Above & Below

Underground, Overground: The Case File Collection is an anthology of scenarios—and more, for the roleplaying game based on the Rivers of London novels by Ben Aaronovitch. In this roleplaying game, as magic returns to the world, there is the need to deal with the mysteries, oddness, and secrets of the ‘demi-monde’, as well as investigate crimes committed by those within it and those associated with it. In this urban fantasy game, this need is fulfilled by the London Metropolitan Police Service’s special magic branch, also known as ‘the Folly’, and the Player Characters are its newly recruited members. Magic plays a big role in Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game and some of the Player Characters are practitioners—Apprentice Newtonian Wizards—who will need their magic to best solve the mysteries that lie at the heart of the mysteries of these four scenarios as well as general investigative abilities, some taught at Police College and some learned on the street. Together, the quartet will do things. First, they will take the Player Characters across London as well as below the city and along the banks of the River Thames, second, they will take the Player Characters through a series of increasingly challenging and more involved cases. In terms of timeframe, the scenarios in the anthology are still set in 2016, but the content does take into account of the events of the novella, What Abigail Did That Summer.

It should be noted that four of the the three scenarios in Underground, Overground: The Case File Collection are not new, having previously been available as PDFs, whilst the first two scenarios are suitable as introductory scenarios as well as convention scenarios. The first of the four scenarios is ‘Going Underground’, a short mystery which takes place in an ‘ghost’ or unused station on the London underground, this being the British Museum station closed in the thirties. The British Museum station is now a ‘ghost station’—and it is this conflation of ‘ghost’ and ‘station’ which the author takes advantage of and should arouse the interest of the players and their characters. The Player Characters are awoken by a telephone call in the night from Sergeant Jaget Kumar, the Falcon Liaison Officer for the British Transport Police, who reports that ghost has been sighted on the station. The Player Characters are able to conduct a little research before making their way to the station entrance (it is quite close to the Folly) before descending to the remanets of the station where most of the action will take place. This is a constrained investigation, focusing upon making contact with the ghost there and finding out about what happened to them. However, this hides a deeper mystery connected to the British Museum next door, which is reputed to have been haunted by its very own ‘Unlucky Mummy’.

If there is an issue with ‘Going Underground’, it is that there is not a lot of action to the scenario, so some players may be disappointed. However, it is written as an investigative and social scenario and it has a gentle, almost cosy feel to it. This is a genuinely lovely scenario very nicely supported with some well-researched background.

The second scenario, ‘Font of Evil’, is much more of traditional investigation—and fact, a murder mystery—and does include an actual threat. Potentially problematically, the scenario is that it is set on a specific date—Thursday, 19th May, 2016—as it is tied into the ebb and flow of the Thames tidal estuary. There is advice on moving the date, so it is flexible. The scenario concerns the strange death of Edgar Marsh, a young man whose main activity is ‘mudlarking’, that is the practice of searching the exposed riverbeds of the Thames at low tide for historical artifacts and lost objects. It quickly becomes apparent that he is not the only one obsessed with the activity and some of the things Edgar Marsh found. This will give the Player Characters a prime suspect and the second half of the scenario revolves around confirming his connection to the Edgar Marsh, and then tracking him down and confronting him. Another issue with the scenario is there is information that the Player Characters will probably want to know right at the start of the scenario, but saves it until later in the scenario. So, the scenario needs more attention paid to it during the Game Master’s preparation. The scenario will definitely end in a confrontation with the villain of the piece and what he is trying to bring about, so has a much more physical feel to it.

‘Font of Evil’ is very much a London-inspired scenario and much darker in tone than the previous ‘Going Underground’. Whilst the scenario does explore the consequences of Player Characters’ actions, it does not address what happens if they fail, so the Game Master will have to improvise. Otherwise, ‘Font of Evil’ is a dark and nasty affair.

‘The Goat-Man is Coming!’ is the third scenario in the anthology and is the only not have been published before. When the Folly is alerted by the local police liaison officer about an assault by a supposed ‘Goat-Man’ on the Parkland Walk, a linear green pedestrian and cycle route in north London, Inspector Nightingale asks the Player Characters to investigate as the ‘Goat-Man’ is a figure of local myth and has not been seen since the seventies. Much of the action of the scenario is along the few kilometres of the Parkland Walk as the Player Characters investigate the assault and check the veracity of the ‘Goat-Man’ myth. This is very much a step up in terms of the investigation’s sophistication with numerous NPCs to interact with—some of whom are quite challenging to interview—and multiple leads. The players will definitely need to make notes to keep up with the amount of information their characters can discover and learn. The scenario also presents an opportunity for the Player Characters to interact with members of the demi-monde, including a Len Deighton-inspired fox whom the Game Master will have a lot of fun portraying.

However, this scenario is tinged with sadness and it does involve children around whom the Player Characters will need to work with care and sensitivity. There are dire consequences for the Player Characters if this aspect of the investigation is handled poorly, both within the demi-monde and without. Otherwise, this is an entertaining scenario that should take two or three sessions to complete. If there is a downside, it ignores the question that a player and his character might ask, “What if the ‘Goat-Man’ is a faun or satyr?”

The fourth and final scenario in the anthology is ‘Jimmy’s Last Dance’. Like ‘The Goat-Man is Coming!’ before it, this scenario starts with an assault. However, not by a supposed ‘Goat-Man’, but by a pirate in the borough of Putney south London and when the Player Characters investigate, it is clear that magic was used. What follows is a detailed investigation which involves a lot of standard Police procedure—interviews, surveillance, and so on—mainly confined to Putney, bar the occasional return to the Folly to conduct research. Over the course of the investigation, the Player Characters will be conducting multiple interviews, all of which nicely presented to help the Game Master answer their questions and portray the various NPCs. Beyond the fact that a pirate attacked the operators of a cannabis farm in south London, the investigation will lead the Player Characters to a criminal gang, a solicitor with less than ethical standards, a rotten son-in-law and a barely suspecting daughter, and an old lady with interesting secrets of her own. Their efforts will seem to weave in and out of the movements of the pirate, but eventually they will be able to find him and discover who he is and what he wants.

As with the other scenarios in Underground, Overground, the issue with ‘Jimmy’s Last Dance’ is when it is set, but add to that is its political dimension. It is set in 2016 and it involves a political scandal that was at its height at the time. This is The Windrush Scandal. Of course, the authors advise the Game Master to handle the issue with care and it is certainly not a problem that The Windrush Scandal is part of the scenario—in fact, it is actually woven into the plot of the case file—but rather that the timeframe is quite specific and thus difficult to shift the case file to another year. Elsewhere, there is advice on how to portray a pirate without sounding like Robert Newton. Overall, a very nicely detailed investigation that combines parochially British charm and menace, but like a modern Ealing comedy, can have a cosy ending.

All four scenarios are ably supported by advice and suggestions for the Game Master, whether that is written in the author’s voice or that of Peter Grant or even Ben Aaronovitch. There is advice on what character types that each scenario needs, referring to the pre-generated Player Characters in the core rulebook and, also how to run each scenario using Player Characters who are not affiliated with the Folly. Most of the scenarios have relationship maps and a plot progression charts too, to help the Game Master keep track of their particular investigations. Perhaps the oddest advice is on various pieces of British vernacular, such as the meaning of the term ‘old bag’ when used as a pejorative to describe a woman, old or not. Whilst a British audience will find this amusing, for a non-British Game Master, it explains the vernacular and gives alternatives where necessary. This gives her the choice of enforcing the verisimilitude with the given terms or using less pejorative ones.

Underground, Overground: The Case File Collection comes to a close with a trio of appendices. The first presents ‘New Spells’ from Bortnik, an old Russian peasant spell designed to drive bees away temporarily so that a hive’s honey can be harvested and Trip Trap that ties shoelaces together to Indagare Aliquem which creates a pair of linked metal items each of which knows where the others are (one the examples of its use is by New York Librarians with paired paperclips to track where certain books and items are) and Snow Stove which compacts a mass of snow into a compact cylinder that releases heat for several hours. There is a wide variety of spells here drawn from the novels with some of them amusingly commented upon by Ben Aaronovitch as to what Abigail, Peter Grant’s niece might do with them if she could. The third is a useful ‘Bibliography & Resources’.

