Fifth Edition Filleted

How would you react if someone offered to run a horror scenario for you using Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition? Turn the offer down flat? Run a mile? Ask why would anyone would want to run a horror game using Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition when there are a hundred-and-one alternatives readily available, many of which are specifically designed to handle the genre? After all, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition is best suited to running heroic (some would even go as far as superheroic) high fantasy, even in its own horror setting of Ravenloft, with highly capable Player Characters who possess abilities and powers that are effectively miraculous, and probably likely, an array of magical items that make them even more capable, let alone being swaddled in Hit Points and the Frightened Condition not actually having that much of an effect in game. Before you run away or yell at whomever made you that offer or throw another roleplaying game at said person, what if someone else told you that there is a horror roleplaying game based on Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition which casts the ‘heroes’ as ordinary men and women who can get scared, act out of desperation, pay for their mistakes, and are forced to suffer unfair odds in the face of terrifying situations, horrifying monsters, and malign evil? All that and it is uncomplicated and easy to learn, plays and runs fast, and is supported by numerous scenarios straight out of the book, one of which you could be playing within an hour of the Game Master opening the book? You might not believe me, but such roleplaying game really does exist and upfront it makes a claim on the front cover so bold that you might wonder at the designer’s audacity.

FiveEvil: A Game of Unnerving Terror, Subverting the Expectations of the World’s Greatest RPG is that roleplaying game. Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign by Handiwork Games, best known for BEOWULF: Age of Heroes and the second editions of both Cold City and Hot War, it is a roleplaying game of modern horror, intended to cover everything from the style of Stephen King, The Walking Dead, and Twin Peaks to Halloween, The Thing, and The Ring. It makes multiple changes to standard Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. These start with it not being a Class and Level roleplaying game and it not having either abilities, powers, or Feats. Also gone is Inspiration, although Advantage and Disadvantage remain, and yet even more radically, there is no combat system and no attack rolls, and in keeping with the genre, but not necessarily Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, the Horror that the Player Characters are forced to confront is out to get them—and it does not play fair. This is a roleplaying game in which the Player Characters do not seek out the Horror or choose to confront it, but one in which the Horror seeks them out and confronts them. With all of that gone, what does FiveEvil give in its stead?

The Player Character looks very different in FiveEvil. He has the traditional abilities of Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, and they are rated between three and eighteen. He has skills, but these are limited to twelve, two per ability, and he has Hit Points, typically ten for an average Player Character. After that, the changes really start. He has two Descriptors, which can be a job, hobby, or archetype, such as accountant, fly fishing, or surly teenager. Each Descriptor has a bonus, typically +4 for the job or stereotype and +2 for the hobby. These are applied to the skills that the Player Character is proficient in, two for primary Descriptor and one for the secondary Descriptor, as well to a Save Bonus for each Descriptor. He has four Personality Aspects—Habit, Belief, Flaw, and Relationship—that help define how the Player Character should be roleplayed. They can be invoked to ignore the Intensity of a situation and thus make a needed roll easier to achieve or to shake off a point of Desperation. A Player Character starts with no points of Desperation, but will acquire them as he is forced to struggle to survive the odds in the face the Horror. The more points of Desperation a Player Character has, the greater the likelihood that he will make mistakes and fall victim to whatever plans the Horror has for him.

Creating a Player Character in FiveEvil is a matter of choosing Descriptors and their associated skills and saves, defining the four Personality Aspects, and rolling for the abilities. This is done on three six-sided dice, though other methods are suggested. The process is quick and easy.

Mathias Pouke
Descriptor #1: Attentive Editor (+4)
Descriptor #2: Roleplaying Fanatic (+2)
Habit: Makes too many puns
Belief: Expect the worst and you will never be disappointed
Flaw: Fear of missing out
Relationship: How any cats can one man have?

Strength 10 (+0); Athletics [o], Intimidation [o]
Dexterity 12 (+0); Agility [o], Stealth [o]
Constitution 13 (+1); Grit [o], Survival [o]
Intelligence 14 (+2); Investigation [×], Knowledge/Recall [×]; Save [×]
Wisdom 10 (+0); Insight [o], Perception [o]
Charisma 13 (+1); Deception [o], Persuasion [×]; Save [×]

Hit Points: 12
Desperation: 0

Mechanically, in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, when a player wants his character to act, he rolls a twenty-sided die and if the result after applying any bonuses, is equal to or greater than the Difficulty Class of the action, then the character succeeds. This is exactly the same in FiveEvil, except the Difficulty Class does not depend on the action being attempted or necessarily how challenging it is. Instead, it is based on the Intensity of the situation that the Player Characters are in. The Intensity value runs from zero to six, going from just another day at zero through the situation being pressed at two and disrupted at three to murderous at six. So, the more tense and dangerous the situation (accompanying music is, if this was a horror film), the higher the Intensity. When the Intensity value is zero, the Difficulty Class is always ten, but the Difficulty Class increases as the Intensity increases, raising up to sixteen. The players always know what the Intensity value is as the Game Master has to display it on the table. In this way, it lets the players know how tense the situation is and thus the degree of horror that they need to lean into, as well as its mechanical difficulty. Whatever the Intensity Difficulty Class, it is the current Difficulty Class for all actions, whether a Player Character wants to leap from one rooftop to another, decapitate a zombie with an axe, or search the library for the correct eldritch tome. This includes Saves as well, but most rolls will be ability checks as there are no skill checks.

