Revenants in the Renaissance

The year is 1348 and mankind is subject to a divine punishment for its sins. For the last two years, all of Europe has suffered the devastating Black Plague which seems to spread fire and kills almost everyone it touches. The symptoms are easy to spot, black spots on the skin and swollen lymph nodes called buboes. Yet there is a second symptom, one that remains secret, one that the Papacy fights in a hidden war, and one it is desperate to eradicate—the Revenant Plague. Victims of the Black Plague are known to rise and not only spread its symptoms, but also feed upon the flesh of the living. The Papacy instituted the Ordo Mortis, a military order dedicated to not only fighting the secret war against the Revenant Plague, but also to keeping knowledge of the war against the Revenant Plague a secret. Word of it cannot spread, for it would weaken faith in the Catholic Church. It means that not only do all of the symptoms of the Revenant Plague have to be eradicated, but do any signs of infection and all knowledge of it. The members of the Ordo Mortis will face holy challenges in cutting down the risen revenants and unholy challenges in keeping its duties a secret. This is the set-up for Píaga 1348, a storytelling game from NEED! Games, the Italian publisher best known for the Fabula Ultima TTJRPG.

As a supernatural horror roleplaying game, Píaga 1348—meaning ‘Plague 1348—requires some choices to be made in terms of its set-up. To that end it includes a discussion of safety tools, though surprisingly without a reference to the X-Card. It suggests three options in terms of tone—‘Dramatic’, ‘Sinister’, and ‘Grotesque’—pairing them with the film, The Name of the Rose, the computer game Bloodthorne, and the films, Army of Darkness and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, thus effectively doubling as a bibliography. The tone is going to affect both the game’s style of play and its atmosphere, going from Greek tragedy to splatter punk with streak of black humour with creepy and mysterious in between. Further choices need to be made as to the nature of the world. This includes the size of the Revenant outbreak, the character and name of the Pontifex, the size and motto of the Ordo Mortis, and the nature and size of the missions that its soldiers—the Player Characters—are to be sent on. Lastly, the player who will take the role of the Ludi Magister—as the Game Master is known in Píaga 1348—is decided. This is important as the players will take in turn to undertake this role from one mission to the next. The process for this set-up is shared between the players.

A soldier in the Ordo Mortis will likely look like and be equipped any other knight, though he need not be. A Soldier is simply defined by several traits. These are the ‘Motto of the Ordo’; ‘Name’, including both full name and nickname, if any; ‘Description’; ‘Weapon’, which can either be physical or metaphorical (metaphorical is the better of the options here as it tends to be more flexible); and ‘Armour’, which should ideally be figurate rather than physical. These are the five core traits, but he also has entries for ‘What I Want’, ‘What I Don’t Want’, and ‘Traumas’, the latter physical, psychological, and social wounds suffered when a conflict is lost. A player simply has to define these traits in order to create his Soldier, either creating them or picking them from the suggestions included in the rulebook.

Name: Gunther of Cologne

Motto of the Ordo: Holy is our mission, unholy is their end

Description: An arrogant ex-tax collector with an eye for opportunity

Weapon: Everyone has a weakness and I will exploit every last one

Armour: Faith will only get you so far, money will get you further

What I Want: The favour of his Holiness, a penny in his pocket

What I Don’t Want: To die penniless

Once a mission has been decided upon, the player to the left of the Ludi Magister becomes the ‘Soldier on Duty’ and the Ludi Magister asks him what he perceives and based on those answers, frames the scene for her players, primarily the ‘Soldier on Duty’ as he will be leading the action for the scene and his player the conversation with the Ludi Magister. The advice for the Ludi Magister is to twist the interpretation of the senses that the ‘Soldier on Duty’ to make it dramatic and set the tension high from the start to reflect a world in crisis—physically and spiritually. The scene proceeds as normal until the point where something occurs that the ‘Soldier on Duty’ does not want to happen, in which a conflict ensues. When a conflict ensues, the player of the ‘Soldier on Duty’ decides what his Soldier wants to do and builds a dice pool based on his five core traits. For each of them that the player can persuade the Ludi Magister to include, a six-sided die is added to the pool. Every result of five or six counts as a Success and only one Success is required for Soldier to achieve the objective outlined by the player. The Ludi Magister will narrate the outcome of the dice roll, though if a failure because no Successes are rolled, the Soldier on Duty will suffer a Trauma.

Any excess Success go into the Morale Pool, which on subsequent turns, the ‘Soldier on Duty’ can draw from to increase the size of dice pool. Additional dice can come from the two sources. One is the other Soldiers, who can contribute dice based on their traits. The second is from a ‘Gamble’, in which the player adds a die of another colour to his dice pool. On a result of one, two, or three, nothing happens, but on a four, five, or six, the Soldier is ‘Exposed’. What this means that is a Soldier on Duty can still succeed—that is, roll a five or six—and still be ‘Exposed’. When ‘Exposed’, a roll is made on the ‘Gamble’s Outcome’ table. The result might be that a Soldier cannot use any further ‘Gamble’ attempts in the mission or that the Soldier is wounded and infected by a Revenant! Another way to gain more dice is for the Soldier to sacrifice himself, but will also result in his death. Whatever the result, the outcome is narrated by the player.

