Terminator Terror II

Back in 1991, the release of Terminator 2: Judgment Day was not only highly anticipated, but proved to be a box office hit. The Terminator had been a surprise hit in 1984 and proven to be a big hit on video in the years that followed. Terminator 2: Judgment Day was a sequel that people wanted to see and not only introduced amazing special effects with the extensive use of computer-generated imagery to portray the liquid metal effects of the T-1000, but it also greatly expanded the lore of The Terminator universe from the simplicity of the original film. It is this second film and its expanded Terminator universe that Scottish publisher, Nightfall Games, explores in Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG. Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, as the title suggests, this is a supplement for The Terminator RPG, a companion volume to The Terminator Campaign Book which expanded upon the original film. As with the rest of The Terminator RPG line, it not only draws upon the films by James Cameron, but it also draws on the seventeen or so comic book storylines published by Dark Horse Comics between 1990 and 2019. Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG is the opportunity to explore the world of the nineties prior to Judgement Day on August 29th, 1997, and beyond into both the immediate aftermath and the Dark Future of the decades to come and look at operations conducted by both Skynet and the Resistance to alter the timeline, protect or destroy assets important to the development of Skynet and protect or destroy the foundations of the Resistance against Skynet.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG provides an overview of its themes and ideas—the darkness of metal, especially liquid metal; the negative consequences of advances in technology and the resulting technophobia; that humanity is its worst own enemy, even to the point of creating that which will kill it in its own image; and despite all this, humanity’s fate is in own hands. In the case of the latter, there can be no doubt that this is severely hampered as the supplement shows, whether that is because of the advanced technology that Skynet has access to and the Resistance only has limited access to, or because the dangers of time travel from the Dark Future to the 1990s (and back again). It also introduces the nineties, in all their flannel shirt wearing, music video watching, coffee swilling, fast food guzzling, longer working hours glory. In doing so, the supplement takes player and Game Master alike right up to Judgement Day itself, August 29th, 1997, the day which really has been lurking over the horizon of The Terminator RPG. It also adds two interesting options in terms of play. One, just like Terminator 2: Judgment Day, introduces the possibility of Terminators as heroes and thus Player Character Terminators. The other is for the players to play the elite of the Resistance, members of the Time Displacement Commandos, conducting operations from a secret base on the Moon that Skynet has no idea about.

The given history of the nineties is really very much seen in response to secret war that was being fought between forces manipulated or influenced by the Resistance and those manipulated or influenced by Skynet. Thus, on one side there are discussions of guerillas, survivalists—of various stripes, and the militias, whilst on the other, there are computer experts, federal agencies, and so on. There are interesting details of what might be found in a typical fallout shelter and stats for various NPCs on both sides, that with some effort could be adjusted so that they could be used as Player Characters. A history of both Cyberdyne Systems and its rival and eventual successor, Raven Technologies are given neatly providing a backdrop for the Player Characters’ investigations in the decade.

The Dark Future is treated in similar fashion, examining mankind’s initial responses to Judgement Day and its nuclear exchange and as they made the first steps out of their shelters and holes in the ground, to the rise of the machines and the coming of Skynet. This includes the establishment of the first Resistance settlements and how they evolved over time, as well as detailing various common character types found there—Demolitions Expert, Basic Infantry, Medtech, Sniper, and so on. Again, these are given as NPCs, but can be upgraded to serve as the basis for Player Characters. They are accompanied by descriptions of survivors other than members of the Resistance that might be found in the Dark Future, such as Junkers, Scroungers, Cannibals, Hoarders, and Raiders, plus traitors and despots. The inclusion of these push The Terminator RPG into a more traditional style of post-apocalypse setting, but also expands storytelling options available in the Dark Future, that they need not always be about the Resistance versus Skynet.

The advances made in technology means that whilst time travel is available to Skynet by 2030, it really comes into its own in the following decades and the 1990s become a battle ground for terminators and Resistance members sent back into the past. This includes the ability to return from the 1990s to the future, but this requires the means to recreate the time displacement equipment in the past. The most common method involves swallowing a large ‘Time Pill’ containing a Neural Net CPU chip and a quantum-synced isotope that is radioactive and needs to be evacuated from the body as soon as possible! Once their mission has been fulfilled, the time travellers will use the contents of the ‘Time Pill’ to construct the time displacement equipment. Other means, like the later developed Time Door, require a great deal of power that Skynet can easily spot. The primary users of the technology are the Time Displacement Commandos, effectively the elite of the Resistance and regarded with disdain by some members of the Resistance. Its history and operations and described, accompanied throughout, by advice and details of Time Displacement Commandos training which beg to be used in game. Also discussed are the possible dangers and paradoxes of time travel, such as temporal distortions, the Bootstrap Paradox (which is how Cyberdyne Systems got hold of the technology that would become Skynet), the Grandfather Paradox, and more. Some possible outcomes of the war are also discussed, but perhaps more interesting are the detailed alternative timelines in which Judgement Day take place, including one in which John Connor is killed by the T-1000 and his mother’s vengeance forces Skynet into one terrible, final retaliation, and one in which an asteroid strikes California and in response the US nuclear arsenal and Skynet were repurposed to provide defence against further strikes from space, but Skynet still destroys the world. What is made clear throughout is that time travel is fraught with danger and killing the wrong person or a random person by mistake can have consequences for the future.

Playing a member of the Time Displacement Commandos is offered as an advanced option, including new roles like Robot Fighter, Cyber Jockey, and Deep Insertion Operative, the later being supported by playing a Deep Insertion Operative, sent back into the past to monitor the activities of Skynet and those who contribute to its growth. Also included here are Agents of John Connor, the elite of his forces who report directly to him and follow only his orders. The other option is playing as a Terminator. This presents quite a change in game and out of game. In game, a Terminator Player Character must obey its programming, must seek technical rather than medical aid, and will expect to face hostility from NPCs. Out of game, a Terminator Player Character has no control over its fate and therefore no Hope Points and limited options in terms of Terminator units that the Game Master will allow in her campaign. The presence of a Terminator Player Character also limits the missions that can be played. For example, if it has to protect a scientist, that scientist has to be included in the game. What Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG suggest is that a Terminator Player Character fulfil a particular role and mission, like ‘The Nanny ’Nator’ which acts as a surrogate to a child or youth or ‘The Traitor ’Nator’ reprogrammed to attack Skynet. It is possible for a Terminator Player Character to overcome its programming, but this can cause it to corrupt, as can being reduced to zero Hit Points, suffering a hard reset, or failing a mission or objective. This begins to limit the skills it can use. However, there are plenty of ideas on how Terminators can be used with or as Player Characters, including a ‘Terminator Player Character Mission Plot Generator’.

Full stats are provided for numerous characters from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, including ‘Uncle Bob’ as John Conner nicknamed the Terminator sent back to save him, Sarah Connor post-incarceration, John Connor at ten years old, Miles Dyson, and Doctor Peter Silberman.* These are accompanied by assessments by Skynet and Doctor Silberman and some also by assessments by the Time Displacement Commandos. Several sections cover a wide array of weaponry, equipment, vehicles, and also wildlife—the latter with rules for bear hugs and vicious attacks!—from both the 1990s and the Dark Future. The book also adds a wide range of new Skynet threats from the bug-like HK-Crawler, MHK-Drone, and HK-Jet to HK-Tank MK 2, HK-Walker, and HK-Mini Walker. The first Terminator designed and built to replace human troops, the T-70, is also fully described, as is a wide range of Infiltrator models, before it details the use of Liquid Metal by Skynet. First seen in action in the T-1000 prototype sent back to the 1990s to kill John Connor, the development of the technology is explained as are its capabilities beyond those listed for Infiltrator units in The Terminator RPG. These include metamorphism, regeneration, and magnetic reader, but also vulnerabilities such as extreme heat and cold, and immersion in acid. Alongside these are precursor steps to the full T-1000, for example, ‘Dagger Tongue’ and ‘Medusa Hair’, that the Game Master can add to earlier Series 800 and Series 900 Terminators to hint at the development of the T-1000. Understandably, the stats for the T-1000 are fearsome and the special rules scary. This is definitely not a threat that the Game Master wants to throw into the path of her Player Characters unless they are very capable.

