Grudge from the Grave

The Nature of the Beast is a scenario set in an England rent by division and strife during the reign of Charles I. This division is between the Protestantism of the country and the Catholicism of Rome, Paganism and Protestantism, King and Parliament, King and country, weakening the Anima Gentum, the bloodline and the Crown, which ensured that the Crown looked to both the spiritual needs and the physical needs of the country. The Anima Gentum is yet to be broken with the execution of the king in 1649, but the Veil has been weakened by this division, giving access to the beyond, the Shadowlands, and the Demonic Realms, and so allowing mankind to entreat with things beyond our understanding. The Anima Gentum will be broken, England will be upturned, and the land will have no king. In the north of England, as the Scots fume and bridle at the King Charles’ attempt to reform the Presbyterian Church and there is mutterings of civil unrest in the south as the king may actually recall Parliament for the first time in a decade, the weakening of the veil has enabled a terrible revenge to be wrought from beyond the grave. Monsters stalk the land, and though they do not know it, they threaten the reputation of a noble family even as their presence brings about terrible tragedy.

The Nature of the Beast is the first scenario to be published for The End of Kings: Core Rules for 17th Century Adventure, the roleplaying game of magic, monarchy, and division set in the early modern period prior to the English Civil War. Published by MontiDots Creations, best known for publishing horror scenarios such as The Fenworthy Inheritance and scenarios for the Old School Renaissance such as Limbus Infernum. It is a roleplaying game in which weaselly Vagabonds, stout Commoners and Yeomanry, and gracious members of the Nobility, as Cunning Folk or Woodkernes, Clubmen or Soldiers, Priests or Witch Hunters, Warlocks or Outlaws seek adventure and perhaps work to protect the realm from creatures from beyond the Veil and machinations of those men and women who would take advantage of the weakening of the Veil. Notably, it uses the GORE Generic Old-School Role-playing Engine published by Goblinoid Games. This is a percentile system which means that anyone familiar with the Basic Roleplay mechanics will have no difficulty adapting The End of Kings and thus The Nature of the Beast.

The scenario opens with the ‘Adventurists’—as it terms the Player Chaarcters—being hired by Reverend Richard Hinde, the corpulent priest of the village of Cranfold in the north of England. The flocks of sheep kept round the village have been subject to a spate of vicious attacks, the corpses left mutilated and half-eaten. The village is divided as to the nature of the culprit. Although no wolf has been seen in the country for a century, some say that is what it is, but others think it to be something much, much fouler. The priest, though, will confide that he thinks it a thing summoned through the Great Veil, though by whom or to what end, he can only conjecture. He had thought to hire the local hunter, but he has not been seen for days, but there is worse news for the reverend’s employer, the local squire. Lord Perfleet’s eldest daughter has also gone missing. The Adventurists are thus to travel to Cranfold and investigate the activities of the creature before hunting it down and killing it.

These events are of course, all connected, as the Adventurists will discover in the course of their investigations. Initially, it is suggested that this take the form of divination. The scenario gives crystallomancy as being the most effective and suggests that one of the Adventurists be capable of this, whilst another should be a priest with a sanctified silver cross capable of holding twenty Magic Points. The divination will grant them some initial hints, and can be used to gain further insights once the Adventurists arrive in Cranfold and want to examine the surrounding valley. Beyond this, their efforts are hampered by the arrival of the county Intelligencers—members of the inquisition who search for witches and signs of the devil—who have come to Cranfold in order to uncover what they think to be the activities of a witch. Bullies, man and woman, they will be quick to discover the ‘culprit’, denounce her, and condemn her to her fate, all in the name of god and coin in the pocket! The witchfinders are a reprehensible bunch, and are likely to arouse the ire of the Adventurists. This may lead to confrontation, if not between the Adventurists and Intelligencers, then between the Intelligencers and the returned hunter. The issue for the Adventurists is that the Intelligencers have the law on their side and any confrontation will get them into trouble. If he can be found, he knows much more about what has been happening and will point the Adventurists in the right direction, including approaching a caravan of Roma who are due to pass through the village as they regularly do at this time of the year. They will be able to help with advice and more before the Adventurists home in on the source and centre of the horror going on in Cranfold.

