Friday Fantasy: Bee-Ware!

If you suffer from apiophobia or hay fever when the pollen count is particularly high, or just hate bees, then Bee-Ware! is not a scenario for you. It is though, a scenario, where the inhabitants of Ambersham are happy with the bees and can actually transform into bees, producing a highly regarded mead that has mild restorative effect. Ambersham is a small village in the county of Kent—as default—and it is home to an infestation of giant shape-changing bee monsters that actually, are not on rampage, represent no active threat to anyone, and would just like to get on with being giant shape-changing bee monsters and making mead. However, this is a scenario for Lamentationsof the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying, published by Lamentations ofthe Flame Princess, and written by Kelvin Green. Which means that once again, that some poor, small, English village is going to get it in the neck. Kelvin Green really, really hates poor, small, English villages and delights in inflicting horrible situations on them. In this case, the horrible situation that Kelvin Green is going to inflict on Ambersham consists of the Player Characters. Once the Player Characters start poking around, the bee-people of Ambersham are going to react. This can be as benign as offering the Player Characters bribes to go away or even a stake in the mead-making business, but the lesson behind Bee-Ware! is that if you poke the bees’ nest, the bees are going to poke you. Or in the case of Bee-Ware! sting you. There fifty such inhabitants of Ambersham and their poison has an effect of forcing a Save versus Poison—or die. Most of the bee-people will die too, of course, but fifty giant bee-people with lethal stings? How many times is a player going to have to make such as Saving Throw before his character is killed?

Bee-Ware! has no actual real starting point. It has suggestions that can be used to get the Player Characters involved. These include their being hired to investigate the Ambersham mead, to look for a missing person, checking on the health of the village’s priest who has been heard from in some time, going to loot Lady Ambersham’s manor after rumours of her death, and even spot a bee-person attacking someone in a crowd and then fleeing, leaving the victim to whisper something intriguing as his dying words. Once the Player Characters reach Ambersham, they find it a quiet, bucolic place, with lots of wild meadows and flowers, bees buzzing around, and villagers going about their business. From the outset, as soon as the villagers spot the Player Characters, they will be telling them, “We don’t want your kind round here.” They will at least get a pint and a meal at the village tavern, The Dog & Bastard, before being told the same.

Further exploration will potentially reveal two buildings of note. One is the manor house, home to Lady Ambersham, now transformed into queen bee—quite literally—and containing rooms filled with honeycomb and furniture drenched in honey. The other is a ruin, which once they gain entrance, the Player Characters will find out what is really going on—if they can negotiate its multi-dimensional structure it has had since the owner unsuccessfully cast a spell forty years earlier. Not only is the owner still in the house, but so is the extra-dimensional swarm entity which gives the bee-enhanced lady Ambersham her power and her hold over the rest of the village and the parts of the scroll detailing the spell that was cast and thus the means to reverse it.

The situation is monstrous, but benign. The Player Characters could walk away and nothing would really happen. Or they could go on a monster-killing rampage—if they could survive the potential anaphylactic shocks, that is. Then again, as much as a monster as she is, Lady Ambersham is not entirely monstrous. She will negotiate and it is possible for the Player Characters to walk away with a good deal, whether that is money in their pockets or a stake in the mead business. There is also a quartet of youthful hotheads who will give the Player Characters more trouble than telling them simply to get out of the village and then is also the ridiculously named Captain Adamski Rimsky-Korsakov and Professor Gottfried Bosch, a pair of monster hunters reminiscent of Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter, who both believe that the village is infested with lycanthropes and are there to gather intelligence and then kill everyone. If that includes the Player Characters, well, they were probably lycanthropes too. Plus, they refused to get tested. Of course, the other reason they are there is to cause chaos, get the action going, and mess up whatever it is that the Player Characters have planned so far. It depends on how the Game Master wants to use them.

Physically, Bee-Ware! is black and all shades of grey and honey. The artwork is cartoonishly entertaining and the cartography is excellent.

Bee-Ware! is set in roughly 1630, in the Early Modern period, the default period for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. Its isolated set-up means that it is easy to shift it to other times and settings, but it is easy to slip into a campaign anyway. Otherwise, Bee-Ware! is a classic ‘Kelvin-Green-village-in-peril’, or rather it is a classic ‘Kelvin-Green-village-in-peril’ with a twist, and that twist, is the Player Characters. They are effectively the monsters in the scenario, they are the ones whose presence will trigger a slaughter—theirs or the monsters. Which is absolutely great, but the benignity of the situation in Bee-Ware! also extends to the set-up and the Game Master will need work hard to get the players and their character motivated to Amersham. If she can, then the fun and weirdness can begin.

Solitaire: Colostle – Dungeons

Beyond the walls of your hometown or village lie the Roomlands. A vast castle that covers the whole of the known world and beyond, whose individual rooms, corridors, stairs, and rafters contain whole environments of their own. Mountains, lakes, deserts, forests, caves, and ancient ruins. Oceans stretch across rooms as far as the eye can see and beyond. Desert sands whip and whirl down long corridors. Forests climb the stairs that seem to rise to nowhere. Rooks—walking castles—lurk, a constant danger. Stone giants that seem to have no purpose, other than to wander aimlessly until something captures their attention and then they erupt in incredible aggression. This is world of a near limitless castle known as Colostle, into which brave adventurers set forth, perhaps to undertake tasks and quests for the Hunter’s Guild, perhaps to explore on their own, to hunt Rooks for the precious, often magical resources they contain, or simply to protect a village or settlement from rampaging Rooks or bandits. Explorers have explored far and wide and even through doors to other realms where the earth is broken and chunks of it float in the sky, where sky ships, their hulls carved from Rook husks cross overhead, and the Rooks stalk Rooms on thin, finely balanced legs and wield weapons with deadly finesse than the brute force of at home. Yet what if instead of going out into the Roomlands or up to the Rafters, or even into other realms, you went down?

Colostle – Dungeons expands Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, definitely the prettiest solo journalling game on the market, by taking it down into the ground. It is the third expansion for Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, following on from Colostle – The Roomlands and Colostle – Kyodaina, and one that makes absolute sense. After all, if the scale of the castle in Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure is literally colossal, that does not mean that it cannot have dungeons, even if they are of a similar scale. In taking the player and his character deep underground, it opens up a whole new environment, dark and dank, of cathedral-sized chambers, populated by strange new types of Rooks, riven with an infection that is both a blessing and curse, protected by Guardians who stand watch over fabulous treasures, and home to a whole new society. All of this, plus treasures to be found and advanced rules for the explorer, as well as pre-written Major Labyrinths for them to delve into, which all together form a campaign.

Essentially, once the player has drawn a card indicating the entrance to a Labyrinth, he can decide to enter it and explore. This opens up its own set of ‘Labyrinth Tables’ with which the player can create chambers, determine their look, and populate them with a guardian and rewards. The rewards often take the form of treasures such as valuable rings, cups that can heal when drank from, keys some of which are marked with glyphs that open doors to other locations, and shards. The latter appear to have been broken off a larger tablet, and are typically seen as worthless. However, there are some interested in collecting them if the explorer knows where to find them. What the significance of the tablet is, if it can be reconstructed, nobody knows. Some of the treasures are worth a few coins, others a bit more, but there are rare treasures which will grant the explorer advantages when exploring future Labyrinths. The treasures are also important culturally to the peoples who live in the Dungeonlands.