* You also get to learn in Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG that Doctor Silberman is a bigger arsehole than you thought he was from simply watching Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

However, the T-1000 is not the ultimate Terminator model in Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG. This is T-Mobius, an advanced version of the T-1000 with its own built-in Time Displacement Equipment. It is tasked with locating and shutting down time displacements before they can disrupt the timeline and threaten Skynet. Again, the Player Characters need to be very capable if they are to face this, let alone defeat it.

The supplement also expands on the rules in The Terminator RPG for Hacking. When Hacking, a player rolls Computer skill tests to generate points of Progress which can be expended to move deeper into the network, create a backdoor, capture a node, exploit a subroutine, and so on to infiltrate systems mapped out as a series of connected nodes represented by a ‘Network Architecture Diagrams’. The expanded rules cover hacking via a Terminator’s severed head, the need to learn the terminology and protocols used Skynet, and a host of tasks—logging in/out, network permissions, subroutine tasks, and more all the way up to sentience engine tasks. The problem with this is that there is more to learn and account for using these options. Since the hacking rules are designed to be played in conjunction with actions that the other Player Characters might be taking in combat rounds, this extra detail has the potential to slow play down. Simplified Hacking rules are provided, but the one set of rules that the Player Characters are likely to use are those for programming a captured Terminator. A ‘Network Architecture Diagram’ is provided for this, but much like a Player Character Terminator attempting to overcome its own programming, reprogramming the code of the A.I. of a Terminator can corrupt its systems and in game terms, potentially impede its skills.

Lastly, Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG includes three new missions. The first is ‘Into the Valley of Metal’ which lets all of the players take the roles of T-800 Terminators. Newly activated, programmed, and equipped for a seek and destroy mission on a resistance hideout, the players get to play the enemy—or so they think. Captured by the Resistance, they are hastily reprogrammed and sent back by the Resistance to strike at the heart of Skynet. This also allows the players experience a deep strike on Skynet facilities potentially long before their Resistance Player Characters might have a chance to. The scenario might also serve as a good convention scenario.

However, when the Player Characters are ready and capable enough to strike directly at Skynet, there is the second scenario, ‘Assault on Thunder Mountain’. Based on the graphic novel, The Burning earth, it is set in 2041 and can be run after the events of ‘Into the Valley of Metal’. Instead of the Player Characters being Terminators, here they are experienced members of the Resistance attacking the last redoubt of Skynet before drops nuclear bombs on every surviving settlement in North America. This is a challenging scenario combing a mix of stealth and combat.

The third and final scenario in the book is ‘Terminator Two: Judgment Day’. This is designed to emulate the events of the film as closely as the Game Master wants, whilst also allowing room for her make changes and add surprises for her players and their characters. There is advice and suggestions for running it according to the original timeline or an alternate timeline. In the original timeline, the players take the roles of Sarah Connor, John Connor, and Uncle Bob, whilst in the alternate timeline, there are more Player Characters involved. Either way, the scenario is broken down into the film’s big set pieces—the first encounter at the arcade, the chase on the roads of Los Angeles with the motorcycle and the big truck, Sarah Connor’s breakout from the hospital, and so on. As with the previous two scenarios, each scene is given a set-up, descriptions of the obstacles the Player Characters will face and the assets they have, and ways out of the scene, and on to the next. However, the film does not just consist of these big, set piece scenes. There are scenes in between and it is in these that the players are expected to roleplay the emotional aspects of the film and bring in their interpretation of roleplaying these characters. What this means is that the players get to re-enact the film and enjoy all of its big excitement and action, without having to exactly roleplay the roles as the actors did. Thus, it has just about enough freedom to be more than a simple replication.

Physically, Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG is a good-looking book with plenty of art that captures the feel of the film and depicts the ghastly nature of the Dark Future. The book is also an engaging read, but it does include some horrifying, often cruel scenes in its fiction. However, it does need an edit in places, whilst in others the layout contains a crash or two.

There is more of an emphasis in Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG on the Dark Future than the 1990s, but that emphasis is all about taking the fight to Skynet and setting up the means to jump back in time to the 1990s. In the process, it greatly expands the world of The Terminator RPG, ultimately highlighting how Judgement Day cannot be stopped, but that the secret war fought in the years leading up to it can influence the future and hopefully, save mankind. Overall, Terminator 2: Judgment Day – A Sourcebook for The Terminator RPG is a good sourcebook for both The Terminator RPG and Terminator 2: Judgment Day full of great content that the Game Master can bring the 1990s and the Dark Future—and hopefully help save mankind.

Terminator Terror

Published by Nightfall Games, The Terminator RPG is based upon The Terminator, the original film by James Cameron from 1984 and then on the seventeen or so comic book storylines published by Dark Horse Comics between 1990 and 2019. The Science Fiction horror roleplaying game enables play in two time periods. The first is the future of the here and now, or at least an alternative here and now. This is the future of Judgement Day, in which the A.I. Skynet attempted to destroy its creators and the rest of humanity in nuclear, biological, and chemical conflagration before sending out increasingly sophisticated machines to wipe out humanity, whether through brute force or infiltration followed by brute force. The Resistance arose, led by those who had been preparing for Judgement Day and the rise of the robots, most notably, John Connor, to defeat Skynet and its forces. By the end of the 2020s, the Resistance would prevail, but not before Skynet developed temporal technology with Time Displacement Equipment, enabling it to send Terminator units back into the past and attack those who would become a danger to it in the future. Thus, the war against the machines became not a war of resistance and rebellion against Skynet, but a war through time, a hunt for Skynet’s agents across the later twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This opens up the second time period, the 1980s, and whilst it would be possible to run campaigns in both periods without any crossover, travelling back from the 2020s opens up the possibility of some entertaining ‘fish out of water’ style roleplaying. In general, the emphasis in The Terminator RPG is on the period of the 2020s, but there is still plenty of information about the 1980s to run a campaign set there. This is the inspiration for The Terminator RPG: Campaign Book.

The Terminator RPG: Campaign Book presents a series of fifteen interlinked missions across both the devastated future post Judgement Day and the unware period of the horrors to come, 1980s. Many of the missions can be played on their own, but by linking them, the Resistance Fighters can explore stories that weave in and out of, and parallel to, those of Sarah Connor, the future leader of the Resistance, her son, John Connor. What this means is that the players and their Resistance Fighters are not playing out the key events of The Terminator, but like the comic stories published by Dark Horse which specifically inspire many of the missions in The Terminator RPG: Campaign Book, instead exploring the world and stories away from the core story. There are one or two wholly original missions in the collection as well, but in general, the players and their Resistance Fighters will be telling their own stories, stories that support and contribute towards the core story. The interlinking nature of the missions is also quite loose, with in some cases, years passing between one mission and the next, enabling the Game Master to develop and add her own plots and missions between those given in this supplement. In addition, The Terminator RPG: Campaign Book has been written as part of the publisher’s ‘Signature Series’, which brings together a number of scenarios or missions from a variety of authors to provide different styles and approaches to a setting—or in this case, The Terminator franchise.

The campaign will see the Resistance Fighters fighting and surviving their way back and forth across the post-apocalyptic future of North America in the 2020s and even to a Moscow dominated by MIR, Skynet’s Russian subsidiary A.I., before throwing them back into the past of the 1980s, with rug-pulling deviation along the way. Here, in the past of both the Resistance Fighters and their players, the Resistance Fighters will hide out until needed, searching for three things. One is signs of Skynet’s operations from the future trying to ensure it creation and domination of that future. Two is looking for the events and persons involved in the creation, whether intentionally or inadvertently. Three, ultimately, chasing after Sarah Connor and her son, if not to actually locate the fugitives themselves, then at least prevent Skynet and its various terminator units, let alone the authorities, from locating them. This again, will take them back and forth across America, before a push long way south of the border. Throughout, the Resistance Fighters will encounter terminator model after terminator model, in some cases, hordes of them. In each and every incidence, the fights will be tough, the nearly unstoppable nature of the terminators horrifying, the encounter always desperate, whether defeat or victory. This does not vary whether it is the past or the future. In the future, the Resistance Fighters will have the advantage of advanced weaponry, but that will be against multiple terminators, whereas in the past, the Resistance Fighters will encounter terminators in ones and twos, but will only be armed with the weapons of the 1980s that they can scavenge or steal.