The Nature of the Beast is well supported with excellent maps and stats of the various NPCs and monsters. However, it could have been better organised, such as giving the description of the village towards the start of the book rather than in the middle of the adventure. Otherwise, physically, The Nature of the Beast is well presented, decently illustrated, and does come with great maps.

Where The Nature of the Beast is at its weakest is in the overreliance upon crystallomancy and divination as a means for the players and their Adventurists to gain hints and clues. It does not allow for other options and this, combined with the poor organisation means that The Nature of the Beast is not as easy to run as it should be. Here is where it could be better developed to be more flexible and less reliant on magic.

The Nature of the Beast is a solid adventure that combines some familiar elements—attacks on animals, revenge from beyond the grave, fear of witches, folk horror, and so on—with a pervading sense of horror and the unknown, the result feeling very much like a Hammer Horror film. The climax of the scenario does lend itself to cinematic action, so enforcing that feel. Even if the Game Master does not want to run the scenario using The End of Kings: Core Rules for 17th Century Adventure, the plot and set-up of The Nature of the Beast is relatively easy to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition or Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, as both are set during a similar period.

Fantasy Basics

First published in 2006, the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game reaches its fourth edition in 2023. The good news is that the latest edition of the Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying game is not guilty of a strange swerve into MMORPG-style play as was the case when the most famous of roleplaying games reached its fourth edition. Instead, the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition is compatible with each of the previous three editions of the roleplaying game and it is compatible with the rest of Old School Renaissance too. Which means that the Game Master can still use all of the content and supplements previously published for the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game for her game as well as supplements and content released by too many other publishers to mention. What the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition offers is Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying, dungeon-delving adventures, epic magic, and big battles against two hundred and more different monsters, the discovery and wielding of magical items—minor and major, and more. All supported with advice for the Game Master and packaged in a simple, even basic, volume that combines the equivalent of the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and the Dungeon Master’s Guide, all without the need for the Open Game Licence.

The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition is published by The Basic Fantasy Project. It takes its cue from the Dungeons & Dragons of the early nineteen eighties, so is more akin to Basic Dungeons & Dragons than Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. There are differences though, but there is a great deal more that will be very familiar. It is a Class and Level roleplaying game, up to Twentieth Level, rather than a Class and Level and Class as Race and Level roleplaying game. It offers four Races—Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, and Human, and four Classes—Cleric, Fighter, Magic-User, and Thief. Only Elves and Humans can be Magic-Users. Other than that, there are no limits on the choice of Class and Race. The familiarity mean that Dwarves have a minimum Constitution, Darkvision, and know their way around worked stone; Elves have a minimum Intelligence, Darkvision, are immune to the paralyzing attack of ghouls, are less likely to be surprised, and are better at finding secret doors; Halflings have a bonus to ranged attacks and initiative as well as Armour Class when facing large creatures, and are naturally stealthy; and Humans gain a bonus to Experience Points earned. Clerics can wear any armour, must wield blunt weapons, can turn undead, and gain their first spell at Second Level. Fighters can wield any weapon, wear any armour, and are simply better in a fight. Magic-Users begin play knowing the spell Read Magic and another spell of the Game Master’s choice! Thieves cannot wear metal armour, can perform a sneak attack with a melee weapon, and have a range of Thief Abilities such as Open Locks, Remove Traps, Pick Pockets, and more, all rolled on percentile dice.

Mechanically, the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition is mish-mash of different mechanics. Attack rolls and Saving Throws are rolled with a twenty-sided die, the aim being to roll high. Thus, Armour Class is ascending, with just three types of armour in the roleplaying game—leather, chain, and plate, plus shield—and beyond bonuses from either a high Strength or Dexterity, a Player Character’s attack bonus being determined by his Class and Level. A roll of one is always a miss, whereas a roll of twenty is always a success, but there are no rules for critical successes or fumbles. However, Hit Points reduced to zero for both Player Characters and monsters means they are dead. Other tasks are rolled on different dice. Thus, an attempt to open a stuck door is rolled on a six-sided die, but a locked door on a ten-sided die, the aim being to roll low, modified by the Strength bonus. Similarly, all Player Characters have a very low—one-in-six—chance of detecting traps, though the Thief’s Ability supersedes this. Both Surprise and Initiative are rolled on a six-sided die, but low for determining the former and high for the latter. The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition is therefore highly idiosyncratic in its rules and their application, but no more so than many other Dungeons & Dragons-style retroclone and certainly no reason to be surprised given its origins and inspiration. However, this mechanical motley does have repercussions. Fundamentally, it makes the roleplaying game less easy to learn, even arcane by modern standards, because almost every rule is mechanically situational. This is not to say that the roleplaying game is impossible to learn, but it contributes towards the hurdle of doing so.