If the result is equal to, or higher than, the Intensity Difficulty Class, the Player Character succeeds, but if not, he fails, and the situation is likely to go badly against him. If the result is a natural one, or is less than the Player Character’s Desperation, he has made a Mistake. The Game Master chooses the result which fits the situation, which might be that the Player Character stumbles, hurts himself, takes extra time, suffers Disadvantage, or drops, breaks, or forgets something, and so on. Conversely, if the result is a natural twenty or simply twenty or more, the Player Character catches a Break. In this case, the Game Master choses a benefit for the Player Character, which might be that he is impressive, finds something useful, gains Advantage, discovers a vulnerability of the Horror being faced, and so on.

In addition, the Game Master may need to roll a Doom check. This is rolled against the current Intensity Difficulty Class without modifiers and is used as an oracle to determine if the situation or an aspect of it favours the Player Characters or not.

The horror genre drives those subject to its terrifying events and encounters to act out of desperation to survive, let alone escape. No less in FiveEvil, but when a Player Character acts out of desperation, he gains points of Desperation. In return, a roll can be made with Advantage, a flat +2 bonus can be applied to ability checks or saves after their roll has been made, to temporarily ignore the effects of being Wounded, or to increase the damage inflicted in an attack by the current Intensity value. A Player Character can have a maximum of ten points of Desperation, before he can no longer act out of desperation. However, the acting out of, and gaining points of, Desperation, has its consequences. Any ability check or save roll whose result is under the Player Character’s current Desperation total, the Player Character makes a Mistake, and if the Player Character still has points of Desperation when in a rest, they have to be processed. This means that the Player Character comes to terms with what he has just encountered, survived, or witnessed. When this happens, there is a chance that one or more of the Player Character’s Personality Aspects is alienated. Mechanically, an alienated Personality Aspect cannot be invoked, but narratively, an alienated Personality Aspect indicates that the Player Character’s personality has suffered and he has lost something of himself. If all four Personality Aspects are alienated, the Player Character has lost the will to carry on, cannot act out of Desperation, and is effectively out of the scenario.

Alienated Personality Aspects are the equivalent of sanity in other horror roleplaying games, but in FiveEvil, instead of the loss of raw numbers indicating a Player Character’s state, it is who the Player Character is and how he acts that are affected. He suffers loss rather than has an effect imposed upon him, but this only comes about because the player has decided that he wants to put his character at greater risk and accumulate Desperation. Instead, where the effect of the Horror or the situation is imposed is on the Intensity value and whilst it is imposed collectively, it is till up to the player to decide how his character acts and whether or not that is through Desperation. Ultimately, it is up to player agency, but since FiveEvil is a horror roleplaying game, that choice is often a case of choosing the least bad option rather than the best option.

Instead of combat encounters, FiveEvil has Terror Encounters. These are the roleplaying game’s set pieces in which the Horror confronts the Player Characters. From the off, the Player Characters are on the back foot. Once the Game Master sets the stage, the Player Characters must make a Terror Save which determines if they freeze in terror, run away, or can act. However, the Player Characters do not so much act in Terror Encounters, but react. This is because the Horror always goes first in a Terror Round and as a Terror Reaction, a Player Character can do just one thing. This is either to fight and attempt to inflict harm on the horror, flight and runaway, or finish whatever other task the Player Character wants to do. To do so, a player Character must face the Horror and make a Doom check. In the unlikelihood of a ‘reprieve’, the Player Character gains a second Terror Reaction, whilst on a Success, he avoids any Evils, is subject to an Evil on a failure, and suffers an extra Evil on a Doom result. An Evil is an effect inflicted on the Player Character by the Game Master, either selected appropriately to the situation or rolled randomly, and they can be either minor or serious in terms of severity. Minor Evils are suffered on rounds one and two of a Terror Encounter, whilst Serious Evils come into effect from the third round onwards.

Terror Rounds are patently unfair and favours the Horrors rather the Player Characters and is entirely intentional. The Player Characters are ordinary folk and the Horror not, and survival is never guaranteed. The explanation of how Terror Rounds work is supported by a lengthy example of play which very nicely showcases how all of FiveEvil works.

All of the play rules in FiveEvil are covered in the book’s first forty pages, including base advice, the elements of both Player Characters and Horrors, and running the roleplaying game. The advice for both player and Game Master is upfront and is to play hard, earn and give trust, take the hits, feel the fear, and play safe both in establishing the tone of the game and how it then plays out. Taking all of this in hand, the Game Master and her players are ready to play the first of five scenarios in FiveEvil. This is ‘Wakefield House’ in which a group of high school teenagers are confronted by Kyle, a friend of theirs who disappeared the year before, a victim of his tragic circumstances. In the first part, the Player Characters are confronted by Kyle and run away, but are haunted by his presence as they try and work out what has happened to him and how they can stop him or rescue him. There is a emotional strand to the scenario in that each Player Character is not as good a friend to Kyle as he or she should have been and rescuing him is their path to redemption as much as his.

‘Wakefield House’ is a short affair, playable in a single session or two. It is also easy to prepare and comes with six pre-generated Player Characters, such that a Game Master really could read through the first forty pages of FiveEvil and the twenty-page ‘Wakefield House’ and have it ready to run in surprisingly short amount of time.