The campaign begins in the future, post-Judgement Day. The Resistance Fighters will find themselves investigating damaged Terminator Complexes for information about Skynet’s operations, visiting Russia and Moscow by submarine to curb Skynet’s operations there, and being hunted by Terminators before being rescued by unfamiliar faces. They will ultimately be given a mission by unexpectedly familiar face, before being thrown back into the past of the 1980s. This is where the bulk of the campaign takes place, missions include tracking down a notorious serial killer, survive being hunted again—though this time in rundown New York city of the period, stop a Terminator effort to take advantage of period communications (this nicely adds a Terminator twist to the suspicious man atop the telegraph pole. Very eighties and seventies), and hunt down a Terminator nurse—suitably named Nurse Hatchet—in a hospital before it reaches its target. The missions are suitable varied, but will involve a lot of action and combat as well as the desperate planning and investigation. The Resistance Fighters will also need to adapt to living in the 1980s whilst fulfilling missions and avoiding the attention of the authorities.

Structurally, the interlinked nature of the scenarios in The Terminator RPG: Campaign Book means that it is loose in places and there are long gaps between scenarios. There are two ways to address this. One is for the Game Master to add her own content to fill those perceived gaps or to run the campaign episodically, perhaps running other roleplaying games during the gaps to suggest that time has passed. Of course, there is nothing to stop the Game Master running the campaign for her group straight, from beginning to end.

To support the campaign, The Terminator RPG: Campaign Book includes two appendices. One contains seven pre-generated Resistance Fighters, some of whom are more critical to certain scenarios than others. The second provides statistics and descriptions for the campaign’s NPCs, which are surprisingly few in number. This is because the campaign draws from the core rulebook for The Terminator RPG for the majority of its NPC and Terminator stats.

However, as a whole, the campaign is lacking in a number of things. One is maps. There is only one location for which a map is given in the whole of the campaign. Now in many cases, it is easy to visual and describe certain locations, such as a hospital or a pawn shop, but there are number of bunkers and similar locations which would have been easier to visualise and impart their descriptions to the players had they been given maps. In most cases, though not all, the locations are decently described and so the Game Master can create her own. Another is hacking diagrams. There are some in the campaign, but not enough to be a strong feature of the campaign or threaten to overwhelm it with a large number of hacking attempts being needed. So, this is not an omission so much as a feature, and whilst a hacker will be required as part of the campaign, his technical skills will probably be required more often.

Physically, The Terminator RPG: Campaign Book is decently presented, well-written, and illustrated with some good artwork. The book is easy to read and includes staging notes and suggestions for the Game Master from one scenario to the next.

The Terminator RPG: Campaign Book is not a campaign in the traditional sense of there being a beginning, a middle, and an end. It definitely has a middle, and it could be argued that it has two middles rather than one with the switch in time periods, but in a more traditional campaign, the ending would involve the Player Characters defeating the big villain and bringing the story to a close. Not so in The Terminator RPG: Campaign Book, which does not come to end with the Resistance Fighters defeating the big villain. Rather, they will defeat a big villain and so contribute towards the defeat of the big villain, that is, Skynet. Which makes sense since the Resistance Fighters are not the stars of The Terminator franchise, but the stars of a story within The Terminator franchise. Overall, The Terminator RPG: Campaign Book is solid support for The Terminator RPG, providing the Game Master with some great Science Fiction horror with which to torment the Resistance Fighters and their players as they battle to make a difference and help save the future of humanity.

2000: Slavers

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

It has been a decade since a party of heroic adventurers ascended into the Drachensgrab Hills in the humanoid-infested Pomarj peninsula and infiltrated the secret Slave Lord city of Suderham, only to be captured and cast into the dungeons below, bereft of any possession, including arms, armour, and all magical items. Undaunted, these heroes managed to escape the dungeons, reclaim their possessions, and confront the Slave Lords even as the volcano above Suderham erupted and the god known as the Earth Dragon took her revenge. Their brave efforts put an end to the scourge of the Slavelords along the Wild Coast, ensuring that no man, woman, or child feared capture and being thrown into life of slavery and drudgery that would likely only end with their death. However, it appears that is not to be, for ten years since they were last sighted, the yellow sails of the Slavelords have been unfurled again. In the ports along the Wild Coast the yellow sailed ships of the Slave Lords have unloaded their dreadful cargo and on the waters of the Woolly Bay they have struck at ship after ship and raided town after town. Further, their ambition and reach has grown. They have been seen as far north as the waters of Nyr Dyv, the ‘lake of unknown depths’, most surely having sailed the length of the Solitaries in order to get so far. As the half-orc warlord, Turrosh Mak, has unified the bickering humanoid tribes of the Pomarj into a rapacious nation and conquered over half of the Wild Coast, there is a threat of old which seems to sail before him. The Slavelords have returned!

This is the set-up for Slavers, one of the last supplements to be published by Wizards of the Coast for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition and certainly the last campaign to be published for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition. Published in 2000, this is a sequel to classic campaign for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, which began life as the 1980 Open Tournament run by TSR, Inc. and would be published as the four part ‘Aerie’ or ‘A’ Series—A1: Slavepits of the Undercity, A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade, A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords, and A4: In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords. This would be collected in 1986 in A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords, before being later reprinted in 2013 as A0-A4: Against the Slave Lords,which included the addition of a prequel module, A0: Danger at Darkshelf Quarry. If A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords and A0-A4: Against the Slave Lords can be considered to be ‘Old School’, Slavers is anything but. The original quartet’s beginning as a tournament series of dungeons mark the ‘A’ Series as being tactical affairs, the activities of the Player Characters focused on taking direct action against the Slavelords, and that is even with the expansion of the original tournament adventures into full modules for sale. Slavers opens up the world and plot of the ‘A’ Series, turning it into an investigative and strategic campaign across central Greyhawk as the Player Characters attempt to find clues to the Slavelord’s activities, allies, bases, and ultimately, their location. Slavers has a plot, but it is not one that the players and their characters will necessarily adhere to as they go about their investigations. The Dungeon Master has the busy task of planting clues, directing the activities of the Slavelords and their allies as they become aware of the Player Characters’ activities, and responding to the players’ actions, for Slavers is a very player driven campaign.

Slavers is designed to be played by a group of five to eight Player Characters of Fourth and Fifth Levels and is set in the World of Greyhawk. It is a standalone campaign, but is likely to involve some sea combat, so a supplement such as Of Ships and the Sea, the ninth and last of the ‘Dungeon Master Guide Rules Supplement’ series will be useful. Similarly, the Tome of Magic will be useful for its spells. In addition, C2 The Ghost Tower of Inverness and The Star Cairns are suggested as useful optional extras since the Player Characters are likely to be travelling nearby. Lastly, ‘See the Pomarj—and Die!’ from Dragon Magazine#167 will provide extra background, but an appendix in the back of Slavers greatly expands upon the region.

Slavers will take the Player Characters from the town halls out into the waters of the Nyr Dyv and down the length of Selintan River out into Woolly Bay. Having first found hidden base on the shores of the Nyr Dyv, the Player Characters will find more hidden bases and Slavelord waystations along the coast of Woolly Bay, and there find more clues which point to the Slavelord operations as originating to the south. Following the clues will lead them deep into the peninsula of the Pomarj, much like the A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords and A0-A4: Against the Slave Lords, in search of the secret capital of the Slavelords. Once located, the Player Characters can discover and confront the true power behind the Slavelords—the temple of the Earth Dragon. This is given as a ‘Suggested Adventure Outline’ in the opening chapter of Slavers which presents ‘The Dungeon Master’s Notes’. As is clearly stated, “Preparation is required.” since the clues are not pre-written, only the primary locations and NPCs, along with further suggestions and ideas as to what might happen at those locations.