However, topping and tailing Underground, Overground—or is that ‘snouting and tailing’?—is a look at Foxes in the Rivers of London setting and Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game. The anthology opens with ‘The Absolutely True and Accurate Account of How the Foxes Got Their Voices Back’, a new short story by Ben Aaronovitch, which gives the vulpine explanation as to how and why they learned speak. Speaking foxes, larger, longer lived, and more intelligent than their silent brethren, first seen in What Abigail Did That Summer, are going to be a big draw for some players to Underground, Overground as it comes to a close with a complete guide to creating and playing talking Foxes. This adds a new option to playing a member of the demi-monde, but in many ways a much more challenging one, since these are not anthropomorphised Foxes. They can speak, read, but cannot write and do many things because they lack opposable thumbs (not a problem for Talking Raccoons, the option suggested for play in the USA with Rivers of London: In Liberty’s Shadow: A Guide to Case Files in the USA). It is suggested that two Occupations are suitable for a Fox Player Character. One is the ‘Boffin’, the equivalent of a Lecturer, who has to teach the young fox kits, but the other preferred option is the ‘Spy’. Now this can be used to create Human spies, but Fox spies specialise in surveillance, especially in urban environments. Fox spies also think and talk like spies, especially fictional spies, so the roleplaying potential is rife with entertaining clichés and can be huge fun if a player knows his spy lingo. Fortunately, there is plenty of detail to help the Game Master and the player portray a talking Fox as well as creating one with the right skills and advantages. (Of course, it sets up the challenge of writing an all-talking Fox scenario!)

Physically, Underground, Overground: The Case File Collection is very nicely produced. It is well written, the illustrations are excellent, the cartography good, and the handouts decent.

Ultimately, the only issue with Underground, Overground: The Case File Collection is the time frame in which its scenarios are set, often quite tightly bound to 2016. This is not an insurmountable problem, and the individual scenarios do each give advice how to handle this if the Game Master wants to set them else when. This aside, all four scenarios are thoroughly entertaining, whatever their degree of detail and investigation, exploring different parts and aspects of London, as well introducing further elements of the demi-monde. Players will love it for the means to create and roleplaying talking Foxes, but that is just extra to the collection of intriguing investigations and mysteries in Underground, Overground: The Case File Collection that provide great support for the Rivers of London: the Roleplaying Game.

The Other OSR: Wraithborn

What happens when you die? Does your soul ascend to heaven and eternal peace as a reward for your piety and lifetime’s worth of good deeds? Are you cast down into hell as punishment for your sins and impropriety, suffering an eternity of torment and agony? Or are you washed ashore of somewhere in between, a liminal space that might be a purgatory, a place from which you move on, your soul washed of your sins, or simply trapped in the lands that border on nothing? Awakening under a blood red moon in lands of perpetual night, not living, not dead, but undead, the memories of who you once were stripped away from you and what cords of faith you had in life with the gods cut in twain. In lands where vampires proudly walk the streets and quest for more lands to conquer and blood to take, where the Fae quail from their vengeful god in their Lonely Isles, where mechanical monsters hunt the Mystland to taunt and torment the people hidden within their fortresses, and where in the perpetual lunar night, silver falls as rain the Ever Dusk to burn and scourge the skin and souls of the undead. Renounced, rejected, and reviled by those gods, the majority undead take on lives and roles that they might have had in life, though they cannot recall what they were. Others rise above that, perhaps becoming the monsters that their new forms embody, revelling in their new nature and imposing it on others, but others seek to rise above that, seeking honour and enlightenment even though there is no way to pass through the Veil that the gods have placed around the lands that make up their new home. These lands are the Tortured Isles in the world of S’Gàth, where the undead know that if they die, it is not permanent and they cannot pass on. Instead, they can only be reborn as undead again, memories lost of what they were, ready to start again.

This is the setting for Wraithborn: Role Play in the Realm of the Undead, a roleplaying game published by Theatre Macabre following a successful Kickstarter campaign. Mechanically Wraithborn is based upon Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and also published by Free League Publishing. A player rolls a twenty-sided die, modifies the result by one of his character’s abilities, and attempts to beat a Difficulty Rating of twelve, though the Difficulty Rating can be higher or lower. The Difficulty Rating may go up or down depending on the situation, but whatever the situation, the player always rolls, even in combat or as Mörk Borg terms it, violence.

In terms of what you play, creating Player Characters in Wraithborn  adds tables for determining personality, physique, wealth, and monstrous feature. There are optional rules for each Player Character’s cursed existence—inspired by his monstrous feature, what his destined purpose might be, and Omens. The latter are tied to the Player Character’s destined purpose and work as gifts, and as he gains Levels, gives him options in terms of altering reality, reading the passage of time, hearing the unsaid, and manipulating the aether. All of these are optional, but they add depth and detail to a Player Character. One notable addition to a Player Character in Wraithborn is a fifth stat, ‘Clarity’, which is measure of a Player Character’s magic casting ability, memory, and intelligence, pushing Wraithborn away slightly from its Mörk Borg roots and towards a more traditional roleplaying game. 

The ten Classes in Wraithborn consist of Blood Seeker, Damphyr, FaeBound Daemon, Ironclad, Lunari Mage, Stormbringer, Wraithborn, Wyld Kin, Wyvern Rider, and Zarowka. The IronClad are faithful warriors who serve the IronLairds and who sought out and destroyed Heaven’s Gate, one of the events which triggered the Veiling of the Tortured Isles by the gods, and now protect the MystLand. Vampires come in several types, but hunger for blood and all practise Haematology or Bloodcraft and cast Blood Curses. Vampires in the Tortured Isles thirst for domination and sail from the north across the Severed Seas in their red-sailed ships and in the cities they conquer, they store the blood they tithe in banks. All vampires need to drink blood, and they suffer penalties if they do not . However, unlike a true Vampire, the Damphyr must drink daily, but can transform into vampiric beasts, create tonics, grow vampiric wings, gain greater presence, call forth the legions of the dead, and so on. Damphyr also suffers from ageing. The Blood Seeker is a hybrid Damphyr-arachnid whose spider-like protrusions can pierce victims and directly draw blood from them to store in the blood abdomens on his back and collect them for his master’s blood banks or sell them as part of the Blood trade. The Wyld-Kin connects to the natural world—both flora and fauna—through lyrical telepathy, can transform into both, taking on bestial forms such as arachnids, bears, and more.

A Wyvern Rider is tethered or soul-bound to the wyvern he rides, whilst the Zarowka is an incorporeal practitioner of umbral magic, his player spending Reaction Points to cloak others in Umbral Armour or with Drown in Darkness, suffocating and blinding them, or set them alight with Radiance or set a Light Trap of crystalline shards. The Stormbringer is so attuned to the Aetheric Elements that he can adapt and strange his physical form to embody Elemental properties of S’Gàth—flesh, gold, oil, salt, and stone. The Lunari Mageis a Fae who draws upon the light of the lost sun reflected off the Moon to cast magic, the power varying according to the Lunar cycle, whilst  the FaeBound Daemon is drawn from the Realm of Infernal Fire and bound in the body of a dead Fae and so suffer persistent Red Rot, but command powers of flame outside of magics of S’Gàth. Unfortunately, the creation process is not easy with a lot of paging back and forth through the book to look at the basic steps and then looking at individual Classes and then the various elements of each Class.

Wraithborn uses a unique magic system built around Aetheric Elements—flesh, gold, oil, salt, and stone. Instead of simply casting spells and forgetting them or using a simple points system, spellcasters invest dice of three types in spells to cast them. Ritual or six-sided dice are a caster’s inherent magical ability; Moon or four-sided dice represent the fleeting magical influence of the Aether; and Phase or eight-sided dice represent the phases of the Moon, but are only available to Fae. Ritual dice are gained as part of the Player Character’s Class and refreshed daily, whereas Moon dice are gained from in-game activities, such as killing foes, absorbing power, making offerings, and so on. When a player wants his character to cast a spell, he invests dice in an attempt to equal or exceed the casting threshold of the spell. Moon dice can also be used to boost the subsequent die roll. This is a standard roll of a twenty-sided die and its result will not only determine if the spell is successfully cast or not, but also if the dice are expended as result of the casting attempt. Further, elements can be combined to create new elements, so that a combination of flesh and oil make blood, gold and stone make steel, and so on. This is not without its complexity in comparison to spellcasting systems in other roleplaying games—especially those in the Old School Renaissance—but it also means greater player involvement and flexibility. The roleplaying game’s spellcasting Classes grant extra bonuses with the system. For example, the Stormbringer attunes to two elements daily to grant extra dice, whilst the Lunari Mage gains extra dice that are better depending upon the phase of the Moon.

Wraithborn oozes flavour and atmosphere, but it is a roleplaying game with problems. It provides some great Player Character options and a nicely done new magic system, but it does not help the Game Master with advice on how to run it—beyond addressing the horror of the setting before play and not revelling in this aspect of the setting—or really how to set up a campaign or what to do with it. It does not help in this with the lack of a scenario, whilst there are solo play rules, these are brief, and perhaps best work as a series of prompts for the Game Master rather than something to use to generate long term solo play. To be fair though, there is a scenario at the end of The Tortured Isles, the campaign setting for Wraithborn, but that is in another supplement.