As with exploring the Roomlands up above, there are dangers to be found in the Dungeonlands. The most notable of these are two odd types of Rook. Lichen Rooks are like the Rooks from above, but infested by lichen move in zombie-like fashion, being infested with a strange lichen that they can send out like tendrils and missiles, and worse, this lichen can infect the explorer as ‘Rookrot’. Once infected by Rookrot, an explorer is immune to reinfection, and the bioluminescence it generates is enough light by which the explorer can see in the Dungeons. In some ways, the other type of Rook found in the Colostle – Dungeons, the Spectral Rook, is more a challenge. They are incorporeal and silent, making themselves corporeal to strike at a wayward explorer, before turning incorporeal. The explorer has to learn to strike back at the very moment he is attacked!

Colostle – Dungeons does not add any new Callings, motivations for why an explorer goes out on adventures, or Classes, which determines how he explores the world, how he fights, and what weapon he wields. Instead, it provides something wholly new—a ‘Character Upgrade Class’. This is ‘The Infused’, able to craft powerful potions and concoctions that can be infused into an explorer’s equipment. For example, the Poison Elixir will make the explorer’s weapon paralyse people, whilst the Erosion Elixir will make the weapon erode the very stone that Rooks are made off. However, to become an Infused, the Explorer must find the city of Oubliette in the Dungeonlands and enrol in the Apothecary Militia and undertake months of training which involves delving into numerous Labyrinths. These can played out one by one, or the book allows for the player to simply write about the experiences of that training.

Oubliette, also known as the hanging city, is rumoured to hang directly underneath the city of Parapette in the Roomlands up above. Its spires point down rather than up and its many buildings are connected by bridges, and it is rife with crime, but the inhabitants accept this as the norm. It is dominated by four clans—the Clan of Cups, the Clan of Rings, the Clan of Keys, and the Clan of Shards. The Clan of Cups helps the needy and offers healing, the Clan of Rings are merchants and valuators, the Clan of Keys is made up of explorers and sages of the Dungeonlands, and the Clan of Shards is a highly secretive collector of shards. Each of the leaders of the four clans are detailed, but the explorer’s interaction with them is designed to be done in steps, so that each description gives entries for his first, second, and third visits, and then recorded in an unfolding narrative. Oubliette itself, has its own set of tables for generating encounters whilst the explorer visits and interacts with the merchants and other inhabitants.

Although Colostle – Dungeons provides the ready means for the player to create and explore his own Labyrinths, these will only be the minor Labyrinths to be found in the Dungeonlands. There are Major Labyrinths and over half of Colostle – Dungeons is devoted to these and the campaign they are tied to. There are five such Major Labyrinths, each very different in nature, each having their own discovery and entry requirements, and each mapped out as a series of nodes that the explorer can navigate between. The campaign has a final chapter in which major secrets about the Dungeonlands will be revealed as a well as a dangerous enemy that hopefully, the Explorer will be able to stop. There are notes on continuing the exploration of the Dungeonlands beyond the campaign as well as a hint at the nature of the next book—and potentially the book after that. The campaign will take the Explorer back and forth from Oubliette through the Dungeonlands, making discoveries, finding treasures, trading them, interreacting with the clan leaders, and so on. Of course, it takes some trust upon the part of the reader, since none of the campaign is hidden and the only thing stopping himself from reading further is himself. That said, the campaign is really good, drawing the reader in and making him want to play more to find out and that is combined with the elements that Colostle – Dungeons gives the reader to not only interact with, but also write about. So the weird new Rooks, the infectious Lichen, the strange city of Oubliette and the mysteries of the treasures, as well as the bigger undertakings of exploring the Major Labyrinths.

Physically, Colostle – Dungeons is as stunning as both Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure and Colostle – The Roomlands were before it. The artwork is superb, beautifully depicting the wondrous world below the Roomlands, dark and dank, awaiting the arrival of the explorer to shine a light on its depths and secrets. It does need a slight edit in places.

Colostle – Dungeons is a beautiful book. Its artwork alone—just as with the previous two books—is enough to draw the viewer into wanting to explore this world. The play of Colostle – Dungeons does not differ all that much from the standard play of Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, except of course that it really focuses it in the closed world of the Dungeonlands and then just a little further in the campaign that comes in its pages. That campaign gives the player the opportunity to tell a great story as his explorer delves deeper and exposes one secret after another. Fans of Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure will welcome this return to the world of Colostle with Colostle – Dungeons, which literally lets them go deeper—and deeper in an obvious direction.

Friday Fantasy: Magic Eater

What happens when the Player Characters have their magical items stolen? They want them back, of course, but they also want revenge. And that about sums up the motivation for Magic Eater, a scenario for Lamentations of The Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. Except that there is a problem with that, because whilst Lamentations of The Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying is an Old School Renaissance retroclone, it is not one known for the generosity of its treasure, let alone its magical items. In fact, Lamentations of The Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying is renowned for its frugality with regard to such matters. So, what Magic User does instead is suggest that the Player Characters’ employer be the one who has the item, the MacGuffin, stolen and wants it returned. So, if the Player Characters have not actually had something stolen, then they can at least be repaid by someone who has. No matter who the victim of the theft is, a note was left by a notorious thief going by the name of Grimalkin, who works with a Northman, in an obvious nod to the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories of Fritz Leiber. Tracking the Grimalkin is intended to be easy because it gets to the next bit in the story, the fact that Grimalkin’s house has been set on fire, he is dead, and whatever MacGuffin the Player Characters have to retrieve is gone, having been stolen a second. This time by a gang which styles itself as the ‘Loquesymths’, which if any of the players find out how the gang spells its name, is going to result in the players thinking that their characters are dealing with a bunch of pretentious wankers.

This is the set-up for Magic Eater, a scenario for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying published by Lamentations of the Flame Princess. And despite the antagonists having been identified as pretentious wankers, things are going to get weirder from here on in, because it turns out that that yes, the ‘Loquesymths’ are a bunch of pretentious wankers, half of them are arseholes to boot. This is because half of them are now dedicated to the worship of a thing they call the ‘Magic Eater’. Part of this worship involves feeding him actual magical items—so yes, have a good guess as to has happened to whatever magical MacGuffin the Player Characters are after—and then take the great balls of excrement that the ‘Magic Eater’ defecates and brew them into psychoactive tea that grants them certain blessings whilst at the same the magic energies they are exposed to are causing them to deliquesce. Consequently, the thieves and the cultists in the ‘Loquesymths’ are easy to tell apart. The thieves look like thieves, bandits, or just ordinary folk, whilst the cultists are wrapped in cloaks to hide the fact that they have wrapped themselves in bandages. Unlike the cultists, the thieves do not make squishy sounds when they move.

The ‘Loquesymths’ hide out in a base in the boglands close to the city where the Player Characters or their employer resides. Infiltrating this base, the remnants of a Roman fort that has been used over the centuries and since fallen into a state of disrepair, is the focus of the scenario. (That said, it could be any old fortress, so need not be set in the default period of the Early Modern era for Lamentations of The Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying.) The fortress of thieves consists of three parts. First, the above ground ruins, consisting mostly of the remaining towers and partially repaired walls, then the damp cellars, and the cult temple, a mixture of caves and tunnels and worked corridors and tunnels. The cult temple stinks like a hot, sweaty toilet, areas marked with weird colours due to the arcane seepage from the Magic Eater. There is the possibility here for any spells or magic to fail here, and when it does, it is suggested that the Game Master use either Vaginas Are Magic! or James Raggi IV’s Eldritch Cock as a means to handle this failure, and probably the most entertaining. That said, it would have been just as easy and as easy to create a table of results that could have been included.