The rules for Player Character generation follow this and it comes with plenty of advice and suggestions in terms of Descriptors and Personality Aspects for different settings. All of this is done by page eighty or so, with the remainder of book dedicated to the Game Master and running and creating for FiveEvil. The advice throughout is thorough and helpful, but at its core is the idea that whilst FiveEvil likely draws heavily from films and books in terms of inspiration, and might look like a story from a film or a book, what it really is, is a trap for the Player Characters. They are trapped by the situation they are in and they are trapped by whatever plans that the Horror has for them, but they are also trapped by their Personality Aspects as they are what will motivate them. That is, when they are not running away! The advice also examines the different modes of play, going from Quiet Mode to Suspense Mode, and finally Terror Mode with Terror Encounters. There is advice too on running investigations, but particularly good is the section on ‘Horror Stagecraft’ which examines different techniques that the Game Master can use to maintain a rhythm of tension rising and falling. Being explicit about the odds, but preserve hidden truths until they need to be revealed (always at the worst moment in the story); getting under the skin of the players not to scare them, but help them scare themselves by leaving gaps in what their characters know and listening to them; keeping the suspense unbearable by setting up the threat and dialling up the Intensity, but allowing to slow down too; throwing in jump scares (with a nice Lewton bus reference thrown in); maintaining the tension in the moment; and more. The advice is excellent and it could have been published in standalone book of its own and it still would be good, not just in the FiveEvil rules.

The advice continues with a guide to creating scenarios, including deciding on a setting, choosing a Horror, selecting the right type of trap that the Player Characters will fall into, and pitching a scenario to the players. Settings break some archetypical locations for a horror, asking questions about each, giving suggestions as possible Player Characters and their group dynamics, adding setting details, and backing it up with advice on using the settings. Examples include an isolated research station, touring band, wilderness adventure, busy hospital, boarding school, grimy spaceship, charming suburb, and dead end town, each one a toolkit to help the Game Master set the stage for a scenario. The example Horrors include alien insects, vampires, ravenous carnivores, infections and zombies, cultists and the things they serve, and unstoppable maniacs. It feels like a short list, but they are constructed more like archetypes and it is easy to see how they can be fleshed out to be something more specific in detail and flavour for a scenario.

So far, FiveEvil has been primarily aimed at single scenarios. For campaign play it offers various different types of encounters and other options that extend play. These include hunt encounters when the Player Characters are being hunted and specific challenge encounters for difficult situations; expanding character options with particular areas of knowledge called ‘Know-Hows’ and developing a Player Character in the long term; and handling mysteries. There is a good toolkit help the Game Master create mysteries and again, just like the advice on horror stagecraft, it is worth reading by any Game Master who wants to run horror, not just FiveEvil. Then, this backed up by examples, including revisiting ‘Wakefield House’ to run it as a mystery.

Lastly, FiveEvil includes four, ready-to-play scenarios. ‘Last Fun Weekend’ sees a high school reunion go wrong at a lonely house in the hills where the Player Characters grew up; in ‘Everyone Got Something Going On’ the Player Characters get locked in downtown and hunted by a brutal killer when they attend a mandatory counselling appointment; in ‘Out of the Circle’ they are members of a religious cult who go in search of a missing member only to discover some horrible truths about her; and in ‘Big Screamin’ Demons’ a band whose members hate each other get back together for final time on a private island because the billionaire’s pay is good. The scenarios vary in length, none more than two or three sessions long. ‘Big Screamin’ Demons’ does disrupt the tone a little, being an over the top comic rock opera of a horror scenario. All four scenarios are good though and showcase the possibilities of FiveEvil very well.

Curiously, what FiveEvil is reminiscent of is 13th Age from Pelgrane Press. 13th Age presents a radical blending of Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition and Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition combined with genre enforcing storytelling mechanics. Putting aside the Class elements of 13th Age—Features, Talents, and Power—what feels specifically reminiscent of the epic fantasy roleplaying game in FiveEvil are Descriptors and Intensity. Descriptors feel like Backgrounds, the equivalent of skills in 13th Age, being very broad in their description and application, whilst Intensity feels like the Escalation Die in 13th Age. Both possess the same scale, running from one to six, and both values are player-facing, so that the players always know what they are. The Escalation Die literally sits on the table in front of the players and a six-sided die could do the same when playing FiveEvil. The Escalation Die is a bonus combat, designed to speed up combat in 13th Age, triggering various bonus effects, and making it more exciting. Intensity does not make the situation more exciting, but more tense, more horrific, and more challenging, the inverse of the Escalation Die. Both though, enforce their respective genres.

Physically, FiveEvil is very well presented. Both artwork and cartography are good. The writing though is excellent.

Whilst it is true that the underlying architecture of Dungeons & Dragons remains in FiveEvil, making it accessible to players of the world’s most popular roleplaying game, the changes to FiveEvil are more than enough for players who have eschewed either Dungeons & Dragons or Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition to look at it and see a very different roleplaying game. These changes are not other elements drawn from Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition or other similar fantasy roleplaying games, but with techniques and mechanisms more familiar to storytelling design. These enforce the genre again and again, making play tense, placing Player Characters in horrifying situations, and confronting them with terrible choices as they are confronted by real monsters and Horrors. FiveEvil: A Game of Unnerving Terror, Subverting the Expectations of the World’s Greatest RPG is an incredibly accomplished redesign of the hobby’s number one roleplaying game that both fulfils the claims of its subtitle and fails to fulfil the claims of the subtitle. It fails in part because the architecture of Dungeons & Dragons underlying the roleplaying game still remains and in part because so many changes are made to get what FiveEvil to do what it does, but succeeds because the end result really does what you expect Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition not to do. That said, FiveEvil: A Game of Unnerving Terror, Subverting the Expectations of the World’s Greatest RPG does not change Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition so much, as slice it open and gut its insides, filleting it right down to the barest of bones before building it back up again to make it a mean, lean scaring machine.

