[Free RPG Day 2023] Animal Adventures: Apocalypse Miaow

Now in its sixteenth year, Free RPG Day for 2023 took place on Saturday, June 24th. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Fil Baldowski at All Rolled Up, and others, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

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Animal Adventures: Apocalypse Miaow is the release from Steamforged Games Ltd for Free RPG Day 2023. It is a scenario and preview of Animal Adventures: The Faraway Sea, the new expansion to the publisher’s Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove, the cats and dogs anthropomorphic campaign and setting for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Where Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove takes place in and around an English style port, Animal Adventures: The Faraway Sea moves the action and story to sea where the Player Characters, based in the floating city of Flotsam, set sail to explore the nearby islands that shift in and out of a magical vortex which lies a few miles travel from the Flotsam. Designed for group of three to six awakened animal Player Characters of Second and Third Levels, it is a short, intriguing affair combining action and mystery that can be played in a single session or so...

Animal Adventures: Apocalypse Miaow lets the Player Characters ‘Journey to the Heart of Barkness’* on the trail of Sadie the Corgi, an explorer of legendary repute, who led an expedition to explore the recently appeared Spine Fish Island. Unfortunately, only a few of her companions have returned, battered and bruised, with strange tales of ‘Clawptain Katz’ and the ‘spine fish’. Brave adventurers—in this case the Player Characters—are wanted to sail out to the island to discover what has happened to Sadie, and hopefully rescue her.

* Publisher’s pun, not mine.

The Player Characters do have the opportunity to prepare for the voyage, both by taking some expert advice about Spine Fish Island and asking the survivors of the expedition led by Sadie the Corgi. Armed with this, the voyage itself is easy and the seas are calm. The Player Characters’ trouble begin when they reach the island, which turns out to be mostly desert, but there is a river running through it, which is only accessible by trekking overland. The initial problem is the welcoming committee, a bunch of poorly armed cats who shout at the Player Characters to leave the island, but are otherwise not aggressive. Which seems odd given that both they and Clawptain Katz want the Player Characters to leave the island. Whether the Player Characters decide to attack or negotiate, the defending cats quickly reveal their true character and turn tail, almost apologetically, as if they have no fight in them. This encounter is staged on the map included in the centre of Animal Adventures: Apocalypse Miaow.

With the knowledge gained from the cats and likely a clearer explanation of what is going on, the Player Characters can make their way to the encampment of Clawptain Katz and there confront him. This requires them to cross a short stretch of the desert and then travel along the river, on which they will have to protect their boat from the predating Spine Fish. At Clawptain Katz’s encampment, it is quickly clear that he is holding Sadie the Corgi prisoner—but not so that she is unable to shout a few hints—and that Clawptain Katz seems to have the rest of the cats held under his rather selfish and autocratic sway. Has he turned dictator whilst he has been on the island, or is there another explanation?

Animal Adventures: Apocalypse Miaow is a likeable affair. It is more about the investigation and the interaction than the fight necessarily as the confrontation when the Player Characters land on the island might not result in a fight. Overall, it showcases some of basic details to Animal Adventures: The Faraway Sea and provides a good solid, session’s worth of play.

Cats & Dogs & Adventure

Standing astride the Twin Throats, the rivers known as the Malkin and the Mastin, the port town of Gullet Cove is a haven for many. With its busy harbour and its markets popular far and wide, it is a haven for thieves. With its lax attitude to mooring fees and often distracted town watch, it is a haven for pirates. With one of its founding members—the town was founded a little over three hundred years ago—being an awakened animal, though whether that awakened animal was cat or dog, none can say, the town is haven for Awakened Animals. The Thieves Guild, including the Cradle, the elite feline thieves guild within its membership, does not run the town, but it does regulate crime and criminal activities, and its influence upon the town council is undeniable. Pirates do sail from Gullet Cove and the town is a home to many others, including at The Home for Retired Pirates, Buccaneers, Swashbucklers, and Other Practitioners of Derring-do, perhaps the best ship a retired pirate could ever have on land. Whether they run on two legs or four, Awakened Animals are not only welcomed in Gullet Cove, but part of everyday life, alongside the town’s Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and others. The Order of the Golden Collar, dedicated to protecting all Awakened Animals, is a major presence in the town, whilst their particular faiths, such as the Good Mother, known to all dogs, and Urbaste, Tom o’th’Alley, the Old Striped One, and the Shadow Mover, the pantheon of the cats, all a church or other presence in the town. The Thieves Guild is not the only guild in town. The others include the Guild of Seafarers, the Guild of Adventurers and Associated Heroes (which even has its own training ground which simulates dungeon rooms), the Guild of Wizards, Ingenious Sorcerers, and Practitioners of Eldritch Ritual (or WISPER) which has a library in the town, and the Goldsmiths. Together they dominate Gullet Cove and its town council. Membership of a guild in Gullet Cove grants a degree of protection and access to guild marks, the currency used between the guilds and sometimes as bribes to those outside the guilds. This is the setting for Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove.

Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove is an anthropomorphic campaign and setting for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Published by Steamforged Games Ltd following a successful Kickstarter campaign, this is the first campaign setting for the publisher’s range of cat and dog adventurer miniatures—the Dungeons & Doggies and Cats & Catacombs series—and previously visited in Adventures RPG Starter Set: A spellbinding roleplaying game for beginners . The supplement includes full rules for creating canine and feline Player Characters, a complete setting in Gullet Cove, a bestiary, and a five-part mini-campaign, and it packages all of this with an array of fantastic artwork.

After a very short introduction, Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove begins with a toolkit of new Race and Class features for cats and dogs. A Dog has increased Charisma, Keen Senses, a bite attack, and another attribute increase due to size. A further ability comes from a Dog’s Breed or subrace, such as Assistance Dog, Digger, Guard Dog, and so on. All Dogs have the Awakened Dog Background and like all Player Characters in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, an Awakened Dog has a Personality Trait, Ideal, Bond, and Flaw. Instead of introducing new character Classes, Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove gives the canine versions of the thirteen in the Player’s Handbook and the extra doggy abilities that an Awakened Dog gains. Then the supplement does exactly the same for Awakened Cats. They have greater Dexterity, Darkvision, both claws and teeth, and again, another attribute increase due to size. An Awakened Cat also access to the Welcoming Dark, which allows the Cat to slip in and out of sight, and is literally another place where the Awakened Cat can take the equivalent of a Long Rest. It is not without its dangers though and is not always as welcoming as it should be… Notable amongst this toolkit is the fact that the Breed Ability is not necessarily tied to canine species, and all of these options provide a player with the means to create the canine or feline character of his choice.

Besides details of Awakened Animal religions—Dogs follow just the one god and Cats a pantheon—and a broad explanation of guilds, Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove provides a detailed gazetteer of the town which describes some twenty-six or so locations. This begins with The Sisters, the watchtowers which guard the sea entrance to Gullet Cove; Fang Point, the lighthouse, and the Ruin, its mysterious, possibly haunted predecessor; and the Smuggler’s Tunnels which run right under the town, a mix of mines, caves, sewers, cellars, and purpose dug tunnels. There is a cat equivalent, the Gutterings, which runs across and through the rooftops of the town. If there is a downside here, it is that these tunnels are not mapped, though that does leave the Dungeon Master to describe them as she wants. All of the town’s major locations are described in some detail as are several NPCs, including Gaius Vandel, the current Port Warden, who though not corrupt as his predecessors, does little each day, but frequent the town’s various taverns and chat; Ysandre the Tielfling pirate captain, supposedly in hiding, but being stalked by something nasty after big raid which made her wealthy, but got many of her crew killed; and Mister Pettifer of Mister Pettifer’s Emporium of Exotic Wonders and Divers’ Objects of Interest, a bespectacled, maroon-coloured smoking jacket-wearing and becapped feline wizard never without a particularly large leatherbound book, who might be a god or an immortal depending upon the speaker. The gazetteer is intended to be read by player and Dungeon Master alike, but there are details in this section that the Dungeon Master might not want her players to read, including a secret or two, and several scenario hooks.

Gullet Cove has the feel and look of a medieval English port. Perhaps on the Cornish coast like Mousehole or Falmouth, or in the north of England, like Whitby in Yorkshire, or Whitehaven in Cumbria. That said, with the horror elements of Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove, Whitby is a good choice. Beyond Gullet Cove, the supplement describes the ‘Isle of Dogs’, a mysterious island off the coast that is not always accessible, whether due to storms or mists, which is said to contain ruins of the Elven city that once stood in the area. The island is left up to the Dungeon Master to develop, including mapping what is there. If the Dungeon Master wants to take her players and their characters away from the urban environment for some wilderness or dungeoneering—notably in the Caves of Wandering—this is a place to do it. Potentially, the ‘Isle of Dogs’ is worthy of a supplement of its own, or at least an adventure or two.

For the Dungeon Master there is an extensive bestiary of the NPCs and monsters to be found in, about, and under Gullet Cove. Several of these are deliciously nasty, such as the Effervescent Ooze, the bubbles of which can release an intoxicating aroma if burst; the Malbatross, a frighteningly undead version of the dread albatross; the Rataclysm, which needs no explanation; and the Skelly Cat and Zombie Cat. For the players, the counterpart to this is the selection of ten ready-to-play Player Characters, all based off the miniatures released by the publisher previously, and all starting at Third Level. Also given is a selection of new magical items. These include the Satchel of Ownership, which cannot successfully be stolen from or The Abyssal Eye, which when peered through highlights all of the traps in the room, though doing so may nauseate and poison the user, and in general, the theme of devices to help or thwart the thief rules though the selection. Alongside these there are several animal magic items, divided between items for cats and dogs. For the cat there is the Collar of Resilience whose bell rings whenever the user is doing a heroic deed as well as providing various benefits and the Wand of Fascination which emits a single point of vermillion light that confuses other creatures! For the dog there is the Everwater Drinking Bowl and Bun-Bun of Soothing, a tattered, stuffed rabbit toy which when chewed or stroked casts Calm Emotions on the user.