Physically, Wraithborn: Role Play in the Realm of the Undead is vibrant swathes of black and red, swirled in with other colours and classic pieces of art. As good as it looks and as much atmosphere as it imparts, it is a problem. It takes the Doompunk art style of Mörk Borg and over-energises it, not only making it a challenging read (especially if you have conditions such as colour blindness or dyslexia), but also making content and details difficult to find. This could and should have been offset by an index, but it lacks one. This is an error of judgement for a volume that really needs one. 

Wraithborn: Role Play in the Realm of the Undead is the grim dark of Mörk Borg twisted and made even darker and grimmer under a perpetual night and a waxing, waning blood red moon and storm clouds of silver in which the undead twist and turn, wondering where they came from and wondering what the future holds, knowing that it holds nothing. It is potentially, a great sequel to the apocalyptic drowning of the last land of Tveland, as foretold by the prophecies of the Two-Headed Basilisks in Mörk Borg. Of course, it also stands as a roleplaying game in its own right. Or rather not quite. Amidst the interesting Player Character options and the sharp tang of its magic system, as well as the descriptions of the Tortured Isles, Wraithborn hints at possibilities and ideas, but it never really examines what the objective of the roleplaying game is or what it is that the Wraithborn do in S’Gàth. Wraithborn: Role Play in the Realm of the Undead is ripe with play options and drips atmosphere, but really is awaiting a Game Master with good ideas or a campaign.

Ours is the Anarchy

It is the Year of our Lord 1376. England is a land of unrest. The Great Mortality—the Black Death—has swept the country twice in the last three decades and now half of her people are dead. With half of the labourers and serfs who worked the land also dead, labour is much in demand and wages have risen, enriching the working man and so giving him the possibility of improving his life and that of his family. In response, the authorities have passed laws that fix wages at pre-plague rates and made it a crime to refuse work or break a contract, imposing fines and even branding and imprisonment should such laws be broken, in practice applying it to the labourer rather than the labourer and the employer. Sumptuary laws have even been passed to regulate the goods that the increasingly wealthier labourer can consume! In France, King Edward III continues to press his claim to the French throne, but as the French conduct cross-Channel commerce raids, the war is becoming increasingly more expensive maintain, Parliament levying poll taxes upon every adult in the country more than once and sending commissioners from one County to the next in search of those who refuse to pay. In London, the city’s populace resent the presence of foreigners, Flemish weavers in particular, and loath John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, for his support of the religious reformer John Wycliffe, whom they regarded as a heretic, and this will continue upon the death of King Edward III in 1376 and the accession of his grandson, Richard II. The new king is only ten years old and John of Gaunt will go on to serve as his regent for many years. The infamous Peasants’ Revolt led by Wat Tyler is five years away, yet England buckles under the authority of the Crown, the Church, and the Nobility and there are many ready to throw off the shackles of oppression and their desperate despair, to rise up and make England theirs. And when they do, when they drive off their feudal lords and officers of the King, their land is theirs, their land is ‘The Anarchy’.

This is the backdrop to Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG, published following a successful Kickstarter campaign by Three Sail Studios—whose previous roleplaying game was the joyous Mappa Mundi. Taking its name from the road junction where a set of gallows once stood in the old County of Essex where the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 rose, Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG is a storytelling game of struggle, hope, and community. Of struggle against the adversity of the environment and the enmity of authority, of hope for better future, and in connecting a community having the strength to survive. The players takes the roles of peasantry, tradespersons, and even the intelligentsia, natives to one of the counties of England, confronting the rich and the powerful, bettering the community, attempting to improve their Influence whilst reducing the Control that the authorities hold over the countries, and in the process acquiring retinues and retainers, and from their humble beginnings in a single hundred in one County, the Player Characters will travel to neighbouring hundreds and work to liberate them in a Point-Crawl keyed to themes based on verbs.

Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG, an alternative history roleplaying game, but one which does not ignore the grim realities of history. This means that violence against people and animals, arbitrary punishment, torture and execution, conflict at any and all levels of society, slavery and serfdom, refugee displacement, and sexual violence as a weapon are all part of the realities of the period. Whilst they are part of the setting for Gallows Corner, they are not the focus of it. Where they do factor, it should be as actions or the consequences of actions of the authorities, yet further signs—as if needed—of how little the authorities value the ordinary man or woman, let alone the Player Characters. However, Gallows Corner suggests setting boundaries (or Veils) during Session Zero and having any contentious issues happen off camera and make use of a stop sign (or X Card) in play).

A Player Character has three Experiences—Physical, Emotional, and Intellectual, but at the core of a Player Character is a Trade and a Job. Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG categories its forty-eight Jobs across eight Trades. ‘The Body’ represents those who work their muscles to earn their bread; ‘The Earth’ is made up of those who till the soil, grow the food, and tend to the animals; ‘The Flesh’ consists of those who see the inner workings of bodies and know exactly where to cut, either to kill or to cure; ‘The Hood’ are made up of those who work from the shadows; ‘The Market’ is where deals are made, goods are traded, and coin is earned; ‘The Masque’ is worn by performers and entertainers; ‘The Mind’ involves the learned and the clever; and ‘The Stranger’ is home to outlier, those that survive on the edge of society, often doing the unpleasant jobs that no-one else will. With Jobs such as Servant, Herbalist, Barber-Surgeon, Smuggler, Merchant, Minstrel, Scribe, and Gravedigger there is a distinct hint of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay to the options. Even the Rat-catcher is depicted with a small, vicious dog! However, there is a grimmer tone to Gallows Corner with inclusion of Jobs such as Sex Worker, Marshman, Dung Farmer, and Sin-Eater.

Each Job has four skills. For example, the Rat Catcher has the skills of ‘Cunning’, ‘Good with Traps’, ‘Knows Poisons’, and ‘Terrier Companion’, whilst the Butcher has ‘Anatomy’, ‘Cause of Death’, ‘Precision Cuts’, and ‘Tools of the Trade’. Each represents knowledge or an ability that a Player Character has learned and instinctively understands. Each encompasses only a small area of expertise, but they are open to interpretation and if the Narrator agrees with a suggested interpretation, then that is how they work. In general, they allow a Player Character to undertake a relevant action without the need to roll any dice for a Test, though the Narrator may sometimes state that a Test is required.

To create a character, a player assigns a single eight-sided die to one of his Traits, either Physical, Emotional, or Intellectual. A single six-sided die is assigned to the other two and then also to the character’s Trade and Job. He picks a single skill from the four listed for the Job. The die size for all of a Player Character’s Traits, Trade, and Job can all be increased with experience, but instead of a die increase, a player can pick another Skill. Player Character creation is quick and simple.

Name: Hugo Brackenridge
Trade: Mind d6
Job: Lawyer d6

EXPERIENCES
Physical d6 Emotional d6 Intellectual d8

SKILLS
Good in an Argument

Mechanically, Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG uses a dice pool system. When a player wants his character to act and pass a Test, he forms a dice pool starting with one or more of his character’s Experiences and then adding dice for his Trade and his Job, if appropriate. A result of five or more is counted as a success, four or less a failure, and only a single success is required for the Player Character to succeed. Another Player Character can help. This can be to increase the size of the Experience die that the player making the Test is going to be rolling or if appropriate, add a Trade or Job die to his dice pool. Gallows Corner advises the player to advocate for as many dice as he can to form the pool, but since the roleplaying game is narrative-led, a player and his character should ideally rely upon roleplaying and Skills rather than attempting Tests.

The size of a die can also go down as well as up. This may be due to injury or illness and if it falls to a four-sided die, it means that the Player Character cannot succeed with that die and its associated Experience, Trade, or Job, because the minimum needed for a success is five. If the Player Character is solely relying upon that die for a Test, then he is in trouble. In such cases, the player should definitely be trying to increase the size of the dice pool, whether that is trying to use his character’s other Experiences and Trade and Job, along with help from his character’s Retinue and other Player Characters.

The players as a group can also spend ‘Opportunities’ to alter the world around or give an order to members of their Retinue. This might be to send a member of their retinue to scout out a village, to wait in ambush ready to strike at an enemy, or to gather resources or craftsmen to reinforce their camp or improve their community, but they can also be spent to allow a player to bring their character’s Job into play once again.

Combat is quick and deadly. It is played out as a series of opposed Physical Experience rolls, each combatant attempting to reduce his opponent’s condition from ‘Standing’ to ‘Knocked Back’ to ‘Down’, and then ‘Retreating’. This also applies an increasing penalty to the roll. The victor always chooses the outcome, but can also improve his own condition, aid an ally, kill or capture an enemy, and so on.

Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG also advises that a player rely upon his own abilities as much as those of his character, since he will be more aware of the world rather than the character, that collaboration is the key to success, death is likely and combat to be avoided—most of the time, and that they should embrace failure.

