Friday Fantasy: Nations & Cannons

The year is 1775. The long simmering resentments of the colonies in North America towards the British Crown have finally boiled over. The first military clashes between the British garrisons and new raised rebel militias have occurred and the Second Continental Congress is working towards the establishment of an American government and the establishment of both a Continental Army and a Continental Navy in defiance of the colonial governors and the British army that will be sent to quell the rebellion. The rally cry has gone out across all thirteen colonies for patriots to serve in any way they can and men and women of every stripe and background, all nations and origins, to help throw off the yoke of the British oppressor. Some will serve in the front line against the massed ranks of the Red Coats, some will help organise supplies, some will run messages, and some will serve, if not in secret, then in ways that are quick and quiet. They will perform missions that do not call for massed ranks, but engage instead in ‘petite guerre’, or small war. This is the situation in Nations & Cannons: A Revolutionary Campaign Setting for 5e.

Nations & Cannons: A Revolutionary Campaign Setting for 5e is published by Flagbearer Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign. As the title suggests, it is a historical campaign setting for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, but almost as radical as the Revolutionary War was in the eighteenth century, Nations & Cannons makes profound changes to some of the fundamentals of Dungeons & Dragons. It is a purely historical setting. The Player Characters are all Human and the foes they will face are all Human—bar the odd wolf or angry bear. The Player Characters have all taken up arms and all Classes have a martial bent. Only four Classes from Dungeons & Dragons are used—the Barbarian, Fighter, Ranger, and Rogue, and these are joined by the Firebrand as well as new subclasses for the included Classes. Magic and all magic-using Classes, whether arcane or divine, are deliberately left out. All monsters are left out. This is not a setting in which the Player Characters will face the supernatural as written. Instead of spells, the Ranger and the Firebrand can employ ‘Gambits’, ploys or tactics born of personal knowledge and skill, to gain an advantage in certain situations, whether on the battlefield or in the drawing room or in front of a restive crowd. The end result is a Dungeons & Dragons setting unlike any other and a Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying experience unlike any other.

The core book for Nations & Cannons: A Revolutionary Campaign Setting for 5e presents the means to create Player Characters, lists equipment and gives a new means to carry it, rules for ‘Gambits’ rather than magic, artillery rules, a roster of enemies and threats, Game Master advice, and a short, introductory adventure. There is also a short timeline and an appendix detailing the effects of ‘Inclement Weather’, including on the forearms of the period. Of course, the Player’s Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition is required to play. Given the lethality of firearms, it is suggested that Player Characters in Nations & Cannons begin play at Second Level.

A Player Character in Nations & Cannons has the same core stats as an adventurer in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and will also have a Class and Subclass, but instead of Race has an Origin and a Heritage. Heritage is the Player Character’s cultural upbringing and the source of his first language. Some thirty or so such Heritages are listed, representing a wide range of cultures, including African, European, and Indigenous. This is accompanied by a quick guide to the regions of the Thirteen Colonies—and beyond—which provides some geographical context to the Origins. Where a Heritage provides no mechanical benefit beyond a known language, a Player Character’s Origin gives him all of the mechanical benefits that Race would in other Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games. There are six Origins—Officer, Pioneer, Renegade, Scholar, Scout, and Veteran—representing what the Player Character did before joining the patriotic cause.

In terms of Class, Nations & Cannons uses four from Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. These are Barbarian, Fighter, Ranger, and Rogue. Each represents a different approach to fighting the war against the British. The Barbarian is a big brave warrior, ready to take part in military assaults; the Fighter is a skilled soldier or mercenary; the Ranger is a sapper, sentry, skirmisher, or scout; and the Rogue, the ex-criminal, sailor, or hired gun. Each of the four Classes has its own Subclass. These are the Grenadier for the Barbarian, Turncoat for the Fighter, Trailblazer for the Ranger, and Marksman for the Ranger. Nations & Cannons suggests that players use these Subclasses only, but also suggests that other Subclasses from standard Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition can also be used. These are the Berserker and Totem Warrior for the Barbarian, Champion and Battlemaster for the Fighter, Hunter and Beastmaster for the Ranger, and the Thief and Assassin for the Rogue. However, some of these do possess more magical abilities, which are not in keeping with the tone of Nations & Cannons, so the player and Game Master will need to work out mundane explanations for how they work.

In terms of new Classes, Nations & Cannons offers only one. This is the Firebrand. Whether through stirring speeches given before a crowd or inspiring poetry distributed via pamphlets, the Firebrand can inflame the passions of the masses with his words. The role encompasses orator and authors, diplomats, preachers, and the like. It has the Subclasses of Chaplain and the Demagogue. The former is more of an eloquent speaker and emphasises soothing words and healing through its Gambits, whilst the latter tends towards more barbed turns of phrase. The Firebrand is Nations & Cannons’ equivalent of two Classes, depending upon the Subclass. Chaplain is akin to the Cleric, but relies on advice and gentle guidance to both heal and advise, whilst the Demagogue is akin to the Bard Class, but relies more on rhetoric than rhyme to taunt and jab at his opponents.

Lastly, a Player Character will have a Background. The eight given include Career Soldier, Convict, Folk Healer, Fur Trader, Homesteader, Immigrant, Parishioner, and Son of Liberty. There are also some new Feats, such as Bayonet Charger, Printer’s Apprentice, Rifle Expert, and Ruffian. Overall, the character options in Nations & Cannons represent a wide diversity of archetypes from the period that the players can create or play against. One nice touch is that throughout, Nations & Cannons points to historical figures who fit these archetypes. Thus, Allan McLane for the Officer Origin, Thomas Paine for the Firebrand Class, Sally St. Clair for the Convict Background, and so on.

In terms of equipment, Nations & Cannons gives starting packages for each Class and suggests rewards such as Leave Accrued and salary for successfully completing Missions. Amongst the various items of equipment and weapons, such as the Gunstock Club, Coat Pistol, and Liège Musket, Nations & Cannons provides a means for the Player Character to carry more weapons and equipment and gain other benefits. This is through the wearing of Wargear. For example, a Powdered Wig enables the wearer to cast the Code Duello gambit once per day, carry three more pistols with a Pistol Brace, and gain the Proficiency Bonus to the damage and healing properties of potions and poultices by wearing a Hunting Pouch. Some of these do require attunement, much like magic items in Dungeons & Dragons, but here it is more akin to getting used to using such items.

Firearms, as expected of the setting, are slow to load, deadly, and unreliable. Thus, it takes an action or an attack to reload a single round (and weapons that have more than one load are rare), typically inflict two or three dice worth of damage, and have a misfire chance. When rolled, the firearm—and also artillery—cannot be used until it is repaired. Artillery pieces are ‘crew-served’ weapons meaning it takes multiple people to crew such a weapon and co-ordinated action. It is not enough to simply have a gunner ‘Aim & Fire’, but other crewmembers will need to ‘Swab & Reload’ the weapon, and if necessary, ‘Reposition’ it. Bonuses to the roll for these actions are gained if more than one crewman does them, but even if fully crewed, an artillery piece cannot be reloaded and fired on the same round. The rules for artillery are kept short, but also cover a range of ordnance types and ballistic damage. As expected, artillery damage is nasty!

