Dark Tales of the Dark Wine Sea

What if everything that Homer wrote of the greatest journey across the ancient world was false? What if its hero, the greatest general of the forces arrayed before the walls of Troy led by Agamemnon, renowned for guile and his cunning, was a liar? A bully and a freebooter, a reaver and a ravager, a slaver and a pirate. What if Odysseus and his men sailed the dark wine sea, from one end of the Mediterranean to the other—and beyond, not in search of a way home denied to them by the gods, but in search of plunder as recompense for the ten years before the walls of Troy? And what if you sailed with him? Roleplaying games and supplements, such as the island-hopping campaign of Agon from One Seven and Trojan War from Green Ronin Publishing, cast the Player Characters as the heroes, serving their kings and adventuring in the name of their gods. Not in Odyssey: Black Tales. This is a roleplaying game which casts the Player Characters not as ancient Greek heroes, but as the marauders and the pirates under the command of the wily Odysseus. Yet as the lost King of Ithaca commits them to darker and darker deeds in search of plunder, there are some who suffer pangs of conscience. Will they follow the commands of Odysseus and remain Marauders or will they answer the call of conscience and morality and reject his orders, instead becoming Saviours who protect the peoples that Odysseus targets?

Odyssey: Black Tales is a ‘Class and Level’-style roleplaying game from Italian publisher, Officina Meningi. Published via a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is one-part comic book, three-parts roleplaying game and has a mature, if not quite adult, tone. The artwork, primarily consisting of two-page spreads, is very good, but whilst not explicit, does depict scenes of both torture and sexual acts. These are not illustrative of Odyssey: Black Tales’ game play, but rather of what monsters Odysseus and his crew have become and what the Player Characters revolt against—at least if they follow the Saviour path in an attempt to redeem themselves.

Odyssey: Black Tales presents its core game and associated game play first, interspersed between the comic book style scenes of the monstrousness of Odysseus and his crew. Six acts, from ‘The Sacking of Ismarus’ to ‘Seizing the Sirens’, take the crew across the Mediterranean, including partaking of the forbidden delights of the Lotus Eaters, battling the Cyclops, and selling souls on the shores of Hades, before the journey ends for the crew—if not, famously, Odysseus—as the Sirens take their revenge and the fate of the Player Characters is decided. Structurally, each act consists of three phases: ‘The Encounter’, ‘The Pact’, and ‘The Pillaging’. ‘The Encounter’ is when the crew come upon more People of the Sea and Odysseus gives orders as to how he wants to deal with them and the temperament of the People of the Sea, whether or not they are hostile, is determined. Away from the ship, the Player Characters together make ‘The Pact’ and forge a secret alliance that will raise Odysseus’ ire should he find out. This pact will vary according to whether the Player Characters act as Marauders, still in service to Odysseus, or as Saviours attempting to undermine Odysseus’ efforts to plunder the peoples of the Mediterranean. The reward will differ depending upon the role that the Player Characters decide to adopt. In general, the Saviours’ reward is narrative in nature, whereas the Marauders will receive material and materiel rewards. As the King of Lies, Odysseus will come to suspect the Player Characters if they act as Saviours and they may be forced to act otherwise against the People of the Sea to hide their intent, which will certainly not endear the Player Characters to the People of the Sea, who will come to regard them as Marauders anyway they are trying to avoid this. Consequently, this forces the Player Characters to tread a fine line, but this may not be enough to escape Odysseus’ wrath.

The core play of Odyssey: Black Tales is built around the six acts of Odysseus’ anger and avarice with his path to redemption and the repairing of his reputation taking place after he has confronted the Player Characters and escaped the revenge of the Sirens. The Cantor—as the Game Master is known in Odyssey: Black Tales—and her players can play through the six acts and finale, and be done. However, there is scope for the Cantor to expand her campaign by adding Quests, whether of her own creation—perhaps inspired by the maps in the Odyssey: Black Tales Map Pack—or adapted from other adventures. To that end, there are notes for the Cantor for handling roving monsters, doors and chests, secret paths, traps, and looting, as well as a bestiary, so that she can run a dungeon. The bestiary gives stats for ordinary men and women as well as classic creatures from Greek mythology, such as Cerberus, Chimera, Cyclops, Harpy, and so on. However, there is no advice as to what a typical quest for Odyssey: Black Tales might look like and how it might play. This leaves the Cantor with a lot of work to do unaided.

In terms of what the players roleplay, there are five Classes. The Spartan is a peerless warrior; the Athenian is a cultured warrior, able to read and write and well versed in the arts and philosophy; the Achaean is diplomatic and cunning; the Healer is a highly disciplined aesthete who harnesses spiritual energy to enhance his perception and change the laws of physics; and the Oracle instinctively understands the laws of sorcery to cast spells. Each Player Character has three abilities—Valour, Intelligence, and Cunning—which range between one and twelve. Each is primarily determined by the Player Character’s Class, but may be adjusted according to the difficulty that the Cantor wants to set her campaign at. The Player Character has Endurance Points, the equivalent of his Hit Points, whilst Strike Points represent the amount of damage that the Player Character can inflict, whether from a weapon or other source (but it can come from external sources). Protection is the equivalent of Armour Points, whether from actual armour or another source.

Creating a Player Character is simple. The player selects a Class and rolls the character’s Abilities. The Player Character receives some basic equipment and some money to buy more. The player also chooses a name (though there is no list included) and can add a background if he wants. The Player Character is Level 1 and has the Rank of Novice. The process is fast and simple.