Peril in Punjar

“Murder!” is the cry as death stalks the squalid and stinking streets of Spittle-Fields. As fog swirls around what light they carry in the dark and dingy alleys of the district abutting the Plague Gate, the Player Characters discover what will be the first of several bodies of women, accosted on the streets, their bodies slashed open far from where eyes can see, and internal organs cut free before the culprit flees back into the night. It is one hundred years since there were last such killings, a spate of brutal deaths called the ‘Autumn of Terror’, also of women, attributed to a killer never caught, but known only as the ‘Ripper’! Has he returned once again to strike fear into the good folk of some of the grimiest and grimmest quarters of the city of Punjar—Spittle-Fields Market Quarter, bustling by day, abandoned by night, the narrow alleys of Tenements Quarter, the sinister strangeness of White Chapel Quarter, and the bleakness of the Benevolent Craftsmen’s Quarter—or is some manic killing in his name? Can the Player Characters track down the killer down before he strikes again? Can the Player Characters uncover his motives and what they mean for the future of the city? Can the Player Character survive the horror revealed as they discover more? This the set-up for Return of the Ripper: An urban horror investigation for character levels 1-3.

Return of the Ripper: An urban horror investigation for character levels 1-3 is a mini-campaign published by Strange Quark Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics roleplaying game from Goodman Games. It is also a curious beast. It takes place in Punjar, a city that has been the setting for multiple scenarios in the Dungeon Crawl Classics line, but has not been detailed as a setting apart from Punjar: The Tarnished Jewel. It is a homage to the scenario, Dungeon Crawl Classics #24: Legend of the Ripper with which it shares the same theme. It is also inspired by and a prequel to Dungeon Crawl Classics #75: The Sea Queen Escapes! in that its events can lead into the events described in ‘The Sunken Kingdom of Ru’ in the scenario.

Perhaps the strangest thing about Return of the Ripper is that it is inspired by the Jack the Ripper murders in Victorian London in the late 1880s and it avoids all of the dangers of such adaptations such as giving a rationale behind the killings, such as the Cthulhu Mythos. Its primary method of doing so is by shifting the story to another genre and another city, although one heavily inspired by the London of the Ripper murders and the Victorian era. Its secondary method is to shift the story forward by a century, so what the Player Characters are investigating are murders inspired by Jack the Ripper rather than the murders that he committed. That said, Return of the Ripper is heavily inspired by two deeply connected works. One is Alan Moore’s comic strip, From Hell, and the other is Peter Ackroyd’s Hawksmoor. These are not the only influences upon Return of the Ripper, but together they underpin is cosmology and its architecture. All those influences from Michael Moorcock’s Gloriana to ‘Talon of Weng Chiang’ for Doctor Who are listed in the campaign’s own and extensive ‘Appendix N’. What is clear from this is that the author is fascinated by the Jack the Ripper murders, Ripperology, and its associated conspiracy theories.

The campaign opens with the Player Characters discovering the body of the Ripper’s first victim, Marianne Nickel. They have the chance to examine her corpse and talk to the crowd who have gathered around in the midst of Spittle-Fields Market and gain their first clues. This will give them a name and the details of a witness, which will lead them through Spittle-Fields Market and in and out of the other quarters as they trace Marianne’s movement and history. From there, the trail runs, if not cold, then at least cooler. The problem is not that it is designed as a free-form investigation with the Player Characters free to go where they will in pursuit of clues and further information, but it is written like a free-form urban sandcrawl rather than a dedicated investigation. What this means is that the murder mystery lacks structure that the Judge can easily navigate and follow the clues to reveal more of the mystery behind the murder. The plot and the motivation for the murders are both explained well and there is ‘The Murder Map’ which links the clues. Unfortunately, it is placed at the back of the book and it is not as clear is could have been.

The consequences of this are that the Judge is going to have to study Return of the Ripper quite closely in order to grasp the ins and outs of its plot, do some deconstruction of her own, and put it back together to get the best out of it. Besides ‘The Murder Map’ and the breakdown of the plot, the Judge is given three more victims whose deaths can be used to push the plot further long and a big table of rumours (for which she will need a thirty-sided die) that can be learned from NPCs (named and unnamed) and used as prompts to give the characters and their players a little nudge here and there. Plus, there is another agent with a deep interest in the murders, who may be a help or a hindrance, but is ultimately, a victim.

The investigation will ultimately reveals the culprits behind the deaths, a misogynist cult with grand plans that harness the geometric magic of the architecture of Spittle-Fields and its four quarters. From there, the campaign takes a strange turn, less Victorian urban sandcrawl, first above ground and then below, but a literal sandcrawl across a dimension beyond before delving deep into a pyramid that links to the events of Dungeon Crawl Classics #75: The Sea Queen Escapes!. Here is where the Player Characters will confront the survivors of the cult and its leader and hopefully bring the murderous reign of the Ripper to an end.

If Return of the Ripper is challenging to digest and so present to the players and their characters, it is not a challenge when comes to either detail or flavour. The people and places of this grimy, grotty quarter of Punjar are lovingly and engagingly detailed. There are places described in the write-ups for each of the quarters, such as Value Second-Hand Goods, the Ratcatcher, The Blackguard’s Bar, and others that could appear in future adventures without any changes. This is not to say that Return of the Ripper is the definite guide to Punjar’s streets, but it is a start. Perhaps the oddest addition though, is that of the Butcher of Brisbane from the Fifty-First Century, Magnus Creel, along with his murderous homunculus, Mister Sin! One other aspect of the campaign to note that it is humancentric. All of the NPCs are human, making you wish that there was the Victorian era setting for Dungeon Crawl Classics which would work with the campaign rather than playing in the fantasy genre.