The most radical change that Nations & Cannons makes to Dungeons & Dragons is to dispense with magic. Except not quite. Nations & Cannons replaces them with ‘Gambits’, representing tricks, schemes, and stratagems, rather than just simple spells. That said, Nations & Cannons uses the architecture of Dungeons & Dragons, so mechanically, a ‘Gambit’ still looks like a spell. Each has a Level, a casting time, range, component requirement, and a duration. Those targeted can also make a Saving Throw against their effects. Two of the Classes in Nations & Cannons can use Gambits, the Firebrand and the Ranger, drawing from the spells in the Player’s Handbook as well as the new ones in Nations & Cannons. For example, the Code Duello, can be cast as a bonus action to challenge someone to single combat, but cast over a single hour, it becomes a public notice that the target has seven days in which to respond, whilst with Foxfire, the Player Character grabs a handful of fungi and throws it into the air to create an eerie glow of bioluminescence, outlining targets. Some have a heroic, action-film quality, such as Blowback, with which the Player Character shoots a grenade coming towards him to disable or deflect it, or Improvised Artillery, in which the Player Character turns a log into a one-shot cannon.

The Firebrand effectively knows all of the Gambits available for his current Level. What limits their use is the number of slots the Firebrand has to use per day, and the number of Resolve Points he has to use per day. Resolve can be spent cast Gambits that a Firebrand does not have access to, whether because that they have not been selected by his player or because the Gambits are of a higher Level than the Firebrand knows. There is one issue with the Gambits in that they can sometimes emulate actions that the Player Characters might want to take, but not necessarily know the Gambit for. For example, they might want to turn a log into a one-shot cannon or issue a duelling challenge. In such incidents, the Game Master will need to adjudicate the effects, but whatever they are, they should be less than the Gambit. What the Gambit actually ensures is that the desired effect works and has a defined effect.

Overall, Gambits are a fascinating way to get around the intrinsic aspect that Dungeons & Dragons has magic and certain Classes can cast spells. They are grounded in the period setting and they force a player to think differently. No longer does he say, “My Wizard casts Spare the Dying”, but instead would say, “My Chaplain will call upon the Lord’s name and with his guidance, he will Spare the Dying.” There is potential for far roleplaying in the use of Gambits than there is for the ‘fire and forget’ Vancian spell-casting of Dungeons & Dragons.

As befits the historical setting, the ‘Enemy Roster’ in Nations & Cannons focuses on men and women rather than beasts. There are a few of the latter, like the bull moose and the rattlesnake, but aside from the artillery units, the ordinary human threats are categorised into three types according to role and Hit Die. From the six-sided die to the ten-sided die, they are in turn, Partisans, Irregulars, and Soldiers, representing greater threats. Each of the Partisan, Irregular, and Soldier types is given a little background alongside the stats and even at just twenty or so entries, provides a good mix that the Game master can use as threats and NPCs.

Nations & Cannons includes a single beginning scenario, designed for five Player Characters of Second Level, which actually takes place early in the uprising in the autumn of 1775. In ‘Invasion of Canada’, the Player Characters accompany Ethan Allen of Vermont on a second attempt to scout the length of the Richelieu River and recruit locals to the American cause, prior to an invasion by the Continental Army. Unfortunately, the mission does not go well and the Player Characters are forced to retreat, but can take part in the assault of a British held fort. The scenario is set against the historical events of the period, but does not negate player agency. It is playable in a single session, but will more likely take a little more than that, especially if the optional scenes are used. The various NPCs are nicely detailed.

Physically, Nations & Cannons is a slim book, mostly done in sepia tones with depictions of the period. The result is attractive and for the most part written. Where it is a little odd is that it occasionally refers to soldiers and NPCs as ‘creatures’, implying at some point they would be crewing artillery pieces!

Nations & Cannons: A Revolutionary Campaign Setting for 5e has two big problems. The first is that it is written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and no matter how hard the designers have worked to make Nations & Cannons a roleplaying game setting that fits its historical background whilst still retaining the underlying architecture of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, to some minds, it is still too much. There is no getting away from this, but in Flagbearer Games’ defence, the changes it has wrought make Nations & Cannons unlike any other roleplaying game setting written for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.

The second problem is the history. Nations & Cannons is a historical setting which enables the Game Master and her players to run and roleplay a game set in a politically and militarily turbulent period of history with definite heroes and villains. It is highly unlikely that any British roleplayer is going to object to roleplaying a character fighting the British oppressor in 1775 in order to establish a nation free of the British Empire. This is because the American War of Independence is but a blip in British history, and the loss of the Thirteen Colonies was quickly eclipsed by an even bigger British Empire. Whereas to an American roleplayer, the American War of Independence is integral to his country’s founding mythology. What this means is that to the American roleplayer, the setting of Nations & Cannons will have a familiarity that most non-Americans will not. At barely more than a hundred pages long, Nations & Cannons: A Revolutionary Campaign Setting for 5e does not pack a lot of history into its pages. Nor does it include a bibliography. Ultimately, this leaves a lot of research and reading to do for the Game Master not steeped in the conflict and period.

What is striking about Nations & Cannons: A Revolutionary Campaign Setting for 5e is that it feels and reads like a historical setting rather than just a Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition adaptation. The underlying architecture is still there, making Nations & Cannons mechanically familiar, but the changes in terms of the Origins, Heritages, Classes, and especially the new Firebrand Class and the Gambits, change the feel, the flavour, and the tone of the game. Nations & Cannons: A Revolutionary Campaign Setting for 5e is the most interesting and the most impressive adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition to date, an intriguing invocation of the Revolutionary War that begs to be played and begs for more support.

Friday Filler: Pirates of Penryn

Published by SeaGriffin Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Pirates of Penryn – A game of Charm & Ferocity Upon Cornish Waters is a game of rum running on the Cornish coast in the eighteenth century. Designed for between two and five players—or Captains, aged nine and up, each takes command of two ships. One is a galleon, loaded down with rum, ready to smuggle up the Penryn River to the towns of Falmouth, Flushing, and Penryn, where a good price can be fetched for the illegal liquor. However, the waters of the Penryn River are too shallow for the galleon, so they must send their other vessel, the smaller RumRunner ashore with the illicit cargo. They must brave the dangerous waters with their whirlpools which bring as much good fortune as they do bad, avoid the piggish predations of dread sea serpent Morgawr, take advantage of the wind the best that they can, and avoid getting caught aground when the tide ebbs away to sea. Perhaps they will be able to sail all the way up the Penryn River to Penryn itself where they are bound to get a good price for their rum, but the waters are dread shallow the further up the river you go, and on the way back to their galleon, there is every likelihood that your RumRunner will be attacked by a rival crew, ready to steal the monies made! If a Captain can successfully empty all the rum aboard his galleon, sell as much as he can, and have his RumRunner return—hopefully with florins aplenty—then he can declare the end of the game. The winner will be the Captain with most florins aboard his galleon.