What is important here is there is an economy to a player’s use of his Soldier’s five core traits. If they can be used all in one go whilst a Soldier is the ‘Soldier on Duty’, then they can be refreshed to be used on subsequent turns. Whilst a Soldier can use them to help another Soldier who is the current ‘Soldier on Duty’, it will mean that he will have fewer to use when it is his turn to be ‘Soldier on Duty’. Running out of traits and having none to confront a situation when a ‘Soldier on Duty’ on Duty means that he will automatically fail. This forces a player to husband the use of those traits from scene to scene.

When a Soldier suffers a Trauma, it can be physical, psychological, or social, the nature of which is decided by the Ludi Magister. In general, the effect of a Trauma is more narrative in nature than mechanical, except under two circumstances. One is if a Soldier is either bitten, scratched, or wounded by a Revenant as a first or second Trauma, in which case the Soldier becomes a carrier of Revenant Plague. He can hide this, but if he dies, he will rise as a Revenant. The other is the effect of the third Trauma which will cause the Solder to exit the mission. How depends on the type of Trauma. A physical Trauma means he has died, a psychological Trauma pushes him into madness, and social Trauma makes him flee the Ordo Mortis all together. At this point, the Soldier can become a Tutelary, a dead soul watching and protecting the other Soldiers, or a Spectator, able to tell scenes from his former life that might give hints as to the current situation when it his turn to be the ‘Soldier on Duty’.

Play like this continues from round to round, with the Ludi Magister narrating another scene between them until the mission is over. At the end of a mission, the surviving Soldiers have a chance to reflect upon their actions and their successes—if any. At this point, the players have the opportunity to change various traits and even add another ‘What I Want’ or ‘What I Don’t Want’. After that, another mission, typically in another session, can be run by another player serving as the Ludi Magister.

Píaga 1348 provides a lot of support for the Ludi Magister. This includes several good examples of play, hints in terms of framing scenes and the narrative, motifs of the Ordo Mortis, and suggestions as the nature of Revenants and the world. There are several scenarios too. These are not scenarios in the traditional roleplaying sense, but more a themed set of prompts and rumours that the Ludi Magister—whose ever turn it is—can use to set up a mission. Píaga 1348 comes to a close with a quick-start and some designer notes, but also includes an excellent appendix of ‘Historical Essays’ which are these for everyone to read. Covering such subjects as the power of the pope—Boniface VIII, warfare in the period, famine, pestilence, and the nature of death, these are short pieces, but useful and informative.

Physically, Píaga 1348 is fantastically presented. The woodcut style artwork and the use of a Gothic fount very gives it a singular look and conveys a lot of atmosphere to the Ludi Magister.

Píaga 1348 can be seen as the answer to the question, “What would a zombie uprising look like in the Middle Ages?” Which is as terrifying, if not more so, than it would today since it follows awful deaths by the Black Plague and it would be regarded as the vindication of the danse macabre and the triumph of death over life. It also places the Soldiers of the Ordo Mortis on a mission from God himself to wipe out not only death itself, but all signs and knowledge of this triumph of death. That means they have to kill the living too, including the innocent. What this means is that Píaga 1348 is a simple and oppressively atmospheric storytelling game with a brutal edge.

A Colder Cold War

There are not a lot of roleplaying games which feature submarines. Polaris, the French roleplaying game originally published by Halloween Concepts in 1997 is one since it is set in a post-apocalyptic undersea future. Cold Space, from Better Mousetrap Games is another, presenting an alternate Cold War era in which interstellar travel has been achieved in spaceships which are designed along the lines of submarines. Then of course, Game Designers’ Workshop published a trilogy of scenarios—The Last Submarine, Mediterranean Cruise, and Boomer—for Twilight 2000 in which the Player Characters have to capture a Los Angeles-class submarine in the post-Twilight War and use it to help defend what is left of civilisation. SUBMERGED is a rules-light roleplaying game which takes it cue from Polaris in that it is a post-apocalyptic roleplaying game set under the sea. In its future, the climate did not heat, but cooled down, and the planet froze. The lucky few of the billions on Earth escaped to the underwater cities and survive under the icy waters in the ‘Sub-burbs’. Contact and trade are kept going via nuclear-powered submarines. The last contact with the surface was in 1983 when the plummeting temperatures forced the rapidly built ‘Sub-burbs’ to close their doors to more refugees. The Great Plan was to wait thirty years for the temperature on the surface to rise again and the survivors to return to reclaim the planet, but even after forty years that has never happened. In the meantime, ‘Sub-burbs’ have failed, others are barely holding on, many have become totalitarian states, and some have gone to war. With the failure of the Great Plan, the ‘Sub-burbs’ remain in a stalemate, not ready to go to war in the face of an uncertain future. Above and below, the Earth is in the grip of a new Cold War.

SUBMERGED – A Rules Light Roleplaying Game of Life Under the Frozen Oceans is published by Farsight Games and written by the designer of Those Dark Places: Industrial Science Fiction Roleplaying and Pressure. In it, the players take the role of crewmembers of a submarine trying to make a living, hauling cargo and passengers, scavenging and salvaging, smuggling, and fulfilling whatever contract they can and pays the bills, all to pay off the mortgage on their vessel. Think of it as an undersea version of a tramp freighter campaign in the vein of Traveller or the television series, Firefly. Certainly, SUBMERGED has a similar blue collar sensibility—just not in space.