Mechanically, Return of the Ripper details some thirty diseases, from the inconvenient to incurable, that the Player Characters might encounter, or worse, catch and suffer whilst in Punjar. They include Cholera, Dropsy, Typhus, Small Pox, Great Pox, Black Plague, and Bubonic Plague. This is in addition to the minor ailments like Beggar’s Boils, Gout, and Soot Lung listed earlier in the book and which the Commoners might suffer. Given the horrific and bloody nature of the campaign, it also adds rules for both Fright and Nausea. These come into play when the Player Characters encounter something horrifying or revolting, for example, being in an ominously dread place like a fog-swirled graveyard or discovering an eviscerated corpse or viewing disgusting disease symptoms such as maggot infested wounds or being doused in foul liquids like tanning fluids or sewage. This triggers a Difficulty Check and if failed, the player rolls a die equal to the value of Difficulty Check to determine the effect, making full use of the dice range in Dungeon Crawl Classics. This gives a wide variety of checks, from bring anxious for a number of rounds to actually mad (the Judge is recommended to consult The Cthulhu Alphabet for further details) for Fright and from being queasy for a few rounds to catching disease for Nausea. Nausea has an area-of-effect and does not stack, whereas Fright is time-based and does stack, so if a Player Characters is already affected, both the Difficulty Check for the next situation and the associated die rolled for the effect if failed are increased. There is a nice escalation to the effects from Fright so that a Player Character can go from jittery and unnerved to hair turning white and going mad with a lot of different effects in between rather than foisting madness immediately upon them, saving that possibility for towards the end of the campaign.

The campaign is ably supported with a lot of back matter. Not just the Appendix N, which details all of the inspirational reading and watching for the campaign, effectively serving as the designer’s notes, but also a ‘Murder Map’ that links the clues to campaign’s mystery, guides to disease in Punjar, the rules for fright and fear, a glossary of architectural terms, the campaign’s handouts, and a list of sobriquets, or first names. Unfortunately, the latter feels half finished without a list of accompanying surnames.

Physically, Return of the Ripper is a good-looking book. The cartography is clear and easy to use and the writing decent, though it needs an edit in places. The main issue with its organisation is a lack of an index.

That Return of the Ripper: An urban horror investigation for character levels 1-3 needs effort upon the part of the Judge to pull it apart and understand its plot and its various parts is disappointing, but that plot is actually a rather good Ripperology pastiche and the parts do show off the author’s fascination with the subject matter. If not as easy to prepare and run as it should be, Return of the Ripper: An urban horror investigation for character levels 1-3 has the potential to be a great adventure, a Victorian horror fantasy rife with grit and grime, determination and degradation, and eventually, hope and redemption.

The Best Witches’ Besties

It is an undeniable truth that the Witch gets a lot of bad press. Not necessarily within the roleplaying hobby, but from without, for the Witch is seen as a figure of evil, often—though not necessarily—a female figure of evil, and a figure to be feared and persecuted. Much of this stems from the historical witch-hunts of the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeen, and eighteenth centuries, along with the associated imagery, that is, the crone with the broom, pointy hat, black cat, cauldron, and more. When a Witch does appear in roleplaying, whether it is a historical or a fantasy setting, it is typically as the villain, as the perpetrator of some vile crime or mystery for the player characters to solve and stop. Publisher The Other Side has published a number of supplements written not only as a counter to the clichés of the witch figure, but to bring the Witch as a character Class to roleplaying after being disappointed at the lack of the Witch in the Player’s Handbook for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. However, there is a tradition of telling stories about witches, often aimed at younger readers, such as in the Harry Potter stories or The Worst Witch series by Jill Murphy, and if your players are fans so either, a book like The Children of the Gods: The Classical Witch for Basic Era Games is probably not going to the most appropriate option. In which case, Tales of the Village from Arion Games might.

Familiars of the Village is a supplement for Tales of the Village which helps to bring to life an aspect of witch life which give every witch a permanent companion who can act as guide, sage, conscience (for good or ill), and friend. A familiar is first defined by its animal type, which can be anything from rabbit, bat, and mouse to guinea pig, tortoise, and hedgehog, but surprisingly does not include owl. Second, it is defined by its Background, which is broken down into Origin, Age, Skill, Trait, and Drawback. Thus, for example, a Familiar’s Origin can be ‘Wild’, meaning that it was raised in the wilderness or ‘Lineage’, meaning that it comes from a long line of Familiars; Age runs from young to old; Skill can be ‘Curiosity’, ‘Talkative’, or ‘Teeth & Claws (Beak& Claws)’; Trait can be ‘Eager’, ‘Healer’, or ‘Wise’; and Drawback can be ‘Apprentice’, ‘Excitable’, or ‘Slow’. Third, a Familiar has five Abilities which are Strength, Speed, Communication, Hiding, and Knowledge. These are either Untrained, Trained, or Master.

Creating a Familiar is a simple matter of choosing an animal type and the different elements of its Background. The player then divides two points amongst the familiar’s Abilities. This can either be to have two that the Familiar is Trained in or one that it is a Master in. If Untrained, a player must roll five or more to generate a Success; if Trained, four or more; and if a Master, three or more. Lastly, the player can give his Familiar a name and as little or as much backstory as is needed. The process is easy enough, but four examples are included.