The very first thing that you notice about the Pirates of Penryn is the art. Its style echoes that of Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin, of their series Ivor the Engine and Noggin the Nog. However, it is brasher in style, more cartoonish, and not as charming, and worse suggests that Pirates of Penryn is a game for children. Whilst there are rules for playing with younger Captains, the standard game of Pirates of Penryn is not for children. Combining hand management mechanics with a pickup and deliver mechanic, Pirates of Penryn can be a cutthroat race for gold, one in which the Captains can raid their rival RumRunners and engage in skirmishes and duels with them, sneak in Morgawr’s cave and steal from her hoard, all before racing back to their galleons. Play lasts about an hour or so, and is much more fun with more Captains than with fewer.

The very first thing you notice upon opening Pirates of Penryn is the board, or ‘sailcloth’ map of Penryn River. In fact, this is a neoprene cloth, done in full colour which depicts Penryn River marked in squares—thankfully movement is both orthogonal and diagonal rather than just orthogonal—in three shades of blue. The deeper the shade of blue, the deeper the water. Close into the shore and on several sandbanks, there are areas where a RumRunner may find itself run aground, forcing its Captain to miss a turn or two until the flow of the tide back up the river refloats the boat. Some of these low-lying areas will also deny a Captain access to Flushing and Penryn. Dotted up and down the river are a number of whirlpools—of varying size, and crossing one of these may bring a RumRunner a boon, but it may also place it in peril. The actual playing surface is actually quite small—or narrow, and the waters of the Penryn River become tighter and tighter the more Captains there are playing.

Along the coast are three towns—in ascending value of the florins they will pay for rum, of Falmouth, Flushing, and Penryn, as well as the smuggler’s haven of Ponsharden where new members of crew can be press ganged into service aboard a RumRunner. Also along the coast is Morgawr’s cave, the sea serpent who can be drawn out into Penryn River with a sacrifice of a crewmember and sent into the path of a rival RumRunner, and if a RumRunner does get too close, will snap pirates and florins from aboard the vessel and secret them away in her lair. Later on, and if Morgawr is away from her cave, then a Captain can sail his RumRunner into her cave and raid her treasure hoard! Around the edge of the board are spaces for the game’s cards—sold cargo, Morgawr’s hoard, whirlpools, crewmembers, and florins. One roundel tracks the direction of the wind, whilst another the ebb and flow of the tide. 

The other components include four decks of cards—sixty crew cards, sixty cargo cards, ninety florin cards, and forty-two whirlpool cards. All of the crew cards are individualised with illustrations and a bit of biographical trivia. The trivia can easily add some table talk and a little roleplaying if a Captain wants it, and the illustrations work better here in black and white. Each also has different levels of Charm and Ferocity, these being used when facing whirlpools and skirmishing with rival RumRunners, whilst a Pistol-Cutlass-Parrot symbol indicates their weapon of choice in duel with a rival pirate. Some also have a tattoo marked on their cards, indicating a special skill useful in dealing with Whirlpool cards. The Whirlpool cards typically grant a ‘Lucky Rascal!’ one-time bonus or some form of ‘Peril & Strife’ which must be overcome. For example, ‘Tame the TideMaid’ is a ‘Lucky Rascal!’ card which allows a Captain to adjust the TideMaid on the tide rounded in his favour, whilst the ‘Torrential Excrement’ explains how a rogue flock of seagulls has unloaded in a Captain’s RumRunner and loaded it down with guano! The problem can be overcome by either sufficient Charm or Ferocity or the tattoo needed to avoid the problem all together. In this instance, a total of eight Ferocity or the Animal Magick tattoo. If a Captain cannot overcome the problem, then his RumRunner must lose some Rum—in this case, two barrels of it. One issue with the Whirlpool cards is that they are text heavy, but there is both flavour and humour on each one.

Lastly there are cards for each Captain’s galleon and RumRunner. Cards under the galleon card are not in play, and therefore safe, but those under the RumRunner card are in play and are not safe—they can be lost in skirmishes and duels, dumped overboard because a Captain failed to overcome a ‘Peril & Strife!’ Whirlpool card, or snapped up by Morgawr! Each Captain has his own RumRunner piece, and there are also pieces for both Morgawr and the TideMaid, a Windicator used to show the direction of the wind, and the Skull & Crosswinds Coin flipped to determine the change in direction of the wind.

Set-up is fairly simple. Everything—both cards and playing pieces are placed on their correct positions one the map, and each Captain receives twelve Cargo cards, three Florin cards, and three Crew cards. All of these go under his galleon card. A Captain selects nine cards from these cards and loads them into his RumRunner. These can be of any combination, but the rules suggest a starting hand during a Captain’s first game. A Captain’s hand cannot be more than nine cards in total and a Captain will find himself balancing the three types of cards in hand throughout the game. He needs to carry rum to the shore, pirate crew to protect his RumRunner—and even attack a rival Captain, florins with which to hire crew, and of course, space to carry those florins back to the safety of his galleon.

On a turn, a Captain does two actions, but has scope to do a lot more. First he moves the TideMaid round the Tide roundel to determine the level of the tide, and then he flips the Skull & Crosswinds Coin to see which direction the wind blows that turn. He can then Set Sail, making up to nine moves. He can move two squares per move if this is a ‘Run’ in the direction of the wind, one square if a ‘Yaw’ and any direction not influenced by the wind, but cannot move in the direction opposite to the wind. If he moves adjacent to Morgawr, she will steal a card from the Captain, and if across a whirlpool, then he draws a Whirlpool card. A ‘Peril & Strife’ Whirlpool card must be dealt with at the end of his turn. A Captain can even sacrifice a crew member to Morgawr to move her anywhere on the map, or a florin card to her to gain extra moves. 

Other actions depend upon where a RumRummer is. If at a Port, a Captain can sell Rum, buy crew, and change florins—the latter useful to make space for other cards. If at Morgawr’s Cave, a Captain can peek at the riches she has in her hoard and then steal some—even some a Captain might have sacrificed earlier in the game! If alongside another RumRunner, a Captain can mount a raid. This can be a skirmish in which the raiding Captain attempts to beat the defending Captain using the total of either Charm or Ferocity icons on his crews’ cards, or a duel in which a single crew member from each RumRunner goes head-to-head, comparing their Pistol-Cutlass-Parrot symbols in rock-paper-scissors style—pistol beats cutlass, cutlass beats parrot, and parrots being parrots, parrot beats pistol. A successful skirmish garners the winner two random cards from the loser’s hand, a duel just the one. Lastly, when at his galleon, a Captain can stow florins—they are now safe, swap his crew, and load his RumRunner with rum if he still has some to take ashore.

There is a lot going on in Pirates of Penryn and a Captain has a lot of that he can do. The one thing that he will need to do is balance his hand between the choice of Crew, Florins, and Rum. All will be necessary to win the game, but focus on one to the detriment of the others and a Captain may not be able to make Rum sales quickly enough, be able to deal with raids or whirlpools, or defend against raids. A Captain can also use Morgawr to his advantage—move her to block, threaten, or attack another Captain, or to gain extra movement when it counts! Thematically though, it all feels suitably fitting and fun, emphasising the skill and ability of a Captain to deal with the random fortunes of the changing tide and wind, as well as making the best use of his crew. There is not a high degree of randomness or luck to the game, but there is just enough to make play challenging when it counts.