Theokleia

Class: Oracle

Level: 1 Rank: Novice

Valour: 5 Intelligence: 7 Cunning: 4

Endurance Points: 5

Abilities: Sorcery

Equipment: Dagger, Burlap Sack

Mechanically, Odyssey: Black Tales is relatively simple. To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls six-sided dice and attempts to roll under the appropriate Ability. The difficulty determines the number of the dice the player rolls and the method of determining the outcome. For example, for an Easy task, the player rolls three dice and adds the two lowest results; rolls two dice and adds them together for a Normal task; and three dice and adds the two highest results for a Difficult task. A roll of two ones is always a success, but if two sixes are rolled on any dice, it is a critical failure. Overall, it feels inconsistent and it is not easy to grasp.

Combat uses similar mechanics. Initiative is determined by a six-sided die being rolled and the result deducted from the combatant’s Cunning. Combatants act in order, highest to lowest. In a round, a combatant, whether creature, NPC, or Player Character, can move or move and then act. Movement is intended to be handled using maps and figures, in particular the Odyssey: Black Tales Map Pack, but does not have to be. A combatant’s Valour determines the number of squares that can be moved. A combat action can be a Melee Attack, Ranged Attack, Defence, Manoeuvre, Retreat, Mental Power Activation, Recalling a Spell, or Casting a Spell. Of these, Defence increases the difficulty to successfully hit the defender; Manoeuvre covers any other action from changing a weapon and standing up from a prone position to picking a lock and drinking a potion; Retreat means moving towards or getting to an Escape Square on the map (or the equivalent if not using a map); Mental Power Activation is required to use the powers of the Healer; Recalling a Spell is needed to ready a spell to be cast; and Casting a Spell can be of any spell that an Oracle holds in his memory. An Oracle can hold as many spells as he likes in his memory, but there is a penalty to successfully cast a spell in combat if the Oracle holds multiple spells in his memory.

In order to successfully attack, a Player Character must make a successful Valour check. The Difficulty is Normal, meaning that two dice are rolled and added together. To determine the Strike Points—or damage—the player rolls a number of dice determined by the size of the weapon. One six-sided die for a light weapon, two for a medium weapon, and three for a heavy weapon. At higher experience Levels, a player adds more dice to this roll. The defender rolls dice equal to the Protection rating of any armour, natural or worn, and this is subtracted from the total number of Strike Points. If the Strike Points are reduced to zero, the attack inflicts no damage, but if not, the remainder are subtracted from the defender’s Endurance Points.

One oddity is the possible ‘Additional Effects’ for any attack, ranged or melee. If twelve is rolled on any attack, an Additional Effect is potentially triggered. This occurs whether the attack is successful or not. It can result in the attacker getting another attack, knocking the defender or his weapon to the ground, or even the defender striking back! Since most attacks are at Normal Difficulty and two dice have to be rolled, this means rolling double six. It is possible for a Player Character to have a Valour of twelve, the maximum value allowed by the gods, whether by increasing it through experience or setting the overall difficulty of the game to high at the start of the campaign. However, the Additional Effect is not based on skill, or rather on Ability. It is simply a lucky roll, and for almost every situation will occur when the attacker fails.

The casting of magic requires an Oracle to recall a spell to his memory, and he can hold as many spells in his memory as he wants, although this imposes a penalty to cast any spell during combat. The Oracle starts play knowing a wide range of destructive, psychic, and special spells, and will learn rituals at each experience Level gained. To successfully cast a spell, an Oracle’s player must succeed at an Intelligence check at Normal difficulty, minus the Complexity of the spell, which ranges from one to four. For example, Harmonious Lament is a Psychic spell that makes it harder for an attacker to successfully strike an opponent and has a Complexity of one, whereas Curse inflicts five six-sided dice’s worth of Strike Points and has a Complexity of four. If the attempt fails, the Oracle does not forget the spell, but can attempt to cast again, but with a bonus to the roll that reduces the Complexity penalty. This can be done again and again until the Complexity value is reduced to zero or the spell is cast.

Also included in Odyssey: Black Tales are rules for group checks and challenges, and the setting is supported by a decent equipment list and a lengthy loot section. The latter better supports long term play since the campaign itself gives out specific loot in each act. There is advice too on playing Odyssey: Black Tales solo or with two players, and these are workable enough.

One of the claims about Odyssey: Black Tales is that the rules are compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, Old School Essentials, and Mörk Borg. This is both true and untrue. It would be challenging to adapt it straight from the core rulebook, whereas what the Game Master will actually need to facilitate the process with ease is the expansion supplement, Black Tales – Adventures in the Mediterranean and Conversion Kit.

Physically, Odyssey: Black Tales is stark jet black throughout with white text and great art. The book is slightly overwritten in places, especially when trying to explain the rules, but a careful read-through is enough for them to be clear.

Odyssey: Black Tales wants to be two things and it succeeds at one and does not succeed at the other. In the first, it wants to be a storytelling game, telling the unrevealed epic of Odysseus before he retold it, not as an anti-hero, but as a villain, and the fall of the Player Characters who stood by him and the redemption of the Player Characters who stood against him, in secret at first, and then openly in the final act. Across the six acts and the finale, Odyssey: Black Tales gives the structure for the players and their characters to tell that tale. In the second, Odyssey: Black Tales wants to take the players and their characters beyond that epic. This could be after the end of the campaign and its confrontation between Odysseus, the Player Characters, and the Sirens, but it could be an entirely different campaign in the Ancient Greek world. To support that, Odyssey: Black Tales includes rules for Player Character advancement, monsters, loot, and various different situations, particularly if a dungeon-like environment is involved. What Odyssey: Black Tales does not provide is background to the Ancient Greek world or its gods and mythology or any advice for the Cantor, whether that is really on running Odyssey: Black Tales or on creating content of her own. In fact, the Cantor is left to her own devices and experience to that end. This is where Odyssey: Black Tales fails.