Conversely, any experience with a retroclone or Dungeons & Dragons, and the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition is easy to pick up and begin playing. The differences between the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition and any other retroclone dot the rules. Most notably, they include the use of ascending Armour Class, but other rules provide clear and easy rules for unarmed combat and brawling and subdual damage. Spellcasting is Vancian for Magic-Users and all spellcasters require a hand free to successfully cast a spell. Clerics pray for their spells, whilst Magic-Users prepare and memorise them from a spellbook, except for Read Magic, which is so ingrained, it does not require the spellbook. Dig into the spells, and there are small differences here and there. For example, Mind Reading replaces ESP, Magic Missile inflicts a six-sided die’s worth of damage rather than a four-sided die’s worth, and so on. Some of the spells are highly detailed, such as Teleport, which is given a description almost a page in length whereas Read Magic runs to just three sentences in length. There are some forty-eight spells for Clerics and some sixty-two spells for Magic-User, from First Level to Sixth Level.

Similarly, the chapter on monsters—which runs to some one hundred pages—contains a mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar. Instead of the Displacer Beast, there is the Deceiver (or Panther-Hydra); the Gelatinous Cube is classified as a Glass Jelly, the Black Pudding as the Black Jelly, and Gray Ooze as the Gray Jelly, and so on; and the Golem entry includes Amber, Bone, and Wood Golem as well as Clay, Flesh, and Iron Golem. New additions include the Ironbane, an armadillo-like creature with hare’s legs and anteater-like snout with a long flicking tongue which transforms iron into rust (this does not replace Rust Monster), the Trollwife is included alongside the Troll as well as the Trollkin, the latter a young Troll, and the Urgoblin is a mutant Hobgoblin capable of regenerating Hit Points!

As you would expect, the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition covers most situations and elements that could come up in a Dungeons & Dragons. Equipment includes everything from arms and armour to land and water transportation and siege engines, traps and secret doors, wilderness travel, retainers and specialists to hire, handling encounters—including combat, and treasure. There is a complete set of tables for generating treasure types and hoards, the best feature of which are the list of effects, such as Courage, Invisibility, Protection, Flames on Command, Locate Objects, and Obsession, which can be applied to any weapons—not necessarily swords, and miscellaneous items. This is alongside the usual range of magic items and even rare items like the Bag of Holding, Boots of Travelling and Leaping, Girdle of Giant Strength, and Rope of Climbing.

For the Game Master, there is advice on various Player Character options in terms of the creation process, learning spells, weapon and armour restrictions, and so on. Added here is guidance on handling one of the most difficult issues in Dungeons & Dragons—wishes. The aim here is game balance versus literal accuracy. A similarly difficult issue, that of Energy Drain, is handled in more mechanical fashion. This is handled as negative levels which inflict a semi-permanent loss of one Hit Die’s worth of Hit Points and a -1 penalty on all rolls, plus spellcasters lose a spell slot. The effect is more granular, though still potentially deadly. Optional rules cover raising the dead, saving throws versus death and poison, ability rolls, awarding Experience Points for treasure, and more. There are rules here too for magical research for the Magic-User Player Character or NPC, and of course, for the Game Master to create both dungeon and wilderness adventures. There is no adventure included in the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition, but the advice is a decent introduction to creating both.

Physically, the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition is cleanly presented. The book is well written and fairly liberally illustrated, much of which appears in the monster chapter. The quality of the artwork varies, some of it is quite scrappy, but some of it is decent.

There are no real issues with the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition, but one potential issue is that the roleplaying game does not work as an introductory roleplaying game as written. The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game is intended to be simple enough for the younger player to play, and that is true, although with the supervision of older or adult players. The roleplaying game is written for the latter rather than the former, for example, there being no example of play, though there is fiction at the start and a decent explanation of what a roleplaying game is, plus there is an example of character generation. However, the meat of the rules and their mishmash nature are not easy to grasp, but again, to be fair, this applies to numerous other retroclones as well. For the experienced player, this would not be an issue.