Physically, Pirates of Penryn is well presented and all of the components are of a reasonable quality—cardboard pieces rather than plastic or wood. If the artwork is perhaps a little twee, the game play will quickly disabuse any Captain that playing Pirates of Penryn is also twee. The rulebook—although it looks a bit too busy, takes the time to explain its rules and give examples of the rules in play. It also includes rules for playing the game with children, a two-Captain variant, and some optional rules to make it more of a challenge. These include the barrels of rum having different values and even being able to buy rum at one port town and sell it at another!

Pirates of Penryn – A game of Charm & Ferocity Upon Cornish Waters is a surprisingly challenging and fun game—the cover of the box simply does not suggest how fun it actually is. A Captain’s objective may be simple, and he really only has to do one thing, but there are plenty of things he can do to make it easier for himself and harder for his rivals, plus Pirates of Penryn makes great use of its theme, and there is nothing stop the Captains going all piratical themselves, such as speaking a West Country accent, bringing their crew members to life during play, and more. Doing so gives the Captains a chance to tell the story of their RumRunner’s daring exploits and smuggling runs and make Pirates of Penryn – A game of Charm & Ferocity Upon Cornish Waters an even better game.

Friday Fantasy: The Touch of the Beast

The Touch of the Beast is a low-Level Old School Renaissance scenario published by SoulMuppetPublishing, best known for the retroclone, BestLeft Buried. Inspired by the eighteenth-century French fairy tale, La Belle et la Bête, and the 1991 Walt Disney film, Beauty and the Beast, it is a dark tale of forgotten history and obsessive horror on the eve of the French Revolution. This period setting makes the scenario a little difficult to use in the more traditional fantasy roleplaying of the Old School Renaissance, but there are roleplaying games with which it will work. These include both 17th Century Minimalist and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying, as well as All For One: Régime Diabolique, though with some difficulty. Further, because The Touch of the Beast is stated up for Basic/Expert Dungeons & Dragons, the scenario is relatively easy to adapt to the retroclone of the Game Master’s choice.

The scenario is set in France in 1789 during the Ancien Régime as the peasants and bourgeoisie of the Third Estate drive the nobility of the Second Estate out of their feudal holdings. Thus, castles and chateaus are being left empty, so ripe for plundering! One such chateau lies outside of the village of Alsace, rumoured to be still left untouched by the villagers and by robbers. It is also rumoured to be occupied by some terrible beast, but no one in these enlightened times believes such twaddle. Two occupants of the village take an interest in both the castle. One is an ex-soldier who wants them to confirm the existence of the castle and determine whether it can safely be plundered, the other is a young woman who claims that the castle and the great beast which resides within its walls are cursed, and that this curse is spreading… She wants an end to this curse before foolish bandits or robbers blunder into the castle and inadvertently unleash the curse on first the villagers, then beyond…

Getting to the castle is an arduous trek through increasingly worsening weather; getting into the castle and wandering around its halls and grounds will prove to be less of a challenge. In fact, the adventurers are free to wander around the castle at will, which seems to be uninhabited, but filled with the signs of it having been inhabited. The furnishings and fittings, decorations, gewgaws and nick-nacks are all indicative of the wealth lavished on the castle and its grounds by the ‘former’ occupant of the castle. The castle—consisting of three storeys—harpsichords, fine wallpaper, fancy dresses, porcelain plumbing, paintings, chandelier, and more. There are odd, even weird things to be found in the castle too, such as a room filled with wax, a thick red carpet which seems to sway in a non-existent breeze, and a wardrobe which spews clothing.

All of this is mapped out storey by storey, but then room by room. So The Touch of the Beast includes a map of the grounds, each of the castle’s three floors, plus its cellars. Then accompanying each entry in the room by room description is an excerpt from the main map showing both the room and its adjacent corridors and rooms. These sub-maps are typically on the same page as the room descriptions, although on occasion they only appear on the opposite page. What this means is that although The Touch of the Beast is perhaps a little cramped in places and a little busy, the Game Master has been given an easy means of tracking the progress of the player characters through the castle and its grounds. In effect, this is not just room by room, corridor by corridor, but page by page, and all this without the need for constant reference back to the main storey maps by the Game Master. On the downside, the likelihood is that The Touch of the Beast would be a much shorter book without this admittedly useful map feature.

Now despite appearances, the castle is not uninhabited. Strange creatures lurk in certain rooms—and lurk is important here, because The Touch of the Beast is not a scenario with a random encounter table. Instead, the behaviour of the inhabitants is reactive in nature, responding to the actions of the player characters, and to support this, the scenario includes certain triggers which will cause the inhabitants to act. When this happens, certain of the inhabitants will actively hunt the player characters. For this though, the Game Master will need not one ordinary deck of cards, but four! And from these decks, the Game Master will just use the Jack, Queen, King, and Ace cards to form four separate decks. One of these is the Starter Deck and whenever the player characters make a noise in certain locations in and around the castle, the Game Master will draw a card. If the Ace is drawn, the associated inhabitant of the castle reacts and begins hunting the player characters, certain seemingly random events such as all naked flames flaring or time seeming to skip. Then the next deck is added to the current deck, and so on and so on. Make too much noise, in too many locations, and draw too many cards in the wrong order, and the player characters may themselves being hunted by multiple inhabitants!

Unfortunately, having four separate decks is possibly too much to ask of the Game Master. It is a pity that no other means of handling the inhabitants’ actions is suggested and likewise, it is disappointing that the Game Master is not warned ahead of time of the nature of the set-up which the scenario requires. Also, the grounds of the castle do feel underwritten in comparison to the castle itself, and despite the castle being depicted as having walls and towers, they are not described.

In terms of theme, The Touch of the Beast is based on both the French fairy tale, La Belle et la Bête and the 1991 Walt Disney film, Beauty and the Beast. So yes, there is a curse which can be lifted as per both sources of inspiration, but the main monsters are more inspired by the Walt Disney, being greatly weird and twisted versions. It does seem a pity though that the corridor of grasping arms from 1936 film by Jean Cocteau was not included. In terms of design, The Touch of the Beast echoes a number of classic dungeon designs. Perhaps the earliest is X2 Castle Amber for Expert Dungeons & Dragons with its madhouse feel, but S1 Tomb of Horrors for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition follows as a close second for the design of its touch or interfere at your peril, no Saving Throw, you are dead, nature of its traps. It also feels similar to several scenarios for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying in that devices from other times and places can be found within the walls of the castle.

Physically, The Touch of the Beast is scrappily presented and does need an edit in places. It could also have been better organised—especially at the start—to help the Game Master prepare the scenario. The artwork though, is decent, and the cartography is big and easy to read. It is also clear that some thought has been put into organising the maps and room descriptions to make the scenario easy to run.

The Touch of the Beast is a fairly simple scenario, more weird and creepy rather than out and out horror. The combination of its period setting and use of familiar fairy tale as inspiration serves to make it accessible—though the scenario does lay a trap or two for anyone who is too familiar—but not necessarily easy to use in a campaign or setting. That said, the scenario is relatively easy to adapt to a Game Master’s campaign or setting of her choosing.