Odyssey: Black Tales is the basis for a solid, Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game set in the Ancient Greek world that ably supports its retelling of Homer’s Odyssey with Odysseus as the villain and the path to his own rehabilitation as a hero. There can be no doubt that Odyssey: Black Tales has scope for play beyond this arc, but the support for that is simply not present. In the hands of an experienced Cantor, this is not an issue, but for anyone else, it makes the wider roleplaying and storytelling possibilities of Odyssey: Black Tales a challenge.

Solitaire: All Night Breakfast at the Midnight Owl

There are secrets to discovered and mysteries to be resolved in the Pacific Northwest under the Douglas firs. They are what brought you to this town, a hotbed of the peculiar and the unexplained, with a windfall to tide you over and time to investigate, staying in a small, rented trailer, and setting up office in a booth at the back of the town’s diner, the Midnight Owl. From there, you plan to scour the town’s surrounds for answers amongst its worn out factories, fading trailer parks, and abandoned railway yard, and beyond under the deep pine forest that runs over hilly and valley as far as you can see between the sky and mist. What you will find you do not know, but whatever it is, you plan to make a podcast from it, and so reveal the secrets and mysteries to the wider world. Every day you will go out and investigate and interact and interview and every night you will return for ‘All Night Breakfast at the Midnight Owl’, perhaps for a damned fine cup of coffee and a slice of cherry pie that could you kill you, but also to collate your notes and write the script for your podcast!

This is the set-up for All Night Breakfast at the Midnight Owl: A solo investigative podcast RPG inspired by television series including Twin Peaks, The X-Files, and True Detective. Published by Critical Kit, Ltd, a publisher best known for Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG. To play, a player needs a set of polyhedral dice and a deck of ordinary playing cards with the Jokers as well as a journal in which record his investigation. The roleplaying game suggests additional items, including the means to add photographs to the players’ journal, a smartphone or audio equipment on which to record the player’s podcast, and an atmospheric soundtrack, but these are optional and the player is under no duress to produce podcast. (Indeed, the author admits to not being an on podcasting and suggests writing a script in bullet points instead if the player does not want to proceed as far as making a podcast.)

A Player Character in All Night Breakfast at the Midnight Owl is simply defined. He has three Skill Ratings—Investigation, Physical, and Social—and a source of his current income. To create a character, the player assigns a ‘d8’, ‘d10’, and ‘d12’ to the three Skill Ratings and draws a card from the deck to determine his source of income. The player also gets to name his character and give him as much or as little background as he wants.

Madison Morton

Investigation d12 Physical d8 Social d10

Where Your Money Came From

Wire Fraud: You skimmed a bit of money off your former employer’s transactions without getting noticed. No one knows… right? And, even if they did, how would they ever find you?

Mechanically, when a player wants his character to act or as prompted, he rolls the die for the Skill Rating appropriate to the situation. A result of one is a failure with consequences; two to five, a failure without consequences; six to nine a success; and ten or more, an outstanding success. There is also a table for resolving other certainties, whilst the style of game suggests that the Player Character avoid combat. However, if it does arise, the Physical Skill Rating is checked as normal. Unfortunately, if the result is a failure the Player Character is injured and left for dead, and has to go to hospital. This means that they lose a turn also. If this happens a third time, then the Player Character is dead!

All Night Breakfast at the Midnight Owl is played in three acts— ‘Act One: The Lead’, ‘Act Two: The Investigation’, and ‘Act Three; The Podcast’. In ‘Act One: The Lead’, the player draws cards to determine the source of the lead and its information. For example, ‘A local detective whose leads have gone cold’ or ‘An anonymous e-mail has landed in your inbox’ and ‘1d4 hiker(s) went to missing two weeks ago. The FBI are poking around and angry families are looking for answers’ or ‘A human-sized winged creature has been reported flying over the outskirts of the town.’

In ‘Act Two: The Investigation’, the Player Character takes it in turn to visit different locations in and around the town, between six and twelve depending on how long the player wants the game to be. These are generated by drawing cards and there is a chance of an event happening at the location as well. If a successful Investigation Skill Rating check is made, then the player can draw a card to determine a clue which if related to the investigation.

For example, Madison Morton is in Eden Junction investigating incidences of townsfolk falling sick and being hospitalised, but after miraculously recovering, are no longer communicative, which she learns about from listening a caller to a talk radio show. On her first day, she goes into a grocery store in the town to talk to people. She talks to Seth Wilson, an impatient, if jovial Paramedic about the situation. Madison’s player rolls her Investigation Skill Rating and gets a ten. This is an outstanding success, and instead of giving her brush off because he is in a hurry, Seth promises to meet her later, perhaps at the Midnight Owl or a nearby bar, when he will have an actual medical report that she can look at! Madison’s player counts this as clue pertinent to her investigation and increases the Clue Count by one.

‘Act Three; The Podcast’ begins once the player has played through the number of turns he set for himself at the start. He scripts the podcast (or notes everything down in his journal) and rolls not necessarily to determine if he has solved a mystery, but to what degree the podcast finds engagement and builds an audience. The outcome is rolled on the ‘Engagement Die’, the size of which is determined by the number pertinent clues gathered. The better the roll, the more followers the Player Character gains who will continue listening should he decide to return to the town and investigate another strange case. There is certainly scope for this with a total of twenty-six leads given in the book.