A Player Character in SUBMERGED is simply defined. He has ten Skills. These are Agility, Charisma, Close Combat, Technical, Medicine, Ranged Combat, Science, Strength, Submariner, and Subterfuge, and they range in value between two and eleven. In addition, he has Hit Points starting at twelve and then modified by his Strength. He can have an extra specialist or hobby Skill which lies outside the scope of the standard ten. Lastly, the Player Character has four Submariner Sub-skills.* These are ‘Helm’, ‘Sonar’, ‘Engineer’, and ‘WEPS’, the latter being the Weapons Officer. To create a character, a player simply assigns each of one of the numbers between two and eleven to one of the Skills and decides on a specialist or hobby Skill, if any, a name, and lastly assigns six points to the Submariner subskills. Character generation can be done in thirty seconds.

* Yes. Really.

Sunday Faruku
Engineer
Agility 4 Charisma 3 Close Combat 8 Technical 9 Medicine 6 Ranged Combat 5 Science 7 Strength 10 Submariner 11 Subterfuge 2
Sub-Skills: Helm 1 Sonar 1 Engineer 3 WEPS 1
Skill: Singing 6
Hit Points 22

Mechanically, SUBMERGED is a simple. To have his character undertake a task, a player selects the most appropriate Skill and adds its vale to the roll of a twelve-sided die. If the result is thirteen or more, then he has succeeded. The Game Master can adjust the difficulty as needed. It is as simple as that. Combat is handled as opposed rolls, with the highest roll indicating the winner. Thus, Close Combat versus Close Combat in a fist fight, but Ranged Combat versus Agility if the defendant wants to dodge. A punch does 1d2 plus Strength in damage, a blade 1d4 plus Strength, a pistol 1d6+6, and a rifle 1d12+6. Most Player Characters will last a punch-up, even a knife fight, but once firearms start being used, the best thing a Player Character is to get behind cover as a rifle can kill in a single shot.

The Submariner Sub-skills are used in conjunction with the Submariner skill. They are spent on a one-for-one basis to modify rolls using the Submariner skill.

The submarines are equally as simply defined. Each has stats for ‘Knots’, ‘Depth’, and ‘Cargo’, so how fast it can go, how deep it can go, and how much it can carry. The Armament details its weapons and defences. For the most part, operating a submarine is handled narratively until actually matters. Such as in combat. Initiative requires a Sonar operator since submarines have to detect each other, submarines have to be positioned to attack, and so on. Submarine combat is run as a series of opposed rolls. Sonar versus sonar to gain initiative; Helm versus Helm to gain a better firing position and bonus to the firing roll; and WEPS versus Helm to track a torpedo. The latter is done three times with the best out of three determining if the torpedo hits the target submarine or is avoided. Countermeasures can be launched once per combat to try and distract an incoming torpedo. Fortunately, most torpedoes are not designed to destroy submarines, but to cripple them or slow them, though a lucky—or unlucky—strike can still destroy a submarine. The crew can suffer injuries from the jolt of a torpedo explosion and damage typically knocks out a system that the engineer must race to fix.

SUBMERGED details several sample submarines, some of which are cheap enough for the Player Characters to take a mortgage out on (though if second-hand or more, it means beginning play with damaged systems), and small enough to be crewed by three or four Player Characters. Others consist of transports, defence and combat boats, and even pirate and mercenary boats. There is also a list of equipment, some suggested rates for various contracts, and descriptions of the major city states. There are scenario hooks too, plus an introductory adventure. In ‘The Blue King’s Wrath’, the Player Characters are hired by the city-state of Sub-London to infiltrate the base of a notorious pirate called the Blue King, who has established himself and his cult in an abandoned city-state project off the coast of Iceland, so threatening the North Atlantic trade route, and claims to be in possession of the ‘ultimate weapon’. The authorities in Sub-London want to know if this ‘ultimate weapon’ actually exists, what it is, and ideally, stolen from the Blue King. It is a quick and dirty affair that can be played through in a session or so. Plus, there are some secrets that once revealed the Game Master could develop into further adventures.

Physically, SUBMERGED – A Rules Light Roleplaying Game of Life Under the Frozen Oceans is a bit messy and it does need an edit in places. The main problem is that not everything is quite in the right places, but the roleplaying game is short enough not to matter very much and simple enough that the Game Master will not need to refer to the rules too often.

SUBMERGED – A Rules Light Roleplaying Game Of Life Under The Frozen Oceans has the very grubby feel of a seventies post-apocalyptic film and even a little of Escape from New York, especially in the scenario. Surprisingly, it combines quite a number of different genres in just a few pages—seventies disaster and post-apocalyptic films, all things nautical, piratical, and subaquatic, and blue collar trucking adventure—all of which will be familiar to both the Game Master and her players. SUBMERGED – A Rules Light Roleplaying Game of Life Under the Frozen Oceans is rough and ready, if not a bit damp and slightly rusty, but definitely easy to run and play. It would be interesting to see this alternate Cold War future developed and explored a little more.