Slavers is divided into four chapters. The first is ‘The Land of Dyvers’, which covers that city and the Nyr Dyv, providing a history of the city and surrounding region, as well as detailed descriptions of both. It is accompanied by a table of random encounters and a breakdown of the slave raids across the area, and who is involved and in charge of them. These are supported by short rules for naval combat if the Dungeon Master does not have access to Of Ships and the Sea. The major Slavelord base, Slavers Cove, is fully written up as a location, as are the nearby Caverns of Blackthorn, home to a hidden lair of various humanoid species. ‘Dyvers Intrigues’ suggests many ways in which the Player Characters can become involved in the activities of the Slavelords. Perhaps investigating an assassination attempt on a priestess leading anti-shipping activity against the slavers, trying to find out why so many of the local Half-Orcs are being offered jobs on the Wild Coast, uncover the true nature of a new religion that has appeared in Dyvers, or simply have them employed as guards on a barge that is attacked by Slavelord ships. The advice here is to tie these plot ideas to local NPCs, whether as potential employers, enemies, or both.

The opening ‘The Land of Dyvers’ chapter sets the format for the other three. ‘North Woolly Bay’ presents the coastal area at the southern end of the Selintan River. In particular, it details the city of Hardby as well as the north end of Woolly Bay and the various locations and regions along its coast. Here the cities and villages not yet conquered by the Half-Orc tyrant, Emperor Turrosh Mak, are at least prepared for war, with anti-piracy activities conducted throughout the region and Greyhawk forces having established Bright Tower Keep, a fortification at the southern mouth of the Selintan River to monitor local shipping. Two slaver bases are detailed here, including the ruined city of Cantona where any operations against it will be hampered by an anti-magic zone! There are also descriptions of how the slaves are transported along the coast, pirate activity in the bay, and as before, various additional adventure ideas for the Dungeon Master to develop.

‘The Orcish Wild Coast’ presents the city of Elredd in some detail as it is a major base of operations for the slavers. Again, its history and current state are described in similar detail, a city of mercenaries, pirates, and humanoids, most of them working for Emperor Turrosh Mak and thus the Slavelords. However, there are a few neutral individuals in the city too and just outside it, a party of Good aligned adventurers conducting their own operations against the occupants of the city. The latter are potential allies for the Player Characters as they attempt their own infiltration of the city, whether in secret or in disguise. Discovering quite what is going on in the city and putting an end to it will be challenging any group of Player Characters.

Finally, ‘The Pomarj’ takes the campaign and the Player Characters into the heartland of Emperor Turrosh Mak’s domain. This covers both the rough nature of the local terrain and the many and various humanoid tribes who live there, including Flinds, Gnolls, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, and Orcs, as well as various smaller tribes. Two locations are described in detail. One is Highport, the port city where A1: Slavepits of the Undercity is set and begins the A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords campaign and continues the A0-A4: Against the Slave Lords campaign. Highport is really only a staging post for the campaign because the advice in the chapter is really on how the Player Characters might get across the region to Mount Drachenkopf and the town of Kalen Lekos, the heart of Turrosh Mak’s Orcish Empire and the Earth Dragon cult, and thus the Slavelords. Both locations are described in detail again, with the Temple of the Earth Dragon fully written up ready for the rousing climax to the campaign.

Rounding out Slavers is an appendix which provides a brief history of the Pomarj, a description of the Earth Dragon cult, a list of the new magical items in the campaign, and notes on the hero-deities Kelanen, hero-god of swords, sword skills, and balance, and Murlynd, Gnomish hero-god of ‘magical technology’. The latter two entries are more extras than anything directly useful to the campaign, whilst the rest expands and supports the material already given elsewhere in the campaign. The history of the Pomarj describes the rise of the original Slavelords, their fall at the hands of the original heroes, and the rise of the despotic Half-Orc emperor, Turrosh Mak, followed by the return of the Slavelords and the events which trigger the beginning of the campaign itself.

Physically, Slavers is cleanly and tidily presented. The pen and ink artwork is excellent throughout, small pieces which pleasingly illustrate the various NPCs, monsters, and locations of the campaign. There is a nice use of the ‘greyhawk’ as a motif throughout the book, first watchful, then in flight, and lastly striking in the supplement’s closing chapter. The cartography is more serviceable than interesting. If Slavers is a comprehensive overview of the central region of Flanaess and the machinations of the Slavelords, its omissions are in the main, minor. It does lack an index, greatly hampering its utility and requiring greater study upon the part of the Dungeon Master. This is the main issue with the campaign. The others are that it would have been if there had been a map of the whole region given, rather than one of Nyr Dyv and Woolly Bay and one of the Pomarj, and also the lack of rumour tables. Only one location in the campaign has a rumour table!

—oOo—

By the year 2000, there were few if any avenues for roleplaying game reviews. The only review would appear in Steve Jackson Games’ online e-zine, Pyramid. In the May 12, 2000 issue, the reviewer wrote, “Slavers is fully self-contained; familiarity with the old modules is not necessary to fully enjoy or utilize Slavers. However, the new adventure is full of references to the originals, including locations, events and NPCs, making it a lot more enjoyable for fans of the classic modules.” Further, the review also noted that, “Strangely enough, Slavers in not part of TSR’s Silver Anniversary Return to . . . line, even though the Slavelords series, originally published in 1980-81, certainly satisfies their criteria of being part of the shared history of many long-time D&D players. It is, however, better than the aforementioned “nostalgia” products that I have seen.”

—oOo—

As the reviewer in Pyramid pointed out, Slavers was not part of the series of nostalgia releases published by Wizards of the Coast, which had included Return to Keep on the Borderlands and Silver Anniversary Collector’s Edition Boxed Set. This does seem strange, since so many of the campaigns and modules, all of them of a similar era and all of them regarded as classics were given the Silver Anniversary treatment. Further, barring A0-A4: Against the Slave Lords, the series has not been revisited in the modern iteration of Dungeons & Dragons by Wizards of the Coast. That may well be due to its subject matter of slavery as much as the campaign being intrinsically tied to the World of Greyhawk.

Slavers is a tough, challenging campaign for Dungeon Master and player alike. Although there are plenty of opportunities for combat, the campaign focuses more on roleplaying and intrigue in equal measure, and both are necessary as a great many of the enemies present in Slavers are a lot tougher than the Player Characters. Slavers mixes the certainty of the evil nature of the Slavelords’ activities with the uncertainty of who the Player Characters can trust and whether they have truly dealt with the true leaders of the organisation. The Slavelords have spies throughout the region taking advantage of local and political resentments and their vile leader, Markessa, has captured a number of fellow Elves and forcibly remade them in her own image. Nor is the campaign necessarily over once the Player Characters have killed the leadership of the Slavelords. Their actions will cause chaos throughout the region and there are likely to be members of the organisation still operating well beyond the decapitation of its leadership. Slavers includes a selection of adventures exploring the ramifications of the Player Characters’ success.

Along the way, there are numerous nods and call-backs in Slavers to A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords, mostly minor, that the players of that previous campaign will enjoy spotting. Although a sequel, it is not necessary to have played through A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords to enjoy Slavers and the many differences between the two in terms of plot and structure might even mean that some players might actually enjoy Slavers without ever having played the original campaign! One definite absence is that of a dungeon in the traditional sense, Slavers including adventure locations rather than dungeons. However, Slavers can of course be run by the Dungeon Master as is and as intended by the authors, as a sequel to A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords, set some ten years later in the year CY 591.However, there is some flexibility to the campaign in how it could be used. Although not used in the campaign, the Player Characters could easily revisit the sites—or at least some of them—in A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords to search for possible clues, enabling the Dungeon Master to repopulate them and so use that older content.