Physically, All Night Breakfast at the Midnight Owl is nicely put together. It is well written, but what grabs the attention is the artwork, particularly the cover. It is all done by Simon J. Curd and captures the type of Pacific Northwest mystery stories that the solo roleplaying game is asking the player to explore, even right down to depicting the damned fine cup of coffee and slice of cherry pie. If there is an issue, it is that there is not enough of it to enjoy.

All Night Breakfast at the Midnight Owl: A solo investigative podcast RPG is about solving a mystery with a definitive answer as it is telling the story of that investigation and making it compelling enough for people to want to listen to it and engage with it, and ultimately to make them want to come part for the next season. There are plenty of extra leads to make that possible. The investigative process is gentle in style, but does have some sharp edges as the Player Character closes in on a solution. All Night Breakfast at the Midnight Owl: A solo investigative podcast RPG is engaging and atmospheric, underplayed in comparison to other solo journalling roleplaying games, under the trees where most never see.

Friday Fantasy: Desperate Measures

Desperate Measures is a scenario for Shadow of the Weird Wizard, the roleplaying game from Schwalb Entertainment set on the world of Erth in the Borderlands between the remnants of once great empires and the realm of the Weird Wizard greatly changed by his magics. The unexplained disappearance of the Weird Wizard allowed all manner of creatures and strangeness to flood into the empires and kingdoms causing strife and civil war, as refugees fled into the borderlands and adventurers ventured into the Weird Wizard’s lands into explore its strangeness, hopefully stop any dangerous threats, and perhaps return with treasures both magical and mundane. Player Characters progress from Level One to Level Ten, their progress divided between three Paths—Novice, Expert, and Master, gaining greater ability, skill, and specialisation. A Novice Path begins at Level One, an Expert path at Level Three, and a Master Path at Level Seven. Adventures for Shadow of the Weird Wizard are tailored to these three Paths. Desperate Measures is designed for Novice Heroes and can be run as a beginning scenario for Shadow of the Weird Wizard. It confronts the players and their Heroes with one of the consequences in Shadow of the Weird Wizard of pushing too far from civilisation and into the unknown.

Desperate Measures takes place far beyond the reaches of civilisation, across the Salt Barrens and the western territory of the borderlands in the ruins of an old abandoned village on the grassy plain between the Mudwaters and the Sentinel Wood. A band of Milenites has decided to make the village their home far from the old country in order to escape religious persecution (though some would call them dissenters, or worse, heretics). Although not necessary to actually run the scenario, the supplement Glory to the High One will provide the background to the ‘heresy’. When the Player Characters come across the village, the settlers are tired and barely beginning to make the repairs to make it properly liveable. Yet there are signs if the Player Characters look for them that is not all is well in the village and there remains the question of where the previous occupants of the village are.

Then out of the night monsters steal into the village and abduct several of the settlers! This is when the scenario kicks up a gear and turns into a rescue mission. It also takes a darker turn as the trail leads to a charnel house in a small cave network. The Player Characters need to move quickly to save the abducted settlers, but the caves are quite tight and in places, they will have to squeeze through potentially leaving them open to attack by the voracious abductors. This should be a really quite scary, desperate encounter in the caves.

The scenario can end here with the Player Characters hopefully having rescued the settlers and returning them to the village, but Desperate Measures suggests an optional threat as well. This is the Blue Raiders, a group of raiders that has been robbing and plundering settlements along the frontier. The raiders might even be the reason why the Player Characters are in the area when they come across the village and its new settlers. Of course, as with other scenarios for Shadow of the Weird Wizard, the Sage will need to supply the necessary stats from Secrets of the Weird Wizard for the scenario’s named monsters and may want to draw a map of the village if the Blue Raiders attack or occupy the village. Otherwise, the scenario is straightforward and easy to run, playable in a single session without the appearance of the Blue Raiders, two if they make an appearance.

Physically, Desperate Measures is cleanly and tidily laid out. It is well written, but the map of the tombs below the temple could have been easier to read.

Desperate Measures offers a good mix of action and interaction, as well as some scary moments that feel just a little Lovecraftian. (In fact, Desperate Measures could easily be adapted to any frontier setting, whether that is the weird west of Down Darker Trails: Terrors of the Mythos in the Old West or the mysteries of the frontier in Colonial Gothic.) Overall, Desperate Measures is a solid starting scenario for Shadow of the Weird Wizard.

Cyber-Dungeon Classics II: Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins?

Deep inside the Dark Web, a notorious programmer called the Electric Goblin has set himself up with a kingdom. Called ‘Uniqorn’, it is a classic fantasy world with a dungeon with traps, monsters, and NPCs. Only some of the NPCs are not digital NPCs, but the avatars who have received an innocent-looking invite to a fantasy-based video game called ‘Warriors of Uniqorn’ which when clicked on and accepted, delivers a technobio-virus direct to their frontal lobe. It causes encephalitis and puts them into coma, which when the Electric Goblin strikes, opening a back door in his victims’ brains and abducting their consciousnesses and using them to populate his personal fiefdom as more ‘life-like’ NPCs. In the real world, the victims’ symptoms have been identified as Aether Blight. The Player Characters are hired by a Fixer to traverse the WorldNet and descend below into the UnderNet to try and stop the Electric Goblin before Aether Blight spreads and becomes an even bigger problem. This is the set-up for Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins?, a scenario for Netcrawl, the cyberspace setting and supplement for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, both published by Goodman Games. Published by Horse Shark Games, it works with other third-party settings such as Cyber Sprawl Classics, Crawljammer, Umerica, Terror of the Stratosfiend, and Star Crawl Classics.

Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins? is a scenario for four to six First Level Avatars—as Player Characters are known in Netcrawl—and should take roughly two sessions to complete. The Player Characters, whoever they before they jack into the WorldNet, are hired by a Fixer to stop the Electric Goblin who then gives them the grid co-ordinates for the entrance to ‘Uniqorn’. Upfront , the virtual world is described as looking like “… [B]adly-rendered ‘90s website mixed with some early 16-bit polygon 3D graphics.” As soon they arrive, they are given an introduction to ‘Uniqorn’ by a goblin wizard, effectively meaning that the Player Characters get an introduction and then their Avatars do too. Then they are step straight into Starterton, described as “You are now in a quintessential fantasy village, simultaneously familiar and unsettling due to a retro low-resolution aesthetic. Imagine a town built out of oversized  brightly coloured LEGO bricks, rendered with the limited colour palette of a ‘’90s computer game.” This very much sets the tone the scenario, short of quest-givers with exclamation points above their heads! The Electric Goblin is firmly ensconced in his dungeon at the end of the virtual dungeon and scenario, but the Avatars need to find a way in. This involves picking up and completing various mini-quests in order to find the ‘Golden Dungeon Key’ that will unlock its entrance as well as following up clues dropped by various NPCs in their rather limited dialogue.

Outside of Starterton, the Avatars can explore haunted woods, a giant spider’s lair, a hangman’s tree, and a cemetery before being ready for ‘The Goblin’s Dungeon’. The dungeon is a decent mix of semi-random traps and puzzles, backed up with a decent set of random encounters or events. Individual locations are quite detailed and there are several puzzles that the Avatars will need to solve, echoing the text computer adventures of the previous era as much the ones from the nineties that Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins? are inspired by. The dungeon design is not linear, but it is not extensive and there are chokepoints where particular items are required if the Avatars want to progress. The worst of these is a deathtrap. Fortunately, if the Avatars have been thorough earlier, they may have a device which will resurrect one of them if he is killed by the deathtrap.

‘The Goblin’s Dungeon’ is the main part of Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins? and it does feel oddly anachronistic. Now part of this is intentional, it is meant to replicate the feel of a computer game dungeon from the nineties. Unfortunately, if ‘The Goblin’s Dungeon’ feels anachronistic, the scenario as a whole feels anachronistic and dissonant. The problem is that there are multiple levels of reality to Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins? First of the Player Characters in some unspecified future in which computer games like ‘Warriors of Uniqorn’ were played in the nineties; second of their Avatars entering a virtual world; and third, that virtual world not being a modern contemporary fantasy adventure or dungeon, but one that is decades old in terms of its design; and fourth, that they playing this virtual world/dungeon not as fantasy characters, but as computer avatars. This means that the Avatars are using their abilities, effectively highly advanced software, to overcome the problems of a faux fantasy world. The conceit at the heart of Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins? just feels belaboured.

Physically, Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins? is decently presented. The artwork, cartography, and writing are all good.

By no means is Do Cybernauts Dream of Electric Goblins? a bad scenario, either in terms of design or story. It is just that the conceit at the heart of the scenario is layered and the associated levels of unreality demand equal levels of buy-in by the players, their characters, and their Avatars.

Jonstown Jottings #108: The Tax Collector’s Oxen

Much like the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, the Jonstown Compendium is a curated platform for user-made content, but for material set in Greg Stafford’s mythic universe of Glorantha. It enables creators to sell their own original content for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and HeroQuest Glorantha (Questworlds). This can include original scenarios, background material, cults, mythology, details of NPCs and monsters, and so on, but none of this content should be considered to be ‘canon’, but rather fall under ‘Your Glorantha Will Vary’. This means that there is still scope for the authors to create interesting and useful content that others can bring to their Glorantha-set campaigns.

—oOo—

What is it?
The Tax Collector’s Oxen is a scenario for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

It is a twenty-two page, full colour, 1.44 MB PDF.

The layout is tidy, but there are no illustrations and the text does need an edit in places. The maps are representational rather than exact.

Where is it set?
The Tax Collector’s Oxen is set in Lunar Tarsh in an area known as Three Hills. (Alternatively, it could be set in any Lunar province on the edge of the Lunar Empire.)

Who do you play?

The Tax Collector’s Oxen is designed to be used with any Player Characters who might find employment in a mercenary company in Lunar Tarsh. There is no advice as to who that might be and the Game Master may want to conduct further research herself.

What do you need?

The Tax Collector’s Oxen requires RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

However, if the Game Master wishes to develop the NPCs further, then Cults of RuneQuest: The Lightbringers, Cults of RuneQuest: The Earth Goddesses, and Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way may all be useful.

What do you get?
The set-up in The Tax Collector’s Oxen is very simple. When forty-seven head of cattle go missing from trading post of Garan in the Three Hills region, Derenos Varro, the Lunar field administrator, hires a mercenary company to recover them. As it appears to be a simple matter of theft, the most inexperienced members of the company, that is, the Player Characters, are assigned to deal with the issue. Derenos Varro wants the matter to be solved as peacefully or with as little bloodshed as is possible, and the cattle returned.

The trail quickly points to the east to the village of Orvandor and when the Player Characters arrive, it is clear that that the missing cattle are in the village. However, as the village’s spokesman, Harmast Baranson, explains, Orvandor is actually owed a debt by Garan. The nature of the debt and how it might be settled lies at the heart of the scenario.