Friday Fantasy: Dark Visions

Dark Visions does not waste a lot of time before getting down to brass tacks. Three lines make up the back cover blurb and there is no introduction before it leaps into describing the first of the three Character Classes found in its pages. So, it feels as if it could do with a bit more context and a bit more in the way of guidance for the Game Master as to what it is, what its contents are, and how it might be used. To explain, it is a supplement for ShadowDark, the retroclone inspired by both the Old School Renaissance and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition from The Arcane Library. Published by RPG Ramblings Publishing, following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is dedicated to cults and cultists, who and what they worship. In addition to its three Player or Occult Classes and their spells—twenty-five of which are new, it details sixteen cults, twenty-five dark creatures, and more. The more consists of two scenarios, the first two parts of a three-part mini-campaign which culminates in The Tower of Six.

Dark Visions opens with the Cultist Class. The Cultist is an outcast from society because of the taboos broken, dark deeds done, and secretive rituals performed in the name of his patron or deity. With ‘Ashes to Ashes’, he can burn Hit Points to increase damage inflicted and can cast a particular set of spells. The Inquisitor Class hunts for signs of heresy and heretics, and has Advantage when hunting the enemies of his god. He can use the Priest Class’ scrolls and wands and bring down the Judgement of ‘Mark of Hellfire’ or the ‘Mark of Radiance’ on a target. With ‘Mark of Hellfire’, the target is illuminated and if Chaos-aligned, at a Disadvantage for the next round, whilst ‘Mark of Radiance’ gives the target damage resistance and illuminates if they share the same alignment. The Covenant Knight is a Lawful-aligned knight dedicated to the ideals of the Covenant Council, which pass the ‘Final Word’ upon an enemy, inflicting maximum damage several times a day and ‘Resolute in Adversity’, is at Advantage to resist the abilities of devils and demons. At Third Level and above, the Covenant Knight can cast Priests’ spells.

The new Classes are an interesting mix, with the Covenant Knight feeling like a variant of the Paladin-type Class. The other two are potentially more interesting given that much of their flavour will come from the player’s choice of patron in terms of a god, demon, devil, or other entity. Nor are they exclusive, since the Cultist need not be Chaos-aligned and instead linked to the Celestial, the Draconic, Primordial, or Sylvan. With some thought, the three Classes could be found working together, as well as with other Classes for ShadowDark. In addition, there is a table of for ‘Cultists Backgrounds’ and a list of Cultist gear.

The Cultist also has its own table for ‘Cultist Mishaps’ as well as list of its own spells. Some of the spells do come from the ShadowDark core rulebook, whilst a few are taken from the official fanzine, Cursed Scroll 1: Diaberlie!, which does limit the Class’ usefulness. The new spells are grim in nature, such as Inflict Pain, a Tier 3 spell which enables a Cultist to inflict damage on his target by drawing his own blood, essentially exchanging his Hit Points for dice of damage, whilst the Tir 1 spell Misery, floods the mind of the target with guilt from dreadful deeds and ill-fortune, forcing them to roll at Disadvantage. There is also flavour too that the Cultist—whether a Player Character or the Game Master as an NPC—can bring into the casting and application of the spells.

Dark Visions gives simple descriptions of various gods along with their Domains and those of various demi-gods not so detailed. Further, these pale into insignificance in comparison to the attention paid to the sixteen cults described in the supplement. These are archetypes, such as Ash cults, Blood cults, Doom cults, Moon cults, Plague cults, and more, that the Game Master can flesh out and develop. Each comes with a description, a special ability or sacred item, and then tables of rumours, encounters, and plot generator, as well as stats for associated NPCs and monsters. For example, the Gallows cult is Lawful and dedicated to levying capital punishment, its leaders wielding axes and regarding themselves as judge, jury, and executioner. Its holy item is the Axe of the Executioner, a +2 great axe that cannot be wielded by the Chaotically-aligned, has a better chance of rolling critical strikes and when its wielder does, inflicts maximum base damage. Yet at the end of a combat in which it did not inflict a killing blow, the wielder can suffer a loss of Intelligence. The rumours include stories of gallows suddenly appearing in the town squares of every nearby town, the encounters a band of cultists that has broken into a butcher’s shop where it is preparing a chopping block, and the stats are for standard cultists and cultists leaders. Combined with the ‘Plot Generator’ table and there is a decent amount of detail, flavour, and gameable content in all the cult descriptions. It is notable that not all of the cults are necessarily Chaotic (or evil) in nature and that expands the flexibility of the content.

Rounding out Dark Visions is a pair of scenarios that both involve cultists and together form the first two parts of a trilogy of scenarios that culminates with The Tower of Six. The campaign sees the Player Characters discover the activities of a band of cultists and then track it in order to find out what it is that the cultists are planning and try to put a stop to it. The given cult is the Cult of Nightmares, but the campaign suggests alternatives. The first scenario is ‘In Cultist’s Wake’, which is designed for First Level Player Characters and can be played in one or two sessions. They are employed by a farmer to investigate a water-logged crypt that has just opened up. What the Player Characters is a mini-dungeon where the cultists appear to be cleaning up after their activities in the crypt and looting what they can. What is interesting is that the crypt is for a Lawful lord and what that means is that the dungeon has become dangerous because of the cultists’ meddling rather than being a place of evil. It is pleasingly atmospheric, the Player Characters having to slosh through the lower level to find out what is going on.