There are plenty of Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games available to choose from. The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition offers a comprehensive set of rules in a cleanly presented rule book, covering just about any situation that might come up in play. There are also two major advantages to the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition. One, it is slightly cheaper—even free as a download—than most other Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games available. Two, it gives access to a range of scenarios and mini-campaigns, such as JN1 The Chaotic Caves: A Basic Fantasy RPG Adventure Series For Characters of Levels 1-3. Overall, the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Fourth Edition is a serviceable fantasy roleplaying game.

Monarchy & Magic

There has always been a connection between the Crown and the country, a connection that has run through king after king, from King Arthur to now. Through this connection, the bloodline and the Crown have always been the living embodiment of the people and the country. If there was sickness was in the Crown it would be reflected in the nation and vice versa. This connection, this Anima Gentum, ensured that the Crown looked to both the spiritual needs and the physical needs of the country. Until now. There is division between the King and Parliament. There is division between King and country. There is division in faith between the Popery of the King, let alone his Catholic wife, and the Anglicanism, even Puritanism, of the common folk of the country. There is division between the Protestantism of the country and the Catholicism of Rome, a division which divides the country from Europe just as it divides Europe and drives the Thirty Years War. There is division between anyone practicing or believing in Pagan practices, who believe the fae and the spirit world to be real—let alone make contact with either, or practice any kind of magic, and the Protestants and Puritans who would liken it to witchcraft or consorting with demons. In country rent with outbreaks of the Plague, decades of religious and dynastic strife—including the war between the Houses of York and Tudor, international rancour, and more, this will not. King and Parliament will make war on each other culminating in the breaking of the Anima Gentum when King Charles is beheaded. Yet even before then, the Veil has been weakened by this division, giving access to the beyond, the Shadowlands, and the Demonic Realms, and so allowing mankind to entreat with things beyond our understanding. The Anima Gentum will be broken, England will be upturned, and the land will have no king.

This is the setting for The End of Kings: Core Rules for 17th Century Adventure, a roleplaying game from MontiDots Creations, best known for publishing horror scenarios such as The Fenworthy Inheritance and scenarios for the Old School Renaissance such as Limbus Infernum. The End of Kings though is the publisher’s first roleplaying game which extends from his interest in recreating the English Civil War. Thus, it is set during the turbulent years of the reign of Charles I and beyond. It is a roleplaying game in which weaselly Vagabonds, stout Commoners and Yeomanry, and gracious members of the Nobility, as Cunning Folk or Woodkernes, Clubmen or Soldiers, Priests or Witch Hunters, Warlocks or Outlaws seek adventure and perhaps work to protect the realm from creatures from beyond the Veil and machinations of those men and women who would take advantage of the weakening of the Veil.

A Player Character in The End of Kings has six attributes—Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Power, and Charisma, which vary in value between three and eighteen. Social Status, including Vagabond, Commoner, Yeoman, and Nobility, determines the character Classes a player can choose from. These are Clubman, Cunning Folk, Outlaw, Pagan Priest, Priest, Soldier, Warlock, Witch Hunter, and Woodkerne. Of these, the Clubman is a commoner who has been mustered or press-ganged into fighting and often wields an improvised weapon; the Pagan Priest is like a druid; and the Woodkerne are bandits or light skirmishers who can perform some magic. To create a character, the player rolls three six-sided dice for each attribute, then derives a number of secondary factors from them, rolls for Social Class and selects a character Class, and assigns skills points to skills, the number of points derived from the primary attributes for each Class. A player can also roll on the Family History table to get a little background, such as an ‘Heirloom’, ‘Poverty in the family’, ‘Believed noble blood’, and so on. The table is skewed in favour of the Noble Social Class, but that would make sense, as they are more likely to be better connected, possess wealth and land, and have a longer family history. The process is not difficult, but is not helped by the often-busy layout and organisation of the rulebook. There notes two on creating period accurate female Player Characters, the both players and Game Master are advised to treat these rules as entirely optional.

The sample Player Character is a servant to her richer cousins who are landed gentry in north Cornwall. Although uneducated and illiterate, she is intelligent and if given the opportunity would be willing to learn. She has been taught some knowledge of the ways of the cunning folk by her aunt, mostly spells that aid the injured and the sick.