One way in which Slavers cannot be used as written is as a direct sequel to A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords is with the same Player Characters. This is primarily due to the difference in Levels, A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords being written for Player Characters of Seventh to Eleventh Levels and Slavers for Fourth and Fifth Levels. One option suggested in Return to Keep on the Borderlands is the Player Characters be the children of those who played the original B2 Keep on the Borderlands. This is not an option for Slavers as written as the time gap between it and A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords is ten years compared to that of twenty between B2 Keep on the Borderlands and Return to Keep on the Borderlands.

Slavers and A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords and A0-A4:Against the Slave Lords are worlds apart. If not in theme and basic plot, then very much in terms of plot design, setting, and Dungeon Master input. Slavers is not pre-plotted, but does suggest an outline, one that the Dungeon Master is free to ignore or use as is her wont. The setting, from Dyvers and Nyr Dyv in the north to Pomarj in the south, is greatly expanded upon, describing numerous towns and locations as well as the Pomarj in no little detail. Where A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords and A0-A4: Against the Slave Lords called for Dungeon Master input in terms of readying and understanding how each is intended to be played out, Slavers calls for the Dungeon Master to study its content and develop clues, plots, encounters, and more. That more being to comprehend the content enough to react to both the actions and courses of actions decided upon by her players and their characters. In effect, Slavers is not a campaign in the classic sense of being heavily pre-plotted, but far more of an overview. Slavers is a campaign for the experienced Dungeon Master, one willing to put the time and effort in to make it her own, and together with her players, memorable. In contrast to its forebears, Slavers feels surprisingly modern and flexible for a module for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition, but even as that roleplaying game’s last hurrah it showed how far both roleplaying design and the storytelling possibilities of an older system had come.

The FATE of Quiet

FATE of Cthulhu added two elements to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying—time travel and foreknowledge. Published by Evil Hat Games, the 2020 horror roleplaying game was built around campaign frameworks that cast the Player Characters as survivors in a post-apocalyptic future thirty years into the future, the apocalypse itself involving various aspects and entities of the Mythos. Not only as survivors though, because having entered into a pact with the Old One, Yog-Sothoth, they have unlocked the secret of time travel and come back to the present. They have come back aware of the steps along the way which brought about the apocalypse and they come back ready to fight it. This though is not a fight against the Cthulhu Mythos in general, but rather a single Old One and its cultists, and each thwarting of an Old One is a self-contained campaign in its own right, in which no other element of the Mythos appears.

The five campaigns, or timelines, presented in FATE of Cthulhu in turn have the Investigators facing Cthulhu, Dagon, Shub-Nigggurath, Nyarlathotep, and the King in Yellow. Each consists of five events, the last of which is always the rise of the Old One itself. The events represent the roadmap to that last apocalyptic confrontation, and can each be further broken down into four event catalysts which can be people, places, foes, and things. The significance of these events are represented by a die face, that is either a bank, a ‘–’, or a ‘+’. These start out with two blanks and two ‘–’, the aim of the players and their investigators being to try to prevent their being too many, if any ‘–’ symbols in play and ideally to flip them from ‘–’ to blank and from blank to ‘+’. Ultimately the more ‘+’ there are, the more positive the ripple will be back down the timeline and the more of a chance the investigators have to defeat or prevent the rise of the Old One. Conversely, too many ‘–’ and the known timeline will play out as follows and the less likely the chance the investigators have in stopping the Old One.

Each of the five timelines comes with details of what a time traveller from 2050 would know about it, more detail for the Game Master with a breakdown of the events and their Aspects, Stunts, Mythos creatures, and NPCs. Most of these can serve as useful inspiration for the Game Master as well as the advice given on running FATE of Cthulhu and her creating her own timelines. After all, there are numerous Mythos entities presenting the prospective Game Master ready to create her own timeline with a variety of different aspects, purviews, and even degrees of power, but nevertheless capable of bringing about an apocalypse. However, Evil Hat Games has already begun to do that with its own series of timelines, each again dealing with a different Mythos entity and a different downfall for mankind. The first of these is The Rise of Yig, followed by The Rise of the Basilisk, which although it retained a sense of Cosmic Horror, it definitely moved away from the Cthulhu Mythos. A trend which is continued with the third of the ‘Darkest Timeline’ supplements.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of the Quiet is even more different than The Rise of the Basilisk. Where The Rise of the Basilisk had some links to the Cthulhu Mythos, The Rise of The Quiet has none, but both share strong Science Fiction elements and the theme of infection via technology. In The Rise of the Basilisk this was memetic in nature, but in The Rise of The Quiet it involves nanotechnology. The time frame for The Rise of The Quiet is shorter, starting in 2032 and leaping back to 2020 for what is a very contemporary-set mini-campaign rather than other the more fulsome campaigns in the ‘Darkest Timeline’ line.

The future of The Rise of The Quiet is one of technological advances and continuing climate change, radical distrust of the news, clashes over limited resources, and expanded space exploration—and then The Quiet. People began reporting incidences of lost time, others seeing the sufferers standing or sitting completely still, as if deep in thought. Then they began to walk whilst in these states, safely moving first to the middle of crowds and then coming together in groups. First in their Quiet state, then socialising out of the Quiet state, no matter their origins or social status. At first mistrusted, the Quiet are then filmed running into burning buildings, strangers into their homes, and soldiers in conflict zones refusing to kill the enemy. In each case willingly offering compassion rather than conflict. The Quiet come to be seen as better examples of humanity, and perhaps a source of hope for its future. Then in late 2030 everyone begins dying from a disease which kills within twenty-four hours and whose cause cannot be determined… That is except for The Quiet. Just what is The Quiet and why is protecting the sufferers from this new disease?

What happened has its origins in 2020 when the Chinese military stole samples of newly developed nanotechnology, and then developed and weaponised them. That newly developed nanotechnology was what became known as The Quiet, which altered its sufferers’ cortexes and infected them with a sense of altruism. Not everyone could survive the infection though… China was not responsible for The Quiet, but it did have a counter—The Loud. This nanotechnology not only helped those infected withstand the effects of The Quiet, but instead of altering their cortex, caused them to undergo physical transformation, including unbreakable nanobot-infused bones, enhanced senses, transforming their skin into a non-Newtonian fluid surface capable of withstanding bullets, and enhancing their ability to micro-mirror nearby humans, evoking feelings of deep friendship and trust in bystanders. However, it is theorised that extended use of the abilities granted by ‘The Loud’ may turn the infected into an unstoppable killing machine.

In addition, time travel has been invented, but only back to one moment in early 2020. The Player Characters will be infected with The Loud, go back in time and if not stop the spread of The Quiet, then at least slow its spread whilst also ensuring that the knowledge necessary to combat it is retained for the future they come from. In other of the Darkest Timelines for FATE of Cthulhu, the Player Characters are being sent back in time to investigate certain events, typically four of them, which lead to the emergence of an Old One. The Rise of The Quiet forgoes that instead, being built around four ‘Swing Points’, nexus points that the Player Characters have the opportunity to alter and send ripples of causality forward into their future. The emphasis is on the alteration of these four ‘Swing Points’ rather than the stopping of them, and what this means is that the outcomes are likely to be conditional rather than absolute—there is no one happy outcome. The Player Characters are almost working towards a median outcome rather than a wholly positive one. They are at best stemming off the effects of The Quiet rather than locating a definitive cure.

As with events in other Darkest Timelines, the four Swing Points in The Rise of The Quiet are described in some detail and come complete with a number of NPCs which are given full write-ups. In turn the Swing Events focus on the origins of The Quiet nano-infection, which involves TED Talk giving techno-guru; the initial exposure of The Quiet, which takes place at an international airport in a spy free-for-all smackdown; a self-help group (or cult, it depends on who you are talking to) which tapped into the possibilities of The Quiet; and finding those believed to be immune to The Quiet, which sees the Player Characters going on the road in the wake of a terrible rock tour. There is a lot going on in each of these, much of which of course, will only become apparent as the Player Characters investigate.

Physically, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of The Quiet is cleanly presented. It is easy to read and the layout is tidy, though it needs an edit in places. The artwork is good also. The Rise of The Quiet does feel as if it is a story treatment, but that is no surprise given who its author is, John Rogers, the creator of the Leverage and The Librarians televisions series.