The Tax Collector’s Oxen is designed to test young warriors by placing them in a social situation and have them conduct some kind of negotiation. There is potentially scope for combat in the scenario, but approaching any situation with weapons brandished and being too willing to use sword rather than speech will land the Player Characters in trouble. There are NPCs who accompany the Player Characters who will likely make this clear.

Although The Tax Collector’s Oxen is set in Lunar Tarsh, the Three Hills region is the creation of the author. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but there is not a lot of detail about Lunar Tarsh that is readily available, so the Game Master may have difficulty researching the setting and making it feel different to other regions in Dragon Pass. Also, none of the NPCs are given cult affiliations, so they feel slightly flat. This is not helped by the writing which tends to be succinct and not as easy to grasp as it should be. That said, the situation itself is easy understand and a Game Master will have no problems in actually running the pleasingly low key scenario once they get a feel for the writer’s style.

Is it worth your time?

Yes—The Tax Collector’s Oxen is a solid enough scenario that can be run as is, but will be better with some development to add detail and/or move it to another location.

No—The Tax Collector’s Oxen requires too much development in terms of the NPC details and the setting to be really useful.

Maybe—The Tax Collector’s Oxen is a solid enough scenario, but how useful it is depends on the amount of development that the Game Master wants to undertake.

Miskatonic Monday #454: John Witch

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: John Witch

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Authors: Michał Pietrzak

Setting: Today

Product: One-on-One One-shot

What You Get: Eleven page, 422.29 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: John Wick, Wizard

Plot Hook: “Revenge is sweet and not fattening.” – Alfred Hitchcock
Plot Support: Staging advice, three NPCs and lots of Henchmen, three Mythos artefacts, and one Mythos entity.

Production Values: Plain

Pros

# One ‘Revenger’, one Keeper scenario

# Mythos as martial arts

# Straightforward to run

Cons

# A Rat Thing is a terrible substitute for a beagle puppy

# Obvious plot
# Needs a slight edit

# No pre-generated ‘Revenger’

Conclusion

# Ridiculous cult assassin action flick

# No pre-generated ‘Revenger’, really?

Xanthophobia II

Call of Cthulhu is big in Japan. Bigger than Dungeons & Dragons and the Japanese devotees of Call of Cthulhu have their official campaign from Chaosium, Inc., that enables them and devotees around the world to explore a significant period in recent Japanese history. In doing so, they find a country at the height of its economic dominance at the end of the electronic era, unknowingly threatened by insidious memetic virus that finds vectors in prayer books and manga and dreams, mapping on its pattern onto the psyches of its victims who then will seek to spread it wider. It wraps itself around faith and culture and hope, but is utterly alien. That threat is the King in Yellow, drawn from the short story collection by R.C. Chambers, The King in Yellow, and re-interpreted for the ‘Bubble Economy’ period in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest as the Prince of Pale Leaves. This is not the first time that Call of Cthulhu and Chaosium, Inc. have visited Japan, the supplement, Secrets of Japan being published in 2005. In more recent years, the Miskatonic Repository has become an outlet for titles written by Japanese authors, such as Japonism 2024. Similarly, it is two decades since Chaosium, Inc. explored Hastur and the mythos of the King in Yellow with the campaign, Tatters of the King, published in 2006.

The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest: Encountering the King in Yellow in 1980s Japan is a published by Chaosium, Inc. for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and notable for a number of factors. One is that it is a modular campaign, one that can be expanded with The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising: Encountering the King in Yellow in 1980s Japan, simply ran as is, or run as sperate, standalone scenarios. In fact, the two are companion volumes. The second is that the supplement is co-written by residents of Japan, including the Sons of Singularity—responsible for The Sassoon Files: A Sourcebook for the Call of Cthulhu and GUMSHOE Role Playing Games and Journal d’Indochine—and Chaosium, Inc. Which gives it an authenticity and a strong sense of place. Third, almost like a meme itself, the scenarios in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest can be played over and over again, as the players and their (new?) Investigators search for an alternate ending. Of course, the Prince of Pale Leaves can twist and change and learn, so that what might have worked in a previous playthrough (alternate timeline?) is not guaranteed to work in the current one.

As with its sister volume, what The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest is not, is a sourcebook for Call of Cthulhu in Japan in the late eighties. It does contain a glossary of terms in the appendix and it does contain source material and useful they are too. The source material covers Japan and its work-orientated culture during the period, examines the life of the working adult and the student, the divide between the generations and its consequences, organised crime, transportation, and more. That more focuses on the technology available, noting that personal computers and pagers are widely available, the Internet has yet to appear, mobile phones are rare, and weapons even rarer! So, no firearms, and despite what some might think, no swords—and definitely no Ninja! The downside to The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest not being a sourcebook book for Call of Cthulhu in Japan in the late eighties is that there is little in the way of advice for creating Investigators for the period. Even then, it only extends as far as telling the Keeper that Investigator should be able to speak Japanese and players to avoid the discriminatory cultural biases endemic to the period, though that was beginning to change. This leaves the Keeper and her players to be inventive should they want to create their own Investigators or have to create replacements in the event of Investigator death. Unlike in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising, no pre-generated Investigators are provided in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest and the Keeper will likely want to refer to The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising for those if needed.