Where Familiars of the Village gets interesting is in its suggestion as to who might roleplay the Familiars in a game of Tales of the Village. This is the parents of the players, but it could be other responsible adults too. The role of the Familiar is guide and mentor the Witch it is companion to, so not that dissimilar to the role of a parent. The aim is to give advice and make suggestions, but not take the lead, so the young player has room to roleplay and explore without being led or told what to do by a parent. This works better in smaller groups so there is a balance between parents and children, Witches and Familiars.

Unfortunately, there is no real advice on how to run such a situation and no doubt that such advice would have been useful for both veteran roleplayers and those new to the hobby. Similarly, there are no scenario ideas or writing advice for scenarios involving Witches and their Familiars. Given that the Familiar Character Sheet is printed twice, this is a major omission.

Physically, Familiars of the Village is neatly and tidily presented. It is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is cute.

Just as Tales of the Village is not an introductory roleplaying game, the ideas suggested by Familiars of the Village are not introductory either. They can be worked through by an experienced Game Master, but anyone else is left to their devices when it comes to implementing them in play. The means for creating Familiars for Tales of the Village are fine, but everything else could have done with a page or two of advice and scenario ideas, leaving Familiars of the Village underdeveloped.

Friday Fantasy: Creep, Skrag, Creep!

Something is really, really wrong. Your last memory was of the dinner to celebrate your good fortune, being selected to leave your isolated island home of Alviz and travel to the coastal town of Lys where you have been promised work in the copper mines and a chance of a better future. Then it was waving goodbye to friend and family aboard the sailing ship the Star of Nostro, captained by Kristene de Keradel. Now you are awake with a headache, a stiff back, and a tongue like the bark of a tree, in the low light and stench of the ship’s hold, your wrist shackled to a pole by a rusty chain. You are not alone. There are other villagers chained to the same pole as you are and then more chained to other poles scattered around the hold, some alive, but others dead and bloated, the source of the stench that is lodged in your nostrils. Then one of your fellow prisoners screams. There is movement coming out of the darkness, black dragons scuttling between those bound to the poles, and then one of them snaps at a prisoner who shrieks in pain as with a crunch the thing bites off his hand!

This is the startling set-up to Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep!, a scenario published by Goodman Games for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. It is both a horror and a ‘Character Funnel’. A ‘Character Funnel’ is a signature feature of Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game which takes Zero Level Player Characters—usually four per player—and pushes them through a Zero Level dungeon. Devoid of the abilities, spells, combat acumen, and Hit Points that a Class and even First Level would grant them, the Player Characters must instead rely upon their previous occupation and whatever equipment that granted them, the few Hit Points they possess, their wits, whatever they can find or scavenge, and above all, luck. The ‘Character Funnel’ has proven to be popular feature Dungeon Crawl Classics, not just to play, but also to design, because each has to present the right mix of death and danger which makes a total party kill a high probability, yet still allow for some of the Player Characters to survive and so ascend to First Level. Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! is the second Horror ‘Character Funnel’ for Dungeon Crawl Classics after Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #1: They Served Brandolyn Red.

The opening scene of the scene drops the Player Characters into the middle of the action, desperately trying to break free of their chains as they fend off the black dragons that want to chomp down on them and their fellow prisoners. Survival is their priority, but they are also going to want answers to questions like ‘Where are the crew?’ and ‘What are those creatures?’ The Player Characters will find an answer to the first question, but finding an answer to the second will take longer. The crew are dead, and whatever those creatures are, they are going to stalk and attack the Player Characters—and worse, there is something much worse somewhere on the ship. The mother! It will attack the Player Characters—wherever they are aboard the vessel—again and again for it wants something from each and every one of them! Can the Player Characters survive long enough to work out what is going on and even longer to find a way out of the horrifying situation they are in?

By now though, the players should have worked out what is going on. The dead and gutted crew, the monsters that scuttle to attack again and again, and a ship adrift… If those clues are not enough for them to work it out, then the name of the ship that the Player Characters marooned aboard should. In fact, the name of ship, the Star of Nostro, should be a dead giveaway. For Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! is effectively an adaptation of the film Alien for Dungeon Crawl Classics, if not in deep space where no one can hear you scream, then on the high seas where everyone can!

Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! is as much an investigative scenario as it is a horror scenario. It is also very self-contained, limited to the Star of Nostro and its cargo holds, cabins and quarters, rigging, and its three decks. There are plenty of clues to be found as what has happened, but not necessarily enough time to find them all as the creatures and its offspring return to strike again and again. However, determining what has happened aboard the Star of Nostro is only half of the scenario. The second half is all about getting off the ship, because much like the film that inspired it, ultimately, there is no way for the Player Characters to stop the predations of the creature. There are clues on and about the ship that suggest a way for the Player Characters to escape the horrors that they are suffering, and if the scenario does not end in a Total Party Kill, they will have their chance in a big showdown.

There is plenty of advice for the Judge on running the scenario as well as making adjustments to tone down its lethality. Its default lethality works well for a one-shot or convention game, but if run as part of a campaign, the Judge may want to adjust it down a little. In addition, there are tables for ‘Rumors and Personality Quirks’ which add flavour and detail and help bring the Player Characters to life—at least for as long as that lasts—and ‘Sailor Tattoos’, the patterns for which can be found aboard the ship. If applied correctly, these can provide a benefit similar to the star signs that a player rolls for during character creation, working as temporary magical items. Further support is provided in the appendices, which list people, places, and things, full details of the creature, and a means of tracking it movement timing throughout the scenario, all of which makes the scenario easier to run.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! is as well presented as you would expect for a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. The writing, the artwork, the cover in particular, and the cartography are all excellent.