Name: Isabel Pennix
Social Class: Commoner
Character Class: Cunning Folk
Faith: Catholic
Literate: No
Age: 16

Family History: Property (Fortified country house with outbuildings, four hides of non-arable land, one hide of arable land, six rural dwellings), Catholic Faith/Bloodline, Wealth in the Family

Strength 09 [–] Constitution 16 [+8%] Dexterity 13 [+02%]
Intelligence 18 [+12%] Power 13 [+02%] Charisma 13 [+02%]

Size: 13 Hit Points: 15
Stability Points: 65
Perception: 80%
Spell Casting Speed: 80%
Spell Resistance: 39%
Balance: 65%
Reaction Speed: 65%
Influence: 65%
Damage Modifier: – Armour Modifier: –

Agriculture 62%, Brew Potion 17%, Craft: Magic Item 15%, Divination 15%, Healing 67%, Improvised Weapon 52%, Language Faerie 32%, Local Knowledge 42%, Lore: Animal 62%, Lore: Arcane 22%, Lore: Faerie 52%, Lore: Plant 62%, Merchant/Barter 32%, Pummel 22%, Religion 47%, Short Blade 42%, Spell Casting 17%, Spot Hidden 62%, Tracking 67%

Potion Recipes Known: Cleanse the Heart
Spells Known: Cure Disease, Draw Poison, Heal Wounds

Mechanically, The End of Kings: Core Rules for 17th Century Adventure employs the GORE Generic Old-School Role-playing Engine published by Goblinoid Games. This is a percentile system which means that anyone familiar with a Basic Roleplay mechanics will have no difficulty adapting to The End of Kings. Attribute checks are rolled against the attribute multiplied by the difficulty factor, from one for almost impossible to six for very easy. For skill rolls, any result which is within five percentile points of skill chance is a critical success—for example, a roll of between eleven and fifteen percent would be critical success for Isabel’s Divination skill, whilst a critical failure is ninety-five percent and above. The various skills are described in some detail and each has a Level of Mastery, again a percentile factor, which measures skill rank. Ranging from Novice to Master, skill rank can indicate how many Power Points a spellcasting character might have, how skilled an NPC he would have to find to gain training in a skill, what he is capable of doing in that skill, such as the type of house for the Architecture skill or the Influence modifier gained when making a Dance check, or it can simply indicate professional recognition. In addition, a Player Character has factors such as Influence, which reflects his persuasiveness and replaces most social interaction skills bar ‘Perform: Oratory’.

Combat uses the same base mechanics. The rules cover surprise, order of action—done by Reaction Speed or Spellcasting Speed, movement, movement and actions, and more, just as you would expect. Optional rules cover bludgeoning, blocking, parrying, pummelling, and wrestling. Sneak attacks include quick knockouts and shots from afar, whilst blackpowder weapons and their use are also detailed. Blackpowder weapons are noisy, one-shot affairs, and beyond opening shots, most combats will become physical. Armour is available, but is bulky and does not provide a great deal of protection, especially against firearms whose damage rolls explode. In other words, if maximum damage is rolled, the dice are rolled again and added. Most melee weapon damage is rolled on a four, six, or eight-sided die, whilst blackpowder weapons are rolled on an eight, ten, twelve-sided die. A critical success on an attack always means that maximum damage is rolled and in general, armour is ignored. Thus, a critical success with a firearm is likely to be fatal! The weapons include cannon and the roleplaying game goes into some detail about these and the numerous types of weapons available in the seventeenth century. All useful information for the uninitiated.

Fear and reaction to the horrifying is handled through Stability, with Power representing a Player Character’s ability to cope with shocks and Stability Points his state of mind. The Fear Rating, from ‘Type 1: Mild’ to ‘Type 6: Terrifying’ modifies the Power attribute roll to be made and suggests number of Stability Points to be lost, whether or not the roll is successful. For example, witnessing the violent death of a friend or ally, an angry spirit, phantom hound, or ghost of a dead ancestor, or a coven of witches in flight has a Fear Rating of ‘Type 3: Strong’. The Fear check in this case would be the Player Character’s Power multiplied by three and if successful, the Player Character would lose two Stability Points, but as many as nine if failed. As the Player Character’s Stability Points fall below fifty percent, he becomes first Nervous, then Unstable, and finally Insane. This increases the Fear Rating of any shocking encounter and the likelihood of losing more Stability Points, which is a brutal spiral into insanity. Conversely, Stability Points of above sixty decrease the Fear Rating, and some Classes have immunity to certain sources of fear, such as battlefield trauma for Clubmen and Soldiers, common faerie for Cunning folk, Pagan Priests, and WoodKerne, and so on. Overcoming horrific encounters and routing out their source will restore a Player Character’s Stability Points.