Miskatonic Monday #32: We Are All Savages

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was a Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: We Are All Savages: A Colonial Scenario for Call of Cthulhu, 7th Edition

Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: William Adcock

Setting: The French and Indian War

Product: Scenario
What You Get: 29.01 MB thirty seven-page, full colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Survival Horror in the Snow. 
Plot Hook: Snow, Scurvy, Starvation, and Worse at the far of the British Empire.
Plot Development: Missing supplies, blood on the snow, the worst winter, and a terrible confrontation.
Plot Support: Floorplans of Fort Niagra, six pre-generated characters, six illustrations, musket stats.

Pros
# One-two session one-shot
# Unique historical location
# Strong use of weather and location
# Strongly plotted
# Potential convention scenario
# Technology presents its own challenges
# Six solid pre-generated characters
# Potential Colonial Gothic one-shot

Cons

# Tightly plotted
# Unfamiliar setting to non-Americans
# Not suitable for the new Keeper
# Works best with six players
# Limited options for the players
# Military scenario

Conclusion
# Strong use of weather and location
# Military scenario in an unfamiliar period and setting
# Potential one-session one-shot convention scenario

Seeking an RPG

The year is 1765. King George III is mad. In France, hunters not only tracked down and discovered the Beast of Gevaudan, but found the region infested with pagan cults. Both London and Paris have walled off great sections of their cities into which are quarantined all those found to be suffering from the Plague. This plague, is not one of buboes and fever—though the authorities would say it is and would even go as far as to put the city of London to the torch in 1666, but of madness, madness which is exacerbated by the monthly rise of the Blood Moon that has cast its baleful light upon the world for centuries. Whilst there is madness within the cities, there are horrors outside it that drive the peasants into worshipping them or fleeing into the towns and cities. All this has arisen since the Templars broke into the tomb of Abd al Hazred under the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem in 1136—against the Akhua Brotherhood, a religious sect dedicated to protecting the tomb—and took the only copy of his dread work, the Al Azif, so allowing true knowledge of the universe into the world, and perhaps something worse... In the centuries since, the Akhua Brotherhood has slipped into the shadows, funding both scientific research across Europe and a front, a semi-secret organisation with halls in London, Paris, Berlin, the Colonies, and elsewhere, dedicated to hunting down and destroying the monsters that have arisen under the Blood Red Moon and from the Plague. This organisation is known as the League of Seekers.

This is the set-up for a British roleplaying game of Lovecraftian investigative horror and action in which the player characters are members of the League of Seekers or Seekers. They are members of the peasantry, the middle classes, and gentry who answer the call in their very blood to join. Some of the middle classes may actually be members of the Akhua Brotherhood, whilst some of the gentry are actually Vampyrs. Characters are defined by nine attributes—Arcane, Conflict, Eloquence, Fitness, Investigate, Learned, Mind, Occult, and Subterfuge—each of which is associated with five percentile skills. 

To create a character, a player rolls for his (social) Class. This determines his base Attribute values and what skill values can be assigned as well the life path the character will follow during creation. The Lifepath determines their birthplace, upbringing, and early career, which give further adjustments to the character’s attributes and skills. Every character is randomly assigned the start of a tale which describes their encounter with the horrors of the world which his player must finish and the player also gets to choose a statement which grants the player character a bonus under certain circumstances. For example, ‘I am likeable’, which grants a +10% bonus when the character attempts to convince or charm someone. A character also receives an Awakening Power as a result of his Tale of Horror, and lastly receives some equipment from the League of Seekers, including a special gift, such as a Tincture of Healing or the Lamp of Guiding Light.

Standard character generation is straightforward enough. Creating a character who is a member of the Akhua Brotherhood is more complex and includes a player choosing between four sects: Bahith—keepers of knowledge, Hamia—protectors of sacred sites and warriors, Masernam—Sleepwalkers who guard the realms of dream and spirit, and Al-Hashishan—the secret of assassins. The creation of Vampyrs is similarly complex with attributes, skills, powers, weaknesses, and so on, all depending upon what generation the Vampyr is.

Name: Guillaume Martin
Birthplace: Village Upbringing: Basic Living
Background Career: Hunter
Class: Peasant Age: 24 Gender: Male
My Tale: I had hunted wolves before, but none as big as this… [As it cut down my fellow hunters I stood in fear, yet it did not notice me. Knowing that it would strike at nearby villages, I fled to find help.]
Your Statement: I am one with nature (+10% to tasks in the fields or forest)
Experience Dice: d4

Arcane
Alchemy 00%, Lore 00%, Magick 00%, Ritual 00%, Sigil 00%

Fitness 4
Acrobatics 00%, Athletics 20%, Resistance 10%, Toughness 30%, Travel 20%

Mind 2
Cunning 20%, Dream 00%, Logic 00%, Memory 10%, Willpower 30%

Conflict 5
Explosives 00%, Melee 00%, Ranged 50%, Thrown 00%, Unarmed 00%

Investigate 3
Detect 10%, Notice 40%, Research 00%, Search 20%, Track 60%

Occult 2
Cults 00%, Demonology 00%, Divination 00%, Folk Tales 00%, Xenology 00%

Eloquence 4
Commerce 10%, Deceive 00%, Diplomacy 00%, Etiquette 00%, Languages 00%

Learned 2
Academia 00%, History 00%, Medical 00%, Mythology 05%, Theology 05%

Subterfuge 4
Disguise 00%, Forgery 00%, Stealth 50%, Steal 00%, Tinker 00%

Insanity 12 Insight 0 Reason 3
Dark Knowledge 04% 
Wounds 12 Injury 3
Damage Bonus: d6

Talents: Bruiser
Traits: Invisible
Awakened Powers: Blend Focus: 40%

Equipment: Hunter’s Carbine, Repeating Crossbow, Blade of St. Bartol, Seeker’s Raiments, three sedatives, bedroll, satchel, flint & steel, rope, lantern, £5

One issue with character generation is that eighty percent of the player characters are likely to be peasants, and that does limit what character types a campaign may end up with. It also limits access to certain skills. Much of this is understandable, given the social constraints of the time, but for example, any character with an interest in the skills which fall under the Occult attribute will really need to be of the middle classes or the gentry to pursue them. So it is not possible to play a witch-type or wise woman-type character with any ease. Another is that the rules do not tell you if the base skill points are assigned to the five skills under each attribute or spread between the various skills.

The roleplaying game includes an extensive equipment list with a particular emphasis on the esoteric. For example, both armour and weapons can be embossed with Runes, such as Aegishhjalmur: Protection, which increases the armour value of any armour won by one, or Iibead: Banish, which when etched into a blade or bolt will banish the magical effects protecting a target and inflict extra damage on magical beings. There are several specialised weapons too. They include the chain sword, used either as a sword or a whip, the Leyden mine which unleashes a blast of stunning electricity, and the Hunters Carbine, which can fire solid slugs and hold seven rounds. None of these are illustrated and in the case of the latter, no explanation of how they work is given.

Mechanically, the roleplaying game uses a percentile system. Rolls under a skill value count as a success, difficult challenges halving the skill and hard challenges quartering it. Gear bonuses can improve a skill. A Roll under the associated attribute of a skill count as a critical and rolls of 99% or higher as fumbles. So for Guillame, a roll of six or less when his player rolls against any Investigative skill counts as a success. A critical grants a bonus to a subsequent skill check, a true answer to a relevant question asked of the Game Master, extra information, or a Blessing. A fumble means that the character has triggered a trap or alarm, learned false information, suffers a penalty a subsequent skill check, or loses a Blessing. A Blessing is a simple, randomly determined percentage value that can be used as a bonus to a roll, a penalty on an opponent’s roll, change an outcome, and have a Vision Quest (if the character has the talent). Alternatively, a Blessing can be used to flip a roll, re-roll a roll, or passed to another character. Rolling a critical or a fumble also enables a player to roll his character’s Experience die and add the result to the skill the critical was rolled on. This happens as soon as the critical is rolled. 