Probably the very last thing that anyone was screaming for is a scenario for Dungeon Crawl Classics or any old School Renaissance retroclone that does Alien on the high seas. Yet Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! is going to make the players scream in the opening scene, groan once they work out what is going on, and then scream and scream again as the creature keeps coming back for more. By its very nature and by its very inspiration, Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! demands more engagement than the average scenario for Dungeon Crawl Classics. If the players do buy into the survival horror of Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #5: Creep, Skrag, Creep! and if any of their characters live to tell the tale and make First Level, then they really will have survived a horrifying ordeal!

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Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror: The Corpse That Love Built – 2018 Halloween Module was the previous scenario in the series •

The next scenario is Dungeon Crawl Classics Horror #6: The Web of All-Torment.

Friday Fear: A Wolf in the Fold

It is the height the Victorian era and tragedy has struck the village of Haxbury on the border between Wales and England. There has been a spate of attacks upon local farm animals, but now the attacks have escalated with the death of Geraint Thomas. The local farmer has been found mauled to death and partially eaten and the all the villagers fear that it will not be long before there is another attack and another one of their number is killed. Local doctor, Gregory Harcourt, has turned to friends and asked them to come to Haxbury to help him uncover the truth of the situation. What kind of beast is stalking the good farming folk of Haxbury? A wild dog? A big cat? Or something worse as many of the ignorant and superstitious inhabitants of Haxbury fear? This is the set-up for A Wolf in the Fold, a scenario published by Funny Shaped Dice Productions. It is is a short, one or two-session horror scenario, the third in the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line. As with other titles in the line, it is ostensibly written for use with Chill or Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained, the percentile mechanics of the scenario mean that it could easily be adapted to run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and similar roleplaying games.

A Wolf in the Fold starts with the mystery behind the attacks in Haxbury, but the simple fact is that the answer to the mystery is obvious. The villagers and their livestock are being predated upon by a werewolf. The title of the scenario heavily hints that this is the case and there is a picture of a giant wolf-like creature on the front cover. If the situation is obvious, what then is the point of A Wolf in the Fold? The point is playing a classic, if familiar situation, one that we have likely seen in roleplaying scenarios and on the silver screen and engaging in its milieu. That milieu is the Victorian era, the 1860s, familiar and easily grasped. Further, A Wolf in the Fold is plotted much like a film. This is no surprise, since the scenario is inspired by the Hammer Horror film, The Curse of the Werewolf, and the ‘Children of the Full Moon’ episode of Hammer House of Horror television series, as well as horror classics like The Wolf-Man and An American Werewolf in London. The point is that whilst the players know that a werewolf is involved, their characters do not, and so they have to play to that and engage with the scenario’s plot. The point is not knowing that a werewolf is involved in the scenario, but finding out who the werewolf is—and ultimately, this and the final reveal at the climax at the end of the scenario is what will keep the players on their toes as much as their characters. Now, this is not a new set up for the ‘Frightshow Classics’ line. Carmilla, the Victorian-era novella by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, is the basis for the scenario of the same name. Fortunately, A Wolf in the Fold is not obvious in its plotting as Carmilla and leaves its reveal as to the identity of the werewolf right until the end in a big confrontational climax!

The plot to A Wolf in the Fold proceeds at pace over the course of a few days. The Player Characters arrive in Haxbury and learn about the situation. They have a chance to interact with the suspicious villagers, hopefully earn their trust, and learn about the victims of the attacks. Their first opportunity to face the creature comes in the village’s church graveyard as they stand watch with other men of the village, and suddenly faced with more men than it expected the creature runs off. The chase will lead the Player Characters out of the village and to the confrontation. At which point, the scenario will identify the monster of the scenario. Is it the lord of the manor, the oblivious, if slightly arrogant Sir Henry Castaigne? Is it Mister Slater, his attentive, if gloomy manservant? Is it the Reverend Daniel Thorpe, who sees the attacks upon the village and villagers as God’s judgement? Is it Mrs Davies, dour innkeeper with a distrust of visitors?

The Fear Master is supported with a full write up of the Werewolf which appears in the scenario and can, of course, be used in her own scenarios. There is a map of Haxbury as well as two handouts and eight pre-generated Player Characters. They consist of a sturdy big game hunter and gambler, his Sikh companion, a trained nurse and social reformer, a foolhardy, but ambitious journalist, an Oxford University professor with an interest in mythology and folklore, an ex-burglar turned inquiry agent, a mentalist with the ability to speak to the dead, and a surgeon who studied under Doctor Joseph Bell and has an interest in forensic pathology. There is a potentially creepy moment when the mentalist does have a chance to use her ability to talk to the dead, which the Fear Master should play up for its worth, especially as it takes place in an ice house. There is a little advice for the Fear Master, basically adding a little diversion here and there, but otherwise, A Wolf in the Fold is very straightforward in its plotting.

Physically, A Wolf in the Fold is ably presented. The cover echoes the classic look of scenarios for Chill, while the internal artwork and the cartography are both very good. The art includes the best strategic use of a three candle candelabra in an autopsy in any scenario for any roleplaying game in the past half century.

From the start, it is patently clear what is going on in A Wolf in the Fold. It is not so much a case of finding out what is going on as finding out who is responsible. The scenario does do the unexpected here and is all the more welcome for it. However, it could have done with a little misdirection. Perhaps Sir Henry Castaigne slipping out at night to see a certain young widow a la Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles or a big dog being hunted down and shot and everyone thinking that the threat is over. The scenario will work without these, but could be better with them. Lastly, A Wolf in the Fold is going make demands of the players in terms of their roleplaying, that is, roleplaying characters who have no idea what is going when they themselves very much do! So, it calls for the players to really engage with story and if not fully overplay it, at least ham it up a bit in keeping with its inspiration. Ultimately, A Wolf in the Fold might be obvious, but it is also likeable, engaging, and easy to run in a single session.