One issue that the publisher does address is that the fact that Darkest Timeline: The Rise of The Quiet involves both a pandemic and China, but notes that the timeline was written before the Corona virus outbreak and that it is not intended as a commentary upon the current situation in which society finds itself. Whilst China has a role to play in Darkest Timeline: The Rise of The Quiet it is not as the one to blame in the timeline and although the Player Characters are likely to encounter, if not confront, Chinese agents, as part of their efforts to save the future, China’s role in the situation is more nuanced than as simply the bad guy.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of The Quiet substitutes the usual Old One in FATE of Cthulhu with a nanobot swarm which has infected mankind with a techno-virus. This has several consequences. The timeline involves multiple, all-too human enemies rather than a single alien entity beyond human comprehension and its attendant cultists, each with its own agenda. There is no eldritch and thus no spells involved, or indeed, the corruptive influence of the Mythos. Instead, the Player Characters are corrupted by the influence of The Loud and the alterations it will make to their bodies. All of this difference and there is one thing which Darkest Timeline: The Rise of The Quiet does not address what exactly the roles the Player Characters should take instead those traditional to more standard roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of The Quiet is a horror scenario, not a Mythos one, but still a horror scenario nonetheless. It presents as equally an existential threat, but leans heavily into the Science Fiction of the FATE of Cthulhu set-up with the addition of relatively low-level superpowers. In essence it combines elements of Twelve Monkeys with The Terminator, but with the Player Characters as the Terminators. This is played out against a framework which is shorter, more focused, and has a contemporary setting. Again, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of The Quiet showcases how FATE of Cthulhu is capable of doing existential horror without the Mythos and how far its can push its Science Fiction.

The FATE of Basilisk

FATE of Cthulhu added two elements to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying—time travel and foreknowledge. Published by Evil Hat Games, the 2020 horror roleplaying game was built around campaign frameworks that cast the Player Characters as survivors in a post-apocalyptic future thirty years into the future, the apocalypse itself involving various aspects and entities of the Mythos. Not only as survivors though, because having entered into a pact with the Old One, Yog-Sothoth, they have unlocked the secret of time travel and come back to the present. They have come back aware of the steps along the way which brought about the apocalypse and they come back ready to fight it. This though is not a fight against the Cthulhu Mythos in general, but rather a single Old One and its cultists, and each thwarting of an Old One is a self-contained campaign in its own right, in which no other element of the Mythos appears.

The five campaigns, or timelines, presented in FATE of Cthulhu in turn have the Investigators facing Cthulhu, Dagon, Shub-Nigggurath, Nyarlathotep, and the King in Yellow. Each consists of  five events, the last of which is always the rise of the Old One itself. The events represent the roadmap to that last apocalyptic confrontation, and can each be further broken down into four event catalysts which can be people, places, foes, and things. The significance of these events are represented by a die face, that is either a bank, a ‘–’, or a ‘+’. These start out with two blanks and two ‘–’, the aim of the players and their investigators being to try to prevent their being too many, if any ‘–’ symbols in play and ideally to flip them from ‘–’ to blank and from blank to ‘+’. Ultimately the more ‘+’ there are, the more positive the ripple will be back down the timeline and the more of a chance the investigators have to defeat or prevent the rise of the Old One. Conversely, too many ‘–’ and the known timeline will play out as follows and the less likely the chance the investigators have in stopping the Old One.

Each of the five timelines comes with details of what a time traveller from 2050 would know about it, more detail for the Game Master with a breakdown of the events and their Aspects, Stunts, Mythos creatures, and NPCs. Most of these can serve as useful inspiration for the Game Master as well as the advice given on running FATE of Cthulhu and her creating her own timelines. After all, there are numerous Mythos entities presenting the prospective Game Master ready to create her own timeline with a variety of different aspects, purviews, and even degrees of power, but nevertheless capable of bringing about an apocalypse. However, Evil Hat Games has already begun to do that with its own series of timelines, each again dealing with a different Mythos entity and a different downfall for mankind. The first of these is The Rise of Yig.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk is different. Really different. To begin with, this second of the new timelines would appear to be barely connected to the Mythos at all—but it is, if that is, the Player Characters go digging deep enough into the world-side infosphere that Basilisk has planned for the whole of humanity. If not the universe. In Mythos terms, its closest parallels is with Hastur and the Yellow Sign, a memetic infection of occult nature which encourages artistic endeavour, but in Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk, that memetic infection is technological in nature, once shared often encouraging the monomaniacal exploration of fields of study and the need to understand them to their utmost. This often leads to the withdrawal of the infected from societal norms, ultimately leading to their deaths through lack of self-care and dehydration. Its origins lie in the Google Books project to digitise and make available all human knowledge. Thirty years later and Google’s Thinking Hat technologies enabled humanity to connect to digital neural networks and solve its most complex of problems—including climate change, whilst Google Physical Assistant enabled humanity to upgrade its body with cybertechnology. The combination provided a platform upon which Basilisk could survive and prosper and spread, the weakness of flesh bolstered by technology, pushing those connected to it to greater depths of understanding, for ultimately, its aim was a technological and scientific ‘Godthink’—not the idea that ‘All religions lead to the same thing’, but that the study of the universe leads to an understanding of both its and everything in it. If it had to turn the planet into the United Mind Of Humanity, a hungry, all-devouring hivemind of man and machine intertwined, it would and it did.

Where most timelines deal with known Mythos threats, or variations upon them, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk does not. It is a fight against an idea, not a thing or an entity, but all quickly an idea given form and physicality. This timeline combines elements of The Terminator—more so than other timelines—with The Matrix, mapping them back onto current developments in information theory, digitalisation, robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, the Internet of Things, and other cutting-edge technologies before pushing forward into a dystopia that is definitely Science Fiction rather Occult in nature. The technological nature of the setting means that the way time travel works in this timeline is also different. There is no corruptive pact with Yog-Sothoth to facilitate the way between and thus the means to travel back from 2050 to 2020 (or earlier), rather it is technological in nature, developed by Basilisk. The Resistance has gained access to it in 2050 to travel back in time, and there is the possibility that they may able to use the time travel apparatus to jump to other pivotal points within the timeline. This gives Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk a little more fluidity in terms of campaign structure. Instead of leaping into the past to a point from which they can moving forward and acting to undermine the threat at the heart of the timeline, the Player Characters may be able to jump up and down it, with agents of the Basilisk in hot pursuit, or even aware of approximately when the Player Characters will appear. After all, the extent of Basilisk’s understanding and knowledge means that it has a very good idea of just what the Player Characters are trying to do…

As with other timelines for FATE of Cthulhu, the Player Characters are jumping back in time to locate the four events which led up to if not the apocalypse of Basilisk, then the dystopia it ushers in. As with other timelines, there is no direct confrontation with the existential threat it represents, but primarily its agents and progenitors. And unlike those other timelines, the cosmic threat to humanity is not an unknowable Elder God, but a still inhuman mind that unfortunately humanity can understand—and that is the existential threat that the Player Characters face, avoiding understanding Basilisk. Further, Basilisk has agency (and agents).

As with the timelines in the core rules, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk details the history of its apocalypse and the four events which led up to it for the benefit of the Investigators who will be aware when they jump back from the future. It is accompanied by a more detailed timeline for Game Master along with their four event catalysts (which can be people, places, foes, or things) and their die face settings which the players and their Investigators will need to change by making enquiries and working to defeat the cult of information. There are details of threats and situations, including Thinking Hats Experts, biomechanically-altered humans, capable of temporarily enhancing particular skills to the pinnacle of understanding, Boston Dynamics-derived cyborgs, Hunter-Killer Experts, and more. 

The Basilisk’s agenda is discussed in detail, along with its mechanisms and advice for the Game Master on how to run Basilisk. This is absolutely necessary because of the complexity involved in running this timeline because of its complexity of ideas, the flexibility offered by time travel, and the greater agency possessed by Basilisk. If the previous Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig was more complex, not as straightforward, and involved multiple factions across the timeline, then Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk is more so—time travel, existential memetics, and deep conspiracy, all set against a contemporary world.