Combat allows for differences in the weight of the melee weapons in blocking damage, for achieving dominance over opponents by surprise, weapon length, opponent fumbles, mobbing them, or pinning them against a wall, and critical rolls. Dominance grants an extra attack, double damage, disarms an opponent, pins them, and so on, depending on the circumstances. Every player character has the same maximum number of Wounds—twelve. The more Wounds he suffers, the greater the penalty he suffers on all of his actions, until he has taken his twelfth Wound and dies. Whenever damage suffered exceeds a player character’s Injury level, he suffers a wound. So for Guillame, any roll of four or more for damage which thus exceeds his Injury level inflicts a Wound. Since even cudgels and daggers inflict one to six points of damage, the chances of a player character receiving a Wound in combat is fairly high. When Wounds are healed, the more Wounds a character has suffered the harder it is to heal them. 

Similarly, all characters have a maximum Insanity total of twelve. Whenever a character encounters a situation or a creature which would cause fear, the Game Master rolls the Insanity factor for that situation or creature. This will be either a six-, eight-, or ten-sided die, depending upon the Fear Level of the situation or creature, with the ten-sided die reserved for those rare encounters with cosmic gods. If the roll exceeds a character’s Reason value, then he gains a point of Insanity. Where Wounds impose a penalty upon a character’s actions, greater Insanity will inflict paranoia, paranoid delusions, aggressive paranoia, and finally catatonia on a character. In addition, such encounters can inflict Dark Knowledge. For example, Guillaume encounters a Werewolf, for which the Fear Level is two. The Game Master rolls an eight-sided die for the Insanity factor and gets five, higher than Guillaume’s Reason, so he gains a point of Insanity. The Game Master also has to roll a four-sided die for the potential Dark Knowledge gain, in this being two points.

For every ten points of Dark Knowledge a character possesses, he gains a point of Insight and each point of Insight reduces his Reason. This not only reduces his capacity to withstand fear, but it inflicts certain symptoms on him. For example, hearing whispers or the sound of a distant flute, being able to see a red aura around the infected, or gaining a greater understanding of the language of the Elder Gods. Some of these ongoing effects inflict Insanity themselves. Insight can be reduced by a character defeating cosmic horrors, destroying cults, eradicating the plague and its effects, even entering an asylum, whilst Insanity can be reduced by using sedatives or entering an asylum. Insight though, can be put to positive use, such as seeing the Hidden or even mentally reconstructing a scene or ritual, though such a reconstruction increases a character’s Insight.

The Mysteries in this roleplaying game cover alchemy, divination, and tomes—both occult and Mythos, as well as three schools of magic—arcane, ritual, and talismanic. They all have their spell lists with individual spells being drawn from particular tomes and most inflicting further Dark Knowledge on the caster. The section on magic feels all too brief in comparison to the roleplaying game’s ‘Atlas’, which details the range of areas where the League of Seekers operate. This includes Europe, with particular attention paid to London and Paris with their walled-off Quarantine zones, the Colonies of North America, and even out into the Dreamlands. Unfortunately, not all of this is very interesting, or even gameable. The London and Paris sections are serviceable, although both could have done with actual threats to the League of Seekers rather than just allies, but the description of the North American colonies is nothing more than a stodgy wodge of early colonial history. By comparison, the section on the Dreamlands is well written and gameable, though likely to be the most familiar section to players of other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror. It is a pity that one of the most gameable sections in the roleplaying game describes a region that the player characters are least likely to visit.

It is not until over two hundred pages into this roleplaying game that it actually tells the reader what it is about, what the Akhua Brotherhood and the League of Seekers are and what they do. Even then, they are barely given half a page each, which is inarguably inadequate given that both are the organisations which the player characters belong to. Several enemy cults are also described, often given more information in the form of notable members than that given to either Akhua Brotherhood or the League of Seekers. In terms of monsters, the roleplaying game gives several types, being either folk tale creatures like Baba Yaga or the Beast of Gévaudan, cosmic horror entities like Byakhee or Deep Ones, or threats like the Infected. The latter have been infected by the Blood Plague—also known as the Blood Rage—and as the Blood Moon rises, their bestial, aggressive urges manifest, a threat to good society. Wiping out the scourge of the Infected is the League of Seeker’s primary task.

Lastly, the roleplaying game includes a scenario, ‘Beast of Dunwich’. This is not set in the blighted town of Lovecraft Country, but the sea sodden, wave wrenched town in Suffolk. Following a rash of deaths in the town, the League of Seekers sends the characters to investigate. The journey is not without incident, but the mystery itself in the town will take relatively little effort to uncover and probably end in a confrontation or two. The scenario can probably be played in a single session.

Physically, this roleplaying game is neat and tidy, with some reasonable if oppressive artwork and solid cartography. Unfortunately it lacks an index, but that is not the very least of its problems. Similarly, the lack of editing—the roleplaying game genuinely reads like raw text—is also the very least of its problems. 

To identify what those problems are, it is necessary to explain what this roleplaying game wants to be and that is Brotherhood of the Wolf meets the Mythos, the Age of Enlightenment fights evil. Which is a laudable aim and puts it into the same niche as other roleplaying games such as Paradigm Concepts’ Hunter: The Invisible World and Cakebread & Walton’s Dark Streets, but unfortunately is not in the same league as either. From the outset, it is clear what both of those are about and what the player characters are supposed to be doing. Not so this roleplaying game, for at no time does the author ever give an elevator pitch for the roleplaying game—there is no ‘Brotherhood of the Wolf meets the Mythos’ or the ‘Age of Enlightenment fights’ evil—anywhere in the roleplaying game. Not on the back cover blurb, not in the introduction, not anywhere… Even the descriptions of the Akhu Brotherhood and the League of Seekers deep into the book do not feel adequate to the task. Indeed, the very summary at the top of this review was not so much written as assembled from bits and pieces throughout the roleplaying game. Essentially, the author completely fails to sell the roleplaying game on its own merits. There is no cool incentive for the prospective Game Master to buy this roleplaying game or the prospective player to want to play it.

Then there is the roleplaying game’s lack of development. There is a fair amount of background here—certainly in terms of geography—but it either lacks much of the context to be playable or simply reads like a history lesson. Turning this into something gameable would take an unnecessary effort upon the part of the Game Master. It also feels as if the roleplaying game over-eggs its pudding in terms of its horror, almost as if there is too much for the Game Master to choose from, whether it is the Cosmic Horror of the Mythos, the Folktale horror of werewolves and the like, or the threats of the Infected. Arguably, this roleplaying game could have lost the Cosmic Horror aspect and it would have still worked, the Infected under the Blood Moon and the Folktale horrors not only being enough of a threat, but also elements strong to carry the roleplaying game by itself and give it the hook that the author unfortunately fails to do.

