreams discovers the terrible history of his family. That they were cannibals, feeding on a herd of ‘human cattle’ raised and maintained in an underground below the house for centuries. Enraged by the loss of his son and maddened by the revelations about his family, Delapore snaps and gives into his filial urges, attacking and feeding upon his companions, before being captured and condemned to an insane asylum.

This story has now been adapted to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Dungeon Matters , the ‘R’lyeh Rising Adventure Series’ adapts classic cosmic horror and pulp fiction into adventures for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Of course, links between cosmic horror and the Cthulhu Mythos and Dungeons & Dragons are not new. They go all the way back to the original version of the Deities & Demigods, the pantheon guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. The connection would come to the fore at the end of the millennium with Death in Freeport from Green Ronin Publishing. It moved back and forth with Realms of Crawling Chaos for Labyrinth Lord and other retroclones and with adventures like Carrion Hill for Pathfinder, before coming up to date with a supplement and set of campaigns for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition with Ghoul Island Act 1: Voyage to Farzeen and its sequels, written and published by Sandy Petersen, the designer of Call of Cthulhu no less!

The ‘R’lyeh Rising Adventure Series’ does not consist of classic fantasy adventures, but instead of Lovecraftian investigative horror set in the early twentieth century. The series does provide a guide to ‘Running Lovecraftian Horror in 5e’ which gives an overview of the line and the setting—primarily Arkham and Innsmouth; the themes and elements including the Great Old Ones and Elder Gods, mad cultists and forbidden knowledge, insanity and madness, and so on; and of course, new rules. It suggests the Cleric, Fighter, Monk, and Warlock as possible Classes, and suggests Naval Veteran, Occult Investigator, Prohibition Agent, and Spiritualist as possible Backgrounds. There are rules too for firearms, vehicles and vehicle chases. The setting overview is broad, whilst the rules are serviceable, tending towards Pulp horror feel rather than a Purist tone.

Given that the line is an adaptation of Lovecraftian investigative horror, it should be no surprise that there are rules for madness and the effects of being exposed to the cosmic horror of the Mythos. Saving throws against Madness are a Wisdom check and the type of Madness can either be short-term, suffered after a minor shock, long-term, gained after accumulated horror exposure, or indefinite, due to reading forbidden tomes or seeing cosmic entities, or suffering long-term madness three or more times. The actual effects for each type are determined randomly. It is possible to cure madness through the Lesser Restoration, Remove Curse, Dispel Evil, and Greater Restoration spells. Overall, there is a brusqueness to both overview of the setting and the rules, but they are workable.

R’lyeh Rising #1: The Rats in the Walls is the first in the series. It is designed for four First Level Player Characters who are engaged to investigate the activities of Lord Arthur de la Poer at Exham Priory. This might be because a friend or colleague is concerned about him, because a local mother is worried about the disappearance of her son, or simply because the Player Characters met the mad Lord Arthur de la Poer in the street. The Player Characters can conduct some investigation and ask a few questions in and around the village of Anchester, near Exham Priory. They will definitely be able to confirm that something odd is going on at the house and may be able to discern some hints as to what it is. Then they can make their way to Exham Priory, perhaps with an ally or not, discovering further signs of Lord Arthur de la Poer’s madness, before descending into the caves below the house. This is linear in nature rather than the expansive city which the original story suggested, but along the way, the Player Characters can find the means that will help them defeat the evil thing below the priory and so end the curse that has beset the de la Poer family.

One nice touch is that the thing, the ‘Feaster’, “A hulking mass of mouths and flesh, embodying hunger and madness itself.” will offer the Player Characters a bargain. It is a very nasty bargain, but its bonuses are decent if a player decides that his character will give in! Instead of magical items, there are ‘Special Items’, including a helpful tome bound in human flesh and the vile, Ceremonial Knife of the Feast. Whether through combat or dismissal, the Player Characters should be able to defeat the ‘Feaster’. This will gain them a new Level.

The scenario includes advice on adjusting to lower or higher player counts, a suggested timeline, and the NPC and monster stats. There are no pre-generated Player Characters, which would have been useful given the change in genre.

Physically, R’lyeh Rising #1: The Rats in the Walls is a plain affair. It is lightly illustrated and some of the illustrations are good. The cartography is decent, if a little dark.

R’lyeh Rising #1: The Rats in the Walls is not a sophisticated affair. There is some scope for roleplaying early on, but once the Player Characters enter Exham Priory, the scenario is more dungeon-like, and the scenario is very much going to end in a fight. Veteran players of roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror will not find much here to engage them and will very likely have read the story that it is based on anyway. For players of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition who want to try some Lovecraftian investigative horror, R’lyeh Rising #1: The Rats in the Walls offers a straightforward opportunity with a short taster than can be played in a single session.