Numerous Classes in The End of Kings have access to magic and can cast spells as well as work other magical effects. Cunning Folk use recipes, brew potions, and can contact both faeries and spirits; Pagan Priests have dealings with faeries and spirits and work with nature; Priests specialise in wards and healing spells; Warlocks explore the physical and spiritual world through science and the esoteric arts learned from ancient texts; Witch Hunters specialise in detection and protection spells; and Woodkerne have knowledge of the faerie and can create charms of various kinds. Spellcasting involves a player rolling against the skill of the same name. The rules cover rituals and incantations and the gaining of a familiar and the gifts that such a companion will provide, as well as a lengthy list of spells. Some are quite detailed, such as the Divination spell. It is also possible to delve into the world of alchemy and the creation of magical items, and numerous example potions and devices are described, including crosses, Cupid’s Kiss, charms and wards, books holy and unholy, and fairy rings—the latter important locations should the Player Characters want access the Glimmering Lands and to communicate with the local sylvan folk. It is possible to create magical blades and bullets, but their inclusion does seem to lessen the effects and influence of magic upon the world if access to them is too easy.

In terms of background, The End of Kings details money and equipment, transport and travel—including by foot, horse, carriage, and ship, as well as the possibilities of flight, though that is reserved for those who have the magical knowledge necessary. Architecture of the period is described, as is the cosmology, primarily exploring beyond the Veil which separates the mundane world from the magical world. Details of numerous creatures are also included, from the mundane to the magical, especially the fairie and their magics. These are decently described, and they all have their own Fear Checks. The same goes for the various visitors from the Veil, including spirits, apparitions, spectres, and vampires, and the demons and devils from Below… The range of creatures and things around which the Game Master can create mysteries and plots is fairly comprehensive. The general background of the period is also covered, ranging from household inventories, the law, and thieves’ cant to superstitions, the Plague, and witch trials. A timeline runs from the late fifteenth century to the late seventeenth century.

The alternative background to The End of Kings links the turbulent history of England to the relationship between the crown and the Anima Gentum. In particular, the Occuli Albionis—also known as the Star Chamber for room where its members met—plays a similarly fluctuating role in this, its wizards, warlocks, alchemists, and priests from the Church and Court College of Alchemy undertaking various tasks depending upon the whim of the monarch and his advisors. Originally assigned protect the country from magic at home and abroad, at times they were disbanded in complete distrust, at others tasked with viciously rooting out Catholics and other heretics and magical practitioners who were a threat to the country, and then shutdown and its members forced to flee or subject to persecution at other times. Extending to take in a history of the Vatican and the numerous Popes, all of whom had a very different attitude to magic, as well as doing the same for the Ottoman Empire, this history does sprawl. There is so much history in the book that it is almost difficult to quite know when the default setting is for The End of Kings.

Rounding out The End of Kings is a full scenario, ‘Five Lords A’leaping’. Set a hundred miles or so north of London in and around the village of Foxton Weir, it sees the Player Characters become involved in the local politics of the area and machinations of the local Catholic lord when one of their number, one of the Cunning Folk, receives a cry for help in a dream. The sender beseeches the Player Character to help protect the village and find out what is going on there, pointing to her croft where help and secrets are to be found. Ultimately, the Player Characters will face bandits, discover that the local lord is up to no good, and hopefully rescue the sender of the dream. It is a short, straightforward enough scenario which should provide a couple of sessions’ worth of play. It does require that one of the Player Characters be a Cunning Folk and another a Priest. Otherwise, it is a decent introduction to The End of Kings.

Physically, The End of Kings is hit and miss. It uses a lot of period artwork as well as many of the author’s own, and even photographs from period re-enactments. However, the cartography is plain at best, uninspiring at worst, and the author never really gets to illustrate anyone of the period. It needs an edit here and there too, but the main issue with The End of Kings is that it is disorganised, with parts not arranged in alphabetical order hen in other sections they are, and that it often overwhelms the reader with its wealth of detail.