Chronologically, Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG is played out over a series of Seasons and Scenes with Clocks being used to track something that the Player Characters are struggling against, such as being hunted by a local Sheriff's soldiery, attempting to erect fortifications in a hurry, and so on. By undertaking acts of liberation and challenging the power of the state such as writing and spreading mocking songs, disrupting the activities of tax collectors, and even burning the manors of the landed classes, each Player Character garners ‘Influence’, a combination of their fame and notoriety that enables them to do greater and bigger things as it grows. As it rises from zero and ‘Unknown’, all the way up through ‘Spoken Of’, ‘Recognisable’, ‘Well Known’, and ‘Notorious’ to ‘Famous’ and one hundred, a Player Character gains Benefits that can be used once per season, whilst the Narrator gains Detriments or negative events that she can bring into play once per season. For example, a Player Character who has an Influence of ten or more is ‘Spoken Of’ and gains the Benefit that because rumours of his good name are beginning to spread and people are willing to help him, he can turn a failed Test to influence an NPC into a success instead. However, the Narrator can select an NPC known to the Player Character who rejects his radical ideas out of fear for his safety. A Player Character’s Influence can also fall due to failure or defeat.

In addition, the Benefit gained at each rank of Influence, a Player Character can recruit a Retainer to his Retinue, up to a total of five. Each Retainer is an NPC in his own right and created just like a Player Character. Once a Retainer is part of a Retinue, a player and his character gains access to his Experiences, Trade, and Job as well as his skills and in combat, a Retainer contributes his Physical die to the Player Character. Retainers can also be sent off on missions, though this costs ‘Opportunities’ to do so, with the outcome determined by a Test after two or more scenes. There is some scope for troupe-style play here and a player is free to roleplay a Retainer as necessary. However, a Retainer is always a secondary character to a player’s main or perspective character. Should a Player Character die, he can be replaced by a Retainer. Thus, a Player Character’s Retinue is not just a source of replacement characters, but also an extension of his physical capabilities and knowledge.

Whilst each Player Character has his own Influence, they are combined together as the party’s Collective Influence. It is this value that is measured against ‘Control’, which represents the power and domination that the state—the crown, the nobility, and the church—holds over the immediate County or Region and ultimately, over all of England. If the Player Characters’ ‘Collective Influence’ is increased above the ‘Control’ for a County or Region, a Showdown can be staged. This is a significant and ideally cinematic confrontation with the leading antagonist for the County or Region. Now the text suggests that ‘Control’ might be reduced by a single point for writing and spreading mocking songs about the local sheriff, two points for skirmishing soldiers, and four points for attacking and burning manorial holdings, but there is not a useful list that the Narrator can easily reference. Whilst this does allow a Narrator a lot of flexibility, arguably it is too much and some guidance could and should have been included.

Chronologically, Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG is played out as a ‘Point Crawl’ that scales up from the Hundreds and Liberties which make up each County, and then the Counties that make up a Region, and the Regions which make up England. Each Hundred, Liberty, County, and Region is a Point, a location where there is a problem or situation to resolve and several scenes will play out as the Player Characters attempt to resolve it. The ‘Point Crawl’ is set up by the Narrator. The Narrator selects a County and determines its degree of ‘Control’, based on the number of Hundreds and Liberties plus a die roll for NPC antagonist in charge, and then assigns a single ‘Verb’ to each of the County’s Hundreds. For example, ‘Destroy’, ‘Entertain’, ‘Fight’, ‘Grow’, ‘Organise’, ‘Play’, ‘Sin’, and ‘Steal’. These are prompts around which the Narrator can set up a situation or storyline and they can come from the players—indicating what type of stories they want to tell in playing Gallows Corner, chosen by the Narrator, or selected from the suggestions given and developed in the rulebook as potential related scenes. A Clock is also set up which tracks the reactions of the authorities to the Player Characters’ rebellious activities.

Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG includes descriptions of London and of the thirty-nine counties of England in the late fourteenth century. London and its districts are given more detail, whereas the counties receive a page each. This gives a broad overview and feel for the county along with an encounter that the Narrator can develop into something more and one or more reasons why the peoples of that county might want to revolt. Each region is also given a scenario for a total of eight. There is an NPC generator which can also be used to create potential Retainers as well as antagonists.

The Narrator will need to download the forms for the different Region and Counties she plans to use. These are not in the core rulebook itself, but it would have been nice if the boxed set for Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG had included them, perhaps in a forms booklet that would also be available separately.

Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG makes clear that the Player Characters are both custodians and victims of England and working towards becoming more of the former and away from the latter. That ‘Point Crawl’ is a way to explore England starting from the very small and local and scaling up, with the surrounding villages, towns, and counties reacting in response to the actions of the Player Characters, but also having their own stories going on. The advice suggests that the Narrator should not get too bogged down in the historical details of the period, since the roleplaying game is intended to be an alternate history. There is some detail in the London and County descriptions and there is a section describing the English which includes details of various NPC types by class, but nevertheless, Gallows Corner is a roleplaying game that will benefit from some historical research if just to add a degree of verisimilitude.

Physically, Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG is a stunning looking book. It is easy to read, and as good as the production values are, what shines is its artwork. It is brutally bright and beautiful in its depiction of the hope and hardship of the setting.

Unfortunately, Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG does not feel quite complete as a roleplaying game. There could have been clearer and fuller examples of set-up and play and the guidance on handling certain aspects of the roleplaying game, such as the reductions in ‘Control’ for certain actions by the Player Characters, that would have made the roleplaying game easier to grasp and easier to run, could have been given. Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG is not a complex roleplaying game by any means and anyone with any storytelling game experience will have no problems either running it or playing it. Anyone with less experience, perhaps attracted by the high production values of the roleplaying game, may have more of a problem. Overall, Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG is just underwritten enough in places to make it not quite as accessible as it should be.

Gallows Corner – A Peasants’ Revolt RPG is magnificently ambitious in its scope and parochially English in its setting and tone. This is a gloriously brutal, beautiful roleplaying game that with the right Narrator and players is going to tell a great campaign of hardship and hope.

Operative’s Primer

What is it like being Operative for SLA Industries? What do you do all day? Where do you live? How do you handle BPNs? How do you get around? What do you have for dinner—a Piggy Wiggy roll or sausage and mash? When you get bored in your Downtown studio closet with its leaky basin, wipe-down, guaranteed one prior owner, roll-up futon, collapsible closet, and self-installed AA rated security locks, where do you go for a good time? Hit a Ye-Old Tavern or if you are on the up, get into the Pit, the premier Uptown nightclub? Got a hobby, like darts or hoops, gambling on the Pig Runs, or collecting BPN Coins or Carrien teeth? Do you have a side hustle such as a Sponsor, selling recovered gear on the black market, an actual second job, or even a life of crime? These are all questions a graduate from Meny University might ask, as might his player. Then how do you play SLA Industries? How does a skill roll work and what modifiers do you apply? What do you need to roll for combat—shooting your Fen 603 Auto Pistol or stabbing that carrien with your Bosh SLA Blade? How do you actually create a Player Character? What do you play? These are all questions a player new to SLA Industries might ask.

Fortunately, Operative’s Handbook: A Sourcebook for SLA Industries Second Edition is the supplement which will answers both sets of questions. This is a supplement for S.L.A. Industries, the roleplaying game set in a far future dystopia of corporate greed, commodification of ultraviolence, the mediatisation of murder, conspiracy, and urban horror, and serial killer sensationalism published by Nightfall Games. Specifically, it is an introductory supplement for the setting and thus the Player Character, but is also an introductory supplement for the setting and the rules, and thus the player. The supplement is designed as complete an introduction to SLA Industries Second Edition as is possible for it to be and it succeeds at this admirably. It is literally designed to be given to the prospective player who can take it away, read up about the basics of the World of Progress and how to be a SLA Operative, and then create a SLA Operative. In doing so, it more or less replaces those sections of the core rulebook and a player could even buy it and use it without the need to purchase his own copy of the core rulebook. Plus, it gives a player an accessible book to reference at the table during play. However, the Operative’s Handbook is not just for the new player and new Player Character. There is background information included that the Game Master can bring into her campaign, especially in terms of flavour, detail, and verisimilitude. There is a whole new species and new equipment too—as well as the old, so that an existing player will find the supplement useful if he does not have the core rulebook.

The Operative’s Handbook does start out with a description of what a roleplaying game is, ordinarily surprising in a supplement, but not so here given its remit. Very quickly it moves on to the World of Progress, the setting for SLA Industries, written with the worries of a recent graduate from Meny University in mind. It eases him through graduation, explaining that every six months, three hundred students graduate—always in the presence of Mr. Slayer, even if he cannot be seen—knowing that if he cannot move up the ladder before the next group graduates, he might as well count himself as a failure. It has all the worries of a graduate in his first job. Where will he live? How does my job actually work? And in answering that, gives a means of randomly determining his initial accommodation and even creating Bespoke Accommodation if his player wants to spend build points on it. Rated for comfort, security, location, and neighbours, all of these factors add to play of the game and are there for Game Master to make the SLA Operative’s downtime that little bit more ‘interesting’. This is accompanied by a good guide to Mort City, from Mort Central down through Uptown into Downtown, noting how large these areas are and that there is an area of Downtown called ‘Sector Dark’, actually two adjacent sectors currently dominated by gangs with deep DarkNight connections, where there is no surveillance as all the infrastructure has been vandalised and both SLA Operatives and Shivers are really not welcome. Numerous options for travel across and up and down Mort City are discussed, the most notable of which are the Shift Blocks, massive elevators capable of transporting vehicles, cargo, and people like a large ferry, up and down Mort City. However, to limit widescale access between districts, Shift Blocks can only lower and raise a limited number, so travellers often have to change to travel further up or down, effectively staggering their journey in order to main security.