Ultimately, this is a roleplaying game which fails to fulfill the author’s ambitions. This is a roleplaying game which needed the input of more than the author, primarily in terms of asking questions and developing gameable content and what the player characters are meant to be doing. It feels too much like a ‘homebrew’ roleplaying game pushed towards a level of professionalism that it is simply not ready for. Yet there is a kernel of something here, and perhaps in the hands of a good and patient Game Master, there is a playable game to be drawn from its pages—if that Game Master is looking for a ‘fixer-upper’. Unfortunately, getting to that roleplaying game and making into something playable would be a challenge for anyone but the designer. 

Up until this point, this review has not mentioned the name of the roleplaying game nor its publisher. The name the of publisher is Feral Gamers, Inc. and the roleplaying game is League of Seekers. 

Hacking Convicts & Cthulhu

The Cthulhu Hack – Convicts & Cthulhu combines two of the more interesting titles to come out for roleplaying Lovecraftian investigative horror. The first is of course The Cthulhu Hack, the elegant, stripped back player-facing roleplaying game based on The Black Hack. The second is Convicts & Cthulhu: Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying in the Penal Colonies of 18th Century Australia which presented a new society and new horrors against a backdrop of isolation and corruption in a convict colony. The Cthulhu Hack – Convicts & Cthulhu brings the two together, providing an introduction to the setting of Great Britain’s first steps on the far continent and supporting them with the light mechanics of The Black Hack.

Published by Just Crunch Games, The Cthulhu Hack – Convicts & Cthulhu layers the background elements over the mechanics of The Cthulhu Hack. So it uses the same five Classes as The Cthulhu Hack—Adventurer, Bruiser, Philanthropist, Ruffian, and Scholar. Then a player selects from a Role, essentially what the Investigator does in the New South Wales penal colony, the options being Convict, New South Wales Corps officer, Free Settler, or Government Official. This determines starting equipment. Each Investigator also needs an Occupation, whatever he did before coming to Australia and if a Convict, an Offence, whatever it was that got him transported. There are more social benefits to these background details, but there are likely to be circumstances where the Keeper will award an Investigator an Advantage or Disadvantage die, depending upon the circumstances.

Our sample Convict is Henry Bacon, a big man capable of handing out a battering. Greed and a fondness of gin got him involved in crime and he became a fearsome gang member. He did kill a man, a rival gang member, but witnesses all swore that he was provoked and that it was self-defense, so Bacon did not go to the scaffold. He was sentenced to transportation for life instead.

Henry Bacon
First Level Bruiser
Role: Convict
Crime: Murder
Occupation: Bricklayer
STR 16 DEX 13 CON 11
INT 13 WIS 11 CHA 09

Hit Points: 12
Sanity Die: d8
Attack Damage: 1d8/1d6 (Unarmed/Improvising)
Lamplight/Rum: d4/d4
Gear
Uniform, bandana, six letters from home, shiv, empty flask

Mechanically, The Cthulhu Hack – Convicts & Cthulhu makes three changes. The first is to have all attributes rolled on 2D6+4 rather than three six-sided dice. This is reflect the harsher life and conditions in the colony. The other is to change the names of the Flashlights and Smokes—the first the resource used to discover clues, the second the resource used to purchase things or bribe people—to Lamplight and Rum. The reason for the change from Flashlights to Lamplight is obvious, but that of Smokes to Rum less so. The change is because Rum was a unit of currency in the early years of the colony.

The third change is to add rules for Shock. This gives an alternative effect to failing a roll of the Sanity Die, a short, sharp shock lasting a moment or a few rounds while an Investigator suffers the shakes, dives into cover, faints, screams, and so on. This allows the players to better handle their Investigators’ Sanity Dice as a resource, so that they are not depleted too early on in a scenario.

What The Cthulhu Hack – Convicts & Cthulhu does not do is provide the means to create Aboriginal Investigators as does Convicts & Cthulhu: Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying in the Penal Colonies of 18th Century Australia. The author explains that this is because this would add further tension to a playing group in an already tense situation. Guidelines are given for equipment in the colony, for blackpowder weapons and indigenous weapons—the latter surprising given the lack of Aboriginal Investigators. Also listed are possible written sources of information that might be sources of written information for the Investigators and a number of Mythos entities indigenous to Australia to supplement those given in The Cthulhu Hack. This is accompanied by a short discussion of the Mythos down under. 

Rounding out The Cthulhu Hack – Convicts & Cthulhu is ‘Longships and Short Fuses’, an adventure outline set at mine where the treatment of the convicts has led to its superintendent being recalled to Sydney. After he has left, a tunnel collapses in the mine revealing a centuries old burial containing a Viking longship. Three options are given as what is going on at the mining site and these are decent enough. It is just that encountering an entombed Viking longship on the coast of Australia of all places, is more than likely to stretch the credulity of the players, let alone the fact that they will have to portray their Investigators not necessarily knowing all that much, if anything at all, about the Vikings. 

Physically, The Cthulhu Hack – Convicts & Cthulhu is reasonably laid out and lightly illustrated. As written, The Cthulhu Hack – Convicts & Cthulhu is just about serviceable as an introduction to the setting of Convicts & Cthulhu: Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying in the Penal Colonies of 18th Century Australia, but no more and no less. If there is an issue with the supplement, it could have better highlighted the corruption rampant in the colony during the period of this setting. Arguably Convicts & Cthulhu: Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying in the Penal Colonies of 18th Century Australia overemphasised it just a little too much, but The Cthulhu Hack – Convicts & Cthulhu does not emphasis it enough. If there is a second issue with the supplement, it is the nature of the scenario, which is faintly ridiculous.

Ultimately, to get the most out of The Cthulhu Hack – Convicts & Cthulhu, the Keeper will need the fuller information and background to the setting found in Convicts & Cthulhu: Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying in the Penal Colonies of 18th Century Australia. Thus The Cthulhu Hack – Convicts & Cthulhu provides a serviceable method to run the Convicts & Cthulhu setting using The Cthulhu Hack rules.

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Just Crunch Games will have a stand at UK Games Expo, which will take place between June 2nd and June 4th, 2017 at Birmingham NEC. This is the world’s fourth largest gaming convention and the biggest in the United Kingdom.

New Colonial Cthulhu

For Call of Cthulhu, the continent of Australia is best known through the supplement, Terror Australis; in full form, the campaign, The Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep; and by extension, the Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion. The focus of these three books is firmly upon the RPG’s default period, that is, the Jazz Age of the 1920s. This though is to ignore the centuries of history since coming of Europeans in the late eighteenth century and the millennia of history before the coming Europeans when the only inhabitants of the continent were the Aborigines. Thankfully, in 2016’s most unexpected release for 2016, Australian small press publisher, Cthulhu Reborn, sets out to address this lack with a supplement devoted to a period famliar that will be familiar to many an Australian, but little known beyond the shores of the continent.