The end of the scenario, against the semi-gigantic thaumaphage that is the Magic Eater of the title, is essentially an end of level, big boss battle. The battles against the thieves in the upper parts of the fortress are going to be fairly normal, whilst the ones against the cultists are going weird and creepy with their bandaged hands and faces and their squishy sounds, let alone the odd powers imparted to them by imbibing the excrement-infused tea they brew. The battle against the Magic Eater is going to be a big brawl of all against the hulking, lumbering grump, enlivened by the fact that his consumption of magical items has given him random magical powers. The randomness does rely on the Game Master rolling a natural twenty, so the powers may not even change over the course of the battle. Which is a pity and the Game Master might want to alter the odds to make it all the more fun for herself, if not the players and their characters.

There are some suggestions too, as to what might happen to the Player Characters actually decide to drink that tea—definitely not a good idea; what they might do with the fortress afterwards, because possession is possession; and what actual treasure might found if the Player Characters search the fortress above ground and below. There are suggestions to determine if the MacGuffin that the Player Characters were attempting to retrieve is still here and has not been eaten and what might be found if the players and their characters decide that a colonoscopy is in order. It might be the MacGuffin, or it might be one of the most useless magic items ever created. It really is useless—and intentionally so.

Also included in Magic Eater is the bonus scenario, ‘Another Rough Night at the Dog & Bastard’. If that sounds like the author’s author’s tribute to ‘A Rough Night at the Three Feathers’, the classic scenario for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, recently updated as Rough Days & Hard Days, then you would be right. In this scenario, the Player Characters take refuge at the eponymous inn on the same night as a trio of nuns who are not as innocent as they look, a bounty hunter, a thief, and a pair of sex cultists, because after all, this is a scenario for Lamentations of The Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying. And the cultists would not mind having sex with everyone and if that is done in front of their cult idol, it releases what can only be best described as ‘Jizz Pixies’. In addition, the inn and its staff have secrets of their own, randomly determined. The scenario primarily works off a relationship map which connects ten NPCs. The players will need to actively involve their characters in the relationship map to get the most out of the scenario, which is both roleplaying and NPC interaction heavy. As a one-night, one session affair, ‘Another Rough Night at the Dog & Bastard’ is pruriently serviceable.

Physically, Magic Eater is well-presented. Both artwork and cartography are decent, the maps being very clear and the depictions of the cultists a little creepy. It does need an edit in places.

Magic Eater is a daft scenario that punishes the Player Characters for being too attached to their possessions and then rewards them with a nice piece of real estate if they try to get them back—if they survive. That does not mean it is not entertaining though and Magic Eater is easy to drop into any campaign.

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DISCLAIMER: The author of this review is an editor who has edited titles for Lamentations of the Flame Princess on a freelance basis. He was not involved in the production of this book and his connection to both publisher and author has no bearing on the resulting review.

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Lamentations of the Flame Princess will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Solitaire: Colostle – Kyodaina

Beyond the walls of your hometown or village lie the Roomlands. A vast castle that covers the whole of the known world and beyond, whose individual rooms, corridors, stairs, and rafters contain whole environments of their own. Mountains, lakes, deserts, forests, caves, and ancient ruins. Oceans stretch across rooms as far as the eye can see and beyond. Desert sands whip and whirl down long corridors. Forests climb the stairs that seem to rise to nowhere. Rooks—walking castles—lurk, a constant danger. Stone giants that seem to have no purpose, other than to wander aimlessly until something captures their attention and then they erupt in incredible aggression. This is world of a near limitless castle known as Colostle, into which brave adventurers set forth, perhaps to undertake tasks and quests for the Hunter’s Guild, perhaps to explore on their own, to hunt Rooks for the precious, often magical resources they contain, or simply to protect a village or settlement from rampaging Rooks or bandits. What though if a door from one room to another, led not to another, but another realm? One where the earth is broken and chunks of it float in the sky and the great pillars that hold up the ceilings of the Rooms are painted in once bright, but now fading lacquer. One where the Rooks with multiple, red-tiled roofs, stalk Rooms on thin, finely balanced legs and wield weapons with deadly finesse than the brute force of at home. One where sky ships, their hulls carved from Rook husks cross overhead. Where Imperial soldiers stop and search everyone for Rookstones. One where fallen Rooks have been turned into temples where you can rest, recuperate, and even research to gain new skills and spirituality. One where the Red Emperor rules with an iron fist. This is the land of Kyodaina and it is nothing like you have seen before.

Colostle – Kyodaina expands Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, definitely the prettiest solo journalling game on the market, by taking it to the furthest east of its lands where the artwork is at its most Ghibli-esque. Kyodaina is also a sequel to Colostle – The Roomlands, the first supplement for Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure. However, a player need not have adventured through Colostle – The Roomlands to play, but narratively, it helps if he has. Much like Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, what Colostle – Kyodaina does is introduce a new realm for the player and his character to explore and within that several lands or ‘Zones’, a new character type, and a directed campaign. The latter shifts the play of v away from the open world exploration of Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure towards a journalling game with a ‘choose your own adventure’ book feel, consisting of story sections rather than numbered paragraphs which work like cut scenes for video games, and map areas which can be more freely explored and have keyed descriptions elsewhere. The result is that Colostle – Kyodaina is designed to tell a particular story, though of course, how that story plays out is of course, up to the draw of the cards and the player.

The new character Class is The Spirited, which also introduces a new stat—Spirit. The Spirited Class represents someone who has grown up in or studied at one of the temples or monasteries to be found across Kyodaina. Radically, the Spirited begins play without any connection to a Rook, no augmentation provided by a Rook-part, but instead must rely upon his training and the secret arts learned at the temple or monastery. Each aligned with an element and a suit from an ordinary deck of playing cards—such as those used in the play of Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure—these powers include ‘Rook’s Power’, which lets the character flood his feet with his spirit and in stomping hard on the ground, causing a ripple that surges through the ground and knocks opponents to the ground and temporarily reduces their Combat score by one, and ‘Rook’s Senses’, which enables the character to fill his vision with spirit and see more than any ordinary person could, effectively doubling the number of cards the player can draw during the game’s exploration phases. The Spirited Class is intended to be played as a character native to Kyodaina, rather than as someone who has come from the regions and Roomlands explored in Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure and Colostle – The Roomlands. However, if the character does come from either the Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure or Colostle – The Roomlands, during the play of Colostle – Kyodaina, the character has the opportunity to rest, heal, and learn at the same temples and monasteries, and so learning these Spirit powers. Each temple or monastery offers a different range of Spirit powers. This gives the visiting character the Spirit stat too, which is used to activate the Spirit powers. Unlike other stats in Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, Spirit can be depleted and restored without the character dying.

Mechanically, the differences between Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure and Colostle – Kyodaina are relatively minor. Kyodainan Rooks are different, faster and more precise, and unlike Rooks elsewhere, can make critical strikes against the Player Character. Imperial Soldiers will constantly hunt for Rookstones, the magical stones that power Rooks, operating in squads of three that will want to search the Player Character, whilst the Player Character might face wave after wave of Imperial Soldiers if he tries to infiltrate Imperial Fortresses. If successful, the Player Character will find all manner of information.