‘In Cultist’s Wake’ ends with a map taken from the cultists and in the Player Characters’ hands. It is marked with locations that the cultists are also interested in and one of these is detailed in ‘As Above, So Below’. It is designed to be played in two to three sessions by Player Characters of Second and Third Level, either as direct sequel or another adventure or two afterwards. It details a partially collapsed dome structure that was once used by druids and mages to study the power of ley lines. Again, the cultists are clearing up after investigating the site, so are busy and going about their duties, which gives the Player Characters the opportunity to sneak in and strike. Things are complicated by the interest of a rival cult, which has sent thieves to steal what the Cult of Nightmares has found so far. It gives the adventure an energetic dynamic that plays out at dusk as the Player Characters discover what the cultists are doing, what they have been looking for, and what happened at the complex to cause its collapse.

Physically, Dark Visions is cleanly and tidily presented. It is a good read and although lightly illustrated, the artwork is good. Both dungeons are very clearly presented so that they are easy to run from the page. The maps do have slightly fuzzy feel.

Of course, cultists can be any Class or even none, but Dark Visions gives the cultist focus and role and causes and masters to be fervent over, as well as rewards for their service and devotion. Which can be as Player Characters or NPCs, and the fact that there are multiple cults described means that the Game Master can return to Dark Visions again and again for inspiration and opponents—or even use to set up a campaign in which the Player Characters are cultists fighting other cultists. Certainly, the two scenarios in that supplement can be used in fashion as well as with normal Player Characters. Dark Visions will not suit all campaigns given its nature, but for those it does suit and those with more mature themes and players, it is an excellent supplement, bringing a grimmer, darker tone to a ShadowDark campaign.

Synth Sedition

With its near future setting of a San Franciso ravaged by climate change and protected from the sea by seawalls, the bulk of its population having moved off-world  in ‘The Scramble for Stars’ to start again on the megacorporate-sponsored colonies, and the use of Synths or biological androids as a pliable workforce in their stead, Carbon 2185: A Cyberpunk RPG feels very much inspired by Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049. Published two years after the latter film by British publisher, Dragon Turtle Games, Ltd., Carbon 2185: A Cyberpunk RPG is also noticeable for the fact that its mechanics are derived from those used for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Despite the lack of a Human workforce to replace them, not everyone is happy with the use of Synths as what they see as slave labour, and some have taken this further with the Synth Liberation Front, which supports escaped Synths and protects them against the government’s ‘retirement agents’ as well as striking at manufacturers such as Villeneuve Robotics. This theme is explored in Interlinked | A Carbon 2185 Mission Book, a scenario for Cyberpunks—as Player Characters are known in Carbon 2185—of First and Second Level. It is designed to be easy to run and is suitable for both new players and new Game Masters and it would not be difficult to run it after the events of ‘Chow’s Request: A Carbon 2185 Adventure for 1st Level Cyberpunks’, the scenario in the core rulebook.

Interlinked | A Carbon 2185 Mission Book pulls the Cyberpunks deep into the underground conflict between the Synth Liberation Front, the government’s ‘retirement agents’, the corporations manufacturing and employing Synths, and the manufacturer’s own reclamation agents. Set in San Franciso, it is a five to six act affair, plus a prequel, that the Game Master can run in two or three sessions. It opens with ‘Road Block’, the short prequel which sets the Cyberpunks up against the villains of the piece, Villeneuve Robotics. It provides the players and their Cyberpunks with a solid selection of motives as why they would take a job against Villeneuve Robotics above and beyond the generous amount of money that the fixer is offering. It consists of the simple smash and grab of some corporate access codes from a tech support team on its way to a Villeneuve Robotics facility followed by the Cyberpunks having to break into the facility and download a data core. Everything seems set up for easy access to the facility as someone seems to have set it on fire, meaning that security and everything else is in an array! It is a simple affair, with lots of options and suggestions as to how the Cyberpunks might go about the mission.

The scenario proper, ‘Interlinked’ follows quickly on. The Cyberpunks’ employer, the Fixer  Rico ‘Replay’ Montoya gives them another job. They are to break into a Frisco’s Finest Production Facility where several popular lines of food are manufactured, upload some data, and get out, preferably without a loss of life. Unfortunately, there is no fire to distract corporate security, so the Cyberpunks need to find a way to get in on their own. What is common to both facilities is the use of Synths as a workforce and deployment of armed security, the latter actually bored with their duties at Frisco’s Finest. Again, various options are suggested as how they might get in and get out, the latter more detailed as the Cyberpunks have to succeed at four types of task to escape without alerting security.

In both ‘Road Block’ and the start of ‘Interlinked’, the Cyberpunks get to see the Synths put to work and plenty of evidence that they are treated as second or even third-class citizens—even if they can be classified as citizens. In the next part, the Cyberpunks are contacted by Kaito Tanaka, a local electronics restoration store owner, who asks them to find Thomas ‘Willy’ Williams, a Villeneuve Robotics employee who is unhappy with the treatment of Synths and wants to leave Villeneuve Robotics. Of course, Villeneuve Robotics is unhappy with this, and by the time the Cyberpunks catch up with Williams, Villeneuve Robotics security teams and mercenary squads in their employ, are close behind. The resulting encounter should ideally result in a chase and Interlinked | A Carbon 2185 Mission Book gives a quick and dirty means of running this (and again, if the Game Master needs to run another chase).