Miskatonic Monday #430: Last Dance in Shoreditch

 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: Last Dance in Shoreditch

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Seyed P. Razavi

Setting: London, Modern Day

Product: One shot
What You Get: Thirty-page, 15.87 BB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “There’s always some amount of gradual, slow burning destruction over the course of partying.”—Gavin DeGraw

Plot Hook: Jenny Muir is missing

Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, seven handouts, three NPCs, and one Mythos monster.

Production Values: Decent

Pros

# Nightlife nightmare in the streets of East London

# Nicely done ‘sights, sounds, vibes, and smells’

# Easy to prepare

# Eisoptrophobia

# Scoptophobia

# Melophobia

Cons

# One pre-generated Investigator a little too like the missing NPC

# One pre-generated Investigator has a high Cthulhu Mythos skill

# It will make you feel old

# Avoid any jokes about murder on the dance floor

Conclusion

# Queasy, sweaty descent beyond the ecstasy of London’s nightlife

# Drop the bass, drop the horror

Miskatonic Monday #429: Crappy Detour

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: Crappy Detour

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Phanzar

Setting: USA, Modern Day

Product: One shot
What You Get: Seventeen-page, 8.22 BB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds meets Call of Cthulhu

Plot Hook: A forced detour confronts the Investigators with a shitty situation

Plot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, five handouts, one map, four Mythos spells, one Mythos tome, and three Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Decent

Pros

# A terrible pun rather than a case of nominative determinism

# Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds writ large

# Decent map

# Easy to prepare

# Easy to adjust to other times and places

# Customisable Investigators

# Ornithophobia

# Coprophobia

# Pteronophobia

Cons

# A terrible pun rather than a case of nominative determinism

# Needs an edit

# No floorplans

# Sadly, no phobia of Afred Hitchcock

Conclusion

# Obvious pastiche that is not as bad as it sounds

# Decent one-shot that rises above nominative determinism

Christianity & Cosmology

The Straight Way Lost: Adventuring between Heaven and Hell in a Fantastical Renaissance Italy is a campaign for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, but do not let that put you off. This is as different a campaign for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition as you could imagine. It is a low fantasy campaign that is highly fantastical. It treads a fine line between the Possibility of magic and the Permeance of non-magic. It is historical. It will take the players and their characters to places rarely thought about and rarely visited in roleplaying. Its scope is grander than ever imagined, taking the Player Characters from High Renaissance Florence to the gates of Hell—and beyond. Down all nine circles of Hell and out of the bottom to climb the Mountain of Purgatory to reach Paradise, before returning to the mortal world and stopping a great evil. Inspired by Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, the three parts of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, the campaign will literally take the Player Characters through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, and thus across a Ptolemaic model of the universe. Dungeons & Dragons has visited Hell before. Most notably with 1980’s Inferno for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, from Judges Guild, which detailed the first four circles of Hell as detail by Dante, and which has been more recently completed in Inferno: Journey through Malebolge by Spellbook Games. A Paladin in Hell, published in 1998, allowed the players to visit Hell once again, complete with actual devils rather than ‘baatezu’, whilst the Guide to Hell, followed a year later. Both were for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition. Unlike those releases, The Straight Way Lost is not designed for traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style play.

The Straight Way Lost: Adventuring between Heaven and Hell in a Fantastical Renaissance Italy, published by Vortex Verlag following a Kickstarter campaign is both a sourcebook for fifteenth century Florence, a guide to the cosmology of Dante’s Divine Comedy, and a complete campaign for Player Characters of Third Level. Should they survive and complete the campaign, they will attain Eighth Level. However, there is relatively little scope for continued play beyond the campaign and anyway, the world portrayed in The Straight Way Lost is unlike Dungeons & Dragons. It is set in High Renaissance Italy where magic is known and studied in private, but deeply frowned upon by the church since it could lead to the study and practice of necromancy. Man is not the only intelligent species in this world, though the Elves, Half-Elves, Dwarves, Half-Dwarves, Tielfings, and Nephilim try not to bring too much attention themselves. There are no obviously non-Human species, but even the acceptable species ten to hide their non-Human traits. So, no Dragonborn, Halflings, or Half-Orcs. In terms of Dungeons & Dragons’ Classes, the Bard, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, and Wizard are unproblematic, whereas the Barbarian, Druid, and Monk are unsuited to the setting. The Cleric and the Paladin require some consideration in terms of their faith, though it is likely to be Christian; the Sorcerer’s magical nature is likely to at odd with the rationality of the age; and the Warlock is provided with a list of alternative Patrons to select from, though there are no ‘Great Old Ones’ to choose from. These include Archfae, Infernal, and Titan Patrons.