The play of Colostle – Kyodaina begins at one of its temples, the Temple of the Stone Fist. From here, the player will set out and explore the new realm. This consists of four zones—the Spirit Forest, the Fangs of the Mountain Range, the Hori Archipelago, and the Skylands. Each has its own temple, its own set of encounter and NPC tables in addition to the general ones given for whole of the realm, and above all, its own character. The Spirit Forest is serene and quiet, its donjon trees towering so high that the majority of Kyodaina’s inhabitants can live here in safety from the Rooks below; the Fangs of the Mountain Range consists of ancient Rook husks fused with the rock, laced with tunnels and rooms, and sometimes transformed into a volcano; the Hori Archipelago are tropical islands in a shallow sea where Rooks have adapted to the environment and the lands are pierced by towering swords, hammers, and axes; and the Skylands where chunks of earth—both uninhabited and inhabited—float like islands in the sky and can be reached by climbing or travelling via a skyboat. Each also has specific locations where events take place, for example, the village of Eda is in the Spirit Forest and faces an attack by Imperial Soldiers. The Player Character has the opportunity to defend the village.

Once the Player Character has explored three or more of the zones in Colostle – Kyodaina, an encounter with an NPC—previously encountered in Colostle – The Roomlands—will open up the end game for Colostle – Kyodaina. This involves the Player Character in the Resistance against the Emperor and his Imperial Soldiers and exploring the Imperial City of Shiro. It will lead to the infiltration of the city itself and a confrontation with the Emperor and his Rook servitors, both infiltration and confrontation playing out as sub-games in their own right. In the process of playing through Colostle – Kyodaina there are secrets to be discovered—or at least hinted at—and lastly, a suggested sequel to come which takes Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure below.

Physically, Colostle – Kyodaina is as stunning as both Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure and Colostle – The Roomlands. The artwork is superb, beautifully depicting the wonder of this new realm and its zones. However, the writing is not quite as good as it could have been and Colostle – Kyodaina does need an edit here and there.

Colostle – Kyodaina is a beautiful book. Its artwork alone—just as with the previous two books—is enough to draw the viewer into wanting to explore this world. The play of Colostle – Kyodaina differs greatly to the simple open-world exploration of Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure, though there is scope for that, instead offering a specific story to play out, one which feels much more like a video game. As a video game experience, Colostle – Kyodaina gives the player a more immersive and reflective experience as he plays out and records in his journal his character’s exploration of the new realm. Fans of Colostle: A Solo RPG Adventure will welcome this return to the Roomlands as it takes them beyond and into Colostle – Kyodaina.

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Colostle will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

A Class Collection

The Masterclass Codex is a compilation of compilations. It complies two supplements—A Touch of Class: Seven New Classes for 5th Edition and A Touch More Class: 9 More Classes for 5th Edition—into one volume, both of which compile content from EN5ider, EN Publishing’s Patreon magazine dedicated to supporting Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Together, it compiles a total of sixteen new Classes, from the Alchemist and the Bloodweaver to the Savant and the Tinkerer. In between there are a lot of new spellcasting Classes, though physical Classes are not totally ignored, and a lot of options for the Dungeon Master and player alike. The player, of course, to play, but the Dungeon Master to pick and choose from in terms of what she wants to see in her game world. Thus, a Dungeon Master could take one, two, or more of these Classes and make them particular to her campaign—or parts of her campaign—or she could throw everything into the mix and say have them all come together in a setting like Planescape.

The format of the Classes in The Masterclass Codex follows that of The Player’s Handbook. It opens with an explanation of the class, suggestions for a quick build, features of the class, before delving into the particulars of the class. Added to this is a little fiction to add flavour. Alongside all of this, there are new Feats and spells, monsters, and a whole bit more. This ‘more’ rounds out the entries in the supplement and develops ways in which they can be brought into a game.

The Masterclass Codex opens with the Alchemist. This combines magic with scientific rigour for a spellcaster that throws acid, cold, or fire bombs, and then concocts potions and mixes for its spells. It is not quite clear if the Alchemist is throwing these vials or drinking them. The Alchemist makes Discoveries, which can be Smart Alchemy which allows a bomb to explode and target only hostile targets, Extend Potion to double its duration, Potion of Rejuvenation to restore a spell slot, and Spontaneous Recovery to amplify his healing without a short rest. Advanced Sciences are the Alchemist’s specialities and include the Sciences of Creation, Destruction, Illumination, Mutation, and Regeneration. These respectively enable the Alchemist to craft a homunculus out of clay and remould it as a servant and combatant; to enhance his bombs; to temporarily enhance mental attributes and gain mental spells; to physically enhance the body though a cost to Intelligence, though this cannot be repeated too often, lest the Alchemist poison himself; and to enhance healing and even gain resurrection! To this, ‘Scientific Sorcery’ gives the Alchemist’s Apprentice Background, new items, and even Feats like the Alchemical Artillerist, making him better at throwing alchemical weapons, and Pernicious Poisoner, to faster produce poisons.

There are a lot of interesting options here, but some step on the toes of other Classes. The Science of Mutation pushes the Alchemist towards the Barbarian Class, whilst the Science of Regeneration leans towards the Cleric Class. Other aspects feel underdeveloped, like the Pernicious Poisoner Feat. It is great for creating poisons, but not using them. What about adding their use to the bomb-throwing ability of the Class, so what you have is a battlefield poisoner? Combine that with Smart Alchemy and you have targeted poison bombs—nasty! Lastly, if this Class is supposed to be about adding science to magic, what about being able to identify potions and poisons?

The Cardcaster draws on the Tarot deck to cast spells, and actually requires a player to have one in order to determine what spells his character can cast. For example, a First Level Cardcaster has a hand size of two and draws two of the Major Arcana. The Fool gives the options Detect Poison and Disease, Expeditious Retreat, Hideous Laughter, and Mage Armour, whilst The Magician lists Burning Hands, Create/Destroy Water, Detect Magic, Floating Disc, Unseen Image, or Silent Image. The Cardcaster selects the spell and expends the card. In game, the Cardcaster can also throw cards to inflict magical slashing damage. In terms of development, the Cardcaster focuses on particular arcana, the Knight of Swords turning the Cardcaster into a sword-wielding spellcaster; Page of Wands gives greater command of the user’s Tarot deck; the Queen of Cups lets the user spread her love by supporting others; King of Pentacles makes the Cardcaster richer; and Jack of Beasts has the caster summon and control beasts. Not all of these are necessarily adventure options, the Queen of Cups and King of Pentacles feel like they suited to campaigns where adventuring rarely done, and the Jack of Beasts is an oddity that does not fit the tarot. Overall, the Class would be interesting play, adding a physicality and uncertainty with its card-drawing aspect.

The Diabolist is an Evil Class enters into dark pacts with devils and possibly demons. It is accompanied by range new types of both like the Accuser Devil or the Coloxus, and includes the feat Voodoo, which raises its own issues in tying an aspect of a real-world religion into an evil Class like the Diabolist. The Diabolist is suited to certain campaigns or in general as an NPC Class, and even then, perhaps it could have been presented as a variant of the Warlock Class which fundamentally is very similar. The Feywalker draws from the powers of the Fey realms to become a chaotic, even whimsical, combatants that flit around the battlefield, gaining a fey companion and fey charm, and binding his soul to the fey through either the Sphere of Beasts, Sphere of Plants, or Sphere of Entropy. Of these Spheres, the first two step into similar areas to that of the Druid Class, whilst the third plays up the randomness of chaos. Ultimately though, this is a fighter best at home in the forest, embracing its mysteries. The Morph Class is a shapechanger, connected to either nature or the fey, either specialising in infiltration and deception as a Doppelganger, raw animal power and presence in Primordial Beast, the scoundrel’s antics of the Trickster. Again, it feels a little like the Druid, one who has specialised in shapechanging, yet at the same time wondering whether Primordial Beast would better fit the Druid and the Trickster the Feywalker.