Depending upon the outcome of the previous encounters, the Cyberpunks may need to rescue Thomas ‘Willy’ Williams or even one of their own, if Villeneuve Robotics captures either. The scenario supports this possibility with details of the Villeneuve Robotics Reclamation Centre, which can also be used as a target for the Synth Liberation Front to employ the Cyberpunks to assault in an attempt to free the Synths there. In whatever way it is used, it effectively means that the Cyberpunks can see the creation of Synths in the first part of the scenario and the destruction of Synths in this part. This is another corporate facility, but one that the scenario makes clear is not much different to an abattoir, even if it’s a high tech abattoir. In the earlier part of the scenario, the players and their Cyberpunks will have seen signs of the poor, and even ill, treatment of Synths, but here they will be confronted with direct evidence that Synths are treated as tools, ones that are discarded and destroyed. Make no mistake, Interlinked | A Carbon 2185 Mission Book wants the players and their Cyberpunks to feel sympathy with the Synths and be on their side.

Penultimately, the Cyberpunks have one final job to do for Thomas ‘Willy’ Williams and a Synth that he wants to get out of San Francisco. This is to escort them onto the B.A.R.T.—or ‘Bay Area Rapid Transit’—and thus get them out of the city. The challenge here is not that Villeneuve Robotics has sent security teams after them, but that B.A.R.T. is neutral ground in the city and weapons are not allowed. B.A.R.T. enforces this arduously. So, when it comes to any confrontation, the Cyberpunks will have to rely on their fists and feet, on their ingenuity, and any cyberweapons that they have installed. This sets up the classic good guys versus the bad guys railway station confrontation scene seen in so many films. The nod to film scenes, and the Film Noir genre, continues with the aftermath of the scenario as it quickly becomes apparent that the Synth Liberation Front is not as morally pure as the Cyberpunks might have first thought and likely have been led to believe up that point. The end of the scenario is more open and player-led than the earlier more directed chapters.

Physically, Interlinked | A Carbon 2185 Mission Book could be tidier and better presented in places. It is lightly illustrated with decent enough artwork. The floor plans are also decent enough, in the main depicting corporate or factory locations, so there is an anodyne regularity to them. It would have helped had the maps been given a key to their locations for easy reference.

Carbon 2185: A Cyberpunk RPG is an interesting setting and Interlinked | A Carbon 2185 Mission Book provides reasonable, if unspectacular support for it. With its multiple factory style targets, it does feel monotone in its depiction of the Carbon 2185 future and the Game Master may want to run other shot scenarios in between the chapters to add a little variety. Of course, Interlinked | A Carbon 2185 Mission Book can be used as source material for any Cyberpunk roleplaying game that the Game Master is running, but as is, it works well enough.

Miskatonic Monday #408: The Swarms of Tanffridd

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: The Swarms of Tanffridd

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Hari Blackmore

Setting: Wales, 1920s

Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-page page, 1.31 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “You catch a lot more flies with honey than vinegar, as they say, though I warrant you get even more flies with corpses. Flies aren’t too picky, when you come to it.”

― Thomm Quackenbush, A Collector of Spirits

Plot Hook: Flies alight on the corpse of dying village

Plot Support: Staging advice, six NPCs, one map, six NPCs, and two Mythos monsters.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Isolated, bucolic instigated by the lord of the flies

# Straightforward plotting

# Pteronarcophobia

# Entomophobia

# Cymrophobia

Cons

# Only has a map of the village, not the mine or surrounding areas

# Definitely not one for entomophobe

# Feels as if the Investigators are being held back from the final scene

Conclusion

# Insect invasion scenario in which the Investigators are also invaders
# The final scene could come sooner if the scenario let it

Miskatonic Monday #407: Gelateria

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: Gelateria

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Hayley P

Setting: Rome, 1954

Product: Ninety-minute one-shot
What You Get: Seventeen page, 14.35 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “The box was a universe, a poem, frozen on the boundaries of human experience.” – William Gibson

Plot Hook: Frozen in time at the gelato shop

Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, three handouts, one floor plan, three NPCs, and one Mythos monster.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# Ninety-minute one-shot for the new Keeper

# Pleasingly parochial setting

# Easy to prepare with most options and outcomes covered
# Aliens could be replaced by the Mi-Go

# Athazagoraphobia

# Pagotophobia

# Frigophobia

Cons

# Needs a slight edit

# Not a Mythos scenario

Conclusion

# Claustrophobic Italian ice horror meets a ‘Man in Black’
# Easy to run scenario, but advice for the new Keeper could have been stronger

Coriolis Campaign III

The Third Horizon is a place of mystery and mysticism. The location of the thirty-six star systems that comprise the third wave of colonisation from Earth via a series of portals built and abandoned long ago by an alien species now known as the Portal Builders, it stands isolated once again following an interstellar war between the First Horizon and the Second Horizon that closed the Portals. The identity of the Portal Builders remains a mystery, as does the identity of the recently arrived faceless aliens known as the Emissaries who rose from the gas giant Xene. Compounding that is the fact that one of the Emissaries claims to be an Icon and ordinary men and women have been seen to use abilities said to be the province of the Icons themselves. Are they heretics, evolving, or the result of Emissary meddling? Then what secrets are hidden in the dark between the stars and the portals? This is the situation in the Middle East-influenced Science Fiction roleplaying game, Coriolis: The Third Horizon, originally published in Swedish by Free League Publishing, but since published in English. It is also the situation at the start of Mercy of the Icons, a campaign trilogy for Coriolis: The Third Horizon, that will explore them in detail and reveal some of the secrets to the setting.