Besides the new species, The Straight Way Lost also introduces two new Classes and a Sub-Class. Under the Polymath, the Philosopher, who understands and uses reason and logic to weave the powers of creation, whilst the Artist uses creativity and imagination. Mechanically, both expend Weave Points to fuel a mix of powers, some which they share in common. The Philosopher begins with the powers of ‘Language Master’, ‘Linguistic Recall’, ‘Peer Connections’, and ‘Caustic Remark’, whilst the Artist has ‘Likeness’, ‘The Artist’s Eye’, ‘The Artist’s Hand’, and ‘The Artist’s Favour’. The ‘Courtier’ is a Sub-Class for the Bard which focuses on social interaction rather than performance. In addition, The Straight Way Lost adds the new skills of Arts Liberales, Courtly Manners, Diplomacy, Fine Arts, and Law. What this offers is a range of character options that emphasises brains over brawn and manners over murder—and as the authors make clear, The Straight Way Lost is a campaign that emphasises roleplay versus rampage. Yes, some martial skills will be needed, but a Player Character entirely focused upon them will probably get less enjoyment out of the campaign.

Further, to encourage player and character involvement and roleplaying, The Straight Way Lost suggests possible character motivations, reasons for group cohesion, and motivational drives. The character motivations include Family Duty, Holy Duty, Heritage, Informant, and more, whilst the group cohesion suggestions include Family, Powerful Patron, Business, and so on. Both of these can be rolled or chosen, and if two or more Player Characters share one, the Game Master is encouraged to tie their backgrounds together. The motivational drives, such as Truth Seeker, Danger Seeker, God is Truth, and Fear Itself, are designed to encourage the player to get his character involved in the campaign’s plot and its ongoing storyline, and when roleplayed, will reward the player with Inspiration.

The Straight Way Lost notably eschews the standard Alignment system of Dungeons & Dragons. Instead, each Player Character will have a Dark Secret from a flaw or a committed sin; a Good Deed, committed because of a virtue; and a Happy Memory. All three will be tested and examined in the campaign, especially the Dark Secret and its associated sin in Hell. One of the advantages that the Player Characters will have in relation to the other souls in Hell is that they are mortal, should not be in Hell, and cannot be automatically confined to the Circle of Hell pertaining to their Dark Secret. The Straight Way Lost also adds a new mechanic in the form of Dismay, representing the effects of the trauma that the Player Characters can suffer as a result of traversing through Hell. Wisdom checks are made against a Difficulty Class which varies between eight and a shocking incident and fourteen and extreme terror. A Player Character’s Dismay can range in value between one and ten, and as it rises he will become increasingly apathetic and may fall into a ‘State of Dread’, a ‘State of Madness’, or ultimately, suffer a ‘Breakdown’. Both player and Game Master are encouraged to work together to portray the effects of Dismay in a manner that everyone is comfortable with.

The Straight Way Lost does include a sourcebook for the city of Florence in the year 1492. This is not an extensive look at the city, but rather a good overview and that is sufficient to run the campaign. The campaign proper begins in March, 1492, with the Player Characters invited to attend a feast hosted by the Capponi family, allies of the Medici family, to celebrate the achievements of a noted philosopher. They will have the opportunity to interact with their fellow guests and even attend an audience with Lorenzo de’ Medici, already in clearly poor health. Unfortunately, the event is thrown into disarray with the discovery of a dead woman, clearly murdered, lying in an arcane circle in the cellar. As the news of the murder spreads through Florence, it threatens to discredit Lorenzo de’ Medici and his family for simply being there, so he hands the investigation into the death to his fiercest critic, Girolamo Savonarola, a prior of the Dominican convent of San Marco. This includes Father Savonarola who will interview the Player Characters and ask them to help. This is not to investigate the murder directly—though the campaign does allow for that if the players decide that their characters want to—but rather to consult with Ofelia, a holy hermit who lives three days outside of the city and ask if she can pray to determine who has let his evil into the city of Florence…