Besides the question of where an Operative will live, there is a lengthy lifestyle section in the Operative’s Handbook. This covers food (unsurprisingly British in feel), restaurants and fast food outlets, bars and clubs, care products—for all species, clothing styles—including a fashion for wearing mock-power armour which means that an operative can mingle on a night out in his actual power armour and not look out of place, hobbies and gambling—the latter including various sports like sector racing and the bloodsport events held in the District Two Arena, and collecting. There is a great deal here that will add verisimilitude to a campaign. The supplement takes a left turn with a discussion of politics in Mort City, more interesting background that the Game Master can use to create details for her campaign, but noting that although there are numerous political parties and there are governors who control the various districts in Mort City, politics are an effective distraction for the masses for SLA Industries which has no problem replacing a governor with silent prejudice. Law enforcement is something that Operatives are more likely to be working with, made slightly challenging because laws can differ from district to district, and if one citation does not fit the crime, the Shivers usually have the time to apply another.

Whether the accused goes through civil mediation, televised arbitration, or gives himself over the bureaucratic complications of a public trial, if found guilty, the most common sentence is a fine and since most Mort City citizens cannot afford to pay this, prison time to work this off. Of course, the prison system is designed to extract the most out of its inmates, so getting out is really, really difficult. Several other forms of punishment are discussed, all of them with their own unpleasant futility.

In terms of the job, what a SLA Operative is doing is picking up BPNs—Blueprint News Files, completing them, getting paid, and gaining Security Clearance bonuses, and working up the corporate ladder. The Operative’s Handbook breaks down the Security Clearance structure, how a squad goes about getting a BPN, raises issues and gets paid either straight to each Operative’s Finance Card or oddly in cash (something that criminal gangs like to take advantage of if an Operative owes them a favour), and if there is anything amiss, how a BPN review is handled by the Auditing and Sanctions Office, which often staffed by failed Meny graduates! Since the focus of SLA Industries’ play is completing BPNs for the income and the promotion, any impediment to that is going to be frustrating, but will expose the Operative and his player to SLA Industries’ bureaucracy. In addition to a SLA Operative’s main source of income, the supplement also examines other options.

The Operative’s Handbook devotes just a handful of pages to the rules for SLA Industries. It does not need more than that to explain everything that the player needs to know in terms of rolling dice and making skill tests followed by combat.

More detailed are the rules for character creation. Every species is clearly presented and a nice touch for each is the advice for new players. This includes an ‘It’s My First Day’ box and suggestions on how to build the optimal character. For example, the ‘It’s My First Day’ box states that, “A Carrien is a skull faced dog person whose planet and civilisation was stolen from them. While you might be lovely as an individual, as far as most of Mort is concerned, you’re a scary dangerous animal responsible for unknown terrors.” It is followed by the ‘Building an Adv Carrien’ which suggests which stats to favour. Each species includes suggested values as explanations of species specific abilities, and a table of random species elements (for Carrien these are trinkets that personally value), and tables of ‘Good’ and ‘Unfortunate’ Life Events that add some background and some variation to the Operative.

In addition to doing this for Ebonites, Frothers, Humans, Neophrons, Shaktar, Stormer 313 Malice, Storner 711 Xeno, and Wraithen, it also does it for the Omaja. This is a new species introduced in the Operative’s Handbook. The Omaja, a pre-Formation Era that has recently returned to the World of Progress, are allies of the Neophron, and are trying to earn enough to buy back their original home world from SLA Industries. They are short, monkey-like, with a mane of bright blue hair for males and bright orange for females, are quadrodextrous meaning that all four limbs end in hands, have three eyes, and known for their technical aptitude. They also have a reputation for being very grumpy. In play they give any Neophron Operative a natural ally, whilst their technical aptitude means that they are good at fixing things, handling machinery, and modifying equipment, so focusing on skills that tend to be secondary for other Operatives.

The Operative’s Handbook even explains how Meny University and SLA Industries goes about organising graduates into squads as well as presenting fifteen new Training Packages as well those from the core rulebook and also the supplement, Threat Analysis 1: Collateral. The new includes the Academic Institute of Meny (representing academics who want to conduct field research into Operative activities), Advanced Ebb Training, Alternate Vendor Recruitment (handling Props and Contract Killers for SLA Operative operations), Combat Pilot Training, Combat Property Management, Construct Exploration, Employee Headcount Reduction, Media Management, Modern Policing, Motorised Recon, Radical Conflict De-Escalation Unit, Rapid Conflict Resolution Teams (previously known as ‘Kick Murder Squads’), Rapid Site, Breach & Entry, Sector Ranger Survival School, and Stakeholder Appeasement & Crisis Management. These all have minimum Stat requirements and many have electives to choose from as well. These open up the options not just in terms of the training for the Player Character SLA Operative, but the NPC too. Plus there are lists of the Skills and Traits for SLA Operative creation both old and new. Only the new are fully explained, meaning the that player may still need to refer to the core rulebook for full explanations.

The Operative’s Handbook even explains how Meny University and SLA Industries goes about organising graduates into squads as well as presenting fifteen new Training Packages as well those from the core rulebook and also the supplement, Threat Analysis 1: Collateral. The new includes the Academic Institute of Meny (representing academics who want to conduct field research into Operative activities), Advanced Ebb Training, Alternate Vendor Recruitment (handling Props and Contract Killers for SLA Operative operations), Combat Pilot Training, Combat Property Management, Construct Exploration, Employee Headcount Reduction, Media Management, Modern Policing, Motorised Recon, Radical Conflict De-Escalation Unit, Rapid Conflict Resolution Teams (previously known as ‘Kick Murder Squads’), Rapid Site, Breach & Entry, Sector Ranger Survival School, and Stakeholder Appeasement & Crisis Management. These all have minimum Stat requirements and many have electives to choose from as well. These open up the options not just in terms of the training for the Player Character SLA Operative, but the NPC too.

Similarly, the Operative’s Handbook does not list or detail all of the equipment options available in the core rulebook. This is understandable as it would substantially increase the supplement’s page count. What it does do is suggest starting packages based on a SLA Operative’s Training Package, which is very useful, handily speeding up character creation. There are new items of equipment too, such as lightweight, recyclable Shiver Ties used by Shivers instead of handcuffs (which weigh too much for a Shiver to carry on patrol), the FEN 603A Automatic Pistol (a fully automatic version of the venerable FEN 603 that is much heavier and no body likes because it is unwieldly), and a host of weapon upgrades such as a bayonet mount or Klip Killer reconfiguration to fit standard weapons on armour shoulder mounts. There are several new types of ammunition, like ABC or ‘Airburst Biological Countermeasures’, which have limited applications; new armour options and options for customisation; and vehicles. The new equipment list is not extensive, but all adds to the variety.

Finally, and if players are do not have the time to create their own SLA Operatives, the Operative’s Handbook includes a complete, ready-to-play squad of five Operatives. Complete with biographies, the Squad Arnold Nutter II, heirs apparent to the infamous Squad Arnold Nutter, whose leader, Arnold Nutter, died on camera in Cannibal Sector 1, became hero to the masses, and was subsequently restored to life via the Life After Death process. Still famous, he and his squad have their own television show and his catchphrase is now, “Pigeon!”. Nobody knows why and this is not a good for a squad that looks good on camera, but not all of them want to be members and there are some serious trust and attitude issues between them. The squad would work as media darling NPCs too, but would be fun to play for a short campaign as intended.

The Operative’s Handbook is not quite perfect. As a means to create new SLA Operatives, it is still going to rely upon the content of the core rulebook in places. In particular, equipment and skill definitions. Also, Squad Arnold Nutter II is not a typical starting Squad. It is too high profile for that and playing anyone of its members could be a challenge to the target audience, that is, someone new to the World of Progress and SLA Industries. It probably works better for more experienced players who will appreciate its twisted backstory and set-up. If the supplement is missing anything, it is a map of Mort City.

Physically, the Operative’s Handbook: A Sourcebook for SLA Industries Second Edition is well presented, is full of great artwork as you would expect, and is an easy read. It does need an edit in places.