If the Alchemist is one of the Classes that stands out in The Masterclass Codex, the other is the Noble. Like its Warlord counterpart from Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition, the Noble is all about supporting his allies. The Noble can offer a rallying word for an ally to recover Hit Points direct them to take an action on his turn. The Noble either follows the Path of the Brave to become a better warrior; the Path of the Heart to beguile others with his innocence, though this comes at the cost of martial abilities; the Path of the Mystic Royal to combine spellcasting and command of others; and the Path of the Tactician to further direct and command the actions of his allies. This is very nicely done Class overall, perhaps best suited to larger groups where the Noble has the room to stand to the side offering advice and actions. Of the four subclasses, the Path of the Heart really stands out for its roleplaying potential as everyone around such a Noble works to keep her alive whilst benefiting from her advice and actions. Throw in a few scoundrel-like Classes alongside the Noble and it could be a lot of fun.

The Occultist stands out as the oddity in The Masterclass Codex, because it is not a Class that specialises in the occult per se, although it does bring an element of horror into play. Instead, it is a transformative Class in that Occultist delves into dark lore or suffers from a tainted family bloodline that will turn him into a supernatural beast or monster of some kind. These are represented by multiple paths. These are the Abomination, more Mister Hyde than Doctor Jekyll; the cosmic power of the Horror; the dark energies of the Nightmare; the primal acidity of the Ooze; and the classic powers of the Vampire and the Werecreature. Of these, the Path of the Ooze is the most original. The Class as such feels more suited to either NPC use or a horror-focused campaign or setting.

If the Occultist brings the macabre to The Masterclass Codex, the Bloodweaver uses his abilities to control blood to empower himself and affect others. The Traditions of the Class enable the healing of the Bloodweaver and his allies with Bloodbinder; to curse, cripple, and kill with Crimson Witch; and even to turn the Bloodweaver’s own blood into weapons as a Scarlet Reaper. This is in addition to Disciplines, such as Blood Reach which turns the Bloodweaver’s fingernails into hard-as-steel (surely iron would have been better?), ten-foot-long talons, or Taint Blood, poisoning a target’s blood! The Class lists multiple Disciples, all of which require the expenditure of points from the Player Character’s Sanguine Reservoir. Some of these Disciplines and abilities do require the Bloodweaver to suffer damage as well as expend point from the Sanguine Reservoir. The Bloodweaver is an enjoyably horrible Class, being more akin to a blood-themed superhero—or rather anti-superhero—than necessarily a classic Dungeons & Dragons-style Player Character.

The superhero feel continues with the luck-based Fatebender. Where the Bloodweaver has points from his Sanguine Reservoir, the Fatebender has, of course, Fate Points. They can be expended to have something improbable happen nearby or force someone nearby (including himself) to reroll an attack, ability check, or saving throw. The Destined Prospects for the Class include Mascot who radiates good luck around him to his allies and benefits from their good fortune in return; the Jinx instead radiates bad luck to his enemies and benefits from their misfortune in return—including ‘Under a Ladder’ and ‘Wardrobe Malfunction’; and Weaver lets him change fate around him. The latter is not as fun or entertaining as Jinx, and with both Mascot and Jinx, there is something of the swashbuckler to the Class.

If the Occultist was the oddity from A Touch of Class: Seven New Classes for 5th Edition, then the Gemini is the oddity from A Touch More Class: 9 More Classes for 5th Edition. As the name suggests, the Class is all about twins and doubles, and thematically, it has Balances between the two rather than disciplines or paths. The Atavist plays with age, balancing between young and old; Equalist between mind and body, one embodying the former, the latter the other, and this changes every day; and the Reluctant Hero between fear and fearlessness. Roleplaying wise, this has possibilities, but it forces a player to roleplay two characters rather one and that complicates things. The Geomancer draws from the five Chinese elements—earth, fire, metal, water, and wood—and follows one four different Orders. These are Order of the Apothecary, Order of the Architect, Order of the Conqueror, and Order of the Rune Knight. They are respectively, healers, builders—civil servants and city planners are suggested, seekers of peace through conflict, and mighty warriors. The Geomancer is underwritten and of the subclasses, the Order of the Apothecary and Order of the Architect just about fit, whereas the others do not quite.

The Gunfighter lets the Dungeon Master and her players bring firearms into the game. It has its particular Fighting Styles—Archery, Carbineer (gunfighting from horseback), Harquebusier (using hand cannons!), Matchlock Mobility, Point-Black Shooter, and Sharp Aim—though Archery is the odd one out here. The Codes of the Gun are Bushwhacker, for the Player Character who prefers to ambush his targets; Drifter, for the famous or infamous travelling gunfighter; and Maverick, which brings magical gun tricks to the battlefield. Annoyingly, there are no rules for actually using guns to accompany the Class, a major omission. Otherwise, this is a sold Class inspired by Westerns, but mapped back onto earlier firearms.

The Lodestar begins play with a broken soul, but able to coalesce those pieces of broken soul into physical magical spheres that the Lodestar has to constantly keep tethered to his soul. As tethered as they are, the Lodestar can fling them at an enemy to inflict damage, use them to block attacks, and more. Training method include Control, which grants fine manipulation of the spheres; Imaginative to enhance the Lodestar’s artistic capability and imagination as well as the Lodestar’s form; and Instinct in which the spheres become part of Lodestar’s training and combat regimen. The Class feels inspired by the Ioun stones of Dungeons & Dragons, but then turned into an odd sort of martial artist. Overall, it does not really come together in a way that is enticing to play.

The Monster Tamer offers different ways to capture and train pets. The Class adheres three different Regimens. The Animalist has respect for animals and his pet to enhance it; the Monstrous finds kinship with monsters rather than beasts; the Oddball is drawn to the weirder creatures, like the Gelatinous Cube or the Otyugh! The Monster Tamer also teaches his pets tricks, including attacks, using the features of the creature, and even unnatural behaviour! The choice of tamed monster can be really powerful, backed up with a surprisingly high number of Hit Points for the Class.

Inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, the Savant is a Class with the Aptitudes of Adversary, which is all about manoeuvring the enemy into danger; the Chirurgeon and its focus on healing; and the Co-ordinator, who uses knowledge to aid others on the battlefield and make deductions about others. The third of these then, combines elements of the Noble with classic detective, whilst the first is a fighter variant. These are backed up with Tricks which distract or direct opponents across the battlefield. Inspired, of course, by Sherlock Holmes and similar figures with genius levels of observation and deduction, there is lots of roleplaying potential in the Class, even if, ultimately the Aptitudes slightly underwhelm as choices.