Escape to England!

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It is pitches the Allied Agents of the Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance into a Secret War against those Nazi Agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. They are willing to risk their lives and their sanity against malicious Nazi villains and the unfathomable gods and monsters of the Mythos themselves, each striving for supremacy in mankind’s darkest yet finest hour! Yet even the darkest of drives to take advantage of the Mythos is riven by differing ideologies and approaches pandering to Hitler’s whims. The Black Sun consists of Nazi warrior-sorcerers supreme who use foul magic and summoned creatures from nameless dimensions to dominate the battlefields of men, whilst Nachtwölfe, the Night Wolves, utilise technology, biological enhancements, and wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) to win the war for Germany. Ultimately, both utilise and fall under the malign influence of the Mythos, the forces of which have their own unknowable designs…

Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Rendezvous at Rouen is a scenario that takes Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 almost all of the way back to to the start of the Secret War. It opens in early June, 1940. The Nazi war machine is has driven into France with its radical Blitzkrieg tactics and the British Expeditionary Force, along with elements of the French, Belgian, and Dutch armies already having successfully completed Operation Dynamo and evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk. Also operating in Northern France are agents from Section M, conducting Operation Ultimatum in an effort to find and evacuate as much occult-related material as they can—tomes, artefacts, and more—before it falls into the hands of either Black Sun or Nachtwölfe. The agents may have evacuated along with the troops from Dunkirk or Section M may have asked them to stay in France to see what other occult artefacts and tomes they can find and possibly monitor who or what Black Sun or Nachtwölfe are targeting as the occupation of France by Germany continues apace. Either way, they will learn of the activities of Black Sun Jans Stöller in the village of Saint Sulac, southwest of the city of Rouen in Normandy. Perhaps if the agents can stop him, they will at last be ready to be evacuated to England.

Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Rendezvous at Rouen is written to be run following from the events in ‘Mission: A Quick Trip to France’ from the Achtung! Cthulhu Quick-Start. It is also actually designed to be run from the rules given in the Achtung! Cthulhu Quick-Start, though of course, it can be run using the full rules too. Further, both the Achtung! Cthulhu Quick-Start and Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Rendezvous at Rouen can be combined with the demonstration scenario, Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Operation Ultimatum, which takes place during the late stages of the German invasion of France, so before the events of the other two parts. Together, they can form an exciting little storyline. It should be noted that Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Rendezvous at Rouen is not an official scenario for Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20, but published as part of the ‘Modiphius World Builders’ community content programme.

Essentially, Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Rendezvous at Rouen is one big chase scenario which starts with the Player Characters on the outskirts of the city, needing to get in and find the home of their contact who can provide with the details of what they need to do next. Which is to get into Rouen Cathedral and find a way into the catacombs. From here they can follow an escape route once used by the Bishops of Rouen in centuries past and get to meeting point beside the River Seine which runs under the city. Unfortunately, Black Sun has got there before the Player Characters and is not only investigating what lies beneath the cathedral, but conducting some sort of ritual. They will chase the Player Characters to their rendezvous where they can make the connection that enable them to get back to England.

The scenario is a tense affair, either involving a lot of stealth to avoid the patrols in the streets of Rouen or attempting to get away from the Black Sun units in the catacombs and tunnels beneath the city. How well the Player Characters do in getting away from the Black Sun units chasing them determines the end of the scenario and when they actually have to confront the creature that Black Sun was summoning. This is with a giant eel with two arms, imprisoned long ago by Saint Romanus, the Bishop of Rouen in the seventh century CE. The ideal battle should take place at the mouth of the River Seine with the Player Characters aboard the fishing trawler taking them to England as the monster slices through the water to attack them and the boat again and again in true Jaws style.

The plot is thus straightforward and simple, but mechanically detailed. This includes getting across Rouen, but more importantly, the chase through the catacombs under the city. This makes use of an extended test, which is both fully explained and supported by an example. Further support comes in the form of a chase worksheet, as well as stats for all of the NPCs and Mythos monsters and the boat(s) that the Player Characters might end up using in their escape from France.

Physically, Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Rendezvous at Rouen is well presented. The maps of Rouen—one for the players, one for the Game Master—are very nice, and the artwork is good too.

Achtung! Chtulhu 2d20: Rendezvous at Rouen is simplistic in its plotting and is really one long chase scenario with a big confrontation at the end. However, it provides a big ending for the events of Achtung! Cthulhu Quick-Start, one that is a bit more exciting than a cliff-hanger and definitely gets the Player Characters home in time for tea, biscuits, and their next mission in the SecretWar.

Miskatonic Monday #455: Whiteout

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.

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Name: Whiteout

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Authors: Macabre Margin Games

Setting: British Columbia, Canada, Modern Day

Product: One-shot

What You Get: Six page, 1.73 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Colder by the hour, more dead with every breath.”

― John Green

Plot Hook: Trapped in a breath 
Plot Support: Staging advice, four (five) pre-generated Investigators, three NPCs, two handouts, and eleven Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Charming

Pros

# Two-hour/one-session horror scenario 

# Creepy, night-time ‘zombie-like’ nightmare in the rising snow

# Easily adapted to other snowy climes

# Easy to prepare

# Chionophobia

# Cryophobia
# Somniphobia

Cons

# No clean map

# No map of the chalet

Conclusion

# Rising snow, rising horror horror one-shot
# Weird, creepy interpretation of hypothermia