The Operative’s Handbook: A Sourcebook for SLA Industries Second Edition an impressively useful book. A solid and accessible introduction to the World of Progress and SLA Industries in terms of both setting and rules. As a quicker means to helping create SLA Operatives, it does contain a lot that is old and been reprinted, but that is point, and there is plenty of new content too, especially about the life of a new Operative. All of which the Game Master can read and take inspiration from as much as the player simply reads through it. The Operative’s Handbook: A Sourcebook for SLA Industries Second Edition is good supplement, but not one that the Game Master and her players absolutely have to have in order to play SLA Industries. However, it is undeniably very useful.

Grey City Future

With its near future setting of a San Franciso ravaged by climate change and protected from the sea by seawalls, the bulk of its population having moved off-world  in ‘The Scramble for Stars’ to start again on the megacorporate-sponsored colonies, and the use of Synths or biological androids as a pliable workforce in their stead, Carbon 2185: A Cyberpunk RPG feels very much inspired by Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049. Published two years after the latter film by British publisher, Dragon Turtle Games, Ltd., Carbon 2185: A Cyberpunk RPG is also noticeable for the fact that its mechanics are derived from those used for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Although San Francisco is the default city setting in Carbon 2185 and the one detailed in the core rulebook, there are other cities around the world. The cities of London, Manhattan, and Tokyo are detailed in the Carbon 2185 | Cities Sourcebook, mapping out their glittering highlights and grungy lowlifes, whilst Berlin 2185 explores what could be a brighter future.

The Berlin of Berlin 2185 is different to other cities of the late twenty-second century. Whilst their response to environmental collapse has been to cede control to the corporations and slide into a cyberpunk dystopia, the Berlin Mandate Group, at the direction and donations of the Philanthropist has instead sought to share the city’s wealth. To use to protect the city, preserving the old buildings for prosperity whilst constructing more sustainable ones; to introduce a Universal Income and eliminate homelessness; and to establish a drone-driven energy dome over the city, protecting its citizenry, flora, and fauna from the worst effects of UV radiation and other contaminants—effectively, cutting edge weather control. Free from corporate control and capitalist drives, Berlin has become both a scientific and technological paradise and powerhouse.

Another big difference between Berlin and the other major cities of the world is the limited presence of the big corporations—Tusk in particular. The anti-corporate attitude is not just Berlin Mandate Group policy, but deeply woven into Berlin society. In particular, its Punk scene, heavily influenced by the Punk scene in London, but given a German twist in the form of NuWave Punk. A popular slogan of the Berlin Punk movement is, “Keine Unternehmen mehr, keine Lügen mehr!” or “No more Corporations, no more lies!”. The music and associated underground scene are nicely detailed, noting the degree of crossover between London and Berlin whilst emphasising the differences, that it is more accepting of LGBTQA+ members and LGBTQA+ bands as the ‘Gay Capital of Europe’, and that the authorities in the city have a grater tolerance towards the scene than might be found in other cities.

In general Cyberpunk terms, the description of Berlin amounts to a paradise. It is well organised and divided along need, not greed, the roads are uniform, the public transport system non-obtrusive, there are actual trees growing in the city, and at night, one can see the see the stars—unlike any other city in 2185. So where then are the tensions that will bring the Player Characters—or Cyberpunks as they are known—to Berlin and help the Game Master create plots and stories for her campaign. Obviously, one scale there may be tensions one band and another in the city’s punk scene, but on another, the corporations, with their limited presence in the city, would like to know the secrets of Berlin Mandate Group and how the city is run so effectively, let alone steal the flora of the city found nowhere else quite so obviously. For the most part there are jobs that most of the roles in the city legitimately. Docs are in high demand in the city’s medical sector, whether in emergency response teams operating in the city or beyond it or in medical research; Enforcers can find work as bodyguards, and even do clandestine work for the Berlin Mandate Group; Hackers can find work protecting from net-based and Sphere-based corporate intrusion; and the net-based and the Berlin Mandate Group might even employ a Scoundrel.

Some of these tasks are reflected in the new character options included in Berlin 2185. They include a Public Enforcement Officer highly trained in de-escalation and non-lethal resolution, but also heavily scrutinised  by their precincts and the Berlin Mandate Group for wrongful use of violence, and then Media Officer, Scientist, and Agent for the Berlin Mandate Group. The Media Officer will be covering up details as well as presenting them to the press; the Scientist will have access to some of the most advanced technology on the planet; and the Agent does the dirty work that the Media Officer for the Berlin Mandate Group avoids doing. The others include the Eco-Punk Ganger—an environmentalist punk rocker, Drone Operator—much in demand in the skies above Berlin, Media Personality, and Construction Engineer. There is also a discussion of Origins for Cyberpunks appropriate to Berlin, of which Korporate Kids and Badlanders are rare and High Flyers and Sleekers uncommon. The most common are Regular Joes and Gutter Punks.

The various sectors of the city are also described, including a few notable locations, the feel of the place, what food and drink options are available, and what secrets are hidden there. This is followed by a table of encounters. For example, the feel of the Science Park is dominated by the smell of actual live plants and clean water in the fountains, there are vending machines from the city ubiquitous currywurst can be purchased, but few restaurants, and the area is home to Research & Development Labs, Tech Facilities, and the Berlin Mandate Group’s Science Division, as well as the Foresters Houses. The latter is where the city’s foresters live, their job to protect the city’s flora—with prejudice. The secrets here include the Berlin Mandate Group’s complex here, hidden by trees, and rumours of access to an old botanical garden from before Berlin was built over. Compare that to the Construction Sector with its Drone Stations, Barge Launches which launch the huge vessels that do the heavy construction across the site, often deploying massive 3D printers to manufacture on site whole buildings and parts of buildings, and the Observation Watches from their launch can be safely viewed. Its atmosphere is of low hum from all of the devices across the vast maintenance and construction complexes, the air filled with drones and transports. Food and drink are available via vending machines or at canteens, whilst alcohol is forbidden. There is a secret construction project going on here, one that requires printers and factories to operate day and night. All of the nine sectors come with a set of encounters that serve as prompts for the Game Master to develop.

Berlin 2185 does include a section on the Undercity, the dark underbelly of what is old and new Berlin in 2185. Out of the old buildings and tunnels formed through collapse and being built over, long poisoned and irradiated by war and pollution, a nascent organisation called the Cabal is trying to establish itself in the city above. It has corporate connections, but mostly consists of bully-boy asshole white-supremacist fanatics. The Undercity is the Cabal’s territory, but it is home to mutated plants and animals and former humans. (The supplement suggests appropriate monsters from Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition.) It is quite a short section in comparison to the descriptions of the sectors in the upper city and the city as a whole. Plus, as  really only the main antagonist in Berlin 2185, it does lack advice on how to use it and on how to interface its plans with the upper world, as well as possible hooks that the Game Master could develop into something playable. It leaves the Game Master to handle that.

Another issue with Berlin 2185 is its treatment of its secrets. Some it does tell the Game Master what they are and others not. Whilst the main two threaten to change the nature of Carbon 2185 towards a more Science Fiction genre rather than a Cyberpunk one. It is never quite explicitly explained what they and certainly the ramifications of their discovery are never explored. This would not be so much of a problem if Berlin was not so much of paradise and had a bit more conflict that the Game Master could work from.

Physically, Berlin 2185 is well presented with plenty of artwork to get across the idea that Berlin is a radically different, all but utopian city comparison to the others of Carbon 2185. Sadly, this leaves less room to depict the seamier side of the city where the Cyberpunks are likely to congregate. There is no map either and the layout is untidy.

Berlin 2185 presents something radically different for Carbon 2185. A city with a positive outlook and a sense of hope. The result is engaging, even fascinating in comparison to the other cities in this future, but it does leave the Game Master with a lot of work to develop content and story lines given the lack of conflict in Berlin. There is possibility in the well done section on Punk and the underground music scene, but the remainder feels as if the content could have been developed a bit more, made that bit more engaging. Berlin 2185 is a welcome addition to the Carbon 218 setting, but the Game Master is going to work harder to bring more than its utopia to life and tell interesting stories.

Solitaire: Ion Heart – Pilot’s Handbook

It is fifteen hundred years since the Astral Union was formed and sixty-five years since the Emergence Catastrophe occurred. Nephilim Strand Fleets emerged from the Galactic East and for a decade the Emergence War was waged across the galaxy. Over five decades have passed since and signs of the conflict can be found only almost every planet and in the spaces between. Remnants of the original invasion force, as well as individual Nephilim, can still be found lurking at the furthest reaches of the spatial translation Snap Rifts that bind the planetary systems of the Astral Union together. Bandits and pirates are a threat still, as are corporations running rogue operations. One icon of the war that can still be seen today is the Mech. Before the war, it had been designed as an industrial machine for use in construction and mining, and later developed as a combat vehicle, but the Mech rose to prominence during the defence of the Astral Union. Ion Core technology harnessed the latent psionic ability of all sentient beings using advanced A.I. systems to create a Sync-Bond between a mech and its user, enhancing the precision and dexterity of the Mech and enabling the Mech itself to develop a personality of its own and operate independently, but still linked to its Pilot. Today, Mechs are seen far and wide across the Astral Union, the bond between Pilot and Mech celebrated as if they were a knight and the Mech his steed of old. Together, they adventure and explore, help and hinder, protect and perform, often helping where they can, like itinerant, if hyper-armed, ronin of old.