Lastly, the Tinkerer brings the gadgeteer to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. The Tinkerer—not necessarily a Gnome, of course—craft ‘Affect-Engines’ that consume mystical power and transform into elemental energy, either cold, flame, or lightning, which can be spat out for various effects. One issue is that upon first glance, the Class cannot do anything really interesting until its gets to Second Level. This is not quite the case, as the Tinkerer can build items, which require an Affect-Engine, for example, a hand-rocket or a power-tool. Once a Tinkerer acquires a few Levels and the ability to have more than one Affect-Engine in play, he can construct more powerful items and items which a few more options in their use. All this is really only obvious in looking at the list of example items at the end of the Class description, so only then does the Tinkerer not look as underpowered at First Level. That said, the creation of these devices does not money as well as a bit of time.

Once the Tinkerer is Second Level, he can cast spells and can attack an Affect-Engine to a weapon or object to add its elemental effect, including inflicting extra damage by expending a spell slot. The Tinkerer focuses on one of three Fields of Study. The Bombardier turns his Affect-Engines into artillery pieces; the Mechanic over engineers his Affect-Engine to improve its efficiency; and the Steam Knight turns the heavy armour worn by the Tinkerer into power armour! Overall, this looks like a fun Class to play around with and if there was a suitable Steampunk setting, this would make a suitable addition.

In addition to the extra demons and devils for the Diabolist Class and backgrounds for the Alchemist, The Masterclass Codex adds ‘Tailored Magic Items’ that a Player Character of a particular Class gets better at using. For example, the Diabolist’s Whip increases that Class’s ability to conjure demons and devils and gains bonuses to both attack and damage, but later inflicts extra necrotic damage. There are items listed for both the supplement’s new Classes and the standard ones in the Player’s Handbook.

Physically, The Masterclass Codex is very much two books in one—A Touch of Class: Seven New Classes for 5th Edition and A Touch More Class: 9 More Classes for 5th Edition—with one having a red trade dress and the other a green trade dress. The layout is clean and tidy, and everything is very accessible, especially with its larger typeface. The artwork, some of it publicly available images, is variable in its quality. Overall, it is and it does feel very much a like a compilation.

Ultimately, The Masterclass Codex is what you might call a Marmite book, Marmite soft, dark brown foodstuff that is so salty-tasting—without actually containing any salt—that it divides most people into two groups. They either love it or they loath it. So it is with The Masterclass Codex, and not once, but twice. People are going to either love it or loathe it because it is written for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, and then people are going to either love it or loathe it because they like or dislike one, two, or more of the Classes in its pages. For those that dislike it, for either reason, The Masterclass Codex is book to avoid, though there is nothing to stop a Game Master from taking any one of the Classes in its pages and stripping it down to adapt to the Dungeons & Dragons-style game of her choice. On the other hand, there is a lot to like in the pages of The Masterclass Codex. The sixteen Classes are interesting and will add both a different flavour and a different style of play to a game, as well as presenting challenges in terms of getting used to how they play. Their inclusion both adds to the play of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition and to the Dungeon Master’s campaign world. The Gun Fighter adds firearms and so they exist in the world, the Occultist suggests a horror element, perhaps similar to that of Ravenloft, and the Noble adds a sense of command and control and so on. The Noble is the one Class that will make it to play, particularly if a group is missing the Warlord from Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition.

The Masterclass Codex is not a book that every Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition group or Dungeon Master is going to want or need. Its contents are, after all, optional. However, as a set of options, having them on the shelf is no bad thing. They are a set of new play options to try out, a set of new play options around which to build a world.

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En Publishing will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Deadly Dinners

A woman sits at the dining table, the meal ready before her, a housewife and siren awaiting the arrival of her husband home, working late, or is he? Lovers, one poisoning the other to keep them even as they stray. Siblings, monsters all, confined by their father’s love and control until they have had enough and decided to ensure their escape by eating him. A nuclear family of loving cannibals whose predations have become too much and as the police closes in, enjoy one last meal of each other. A New Year’s Eve party at the end of 1999 when the world might end at the stroke of midnight and the ball drops, whilst visions of an alternate present haunt the party-goers. Mealtimes—dinner especially—can be times to celebrate, but sometimes they are performances of tension and despair, each course serving up another dish and another act that ratchets up the tension until it becomes unbearable and someone snaps. Seething. Shouting. Screaming. Raging. Worse. Thankfully, these are not scenes of everyday domestic distress, but of set-ups for—and from—the Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous.

Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous is an anthology of American freeform live action horror roleplaying games that use the themes of food and consumption to explore horror in suburban environments. Published by Pelgrane Press—better known for Trail of Cthulhu and 13th Age and similar roleplaying games—following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous is written and designed by Banana Chan and Sadia Bies, and contains a total of fourteen ‘Live Action Role Playing’ games or LARPs. These are not the traditional fantasy LARPS with multiple participants wielding foam weapons, but much smaller, more intimate affairs, that emphasise drama and tension. This is done via the set-up and then through character design and prompts. The players are free to interpret these prompts within the play, but these LARPS are designed to tell a particular story even if the outcome will vary from one playthrough to the next. The format and style is influenced by the Nordic style, but the fourteen here are classified as American freeform LARPS. All fourteen though, are reminiscent of murder mystery parties, each twisted into their own American horror story.

Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous opens with a short explanation of what LARPS, before delving into a discussion of calibration tools and setting expectations, essentially safety tools. Some of these are particular to LARPS, like ‘Tap and Scratch’, tap being used to indicate that a player wants to step out of a scene, ‘scratch’ to indicate that a player is enjoying a scene. Others, such as ‘Lines and Veils’ and the ‘X-Card’ will be familiar to standard tabletop roleplaying games. There are notes too on expectations for solo play, since some of the LARPs in the anthology are designed for one, and the experience of play can be made all the more intense because of the solitary situation. There is advice too for how to handle the debriefing following a solo LARP, necessary because being designed for one, there is no scope for post-play discussion with others as there is in a standard LARP with more participants.

The fourteen LARPs in Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous range widely in terms of length and number of participants. From one to as many as eight players, and from under an hour to no more than three. All follow the same format. This includes, obviously, the playing time and the number of players, but to this are listed content warnings, tone and media touchstones—inspirational reading and watching, calibration tools—safety tools to be observed for the particular LARP, and items needed. The latter typically begin with a dinner meal and a table, and can be as simple as print-outs of the LARP’s prompt cards and a mannequin, or as complex as an unusual ingredient, a washcloth, a bathtub, a cup of water, a coin, and a pair of pyjamas. Others require video recordings, particular room types, and more. Following some background there is always a guide to how the LARP will work, but beyond that, each of the LARPs will vary. Many include character and prompt cards that are required in order to play.

Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous opens with ‘A Housewife in Her Twenties’, a solo affair in which a housewife—who happens to be a siren—who goes through the steps of preparing to have her husband come home from work. Doing her make-up, dressing, and preparing and cooking the evening meal, before sitting down to eat—and all this is actually doing those things rather than describing acting them out as you would in a roleplaying game. Throughout there are prompts and questions as to how you react, and there is potential here for transgression, and it is intentionally designed to scritch and scratch and needle, both physically and emotionally. Similarly, ‘TV Dinner’ is very personal as the player, living alone, enjoys a takeout meal, and suddenly realises that someone in the television series he is watching is talking to him. This explores loneliness and what might change as a result of the interaction. All three of the solo LARPs here have the feel more of solo journalling games, although the LARP aspect calls for a physicality that most journalling games do not.