There are two notable additions in terms of the mechanics specific to the campaign. The first is Exposure Points gained through exposure to the Sutra of Pale Leaves, whether through glancing at it, reading it, hearing it being read, and so on. As they are gained—whether by an Investigator or NPC—those exposed begin to fixate on Sutra of Pale Leaves, suffer dreams and altered perception, gain creative inspiration, and even begin to see the Prince of Pale Leaves. These are the very least of the effects of continued exposure, whilst The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest suggests that Sanity loss and severe orders suffered are ‘side effects’. Surprisingly, being exposed can have its rewards such as unexplained luck and being immune to Sanity loss, though these come at the cost of more Exposure Points. All this reflects the effects of the memetic virus rewriting the code in the sufferer’s brain. Exposure Points are kept secret from the players and count up in contrast to Sanity points counting down. The second addition is more distinctly defined and numbered ‘Endings’. Running from ‘0: Party Wipe (Failure)’ and up, these categorise player success in a scenario and are a common feature of scenarios in Japan where they enable players to simply communicate how well they did in a scenario. Strangely, this number gives a scenario what are effectively ‘winning conditions’, which is at odds with almost any description of how roleplaying works. However, they explicitly support the replay value of the scenarios and campaign since having achieved an Ending and a value in one playthrough, the players can playthrough the scenario with the aim of achieving a different Ending and ideally a higher value.

In addition to being different in how it spreads its influence, the ‘Mythos’ threat and its associated cult are also different in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest. The cult—the Association of Pale Leaves—is mad and dangerous, but it is not murderous. In other words, no sacrifices before altars at the dead of night at propitious times of the year. It can resort to violence when protecting its interests and its assets, but in the main, what it wants to do is proselytise. To that end, the Sutra of Pale Leaves and its different versions play a bigger role in the campaign than the cult itself, and although the cult is detailed, the focus of the scenarios in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest is not on the cult itself, but rather on the twistings of the memetic transmission of its master’s message. Where this means that in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising there is no real beginning or no real ending, that is not the case in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest. It has a definite ending in which the Investigators the vents that its subtitle suggests from coming to fuitition.

Similarly, the Prince of Pale Leaves is surprisingly human in its form and face even if it is alien. It is also calm, calculating, and confident, never angry, never Machiavellian, but it is manipulative and several of the scenarios revolve around the Prince of Pale Leaves’ manipulation of the Investigators. In other words, it has none of the sardonic and manipulative qualities of Nyarlathotep, and so perhaps requires much more subtle roleplaying upon the part of the Keeper.

Narratively, the campaign adds ‘Confidants’. These are inspired by Jackson Elias of Masks of Nyarlathotep fame and are designed to serve as hooks, facilitating the involvement of the Investigators in the plots. Several are given, both general and scenario-specific, but the main one is a special agent of the Public Security Intelligence Agency, the equivalent of Japan’s FBI, but the others include a Buddhist monk and abbot, and heiress-turned anti-occult crusader. Their use is not mandatory, but they will flavour and influence how the Investigators are introduced to each scenario and potentially grant them access to various resources. Both The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising and The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest share the set of Confidants, but some of them are only available if the Investigators have played through the scenarios in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising where they initially appear rather than at the start of either campaign. For the players, the campaign includes Lore Sheets which provide them with information about Japan and its culture that their Investigators would ordinarily know.

Although there are four scenarios in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest, only three of them make up the campaign proper. The three-part campaign consists of a two-part, set a year apart with a scenario in between. This provides it with a structure into which the Keeper can slot the other scenarios from The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising. This sets up a campaign that balances the drive of the Prince of Pale Leaves and his cultists in the Association of Pale Leaves to bring their plans to fruition at the climax in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest versus exploring the transmission of their message and its effects upon various parts of Japanese society. The campaign overall is not a long one, and if the extra scenarios in The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising are not used, it is an even shorter mini-campaign.

The campaign opens with ‘The Bridge Maiden – Part One’, set in 1987. The Investigators are hired or asked to look for a missing person, Umezono Minoru, ostensibly by his sister, Kaho, it may be by others. A small-time businessman with big dreams, as the investigators look into his history and activities, including interviewing his family—his sister in particular, co-workers, employees, and even a local Yakuza representative, it quickly becomes apparent that he is not the golden boy that his parents think he is. However, as bad as his apparent reputation is, he is still a victim here, having been severely affected by The Mandela of the Divine Eye, an artefact that the Association of Pale Leaves has installed in a local payphone! Ultimately, the scenario switches from the Investigators tracking down a missing person to tracking down a monster not quite hiding in the sewers. The scenario also lays the tracks for ‘The Bridge Maiden – Part Two’, which leaves a few plot points hanging that will not pay off until that second part and it is disappointing to literally make Umezono Minoru a monster before and after his transformation without leaving room to get a glimpse of humanity. Potentially though, there may be some emotional payoff come ‘The Bridge Maiden – Part Two’. Otherwise, ‘The Bridge Maiden – Part One’ is a direct, relatively easy investigation.