This is the set-up for Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG – Pilot’s Handbook. It is a solo journalling game published by Parable Games, best known for the horror roleplaying game, Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. In the roleplaying game, the player will take the roles of both Pilot and Mech, who together explore a universe ravaged by war and now recovering, growing together and strengthening their bond. The roleplaying game provides prompts that will drive the story of their adventures that the player will record in short mission logs. These missions typically take the form of an ‘Exploration Loop’—arriving on a planet, discovering a settlement, encountering a Story Circuit, and engaging in combat and travel encounters, as necessary. A Story Circuit is a narrative arc consisting of six parts. The player needs to play through a minimum of three of these before his Pilot and Mech can play out the finale of the Story Circuit, and so complete its narrative before moving. The Story Circuit is pre-written, but the rest is created at the beginning of each loop. To play, Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG needs nothing more than some six-sided dice and a means to record a journal.

Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG – Pilot’s Handbook includes some background to the setting really intended to provide flavour and detail, rather than mechanical support. This includes the history of the Astral Union, its organisations and what ordinary life is like, an explanation of the Emergent War and who the Nephilim are, and a timeline. Surprisingly, this also includes the various species which a player can chose from. These include Apollonians or humans from the Apollo-Theta system, the reptilian Varziss of the Varziss Triarchy, the bear-like Urvons of the League of Urvo, the winged and nocturnal bat-like Chiros of Chiros Coalition, the centaur-like Kirvae of the Kirvaen Prefecture, and the cat-like Mo’nau of the Mo’nau Republic. In addition to selecting one of these species during character creation, all of this material can be drawn upon when a player is recording in his journal.

The character creation is for both the Pilot and the Mech. The Pilot is defined by Pilot Body and Pilot Presence, whilst Mech is defined by Mech Brawn and Mech Reflex. Pilot Body is his physical capability and toughness, whilst Pilot Presence is his mental fortitude and reasoning skills. Mech Brawn is the Mech’s strength and toughness, whilst Mech Reflex is his speed and agility. All of these start at zero, but are first modified by the Pilot’s Temperament and the Mech’s Weight Class. The Pilot has an Origin—one of the species listed above, a Pilot Goal such as ‘Adventure Forth’, ‘Escape Past’, and ‘Fulfil Destiny’, and Pilot Temperament, which can be ‘Outgoing’, ‘Reflective’, ‘Analytical’, ‘Intuitive’, ‘Mercurial’, or ‘Rigid’. Each of these provide a benefit. For example, ‘Reflective’ means that the Pilot prefers to keep himself and thinks carefully before committing to anything, which grants ‘+3 Max. Mech Shielding’ and ‘+1 Pilot Body’, whilst ‘Intuitive’ means that the Pilot is empathetic, has a poet’s soul, and makes judgements based on what he feels to be right, and that allows his player can ‘Re-roll two failed Pilot Presence Checks per day.’

Creating or building a Mech is slightly—but only slightly—more complex. The Mech has a Class that can either be Light, Medium, or Heavy. This determines whether it favours speed, durability, and powerful weapons, or a balance between the two, and thus its starting values for Mech Shielding and Brawn and Reflex modifiers. Each Mech has a Ranged Weapons System, Melee Weapons System, and an Auxiliary System, which will also help in combat. Since the end of the war with the Nephilim, all Mechs have been reconfigured or designed to have a civilian Specialisation and thus the capacity to be useful out of combat. This can be ‘Shepherd’, ‘Harvester’, or ‘Bridgebuilder’, for example. All of this—for both Pilot and Mech—can rolled for or chosen by the player. Lastly, there is the Ion Core Sync Bond, which represents the connection between the Pilot and his Mech, and in play, determines how many Heroic Actions or Ion Core engagements that can be conducted per day.

Pilot Name: Makwa

Pilot Origin: Urvon

Pilot Temperament: Analytical (+1 to hit in first Ranged Step of any combat)

Pilot Goal: Save Others

Pilot Presence 0 Pilot Body 0

Mech

Origin: Working Relationship

Weight: Heavy

Ion Core Sync Bond 2

Mech Shielding 46

Battle Scars: 0

Mech Brawn +1

Mech Reflex -1

Attacks: 3

Weapons: Scattergun (Damage: 4+D6) [Buckshot: For every hit with this weapon, make an extra free attack with it]; Forge Hammer (Damage: 6+D6) [Crushing Smite: The Meteorite Thunderstrike Ion Core does an additional +4 damage]

Auxiliary system: TN Field Projector

Mech Specialisation: Repair & Rescue

Mech Quirks: 0

Mechanically, Ion Heart is simple. When a player wants either his Pilot or his Mech to succeed, he rolls a single six-sided die and rolls of four or more means the attempt is successful. A roll of one is always a failure, whilst a roll of six is always a success. For the Pilot, bonuses can come from his Presence or Body as appropriate, but if he fails, the player can decide to have his Pilot undertake a Heroic Action. This automatically succeeds, but at the cost of a Sync Bond slot for that day. The Mech can operate by itself when the Pilot is not in the cockpit. In which case the bonuses for the Mech’s own Mech Brawn and Mech Reflex are used, and the roll required to succeed is still four or more. When a Mech has no instructions, it will revert to the Specialisation it has been programmed with.

Combat uses the same core mechanic, but on attacks, a roll of six is critical hit and inflicts more damage. Similarly, a roll of six to defend against an attack is a critical and deflects part of the damage back at the attacker. A round consists of three steps—Ranged, Melee, and Disengage. A Mech’s Level determines the number of attacks per round, but if the Pilot or Mech decides not to attack, they receive a bonus to the rolls to defend themselves. Damage reduces the Mech Shielding, and this is both when the Pilot is out of the Mech and in the Mech. If the Pilot is out of the Mech, it means that Pilot is not taking damage as such, but his ability to pilot the Mech is being affected.

The Ion Core of a Mech and its A.I. means that it can learn over time as it synchronises with the Pilot and it can also overcharge the Mech’s systems. There is no truly safe way to do this, as even if the Pilot and Mech have enough Sync Bond points—which determines the number of times it can be done per day—engaging the Ion Core can still damage the Mech and will damage the Mech if the number of times it is used exceeds the Sync Bond points. When the Ion Core is engaged, it provides the player with a number of choices, such as the aforementioned ‘Heroic Push’, which allows a failed Mech Brawn or Mech Reflex check to succeed; ‘Shields! Full Power!’, which partially restores Mech Shielding; and ‘Meteoric Thunderstrike!’ which enables a single attack that round and has it automatically succeed with extra damage inflicted. In the long term, through play and combat, the latter if the Mech Shielding is reduced to zero and the Mech is disabled, the Mech can acquire Mech Quirks such as ‘Gallant Protector’, which grants a bonus to Defence rolls if Mech Shielding is seriously reduced, and ‘Ocular Misalignment’, damaging its targeting optics! If there is an issue with the Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG, it is that it is hard for the Pilot to improve in comparison to the Mech and the Mech is always more interesting than the Pilot as he has no special abilities or skills.

The play of Ion Heart—the ‘Exploration Loop’—begins with the creation the next destination for the Pilot and his Mech. This includes world building, which drills down from system creation through world creation to settlement design. Examples are provided to choose from, but there are tables which a player can use to create his own. The tables are used to create systems, planets, biomes, and settlements as well as encounters that can be friendly, mysterious, or hostile. The latter are backed up with a range of threats that includes other Mechs and Nephilim enemies. What this provides is a broadly drawn environment that a Pilot and Mech can explore and adventure across. It is also the environment upon which the player will map and tell the tale of one or more Story Circuits.

Eighteen of these are detailed in Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG – Pilot’s Handbook, taking up half of the book. There are six each of Peaceful, Protective, and Dangerous Story Circuits, and each one is broken down into five scenes, plus a finale. The player has to play through three of the scenes before playing the finale. The Peaceful Story Circuits include ‘The Remembrance Festival’ and ‘Mech’s Birthday’; the Protective Story Circuits include ‘An Ecologist’s Dilemma’ and ‘Volcanic Chaos’; and Dangerous Story Circuits include ‘Our Fight is Not Over’ and ‘Contested Territory’. This is a great mix of story ideas and gives the game a greater longevity than the average solo journaling game.