‘My Love, A Poison’ is designed for two players. It is about a relationship that is about to founder, one poisoning the other after discovering their infidelity. It is intimate, consensually so, the player poisoner lacing the victim’s food with an unusual flavour. There is no reveal in the sense that the poisoned participant is caught unaware, both players knowing from the starter who is the poisoner and the poisoned. ‘Goodbye Father’ is not dissimilar. It is for three players, all taking the roles of monstrous siblings who want to escape the constraints their father has placed on their lives and have jointly decided to kill and consume him. The tension and horror of knowing what is coming is ratchetted up by much of the play being done in silence, communication being done via notes or even texts, except when Father speaks, and ultimately when he is dead and they escape. Then they freely find their voices… ‘Love and Betrayal’ begins with three of its protagonists waking up to encounter a Personal Assistant hurrying to get them to rehearsals for scenes from a soap opera. As they do so, the Personal Assistant interrupts with notes from the ‘Director’ on how he wants them to perform, stuck to their scripts becoming increasingly revelatory with secrets about themselves rather than their characters in the soap opera. It is short and direct and very quickly the players will learn that their characters are in a seriously perilous situation. For more players—as many as six—is ‘What Lies Beneath’ is another family affair, which begins on a sombre note. One of their number, the youngest, recently died, and there are revelations about his death to be made by each of the other members of the family. The LARP requires a fair bit of set-up in terms of questions, both as a group and a player. There is a lot in this LARP that is unspoken, and that includes quite literally the ‘Unspoken’, an unacknowledged presence that literally lurks under the table. The ‘Unspoken’ is almost the LARP’s director, using certain actions to indicate that someone is lying, when to reveal secrets, and ultimately to replace one of the family. It is weird and requires quite a lot upon the part of the person playing the ‘Unspoken’.

Physically, Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous is a lovely book. It is well written, with clear and careful instructions and advice. The artwork is a colourful range of the weird and the disturbing, each piece pointing to the horrors to come in the LARPs that follow. Thankfully, the tooth motif on the dust jacket does not follow through into the pages of the anthology.

Inspired by films such as Get Out and Hereditary, television series like Hannibal and Sharp Objects, the French folk tale Bluebeard, and Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944 play No Exit, Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous is a demanding set of horrifying situations, fraught with emotion and tension that preys upon the participants, whilst asking a lot of them in terms of commitment. Players new to LARPS, even mature players—which is what the anthology demands—may find that too much, even with the excellent advice on safety tools and running each one. Nevertheless, they likely benefit from the presence and guidance of more experienced players. Who, of course, will find a great deal to engage with and run here. In terms of physical set-up and commitment, the contents of Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous are less demanding, because they are all designed to be run at home.

Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous is an excellent anthology of LARPs that brings the horror of the family and its relationships to the perfect venue—at the dinner table—and keeps it at home.

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Pelgrane Press will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Feathering Fantasy

One of the most interesting and innovative roleplaying games of 2021 has to be Inspirisles. Published by Hatchlings Games, Inspirisles is an Arthurian storytelling game in which young teenagers find their way into the mysterious lands of the fae that mirror the British Isles where through the Shaping of magic collect Belief enough to protect the World Tree and so become Pendragons, the descendants of Arthur and Guinevere. It is specifically designed to do three things. First it is designed to be played by young adults. Second, it is designed to be played by the deaf and the hard of hearing. Third, and as a consequence of the latter, it is designed as both an introduction to and to help teach, Deaf culture and sign language—both American Sign Language and British Sign Language. To do that it uses sign language as part of game play. Just as words, letters, numbers, and expressions are shaped out in sign language, in Inspirisles, the players Shape out their characters’ magical control of the Elements, meaning that the players are literally Shaping what their characters are Shaping, and it gives the game a wonderful physicality.

Overisles is the first campaign for Inspirales, following on from the scenario collection, Shapes of Adventure: An Inspirisles Anthology. Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it takes the roleplaying game in a wholly direction—into the air and island hopping across the archipelago with the Pendragons riding astride their great feathered beasts, the Nimbus. At stake is the fate of the islands. All over the islands, Disbelief, brought about through greed, corruption, cruelty, and bloodshed, is bubbling up under the Nests of the Nimbus, masses of darkness that enable the great birds’ eggs to be stolen, Belief to weaken, and the islands to be dragged down from the skies. Could the culprits be Wyrm Pirates, infamous for stealing the eggs, or could it be something else? The Silver Apples, former Pendragons who stayed on once their quests were complete rather than returning to their lives on Earth far below, have searched far and wide for the cause, but all they have found so far, are hints of shadowy creatures roaming the islands committing theft after theft.

Although Overisles does include a quick guide to creating Pendragons, the Inspirisles rulebook is needed to create the Player Characters. In addition, the Grail Guide—as the Game Master is called—requires a pair of six-sided dice for use with the campaign’s various tables. The actual play requirements for Overisles are simple. Just five participants, one of whom will be the Grail Guide, the others taking the roles of the Pendragons, ideally one for each of the setting’s four Elements. Control and use of these four Elements is done via Shaping, the magical means used to overcome Belief Barriers and enter into Disbelief Battles. The former are puzzles or problems which the Pendragons need to solve or overcome, whilst the latter are contests against a threat infused with Disbelief, for example, a troll who has built a bridge into a community and is about to pillage it. Players and their Pendragons work together to solve a problem, explaining how their Shaping and their use of their Element contribute to the solution, working through a Leader. The Leader will change from problem to problem, depending upon which Element is best suited to dealing with the current situation. Key to Shaping, of course, is the use of Sign Language.

Overisles adds another form of Shaping. This is Feathering, which represents communication between the Nimbus and the Pendragon. Eight new words are added in both British and American Sign Language to handle the instructions that a rider will give his Nimbus, whilst in game, his Pendragon will bond with his Nimbus, its feathers coming to reflect the hue of the Element that the Pendragon specialises. There are other means to cross from one island to another, such as the Sky Bridges, but riding a Nimbus gives Pendragon the freedom of movement.

The play of Overisles involves the Pendragons travelling from island to island, encountering NPCs and possibly ‘monsters’, searching for signs of Disbelief, and hopefully solving each situation or problem on each island. Their progress is tracked in two ways. One is by the Pendragons and their players, in terms of the number of Nimbus Eggs and the amount of Belief they retrieve and offer. As they retrieve and offer more of both, they will unlock stronger Shapes and gain access to better items. The other is by the Grail Guide, and is the degree of Calamity which can befall the Archipelago. Whilst Disbelief can be reduced by recovering Nimbus Eggs, if it and Calamity increase, it can trigger calamitous events, starting with a Vorm Storm, when the captain of The Gallant Gull, which takes the Pendragons to Wingrest, the biggest island of the archipelago and the starting point for the campaign, loses control of his emotions all the way up to one of the Nests plummeting to the ground below, and beyond. When this occurs, the Pendragons have to act immediately in order to prevent a disaster.

Overisles details numerous NPCs across the Archipelago, including the four Crests who lead the peoples across the islands, the elite of the Silver Apples—including a very truthful Squirrel, and dangerous beings, like the Corrupted Glow (Glow are winged and birdlike creatures who research Belief, but the Corrupted Glow have been overcome by Disbelief) and Wyrm Pirates. Wingrest is described in broad detail, and there are a number of interesting NPCs that the Pendragons can encounter here in addition to the Crests.