The middle scenario, ‘Wonderland’ is not. A horrific crime in a school seems inexplicable at first, but is somehow linked to the fascination that some students have for a MUD—a ‘Multi-User Dungeon’—called ‘Wonderland’. Inspired by Alice in Wonderland and promising to be highly immersive, it sets up an interesting roleplaying situation where only the older players are really going to know what a MUD was and how it worked. Consequently, there will be players who know as much about them as their Investigators do, given that in 1988, a MUD would have been at the cutting edge of computer technology, and thus both will be encountering them for the first time. ‘Wonderland’ leans in part to the ‘Hikikomori’ or ‘shut-in’ culture of Japan’s youth, promising its users the opportunity to be greater than themselves, but secretly acting as another vector for the influence of the King in Yellow. This includes the Investigators when they log on—and long on again, as it will take multiple attempts to discover the nature of the threat that it represents, potentially leading to them being hollowed out much like the student users. This will earn the Investigators more Exposure Points and bring them into direct contact with the Prince of Pale Leaves, not as the Yellow King, but White King in keeping with the mythology of Alice in Wonderland. Ultimately, the Investigators need to find a way to stop the unsurprisingly creepy developer from distributing Wonderland across the country. ‘Wonderland’ is creepily, horribly modern interpretation of then modern eighties technology

Weirdly, the scenario presents a wholly different set-up with the teachers at the school as the Investigators looking into the horrific incident triggering the scenario rather than being NPCs to be interviewed as in the default set-up. This would be fine for a one-shot, but it would take some adjustment to use this cast of pre-generated Investigators with the other scenarios in both The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising and The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest.

‘The Bridge Maiden – Part Two’ brings the campaign to a close, but starts in slightly underwhelming fashion. Part of the issue is that the primary clues are contained in The Mandela of the Divine Eye which the Investigators will have first encountered in ‘The Bridge Maiden – Part One’, but have to wait until now to fully examine. It also ties back to Kaho, the sister of the missing Umezono Minoru, who at the end of ‘The Bridge Maiden – Part One’ simply ignored the Investigators instead of paying them or even thanking them. She is a fashion designer suddenly with a successful line of clothing which seems to have strange effects as the Investigators discover in the pedestrian paradise of Harajuku when a group of young dancers in the street suddenly begin dancing in concert and attack another girl. All of them, it turns out, are wearing clothing designed by Umezono Kaho. Was she actually part of the cult along or simply does her fashion brand have the backing of the Association of Pale Leaves? Unlike other scenarios in the campaign, this actually gives the Investigators a chance to interact with the cult leader on a formal—and above all, civilised basis. He proves to be articulate and amenable, though of course, still insane. He even invites the Investigators to a grand fashion launch down by the bay. 

This is the setting for the grand finale as the Association of Pale Leaves creates a rainbow bridge—the bridge of light—out over the bay directly to Carcosa that will enable the Prince of Pale Leaves to descend to the Earth. It is a startlingly majestic, if off kilter, manifestation, effectively a summoning quite unlike that seen in any campaign for Call of Cthulhu. Its staging is enjoyably cinematic too, set on a radiant bridge over Tokyo Bay as helicopters buzz about and the Prince of Pale Leaves travels down from Carcosa in a driverless Cadillac!

Thematically, both The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising and The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest have both been exploring some of the consequences of the Bubble Economy in Japan in the late nineteen eighties with its ambition, technological advances, and so on. The fourth and final scenario in the book is ‘The Fixer’. This is not part of the campaign and it is not like any of the previous scenarios in either book. It opens with the Investigators as homeless and destitute, living on the streets. Thus, for them, the ‘bubble’ has burst. They can be the Investigators from the previous scenarios, but need not be. The scenario is based on ‘The Repairer of Reputations’, the short story from Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow, and instead of going to a ‘Repairer of Reputations’, the Investigators go to a Fixer. He promises to help, but in return for several favours. This is to destroy the reputations of five figures in Tokyo—a CEO, a Shinto priest, a police detective, a Yakuza street boss, and a politician—that each in turn has reneged on a deal with the Fixer. What is interesting about this is that the Investigators are entirely free to go about this in any fashion that they want using the information that they learn about each target. So, it is much more freeform and player-led than just about any other Call of Cthulhu scenario. Of course, it makes clear that the scenario is about ‘Hobos, Not Murder Hobos’.

However, as each of the five is successfully and satisfyingly (none of them are nice people) targeted, there are strange consequences. One of these is the transformation of the Fixer himself, the other is the transformation of Tokyo itself. These are from the past and the future, the latter including the appearance of a cat café fifteen years before the first one and a maglev hyperloop replacing the Tokyo subway. Not only that, but the Fixer also fulfils his promises, though not as the Investigators might expect. Instead of being restored to their former lives, they find themselves being appointed officials at the court of the Prince of Pale Leaves! So, what is happening here that the Investigators are both protagonists and antagonists, they are instigating the Mythos threat as much as they are investigating it. Ultimately, they will be (or should be) the ones to clean up their mess, but when and how, is again, up to them. Initially, this looked to be a disappointing affair, but upon close examination, ‘The Fixer’ is an original way of approaching the King in Yellow mythos, explicitly tying it to what the Investigators have lost and want again, and asking them how much they are prepared to sacrifice for their selfishness. Further, as much as ‘The Fixer’ does not specifically have to run after the events of ‘The Bridge Maiden – Part Two’ and the official end of the campaign, it actually works as a great epilogue to the campaign, the Prince of Pale Leaves reaching out one last time to tempt the ones who thwarted him.

Physically, The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest is very well presented and written. The artwork ranges from the ukiyo-e style of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries to modern manga and much in between, most notably bitmapped-style for many of the images in ‘Wonderland’, echoing some of the look of The Matrix a decade early.

If The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising is not a campaign in the traditional sense for Call of Cthulhu, then The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest is. A mini-campaign to be sure, but a campaign still, and one that can be greatly added to with the scenarios from the first book if the Keeper wants. The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Carcosa Manifest is a very good campaign, exploring the manifestation of the King in Yellow in a culture of optimism, greed, ambition, and rapid technological development, in an age that feels almost as alien as the King in Yellow himself.