Physically, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk is cleanly presented. It is easy to read and the lay out is tidy, though it needs an edit in places. The artwork is good also.

Although Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk is specially written for use with FATE of Cthulhu and very much built around the Investigators coming back from the future forearmed with knowledge of the past, there is nothing to stop a Game Master from using the timeline to run a campaign from the opposite direction and from a point of ignorance. That is, as a standard campaign a la other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, whether that is actually for FATE of Cthulhu or another roleplaying game. It would be different to other campaigns, presenting more of a modern conspiracy campaign, possibly hackers or activists against the rise of the machines rather than classic Lovecraftian Investigators confronting entities of cosmic horror. This way, the Investigators can encounter the threats featured in Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk without the benefit of foreknowledge.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk is a very different campaign framework for Lovecraftian investigative horror, a radical technological departure that in effect is a non-Mythos campaign, but ultimately one involving existential horror. However, the technological aspects of the framework mean that it is complex and will take some effort to really run right. Ultimately, by drawing upon contemporary events and technologies, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Basilisk presents a scarily prescient timeline which showcases how FATE of Cthulhu can do more than just the traditional Mythos.

The FATE of Yig

FATE of Cthulhu added two elements to Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying—time travel and foreknowledge. Published by Evil Hat Games, the 2020 horror roleplaying game was built around campaign frameworks that cast the Player Characters as survivors in a post-apocalyptic future thirty years into the future, the apocalypse itself involving various aspects and entities of the Mythos. Not only as survivors though, because having entered into a pact with the Old One, Yog-Sothoth, they have unlocked the secret of time travel and come back to the present. They have come back aware of the steps along the way which brought about the apocalypse and they come back ready to fight it. This though is not a fight against the Cthulhu Mythos in general, but rather a single Old One and its cultists, and each thwarting of an Old One is a self-contained campaign in its own right, in which no other element of the Mythos appears.

The five campaigns, or timelines, presented in FATE of Cthulhu in turn have the Investigators facing Cthulhu, Dagon, Shub-Nigggurath, Nyarlathotep, and the King in Yellow. Each consists of  five events, the last of which is always the rise of the Old One itself. The events represent the roadmap to that last apocalyptic confrontation, and can each be further broken down into four event catalysts which can be people, places, foes, and things. The significance of these events are represented by a die face, that is either a bank, a ‘–’, or a ‘+’. These start out with two blanks and two ‘–’, the aim of the players and their investigators being to try to prevent their being too many, if any ‘–’ symbols in play and ideally to flip them from ‘–’ to blank and from blank to ‘+’. Ultimately the more ‘+’ there are, the more positive the ripple will be back down the timeline and the more of a chance the investigators have to defeat or prevent the rise of the Old One. Conversely, too many ‘–’ and the known timeline will play out as follows and the less likely the chance the investigators have in stopping the Old One.

Each of the five timelines comes with details of what a time traveller from 2050 would know about it, more detail for the Game Master with a breakdown of the events and their Aspects, Stunts, Mythos creatures, and NPCs. Most of these can serve as useful inspiration for the Game Master as well as the advice given on running FATE of Cthulhu and her creating her own timelines. After all, there are numerous Mythos entities presenting the prospective Game Master ready to create her own timeline with a variety of different aspects, purviews, and even degrees of power, but nevertheless capable of bringing about an apocalypse. However, Evil Hat Games has already begun to do that with its own series of timelines, each again dealing with a different Mythos entity and a different downfall for mankind. The first of these is The Rise of Yig.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig is different. It is triggered by a surprise eclipse in 2020, visible only in northern Mexico and in the southern United States, casting the whole of the region into shadow and it was into this darkness that Yig—the Father of Serpents—awoke. Wherever he walked, civilisation was destroyed in his wake; his full psychic emanations led to terrifying dreams of snakes and other reptiles; new species of snakes appeared with a painfully venomous bite that defied science, only those that pledged themselves to the Father of Serpents and became his foot soldiers, the Children of Yig, proved to be immune; Serpentmen appeared and struck at important leaders; and the weather heated up the planet leading to the spread of a hothouse jungle which would swallow up city after city in less than a year. Only in the polar regions has mankind been able to find a refuge…

In that year, organisations also appeared to combat the threat faced by humanity. Organisations such as the Center for Defense against Elder Threats from the UN, the Chimalli Union, and the Dark Light Net which had all long prepared in secret in case such an event as this occurred. However, the one of the Old Ones that they had not been prepared for is Yig. That is the first difference in Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig in comparison with the five timelines given in FATE of Cthulhu. Yig is almost comprehensible in his actions, and has a reputation for benevolence when it comes to mankind, being mostly concerned with the well-being of his children—reptiles, snakes, and of course, Serpentmen. So the question is, was Yig planning the downfall of mankind in 2020, or was there something else going on with this most benign of Old Ones?

As with the timelines in the core rules, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig details the history of its apocalypse and the four events which led up to it for the benefit of the Investigators who will be aware when they jump back from the future. It is accompanied by a more detailed timeline for Game Master along with their four event catalysts (which can be people, places, foes, or things) and their die face settings which the players and their Investigators will need to change by making enquiries and working to defeat the cult. There are details of threats and situations, including cultists like the Agents of the Snake and Snakepersons, the relics and magic associated with the cult, and in particular, the agents of Center for Defense against Elder Threats from the UN, the Chimalli Union, and the Dark Light Net.

If there is an issue with Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig it is that it is very busy and there is a lot going on, but the Game Master is given a clearer explanation at the end of the supplement. That is the other difference between Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig and the five timelines given in FATE of Cthulhu. It is more complex, not as straightforward, and there are multiple factions involved across the timeline. This makes for a much more challenging campaign, both to run and play, for the players and their Investigators to determine what is going on and what the motives are of the various factions involved in the apocalypse—on both sides. Then for the Game Master to depict the various members of these factions. Again, the clearer explanation at the end of the supplement is a big help with that.

Physically, Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig is cleanly presented. It is easy to read and the lay out is tidy, though it needs an edit in places. The artwork is good also.

Although Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig is specially written for use with FATE of Cthulhu and very much built around the Investigators coming back from the future forearmed with knowledge of the past, there is nothing to stop a Game Master from using to run from the opposite direction and from a point of ignorance. That is, as a standard campaign a la other roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror, whether that is actually for FATE of Cthulhu or another roleplaying game. Plus, given the nature of the threat faced in Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig, it is easy to comb the support for roleplaying games of Lovecraftian investigative horror to find, if not more Yig-related scenarios, then at least more Serpentmen scenarios. Which gives it a flexibility beyond FATE of Cthulhu.

Darkest Timeline: The Rise of Yig gets the ‘Darkest Timeline’ series off to a strong start. It serves up a horridly ophidiophobic and fairly complex framework that will take some effort to really run right, but delivers a surprising take on Yig and his associated Mythos.

Broken and Brilliant

Redfield Valley is so utterly bucolic and idyllic that there is almost no reason for anyone to go there. Unless of course, you grew up there or you have recently come into property there or you are returning the ashes of a friend to his home there or a fugitive you are hunting for is said to have taken refuge there or you are investigating rumours that the valley might actually be full of treasure or… Or whatever the reason, you and your fellow Player Characters are visiting Redfield Valley, best known for its rich, red soil, Vakefort—the dullest outpost in the Imperial Army, and that is it. Redfield Valley really is nothing to write home about. Oh perhaps after visiting the villages of Crownhill and Appleton, the inhabitants might come to you with some help dealing with some Goblins who have kidnapped several of the locals, but that is about as much excitement as you would expect to find in Redfield Valley…

And then KABOOM! And fazacck! And fire and really sharp, eye-stinging glitter (not kidding) and… the sky falls on Redfield Valley.

Now, the green, bucolic landscape of Redfield Valley has been turned into a blood red mud churned hellhole, littered with debris that crackles with strange energy from a city, whilst the Old Tusk promontory to the south is a steaming caldera, towers lie on their side, cracked and open, roads in the sky appear to climb to nowhere, and a dungeon appears to spiral into the sky. None of this was there before the fall… What has happened in Redfield Valley? Who unleashed the devastation and what secrets will it reveal?