By the end of the Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost, the first part of the campaign, the Player Characters discovered starting revelations in the wake of the disappearance of the Emissary. These were the identity of the organisation behind the death and disappearances of mystics from aboard the Coriolis station, the so called ‘The Mysticides’, and more information about who the Emissaries are and that they in danger after receiving a vision of the Second Horizon. It seems that despite the Third Horizon having been long isolated from both the First Horizon and the Second Horizon, the former is attempting to make long lost contact and manipulate events in its favour, whilst the latter is trying to prevent it. The action having shifted from Coriolis station to tracking across the world of Kua below, the first part of the campaign ends with the Player Characters wanting to get off planet knowing that some of the most important figures in the Third Horizon are in danger.

By the end of Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade, the second part of the campaign, the Player Characters will have made a startling and almost alien discovery as to the nature of threat which has been operating in the dark between the stars and the portals, in a thoroughly unnerving dive on a submerged starship and returned to Coriolis Station to be feted as heroes. This brings them to the attention of numerous factions and notables, all ready to extend offers of employment as useful and capable agents in the turbulence following ‘The Mysticides’ and the reactions against the mystics. No matter which faction the Player Characters sided with, they find themselves investigating the activities of the Nazareem’s Sacrifice cult, originally a Firstcome faction, but long since reviled for its nihilistic and brutal practices, including alleged human sacrifice, performing dark rituals, and making unholy pacts with evil spirits and djinn. In the process the Player Characters make further horrifying discoveries about the origins of the Third Horizon. Meanwhile, the other factions continued to plan and plot and those plots and plans come to fruition against the backdrop of a hastily called election to the Council of Factions aboard Coriolis Station. As the results of the election are called, rioting breaks out, martial law is declared, and the Emissaries move in the open, attacking Coriolis Station, causing its shattered pieces to fall to the planet Kua below.

To continue playing the campaign, it is recommended that at least one Player Character be combat capable. In addition, a Player Character with the Data Djinn skill is definitely going to be useful and whilst a Mystic character is not mandatory, the presence of one will add an extra dimension to the campaign. The Player Characters do not necessarily need to have their own starship, but should have access to one. That said, they may able to recover their own spaceship, which they lost access to in Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost, and carry one from there. One way in which the Player Characters can acquire a ship from the start of the campaign is in playing The Last Voyage of the Ghazali, a prequel scenario to the Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost. It is worth running Last Voyage of the Ghazali before Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost, but it should be noted that the connection between The Last Voyage of the Ghazali and Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost is never really explored from the perspective of the Player Characters. However, it becomes much more important in Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade and then Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons. As with Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost and Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade before it, the Atlas Compendium is likely to be useful in running the ongoing campaign.

The third and final part of the campaign, Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons, is like the first two parts, divided in three acts. The first act begins not long after where Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade left off. As the Player Characters begin to recover from the shock of the destruction of Coriolis Station, they experience a number of visions—waking and otherwise—that draw them back to Kua, the planet above which Coriolis Station long hung in orbit before falling to the planet. There is only a little time for them to pursue their own interests and perhaps for the Game Master to run other adventures, before they have to answer the call in ‘A Song For Kua’. The Player Characters find the world much changed, both the old order with its indentured servitude and the spire from which it ruled, shattered and waters that were once held back now flooding what is left. Chased by weirdly jerking, but precise attackers who are accompanied by the sound of shrill piercing and a chorus of whispers, the Player Characters work their way out into the jungle surrounding the spire and then underground. There they make yet another startling discovery: miraculously, one of the icons has survived, the Machine Icon. She called out to the Player Characters and has an amazing offer to make. This is for them to join with her. The Player Characters do not have to do so, but doing so not only grants them access to some amazing mystical gifts, it gives them protection against the threat posed by the Second Horizon’s control of the Mystics in the Third Horizon.

After ‘A Song For Kua’, the Game Master has one last period when it is possible to run content that is not part of the campaign before the action ramps up in the penultimate chapter, ‘The Tenth Icon’. Against a backdrop of mystics mutinying and stealing warships and taking them to Xene, the gas giant where the Emissaries first appeared, the Player Characters are contacted by a patron informing them that their presence has been requested. The Sadaal system has been closed to outside traffic, but is known to control a large flotilla of warships that would be very useful in the fight against the threats that the Third Horizon faces. Previous negotiations with the Sadaalian leadership have failed, but now it is prepared to accept a new delegation on the proviso that the Player Characters are part of it. ‘The Tenth Icon’ is as straightforward as ‘A Song For Kua’, but the stakes are much higher. What begins as a potentially hopeful situation is undone when Sadaalian security turns on the delegation and arrests its members, including attempting to arrest the Player Characters. On Sadaal below, the Player Characters learn the true nature of the system’s leader, Aremerat the Eternal, and what a monster he truly is as they race to ascend Crying Ziggurat atop which the members of the imprisoned delegation are to be executed. The scenario climaxes atop the building, facing both security and Aremerat the Eternal, all in front of the city’s faithful below. This is a challenging encounter and it helps if the Player Characters joined to the Machine Icon in the previous chapter.