The campaign in Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove is divided into five parts. It is supported with some short and simple advice for the Dungeon Master on how to run the campaign in terms of tone, work with the book’s content, mixing the content up, and keeping it fun. This and the advice for building adventures might be a little too short for the neophyte Dungeon Master coming to the supplement as her first campaign. One interesting point of reference here for the author is the Pixar style of film. The Player Characters are expected to experience a range of emotions and situations, some of them dangerous, but that they will prevail, and the author makes this clear, as well as the fact that the players also have to sign up to this heroic style of play. Although there are scary, even horrifying, situations and monsters in Gullet Cove as a setting and campaign, it is not a horrific setting. This combined with the Pixar references points to the intent to make Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove accessible in terms of content and story in a more family friendly fashion. The campaign itself opens with ‘Adventure 1: A Gullet Cove Hello’, which is designed for First Level Player Characters. They arrive in the town and are soon subject to a pickpocket attempt, but as they chase the culprit, the Player Characters discover that this is just a ruse—someone wants to hire them. As outsiders, they can investigate things and situations that certain factions in the town cannot and that includes an unsanctioned burglary! In the course of the adventure, the Player Characters uncover something more going on, which leads into the second adventure, and so on and so on. There is a fun switch around in the campaign and a terrible pun—as in ‘Assault on Pawcinct 13’—or two, and ultimately revelations as to one or two of Gullet Cove’s darker secrets and even darker plots being made against the town. The campaign is not too difficult to run and it is accompanied by sidebars of advice throughout. If it is lacking in anything, it is maps of the various locations.

Lastly, Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove comes with a pack of its own maps, done in full colour and designed to be used with the publisher’s Dungeons & Doggies and Cats & Catacombs series of miniatures. However, it is not clear if particular locations in the campaign make use of these maps. They include a map of Gullet Cove, as you might expect, but what is notable about this map is that its reverse shows the town at night. This is a nice touch, not only for adventurers who are going to be out at night, but especially for Rogue Player Characters!

Physically, Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove is a superb looking book. Although the artwork is replicated in places, it is very good, some of it suitably scary, much of it actually joyous. The book is decently written, but annoyingly, does lack an index. It does need an edit in places, particularly when it comes to game terminology and game balance with some character and device abilities. The latter is really the only issue with Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove where both setting and theme trump the mechanics. Consequently, the Dungeon Master may need to make some adjustments prior to play or rulings during play.

What strikes you first about Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove is the artwork. This is inviting, in places joyous, in others scary, thus setting the tone for the town of Gullet Cove and its secrets. That tone, combined with the fact that the players are roleplaying cats and dogs makes the setting and campaign suitable for a younger, family audience. That does not mean that an experienced group could not play the campaign and enjoy it, because after all, it is intended to be fun and heroic rather than grim and gritty, and there is no reason why Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove could not work as a lighter option. Although not without its issues, Animal Adventures: Secrets of Gullet Cove is a lovely book which presents its enchanting setting and campaign in an attractive and engaging fashion.

Your First Animal Adventure

Published by Steamforged Games, Animal Adventures is a roleplaying game setting of anthropomorphic cats and dogs adventuring in a magical world a la Dungeons & Dragons. It is designed to be compatible with Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and notably, is supported by the Dungeons & Doggies and Cats & Catacombs line of miniatures. The entryway for the setting and the line is the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set: A spellbinding roleplaying game for beginners. This promises to contain everything that a gaming group needs to play a thrilling roleplaying campaign. However, it does not. Instead, it does contain a single adventure, which is ably supported by simple, easy-to-follow rules, four dog miniatures, cat miniatures, seven Player Character sheets, a double-sided game map, Game Master screen, a set of illustrated tokens, and a set of polyhedral dice.

The Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set is designed for ages thirteen and up, and intended to be played with a Game Master and up to seven players. From the outset, it is impressively presented. Everything is done in vibrant colour—perhaps a little too dark for the maps—and has a pleasing physical presence on the table. The large, double-sided map depicts a forest glade and mansion cellar on the one side, and the upper floors of the mansion on the other. They are marked with squares for use with the miniatures and the tokens also included in the box. The digest-sized Rulebook and Adventure booklet is brighter and breezier than the maps, its artwork tending towards the cute rather than the darker tones of the map. The three-panel digest-sized Game Master screen is likewise lighter on the Game Master’s side and lists in turn the roleplaying game’s combat rules, tables, monster stats, and spells and abilities of the Player Characters, all for easy reference. The thirty full-colour tokens are done on sturdy cardboard and are easy to read. The Player Character sheets are also double-sided and are clean, tidy, and again easy to read. Stats, equipment, attacks, and equipment are given on the front with a portrait of the animal, with special abilities on the back, whether that is spells or Class features. All of this fits atop a plastic tray with its own lid, the tray having space for the dice and the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set’s miniatures. The dice are decent, with the two twenty-sided dice marked with the paw symbol where their twenty would be.

The miniatures are for the seven pre-generated Player Characters found in the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set. They include Chantilly, a female Labrador and Fighter; Solan, a male Persian cat and Warlock; Whisper, a female Sphinx cat and Sorcerer; Elvis, a male Cavalier spaniel and Bard; Molly, a female Lyoki and Rogue; Brianna, a female Boxer and Paladin; and Kai, male Shiba Inu and Cleric. The miniatures are nicely detailed and emphasis the fact that the animals and thus the Player Characters in the world of Animal Adventures run on all four legs rather than on two. For example, Chantilly, a female Labrador and Fighter, wields her sword in her mouth rather than her paws!

The Rulebook and Adventure booklet is thirty-two pages long, of which six pages are devoted to the rules. These cover an introduction to and example of roleplaying, explain what the attributes are and how they work, how Advantage and Disadvantage works, and of course, combat. It is not a cursory treatment, but rather stripped down from that found in either the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set or the Player’s Handbook. Anyone familiar with Dungeons & Dragons, or indeed any roleplaying game, will grasp and understand the rules with ease, but anyone with less experience or new to the hobby might have more difficulty. In the general, the rules and adventure lend themselves towards being run by an experienced Game Master for new players. In addition, links are included for fuller versions of the character sheets, so that a Dungeon Master and player more familiar with Dungeons & Dragons could run the adventure in the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set.

The adventure in the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set is ‘The Kurse of Doktor Krankensteen’. It opens with the adventurers on the road to the village of Woofburg where they plan to attend the annual Festival of Furry Friends. Unfortunately, they are ambushed by Goblin ’Nappers who attempt to kidnap them. After the battle, the adventurers discover that a mysterious ‘Dok’ wants cats and dogs, and he wants them for his experiments. Following the trail of the Goblin ’Nappers leads to a sewer pipe that ultimately opens up in the cellar of an abandoned mansion. As the adventurers explore the dilapidated building, they will come across some of the Dok’s experiments and his experiments to be, before finally facing the bad Dok himself!

The adventure is decent enough, with a summary of the setting, the map needed overview, player aim, and enemies to be faced given at the start of each scene. GM tips in the margins also give advice and helpful suggestions throughout. However, the scenario is combat and exploration focused, and as much as the GM tip that throwing the players and their adventurers into the action gets them involved is applicable, it does not leave a lot of room for anything other than action. There is very little investigation and not a lot of roleplaying and a little more of both would have been just as involving and would have showcased the fact that roleplaying games are more than just action.

If the adventure is decent enough and should provide one or two sessions of fun, where both it and the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set come unstuck is in delivering the next step—or that is failing to deliver it. At the end of ‘The Kurse of Doktor Krankensteen’, the author suggests that the Game Master use the rules in the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set, plus other supplements in the Animal Adventures to create a sequel. Unless the Game Master wants to run a variant of ‘The Kurse of Doktor Krankensteen’, it does not have enough content to create a sequel, and also, which Animal Adventures supplement should the Game Master be using? Writing a sequel to Animal Adventures should be a problem if the Game Master has written adventures before, but what if he has not? There is no real advice to help her in ‘The Kurse of Doktor Krankensteen’. It would have been nice if the publisher had made available a sequel on its website, even one using the contents of the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set, so that the life of the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set could have been extended to beyond the one adventure.

One option here would actually be to look at another roleplaying game all together. Still involving dogs and cats, and that is the Pugmire Fantasy Tabletop Roleplaying Game. This is slightly more complex than the Animal Adventures world of the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set, but ‘The Kurse of Doktor Krankensteen’ could easily be run set in the world of Pugmire and the miniatures for the adventure would work in Pugmire too. Plus there is plenty of readily available support for it.

There can be no denying that the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set is a fantastic looking introduction to roleplaying and the hobby. It is one that works for a family audience too and the stripped-down mechanics and rules can also serve as an introduction to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Ultimately though, as attractive as the Animal Adventures RPG Starter Set is, it simply does not follow through on what to do next, and consequently, it feels constrained rather than expansive.