Ofelia will direct the Player Characters on the campaign’s great quest. They will be accompanied by a guide who can advise them and help them, if necessary, but the Game Master will need to be careful in her portrayal so that it does not appear that she is not leading them by the nose. The path through the campaign is obvious, that is, down and eventually up. First descending down through the funnel formed on the other side of the world, at each Circle confronting its keeper, encountering the souls whose sins have cast them into Hell and exploring the consequences of their sins, confronting any Player Character whose Dark Secret corresponds to the Circle, and then finding a way to progress to the next lower Circle. The encounters also include famous persons from history, some of whom are pertinent to the campaign and the city of Florence, but all of whom have, according to Dante’s Divine Comedy, have been cast into Hell. The confrontation with the personal Dark Secret will automatically increase that character’s Dismay, but it throws the spotlight on the character and player, giving the latter an opportunity to examine and roleplay his character’s darker side and its consequences. It requires careful handling by both player and Game Master, whilst altogether, the group might want to spread the choice of Dark Secrets their characters’ possess. This would avoid the possibility of replication and spread such scenes out over the course of the Player Characters’ descent, rather than having them all at once. How the Player Characters get past the keeper of each Circle varies, combat invariably not being the best option. The path down is intentionally gruelling and by the time the Player Characters have descended to the lowest Circle of Hell, their Dismay levels will be quite high and they will be drawn and traumatised by what they have seen and experienced.

Fortunately, whilst the climb up the Mountain of Purgatory is more challenging, it is the path to redemption. Where the Player Characters were condemned for their Dark Secret and its associated sin on their descent into Hell, here they have them purged as they climb to the Earthly Paradise and by the time they have ascended to the top, they will hopefully be cleansed. Their time there will come as a relief after the literal hell and the Player Characters will also be able to get the answers they are looking for as well as a means to heal Lorenzo de’ Medici. With this in hand, they can return to the mortal realm, a path that will take them through Paradice, an awe-inspiring view of the Ptolemaic cosmos. Ultimately, they will descend to Earth and make their way back to Florence where they have a chance to heal Lorenzo de’ Medici, but not before a confrontation with the villain behind it all. Success is not guaranteed and failure will mean that Lorenzo de’ Medici dies and history plays out as it did in our own timeline.

Beyond the expected stats and descriptions for all of the NPCs and monsters in the campaign, The Straight Way Lost includes notes on what could happen next and potentially allow play beyond the end of the campaign. These are only suggestions though and, in each case, the Game Master will need to develop herself. An appendix suggests music for the campaign, provides a list of Italian Renaissance names, and a bibliography. There is an index for the NPCs in the campaign and a general index as well as a de’ Medici family tree.

Physically, The Straight Way Lost is an incredibly fantastic looking book. Notably, its pages are colour-coded. A light, earthy brown for Florence and its surrounds, deep black for Hell, a smoky blue-grey for Purgatory, and rich gold for Paradise, the effect enhancing the tone and feel of each of the associated acts in the campaign. In addition, the illustrations by Jana Heidersdorf, Mark Smylie, and Gwenevere Singly are excellent and should definitely be used by the Game Master to show to her players. On the downside, the book does need an edit in places and it is a little untidy in places. That said, the writing is clear and the advice for the Game Master never less than direct, even pointed at times.

The Straight Way Lost: Adventuring between Heaven and Hell in a Fantastical Renaissance Italy is a campaign for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, but not really a campaign for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. At least not in the traditional or the mechanical sense. Mechanically, its stats, Races, Classes, and monsters are written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Yet beyond that, the mechanical complexities within the campaign are so light that it does not feel like Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Adapting it to a system that the Game Master and her players prefer would take some effort, but not necessarily as much effort as a more traditional campaign would demand.

In the traditional sense of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, The Straight Way Lost is unlike any campaign for the roleplaying game—or indeed any roleplaying game. Its themes of sin and redemption are mature subject matters and given its nature, it should be no surprise that there are scenes of terror and torture. Yet there are also scenes of hope and succour. Structurally, The Straight Way Lost is a journey and does want to tell a story, so it is linear, with no real options other than forward. Thus, the player agency comes in the individual scenes and small decisions that the characters are faced with. It is not a long campaign by any means, but requires no little commitment because of its themes and nature, as well as the roleplaying required in exploring the sins and Dark Secrets of the Player Characters.

The Straight Way Lost: Adventuring between Heaven and Hell in a Fantastical Renaissance Italy is not so much a fantasy campaign as a campaign of classical fantasy. It takes the players and their characters to places unseen and of wonder and of awe, and it challenges their roleplaying too. The Straight Way Lost: Adventuring between Heaven and Hell in a Fantastical Renaissance Italy is proof that sometimes the system matters not—not when you have a campaign as unique and literately inspired as this.