As its title suggests, Convicts & Cthulhu: Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying in the Penal Colonies of 18th Century Australia, explores the presence of the Mythos and presents roleplaying opportunities in the very early days of Australia’s colonial history. When it was not a colony in a traditional sense, but a penal colony, a gaol on the other side of the world where the dregs of the United Kingdom’s society could be transported to work out their sentence. When it was not yet officially Australia, but simply New South Wales. When it was not yet quite self-sufficient, but reliant upon the meagre support—other than in terms of fresh convicts and the labour that they can provide—from the mother country. The broad focus for Convicts & Cthulhu is during the decade or two after European settlement, roughly 1795 to 1810, and more closely on the events leading up to, during, and after the Rum Rebellion of 1808. The supplement casts the player characters—who will go to become investigators—as convicts, as government officials, as members of the New South Wales Corps, and even as free settlers come to start afresh. Theirs is a rough and ready land and society, effectively under military rule and justice, but one that is rife with corruption and graft, for many men of the NSW Corps are the worst soldiers that England can send, some no worse than the convicts they guard. Even when London becomes aware of the corruption, it appoints the least suitable man to solve the problem—Captain William Bligh of the infamous Mutiny on the Bounty, no less!

Convicts & Cthulhu goes into some depth about the early years of the New South Wales colony. This includes its history, daily life, trade, relations with the Aborigines—both as bad as and better than you would expect, as well as presenting a gazetteer of the principal places in the colony. These are Sydney and Parramatta plus places in between and come with maps of the major settlements and descriptions of notable NPCs (though not stats), such as Captain William Bligh and John Macarthur, the NSW Corps officer and entrepreneur who would foment the Rum Rebellion against Bligh. Also described are various Aboriginal settlements as well as Van Diemen’s Land (modern Tasmania) and Norfolk Island, a place of secondary punishment, essentially the penal colony’s penal colony.

In terms of what roles the players can take, Convicts & Cthulhu divides its character templates into three categories. These are Indigenous Occupations, Convict Occupations, and Free Occupations. They include Hunter/Gatherer, Clever-Man/Woman, and Indigenous Convict/Labourer for the first; Career Criminal, Fallen Clergyman, and Political Agitator for the second; and Farmer/Settler, NSW Corps Officer, and Publican (Bar Owner) for the third—amongst others. Each makes use of the adjusted skills list particular to the setting. This adds various Aboriginal skills like Alcheringa Dream Lore, Dream Song, and Lore (Aboriginal), replaces Psychology with Insight from Cthulhu Invictus and Cthulhu: Dark Ages, adds the Religion skill, and gives reduced starting percentages for skills such as Language (Own) and Swim. It does make use of the Credit Rating skill as per Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition, noting that barter predominates in the colony and that a convict’s Credit Rating will vary according to whether or not he is still serving his sentence or been given a pardon, and so on. A notable addition are the rules from the recently released Pulp Cthulhu for the effects being drunk. This is not surprising given the amount of alcohol consumed in eighteenth century English society and the fact that the primary currency during the period that is the main focus for Convicts & Cthulhu is rum.

What Convicts & Cthulhu does not do is add much in the way of the Mythos. There are new cults, such as the Sharks-Tooth Cult, the Industrious Brothers of the New World—perhaps an offshoot of the Brotherhood of the Beast and New World Industries?, the Outcast Dreamers, and so on. These are really thumbnail descriptions left for the Keeper to develop and in fact, the Heralds of the Silver Dawn, which appears in the supplement’s scenario, is better developed. Some indigenous horrors are also described, but not given stats for. An experienced Keeper will probably be able to devise some stats from the descriptions alone, but for the less experienced Keeper, this may be an issue, at least until the supplement, Secrets of Australia is released. That said, the lack of availability of Secrets of Australia as of 2016 also presents problems that bear returning to… Nevertheless, the given presence of the Mythos in Convicts & Cthulhu feels about right. It is not overdone and there is no sense that entities or agents of the Mythos are running wild. The fact that the colony is rough and ready, grasps desperately in places at the veneer of civilisation, and is surrounded on all sides by the great unknown and the alien, means that when either is at work, there are layers upon layers that it can hide behind.

The bulk of ‘Mythos Tales’ presents the scenario, ‘Un-Fresh Off The Boat’. With a title echoing that of the ‘Fresh Off the Boat’ scenario and campaign starter for Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne, this introductory affair brings the player characters—they are not yet investigators—to New South Wales. They have come as convicts sentenced to transportation, new recruits to the New South Wales Corps, recently appointed government officials, or even settlers looking to make a new start, but after a long, tiring voyage, they find themselves quarantined aboard ships whose crew and passengers are beset by a horridly pustulent disease. Fortunately, they have not contracted this malady themselves, so this means that they are best suited to go ashore surreptitiously to track another passenger who jumped overboard and fled ashore.

Designed to be run in a single session, ‘Un-Fresh Off The Boat’ is a relatively straightforward investigation that touches upon various aspects of the Convicts & Cthulhu setting—the social order of convicts versus gaolers, the rough nature of colonial justice, the uncouth nature of society, and so on. It is primarily a social and interactive affair, although it does come to a bloody, violent climax, one that any convicts who number amongst the investigators will find to be a tough challenge. It is a good starting scenario, setting the investigators up for their life to come in the new world and hinting at some of the dark secrets. It is followed by six scenario seeds, each with options as to the source of the threats they each present, all of which are nicely detailed. Rounding out Convicts & Cthulhu is a good bibliography, some sample NPC stats, and a Convicts & Cthulhu Investigator Sheet.

Physically, Convicts & Cthulhu feels a bit tightly produced, but that is down to the printing process rather than anything else. Otherwise , it is cleanly presented. It is profusely illustrated with a mix of publically available artwork and maps, plus some excellent new maps and new artwork, the latter being rather good. It does need another edit and the writing could be clearer and tighter in places.

That there is plenty of detail presented in Convicts & Cthulhu to help the Keeper bring the rough and ready colony alive is undeniable. In places though, the supplement does feel lacking. There is not a great of information on the Aborigines or their culture, on the ‘monsters’ indigenous to the new country whether of the Mythos or not, and there is no background information provided for the various Character Templates. The first two issues are likely to be addressed in the forthcoming Secrets of Australia, but the fact that it is suggested that the Keeper refer to that supplement, does mean that the Convicts & Cthulhu does feel like an adjunct to it. The third issue can probably be addressed with some historical research, but the lack of familiarity with the British Isles of the Georgian period is likely to be an issue for some. One issue that some may have with the supplement and its setting is that it is not particularly kind to women and players may be uncomfortable with the misogyny of the period and especially of the setting.

Convicts & Cthulhu presents a new society—with new social mores and traditions—to work in too and an investigation process that will rely on the physical and the personal means rather than the academic or technical means—the latter two being particularly limited in the penal colony. It comes with a good beginning scenario, ‘Un-Fresh Off The Boat’, which is begging for a sequel, even a campaign, though more scenarios would also be appreciated. The supplement itself could even be expanded with more information and more scenarios. (Cthulhu Reborn has already begun addressing this issue with the Tickets to Leave series, each a small supplement that addresses particular aspects of the setting.) Above all Convicts & Cthulhu presents a new period of history and a new setting to explore in Call of Cthulhu, one that is not only accessible and richly detailed, but also feels refreshing and different to periods and settings previously explored by the RPG. Currently available as a Pay What You Want supplement, Convicts & Cthulhu: Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying in the Penal Colonies of 18th Century Australia is bargain that deserves both your time and more support.