In addition, Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG – Pilot’s Handbook includes guidance on playing it as a two-player game. Instead of each player controlling his own Pilot and Mech, one player roleplays the Pilot and the other player the Mech, and it suggests the players divide responsibilities between journalling and rules referencing, as well as working together to decide on the actions of their shared Pilot and Mech.

Physically, the Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG – Pilot’s Handbook is a nicely done roleplaying game. It is fetchingly presented in swathes of soft colours and easy to read and understand.

Initially, Ion Heart is a challenging given that until a Pilot and Mech survive a Story Circuit and can go up a Level, there is not much in the way of modifiers to affect the dice rolls needed for many actions. This is why the Sync Bond and engaging the Ion Core is so important as it can get the Pilot and Mech out of a tight scrape, but it is more important early on in the game when there are fewer modifiers to skill rolls and fewer chances to engage the Ion Core with any degree of safety. However, careful play and some luck will get the Pilot and the Mech through most situations, and it may help if the player goes through a Peaceful Story Circuit first so that his Pilot can gain a Level.

Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG – Pilot’s Handbook explores the relationship between Pilot and Mech, much like a knight and his horse. They are both bonded, literally in the case of the Pilot and Mech with the Sync Bond mechanic. What is so attractive about Ion Heart is that although there is danger to be found and threats to be confronted across the Astral Union, the universe it depicts is not a dark one, but one of hope and restoration, as the Pilot and Mech wander from place to place, in peripatetic fashion, ronin-style. Then unlike other solo journalling games, Ion Heart not only comes with eighteen Story Circuits to tell, but leaves the world open. There is no set ending that the player is striving for and when he has completed the eighteen Story Circuits, he is free to create his own and continue the story of his Pilot and Mech, or wait for expansions from the publisher. In other words, it is up to the player to decide when the story of his Pilot and Mech ends.

Ion Heart: Solo Mech Exploration RPG – Pilot’s Handbook is a rather charming journalling roleplaying game, enjoyably optimistic in tone, and with richness of stories to tell.

A Talagaad Tally

Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Player’s Guide and Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game – Game Master’s Guide introduced the Old World, the prequel setting to the venerable Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition. Based on the Warhammer: The Old World, the miniatures combat rules from Games Workshop, Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game is published by Cubicle 7 Entertainment and focuses on a setting that is torn by internal strife, whether political, between the Elector Counts, or religious, between the Sigmarites and Ulricans and others, rather than on the assaults and attacks by the forces of Chaos and on the Chaos within, though this does not mean that Chaos is no less of a threat to the Empire. It is also very specific in its setting. This is the fortified, if ramshackle river port of Talagaad, perched between the Talabec River and the towering walls of the Taalbaston—the giant crater in which the nearby city of Talabheim sits, which stands on the Wizard’s Way, the road that crosses over the bridge known as the and up over the walls of the Taalbaston and is the only legal route into the crater. Control of Talagaad is important since it is a source of much wealth, whether from the taxes levied on the goods going to Talabheim and from lower prices paid for goods being smuggled into the city. Consequently, the town is rife with crime and corruption, petty and otherwise, whether committed by its ordinary citizenry, criminal underclass, or even its excise officers. This is the subject of Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game – Talagaad Adventures.

Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game – Talagaad Adventures is an anthology of five adventures that can be run with any type of Player Characters, though a good mix is recommended in terms of capabilities and status. As in the case of the latter, it will enable the Player Characters to interact with all levels of society. It is suggested that the Player Characters have two adventures under their belt, so the Game Master may want to run the Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game – Starter Set at the very least. The adventures themselves are tied into ‘Grim Portents’ and ‘Dark Threads’ at the Talagaad and thus to the various Contacts that the Player Characters have. However, the adventures do not explore those ‘Grim Portents’ as such, the plots that will bring the Player Characters together and push them to act. Rather they connect to them, but do not develop them directly. Further, the five together do not form a campaign, and they can be played in any order, though it is suggested that the last scenario in the anthology, ‘The Siege of Klepzig’ be run last as a climax to the quintet. What this means is that the individual scenarios in Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game – Talagaad Adventures can be run on their own or woven into the Game Master’s campaign

The adventures take place in and around Talagaad, but also up and down the River Talabec and back again. ‘Something Fishy’ begins in Talagaad with the Player Characters inadvertently caught up in the assassination of the town’s town crier in the Fischmarkt. The Talabheim 11th State Troops are sent into to keep the peace as much as investigate and by investigate, pin the blame on the Player Characters! Sergeant Dunkel suggests they have links with the Redgrins, a brutal criminal gang that claims part of the docks as their turf. With Dunkel on their tail, the Player Characters will need to investigate the victim himself and his associates, survive a blunt interview with the Redgrins, and get the killer to confess. The scenario has a grubby, greasy feel to it and it climaxes in a big showdown between the villain of the piece and a horde of vengeful ghosts dragged up from the riverbed, the Redgrins, and the Talabheim 11th State Troops with the Player Characters caught in the middle!

In ‘The Hungry Towers’, the Player Characters are sent upriver to two villages standing opposite each other on a tributary of the Talabec River where a longstanding feud between the lords of Taggenfeld and Silberwald, the von Taglich family and the Fasthner-Ludenhofs respectively, has broken out once again. As a result of the feud, huge towers have been erected on opposite banks of the river and manned in fear of war between the minor baronies. Although they have letters of introduction, the Player Characters have to deal with stubborn nobles and their advisors, try to get to the bottom of the situation, and make it clear to either side, that everybody is going to lose in the unnecessarily tense situation. Multiple paths to resolving the situation are suggested, including suing for peace, revealing a bigger danger, siding with once faction or the other, and even inciting a rebellion. This is a thoroughly entertaining scenario, a mini-Cold War playing on the pettiness of the Empire’s nobility, and giving the Player Characters agency aplenty to resolve the situation.

If ‘The Hungry Towers’ feels like a mini-Cold War scenario, ‘Oars in the Water’ is more like Heart of Darkness. A contact of the Player Characters asks them to go down river to Ahlenhof and return with a river trader, Sibylle Reiss, who writes that she fears being attacked by a band of river pirates. As they travel back aboard her vessel, The Limping Lass, it is soon clear that Reiss is being tracked by another vessel, though her pursuers are no ordinary pirates. They are instead, fanatical Sigmarite cultists and they will do anything to stop The Limping Lass from reaching Talagaad. This includes attempting to sink her, attacking her crew when she is beached to make repairs, blocking the river, and more. However, as they travel upriver, the situation grows ever more tense and Reiss is forced to take desperate actions, ones that threaten reveal her secrets. The scenario brings out some of the tensions in the Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game setting and takes to monstrous extreme.

The Player Characters and the whole of Talagaard gets to party in ‘If the Leaves are Green’. If ‘Oars in the Water’ twists the classic Warhammer trope of travelling by river, ‘If the Leaves are Green’ firmly tweaks the classic Warhammer trope of a carnival or festival. In the harvested fields outside of Talagaard, the townsfolk enjoy the Mittherbst festival at which the Priests of Ulric welcome the approach of winter as the Rhya’s faithful give thanks for the recent harvest. As darkness falls, the Hounds of Taal, fervent worshippers of the god of nature, begin a ceremony, having donned masks of beasts and imbibed potent wine, and it is at this point that Beastmen stream into the firelight, slashing and biting and headbutting and then grabbing and retreating! As the town guards rush out to rescue any survivors, it is clear that they are not going to do anything about those kidnapped until daylight. After all, who can blame them? Who would be foolish enough to rush into Beastmen-infested woods in the middle of night? Only the Player Characters, of course. Their motivation should at least that one of their contacts has been taken, and what results is a harrowing race through the night to track down the various bands of fleeing Beastmen and get to them before they carry whatever foul plans they have for their captives! If successful, the Player Characters will have proven themselves mighty heroes, but the scenario does not ignore the costs of defeat either.

The quintet comes to a close with ‘The Siege of Klepzig’. The Player Characters are conscripted or volunteered into haphazard force of professional soldiers and militia to help defend a village which stands in the path of an army of Orc and Goblin raiders of the Red Eyez Tribe bearing down from the nearby Barren Hills. The scenario is a classic military muddle under siege with the added complication of claims to Klepzig from rival noble families, and the search for some secrets. The scenario is solidly written, but does not feel as exciting as the previous ‘If the Leaves are Green’. Instead, of desperate acts of heroism, this more desperate acts of survival under siege, and perhaps if the Game Master wants a more rousing finish to the anthology, she might swap the order of the scenarios. Essentially, if there are opportunities for grim and glorious storytelling in ‘If the Leaves are Green’, then ‘The Siege of Klepzig’ is definitely more grom than glorious.

Physically, Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game – Talagaad Adventures is well presented. The illustrations are also good and the maps clear and easy to use, although there could have more of them.

Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game – Talagaad Adventures is a solid selection of scenarios for Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game that is going to serve as great additions to a Game Master’s campaign. At their best, they explore the Old World in unexpected, exciting, and entertaining ways.