What ‘A Song For Kua’ and ‘The Tenth Icon’ are doing is really setting up ‘The Horizon Wars’, the final part of both Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons and the Mercy of the Icons campaign itself. They are both linear in nature and deviating away from their storylines weakens the Player Characters in the long run and makes a lot of extra work for the Game master. The campaign more or less notes this when discussing briefly, the possibility of the Player Characters siding with the forces arrayed against the Third Horizon. It is also those forces that the players and their characters are being warned about in ‘The Tenth Icon’. These include the Second Horizon’s manipulations by their Emissaries of Mystics of the Third Horizon to make them run to Xene that are undermining the Third Horizon’s capacity to defend itself and the more insidious efforts of the First Horizon, led by the Eternal Emperor. Of the two, the First Horizon is a bigger threat than the Second Horizon, but ultimately both want to conquer the Third Horizon. Armed with this knowledge, the Player Characters are set-up for the finale of the campaign.

Where ‘A Song For Kua’ and ‘The Tenth Icon’ were both linear and location focused, ‘The Horizon Wars’ takes an entirely different structure and opens the campaign to the whole of the Third Horizon—and just a little beyond. ‘The Horizon Wars’ consists of series of metagame ‘War Turns’, each divided into two phases. The first consists of a standard mission, whilst the second is a conflict action. In the metagame action, the players direct the naval forces of the Third Horizon against those of First Horizon and Second Horizon, ordering the movement of fleets and rolling for the outcome of battles, assigning damage and assigning reinforcements as necessary—and it really will be necessary! A map is provided of the Third Horizon and where the starting positions are for the various fleets on all sides plus stats and details for them. This can be run as theatre of the mind, but there is scope to turn it into a strategic wargame with pieces moved from system to system. To that end, the Game Master will want to prepare some pieces to represent fleets as well as a good map that the players can access. It helps that a lengthy example of 

At the start of ‘The Horizon Wars’, the Third Horizon finds itself on the backfoot with limited resources and capabilities, for example, constantly in danger of being overrun because of the possible influence that the Second Horizon has over the Mystics serving in the Third Horizon Fleets. Where ‘A Song For Kua’ and ‘The Tenth Icon’ were both linear and location focused, ‘The Horizon Wars’ takes an entirely different structure and opens the campaign to the whole of the Third Horizon—and just a little beyond. ‘The Horizon Wars’ consists of series of metagame ‘War Turns’, each divided into two phases. The first consists of a standard mission, whilst the second is a conflict action. In the metagame action, the players direct the naval forces of the Third Horizon against those of First Horizon and Second Horizon, ordering the movement of fleets and rolling for the outcome of battles, assigning damage and assigning reinforcements as necessary—and it really will be necessary! A map is provided of the Third Horizon and where the starting positions are for the various fleets on all sides plus stats and details for them. This can be run as theatre of the mind, but there is scope to turn it into a strategic wargame with pieces moved from system to system. To that end, the Game Master will want to prepare some pieces to represent fleets as well as a good map that the players can access.

At the start of ‘The Horizon Wars’, the Third Horizon finds itself on the backfoot with limited resources and capabilities, for example, constantly in danger of being overrun because of the possible influence that the Second Horizon has over the Mystics serving in the Third Horizon Fleets. The missions in ‘The Horizon Wars’ directly influence the outcome of the subsequent conflict phases in the metagame, but there are also several mini-missions that the Game Master can develop that can help influence the outcome of the main missions. Although it is stated that they are optional, their inclusion helps move the campaign along and it means that the players and their characters are always focusing on the metagame aspect of ‘The Horizon Wars’. The main missions in this chapter are shorter than in the previous chapters allowing for a wider and more interesting variety of tasks. ‘The Fifth System’ sends the Player Characters off in search of new allies that will test their negotiating and diplomatic skills as they find their way through a secret portal and into a hidden star system, whilst in ‘The Ghosts of Xene’, the Player Characters have to sneak and/or fight their way into getting an audience with the Emissaries to negotiate a way to end their directly interfering with Third Horizon’s militaries. The First Horizon finally makes its move in ‘The Legacy of the Founders’ as it triggers a Third Horizon-wide trap and launches strikes against key systems, and the Player Characters have to stop its forces gaining access to another fleet. In each multiple options are discussed in terms of possible outcomes and their consequences. Lastly, the Player Characters are given the means to strike hard at the forces of the First Horizon, so hard that it will change the Third Horizon forever. Again, there are multiple outcomes discussed, all in no little detail and all of which will change the Third Horizon to some extent, good or bad.

Lastly, Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons includes details of numerous spaceships that can be used in the latter part of the campaign, and beyond. More useful for the former than the latter and sadly the ships are not illustrated.

Physically, Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons is well presented. The artwork is excellent and the campaign is decently written, although it does need a slight edit in places.

 

Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons brings the Mercy of the Icons campaign to an epic conclusion. As much as it is an end to the Mercy of the Icons campaign, it may well be an end to the Game Master’s Coriolis: The Third Horizon campaign too, although there are notes on how a campaign might continue. The first two chapters of Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons are tight affairs, funnelling the story onto a grand stage in the third and final part where both players and characters have a big role to play. Players in the conflict phases, characters in the mission phases. This does add complexity to the campaign, one of mechanical complexity in addition to the campaign’s complexity in terms of setting and background. Especially political background. There is a lot for the Game Master to grasp in terms of that background and be able to impart that background to her players. As with the campaign as a whole, Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons warrants a high degree of commitment by both player and Game Master and in an exciting finale, it repays that commitment.