This is the set-up for Shards of the Broken Sky, a campaign for 13th Age, the roleplaying game from Pelgrane Press which combines the best elements of both Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition and Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition to give high action combat, strong narrative ties, and exciting play. Designed to take Player Characters from First Level to Seventh Level, it is a sandbox campaign set in 13th Age’s Dragon Empire. It supports different motivations and play styles, is designed to support Player Character relationships to the setting, and which really could be played more than once—though with different Player Characters—and each time their motivations would make the campaign very different in tone and flavour. It is also both brilliant and broken.

What is going on in Shards of the Broken Sky—and this explanation is clearer and more straightforward than any given in the book, and something that the authors should have led with, but failed to do so—is that Redfield Valley hides an incredible secret. It is actually the cover for an ancient prison and repository for all of the ancient secrets and dangers that Dragon Empire—and in particular the Emperor and the Archmage do not want anyone to know about or to get hold of. In Ages past, the Archmage hid these secrets behind wards which prevented access to them and built Vantage, a flying city-fortress-prison, to monitor, control, and protect the wards. Neither the wards, Vantage, or the roads that led up to it could be seen from the ground unless you had permission and knew the way. Now, something or someone has caused Vantage to come crashing down to earth, depositing an apocalypse upon Redfield Valley, causing death and devastation, weakening the wards it was built to maintain, and over the course of Shards of the Broken Sky, failing and so unleashing and revealing all of the secrets and threats Vantage was intended to hide.

Over the course of the campaign, the Player Characters will constantly find themselves delving into dungeons that are not dungeons and dungeons that are not dungeons which play with perspective and geometry and time. They are almost bookended by a pair of tombs, one full of traps inspired by Grimtooth’s Book of Traps, the other full of the deadliest of traps that the Old School Renaissance has to offer, and which would ordinarily never ever otherwise appear in an adventure for 13th Age, but also include an Area 51-like bunker which served as a repository of magic; the Shattered Spine, a wizard’s tower fallen and broken on its side; a valley of dinosaurs, all ready for the Orcs to raid and die in order to grab the gargantuan beasts as mounts; Magaheim, a golden city suspended over a volcano inhabited by demons and Dwarfs and their offspring, where the Game Master can play all of the noir storylines amongst its corruption and bureaucracy; the Winding Gyre, a floating maze which spirals into the sky and will see the Player Characters leaping up and down from one lump of rubble to ruin, again and again; and a living dungeon where the Oozes which may not be what they seem.

There are amongst them some incredibly inventive scenes. They include the Corpse of Kroon, dead and falling, but frozen in time, which the Player Characters can scale again and again in order to steal the magical items he implanted in his body; a wizard’s sanctum frozen at the moment of its destruction, its fixtures and features flung into the air around which the Player Characters must manoeuvre to fight; and a warded and party-frozen battlefield with the feel of the trenches of the Great War. All of this is fantastic and it is where Shards of the Broken Sky shines—and shines brilliantly. Not just because of these scenes and the inventiveness of these dungeons, but also because the campaign can be played in different ways. It is a mystery in which the Player Characters investigate dungeon after dungeon to determine who attacked Vantage and brought it down on Redfield Valley? Is it a heroic rescue mission in the Player Characters work to save the inhabitants of Redfield Valley and prevent the dangers warded by Vantage being unleashed upon the wider Dragon Empire? It is a campaign of survival horror, in which the Player Characters must survive and fight the dangers unleashed by the fall of Vantage? Is it a classic heist, in which the Player Characters raid the aftermath of the fall of Vantage for loot and glory? Is the new landscape of Redfield Valley simply somewhere to explore and delve into its newly revealed secrets? Shards of the Broken Sky can be played as any one of those or even combined.

However, to get to this brilliance, it takes a lot of effort upon the part of the Game Master—and that is where Shards of the Broken Sky is broken. And intentionally so. As a campaign, it is not just a sandbox, but a toolkit which the Game Master has to take the parts of and put together, taking dungeon after dungeon and encounter after encounter, and plugging them into the character Levels which the Player Characters are at. Shards of the Broken Sky provides numerous dungeons and encounters with which to do that. The Game Master also needs to work hard in order to bring Player Character motivations into play. This will primarily be done through their relationships with the thirteen Icons of the Dragon Empire—the Archmage, the Crusader, the Diabolist, the Dwarf King, the Elf Queen, the Emperor, the Great Gold Wyrm, the High Druid, the Lich King, the Orc Lord, the Priestess, the Prince of Shadows, and the ancient evil Dragons known as the Three—each of which has their own reasons for taking an interesting in Redfield Valley and the fall of Vantage. To support that, Shards of the Broken Sky provides adversary group after adversary group for the various factions and Icons with an interest in the remnants of Vantage, which the Game Master can plug into the campaign depending upon which the Icons the Player Characters have relationships with and which may or may not have been responsible for what has happened. Primarily these will appear as random encounters which the Game Master will work into the dungeons throughout the campaign, with the forces of the various Icons often appearing and working against the efforts of the Player Characters. These random encounters are in addition to the various monsters and encounters given for each location, as well as the Tension tables for each dungeon which ramp up the pressure on the Player Characters as they delve deeper—or even sometimes higher—into the dungeon.

As well as providing numerous adversary groups, Shards of the Broken Sky includes new monsters, new Icon-specific monster abilities to customise agents of the Prince of Shadows, new treasures, and new optional Player Character Races. The latter includes the Lava Dwarves, who can deliver a blistering heat at attack once per battle; Oozefolk, whose melee attacks do acidic damage when they are Staggered and whose touch might be acidic—an interesting defence if swallowed; and the Ophidians, legless, four-armed serpent folk with poison fangs. All make an appearance in the campaign as NPCs, and could then appear as replacement Player Characters or in the ongoing campaign once Shards of the Broken Sky has been completed. The new magical items include fading items whose power drain away from one scene to the next and various items derived from the crystals that were built into the walls of Vantage, whilst the monsters range from Pie Mimics and Kroon’s Foot Lice to Wicker Golems and Rainbow Puddings!

To fully run Shards of the Broken Sky, will need more than a few books. Not just the core 13th Age rules and 13 True Ways, but also the 13th Age Bestiary and 13th Age Bestiary 2 and the Book of Loot and Book of Loot 2. Other books, such as The Crown Commands, Fire and Faith, and High Magic & Low Cunning will be useful, but are likely optional. The excellent Book of Ages may be useful as a reference in certain dungeons of the campaign.

Physically, is in general well-presented. It needs an edit in places, and whilst relatively lightly illustrated, there is some great artwork throughout. However, of the maps that there are, many are too dark to read with ease, whilst others are comprised of icons that indicate the relationship and links between various locations. These are not often easy to read. Enjoyably throughout though are the authors’ advice and playtest feedback which provide a commentary throughout. That said, the authors could have been more upfront about the plot to the campaign and what is going on, rather than leaving it for the Game Master to discover as she reads through the book. Lastly, Shards of the Broken Sky is not actually an easy read, but that is due to it being written as a toolkit rather than as a linear dungeon which would be the case with almost any other mega-dungeon or campaign for the fantasy roleplaying game of your choice.

Anyone going into Shards of the Broken Sky expecting a more traditional, even linear campaign, even as a sandbox, is likely to be disappointed. It is simply not built that way, and in comparison to such a campaign, Shards of the Broken Sky is broken. However, Shards of the Broken Sky is designed in that way by intent because it is a toolkit, a book of parts—each of which could be extracted from the book and used on their own in a Game Master’s own campaign—that are designed to be used by the Game Master to build around her Player Characters and their Icon relationships to create her own version of the campaign. Which of course does more work upon the part of the Game Master, but if done right will make the campaign more personal to the Player Characters. Neither the Game Master nor her players are going to be able to put the Shards of the Broken Sky back together, but they are going to be able to take its brilliant brokenness and build a great campaign together.