The End of Kings: Core Rules for 17th Century Adventure is rough and not quite ready. It provides the Game Master with a wealth of detail, but not a focus or an explanation of quite what it is that the Player Characters are supposed to be doing in the setting. Let alone the fact that it is not quite clear when the default is. That wealth of detail also sprawls across the book, making it difficult to extract information or decide what to do with The End of Kings. There are no campaign frameworks or ideas, and advice for the Game Master is light.

The End of Kings: Core Rules for 17th Century Adventure is clearly a labour of love for the designer and publisher. Far from unplayable, bringing it to the table should prove to be, if not a daunting challenge for any Game Master, then one requiring a bit more effort then it should, but perhaps with further development and editing, The End of Kings: Core Rules for 17th Century Adventure may prove to be otherwise.

'B2' Series: JN1 The Chaotic Caves

The reputation of B2 Keep on the Borderlands and its influence on fantasy roleplaying is such that publishers keep returning to it. TSR, Inc. of course published the original as well as including it in the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, which is where many gamers encountered it. The publisher would also revisit it with Return to the Keep on the Borderlands for its twenty-fifth anniversary, and the module would serve as the basis for Keep on the Borderlands, part of Wizards of the Coast’s ‘Encounters Program’ for Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. Yet until the advent of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and then Goodman Games with Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands, which covered both B1 In Search of the Unknown and B2 Keep on the Borderlands, it would be other publishers who would revisit B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Kenzer & Company visited it not once, but twice. First with B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands: An Introductory Module for Characters Level 1–4 in 2002, and then again in 2009 with Frandor’s Keep: An immersive setting for adventure. Another publisher to revisit B2 Keep on the Borderlands was Chris Gonnerman, with a scenario written for the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game.

The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game is a retro-clone based on Basic Dungeons & Dragons and Expert Dungeons & Dragons from the early eighties, but with some changes. Most notably, they include d20 System-style ascending armor class and the separation of character race and class. The fantastic thing is that the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game is free to download, as are the various scenarios available for it. Further, even in print, both the roleplaying game and the scenarios are inexpensive, so that for £10, a gaming group can have a copy of the core rules and one or two scenario books, representing numerous sessions of play. Arguably, the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game offers one of the cheapest options for getting into the Old School Renaissance. JN1 The Chaotic Caves: A Basic Fantasy RPG Adventure Series For Characters of Levels 1-3 is one such scenario. It is written by J.D. Neal and is an adaptation of B2 Keep on the Borderlands to the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, who would later revisit X1 Isle of Dread with JN2 Monkey Isle—itself recently adapted to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition in Original Adventures Reincarnated #2: The Isle of Dread and G1–3 Against the Giants with JN3 Saga of the Giants.

JN1 The Chaotic Caves: A Basic Fantasy RPG Adventure Series For Characters of Levels 1-3 presents a very familiar set-up: a bastion of civilisation on or just beyond the frontier, a wilderness area home to various threats, most notably an outpost of evil.  In B2 Keep on the Borderlands, these are the eponymous keep and the infamous Caves of Chaos. In JN1 The Chaotic Caves, they are an unnamed town and the eponymous Chaotic Caves. In fact, much like most of the NPCs and monsters in B2 Keep on the Borderlands, those in JN1 The Chaotic Caves also remain unnamed. Similarly, the town is not named either. The town itself is a rough, though not lawless place. Behind its wooden barricade—a stonemason has been hired to replace it with a stone wall, but in the meantime, the town is vulnerable—it maintains a garrison of troops and is home to farmers and smallholders, lumberjacks and hunters, traders and craftsmen. There is even a tax collector and a barber. What with that and the number of widows, maiden aunts, and even old coot with a penchant for telling fanciful stories, the town does not really feel like a fantasy town. It has the feel of a town in the Wild West. All it would need is the addition of a coffin maker and that impression would be complete! In fact, with a tweak or three, the unnamed town in JN1 The Chaotic Caves would work well with Pelgrane Press’ Owl Hoot Trail.