A good quarter of Overisles is dedicated to describing the twenty islands of the Archipelago. For example, Felisia is home to many cats, including its king, Cat Sith. Its notable features include the Great Cat Tree, decorated with colourful tassels and ribbons, and dotted with sun dappled platforms and homes; the Sunning Hills, carpeted with lush grass where the Feliseans can bask or catch fish from the verdant pools; and the Green Fields, which consist of fields of catnip and cat grass, all to please the inhabitants’ sense of smell. It is inhabited by the Feliseans, anthropomorphic cats. Of late though, dark clouds have been rolling over the Sunning Hills at a moment’s notice, and where Cat Sith once hosted picnics, festivals, fishing competitions, and more, he has not been seen in weeks. The Pendragons will want to find out why and this is presented as a series of tasks that will see them climb the Great Cat Tree to Cat Sith’s palace, stand in for him at a festival, and come to his aid. These tasks are presented in succinct fashion and the Grail Guide will want to flesh them out and add a little colour too. All of the island descriptions follow a similar pattern—a description of a handful of important locations and NPCs, the problem causing Disbelief on the island, and the tasks to be done to overcome the Disbelief.

What this means is that the Pendragons have twenty islands to explore in any fashion that they want. That though may be a problem. The Players may not necessarily know which island to visit first and there are no real links in terms of hooks or pointers which will pull the Pendragons from one island to the next. On the one hand, this gives both them and their players a lot of freedom, but that freedom can be daunting. Thus, the Grail Guide may want to throw in some hooks and rumours in order to give her players some ideas as to where their Pendragons should go. One thing that the Grail Guide has to do is decide who is actually responsible for the rise in Disbelief across the Archipelago. Several suggestions are given, but the Grail Guide will need to decide as to who and why.

Physically, Overisles is brightly presented and decently written. The artwork is bright and engaging, one particularly enjoyable piece is of the island of Wingrest floating unseen over the British Isles.

Where Overisles has a problem is that it is underwritten in places and is perhaps too open in its structure, such that it lacks a good starting point and hooks to give reasons for the Pendragons to go to an island and their players to want their Pendragons to go to an island. It is here that it needs development upon the part of the Grail Master and that is in addition to deciding who the villain of the piece is. Inspirales does deserve a campaign, but Overisles is not quite the campaign it fully deserves. It needs a bit more input to run than it should and for less experienced players this could be off-putting. Of course, there are no other campaigns for Inspirales, so Overisles is the only option. Once the preparation has been done, Overisles will be a decent option, not just the only option.

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Hatchlings Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place on Friday, May 31st to Sunday June 2nd, 2024.

Solitaire: A Fistful of Feathers

Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG is a journaling game which enables the player to take to the skies as a corvidae—crow, magpie, jackdaw, or rook—over multiple landscapes and differing genres, achieving objectives, exploring, and growing as they learn and grow old. Published by Critical Kit, a publisher better known for its scenarios for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. The roleplaying game combines the simple mechanics and use of a deck of playing cards typical of a journaling game with five genres—‘Urban Crow’, ‘Cyber-Crow’, ‘Gothic Crow’, ‘Fantasy Crow’, ‘Clockwork Crow’, and ‘Ravens of the Tower’. Each of these presents a different place and time for the bird to fly over, land on, encounter the denizens, and more, whilst Crowthulhu: A Cosmic Horror Setting For Be Like A Crow is a supplement that took the game in an entirely different direction, to the edge of Lovecraft Country. Now, A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow takes the player all the way to American frontier. As in Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG, the player’s crow will take to the air, but here fluttering and feathering over the Rooklands, perhaps as representative of the law deputised by the local sheriff or a bounty hunter, or even an outlaw on the run. Protect towns from predating gangs, take part in a sharpshooting contests (with a tiny gun), discover a nugget of gold and trade it in for cash, and more. From the Dread Canyon and Prospector’s Peril in the north to Storm Creek and the Howling Mines in the south, the Rooklands are a frontier for your crow to explore and make her own.

Mechanically, Be Like a Crow: A Solo RPG, and thus A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow is simple. It uses a standard deck of playing cards and when a player wants his bird to undertake an action, he draws a card from the deck. This sets the difficulty number of the task. To see whether the bird succeeds, he draws another card and adds the value of a skill to the number of the card if appropriate. If it is equal or greater than the difficulty number, the bird succeeds. If an action is made with Authority, whether due to circumstances or a skill, the player draws two cards and uses the highest one, whereas if made at a Penalty, two cards are drawn and the lowest value one used. When drawn, a Joker can be used or saved for later. If the latter, it can be used to automatically succeed at a combat or skill check, to heal injuries, or to discard a card and draw again. Combat is a matter of drawing a card for each opponent, adding a skill if appropriate, and comparing the totals of the cards and the skills. The highest total wins each round and inflicts an injury. Eventually, when the deck is exhausted, the discard pile is reshuffled and becomes the new deck.

The play and thus the journaling of Be Like a Crow is driven by objectives as achieving these will enable a player’s crow to advance through his lifecycle. An objective for the ‘A Fistful of Feathers’ setting, might be for example, “A wealthy merchant is convinced her husband was murdered by [character] using [object] in [location]. Try to find the evidence and bring the culprit to justice. ($3 reward)”. The player will also need to draw cards to identify the character, the object, and the location, and then as his bird flies from hex to hex across the map, draw cards for events in flight, and then for events when he lands. The player is free to, and advised to, ignore prompts if they do not fit the story, and this may be necessary if a prompt is drawn again, but ideally, the player should be using the prompts as drawn to tell a story and build the life of his crow.

A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow requires the core rules of Be Like a Crow, as well as a standard deck of playing cards. As well as providing the rules, it provides the prompts for events in flight and on land that are standard to each of the roleplaying game’s settings, but what A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow provides is its own set of tables its objectives, objects, characters, and locations. Two sets of objectives are provided, one for the red suits and one for the black suits, the same again for characters or NPCs, and again for objects and locations for A Fistful of Feathers. Thus locations can be a hotel on main street or a broken stagecoach, an object might be a single Morgan silver dollar or the skull of a vulture, and a character a snake-oil seller whose product actually does what it claims or a town sheriff who will turn a blind eye to most things if they are bribed with the right object.

Most, if not all of the entries have a Wild West theme, whether that is having to rush to a town where a character is due to be hanged for crime that he did not commit with evidence that will exonerate the condemned or a debt-ridden gambler (human or otherwise), desperate and dangerous. In addition to the core play of Be Like a Crow, what A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow does is extend the play to ‘suited, booted, and looted’. A player’s crow can earn dollars for achieving objectives and purchase objects with the money. He also has an archetype which grants a particular bonus. The Sharpshooter can inflict extra damage if the player draws a high enough card in combat. The Law Master can attempt to befriend or scare a character, and if successful, the character will give the player’s crow the information or an object in his possession. The Bounty Hunter can generate an objective to bring in a character when he lands as a bounty and if completed, will collect an object or $2. The Outlaw is hardy and resilient, suffering fewer injuries, has better navigate and search checks, and heals quicker.

In terms of locations, A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow includes its own setting, the Rooklands, a Wild West frontier of rocks, semi-desert, mesas, canyons, mines, and more. This is a classic Wild West setting as depicted on screen.

Physically, A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow is a slim affair. It is lightly illustrated with images appropriate to the genre and the map is nicely done, but it does need a slight edit. As a supplement to Be Like a Crow, there is a dusty, hot wind quality to A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow. Between the vultures overhead and the varmints on the ground, A Fistful of Feathers – a Wild West Setting for Be Like a Crow is a new way to explore a crow’s life in a classic genre from a bird’s-eye view.