Beyond the town’s wooden barricade, JN1 The Chaotic Caves provides a large area map, covering over two thousand square miles. The area is not overly populated, there being an encounter table, plus six locations, ranging from an abandoned Halfling burrow and bandits on the road to a man bothered by a boar and a ruined castle. These are all quite restrained in nature, but offer a nice mix of roleplaying, exploration, and combat encounters. Of course, the area being fairly large means that there is room enough for the Dungeon Master to add more locations as she sees fit. One of these is the Chaotic Caves. Some eight lairs are detailed as running off the narrow valley containing these caves, their being home to Bandits, Bugbears, Goblins, Gnolls, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, Lizard Men, and Orcs, as well as an abandoned cave system. Noticeable amongst this list of lair dwellers are the Bandits and Lizard Men, their being included as denizens of the Chaotic Caves in JN1 The Chaotic Caves rather than living elsewhere in the wilderness surrounding the town, as in the original B2 Keep on the Borderlands.  

In comparison to the town, the Caves of Horror are quite well detailed. In particular, there is a lovely, if underplayed, nod to the cover of the Player’s Handbook for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition; there are potential roleplaying encounters too, whether with wily Goblin priests, surly bandit prisoners, and prisoners of all sorts to be found and released; and the various locations are decently described. There is much here that will be familiar to anyone who has read or run B2 Keep on the Borderlands, so for example, the Kobolds are reviled as little more than vermin and the Ogre’s brawn is available for sale. There are though, two notable omissions. The first is the adult tone of B2 Keep on the Borderlands and its later iterations, so as written the Lizard Men lair is strewn with bones, but the bones of animals rather than the skulls, femurs, and ribs of humans and other demi-humans. This is because JN1 The Chaotic Caves is written to be child friendly in play, but for the Dungeon Master there is the suggested option to include them. The second is the exclusion of the Shrine of Evil Chaos which lies at the heart of B2 Keep on the Borderlands.

Instead, there is an Abandoned Manor. This sits to the west of and above the Chaotic Caves—just off the map—and actually has the feel of the keep from B2 Keep on the Borderlands, but on a much smaller scale, inhabited by forces preparing to fall upon the nearby town and ransack it. As the finale to the campaign, this is neither as evil or as constrained as the Shrine of Evil Chaos. The latter consisted of a relatively small number of rooms, but this is a large, fortified manor, manned by several fighters and is the headquarters of the bandit forces looking to build their own empire in the region. They are evil with a small ‘e’ rather than the ‘EVIL’ of the Shrine of Evil Chaos, but rather mundane and not as interesting as the priests, acolytes, and artefacts of the Shrine of Evil Chaos. The inclusion of the bandits and the abandoned manor does not readily and clearly explain the reason why the various Demi-Human species are residing cheek-by-jowl in the Chaotic Chaos—learning that simply from exploring the abandoned manor is not as interesting and not as easy. That said, the inclusion of the abandoned manor and its inhabitants is in keeping with the toning down of the ‘adult’ tone of B2 Keep on the Borderlands, which was done earlier in the module with the Lizard Men.

The constrained nature of Shrine of Evil Chaos in B2 Keep on the Borderlands made its exploration more measured, but in JN1 The Chaotic Caves, the likelihood is that the player characters will come upon the abandoned manor, get attacked, and wonder why… Then when they go to investigate further, the inhabitants will quickly react to their intrusion, making this a potentially deadly encounter.

Physically, JN1 The Chaotic Caves is well presented and well written. A nice touch is that like all monsters and NPCs for the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, those for this module have their Hit Points marked in boxes for the easy marking of. It is lightly illustrated, but what artwork there is, is decent. The one real issue, physically, is the size of the map of the Chaotic Caves is too small to read with ease.

JN1 The Chaotic Caves: A Basic Fantasy RPG Adventure Series For Characters of Levels 1-3 certainly packs equally as much adventure into its pages as B2 Keep on the Borderlands, but with room enough for the Dungeon Master to add her own. Much like the original, it does suffer from a lack of story to pull the player characters into the adventure and in part, the replacement of the Shrine of Evil Chaos with the abandoned manor and the bandits does not help in that, since ultimately, the motivations at the heart of the adventure are somewhat opaque. Nevertheless, JN1 The Chaotic Caves is a charming homage to B2 Keep on the Borderlands, offering an inexpensive means to play the classic adventure.