A Copernican Catastrophe

It is the year 1580 and one of the greatest mathematicians, astronomers, and physicians of the age has been dead these past thirty-seven years. Nicolaus Copernicus is most famous for formulating a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its centre. So, the question is, why has someone sent Doctor John Dee, court astronomer to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, Copernicus’ coffin? And why does it contain a skeleton with a silver dagger plunged into its chest plate with a note attached which reads, “Do you Believe now?” Doctor Dee knows that the skeleton is not that of Copernicus, since he had more teeth than the skeleton, but cannot fathom why someone should send both it and the coffin to him. Nevertheless, he is definitely intrigued by the delivery and strongly suspects that this is a trap. Which is why he sends agents to the village of Frombork in Poland to investigate, since they are, after all, condemned men. Condemned men whose heresy—as minor as it was—is enough for them to have been executed long ago were it not for Sir Francis Walsingham giving them a stay of execution whilst they investigate occult threats to both Queen and kingdom, are all that stand between an even greater heresy and the reordering of the cosmos that would undo all of Copernicus’ theories! This is the situation that faces the Agents in Only A Fool, a scenario for Just Crunch Games’ The Dee Sanction, the roleplaying game of ‘Covert Enochian Intelligence’ in which the Player Characters—or Agents of Dee—are drawn into adventures in magick and politics across supernatural Tudor Europe.

Only A Fool is not your average scenario for The Dee Sanction. To begin with it is the winner of a scenario-writing competition on The Raspy Raven Discord which hosts a lot of online games, and then it is not set in Merry Olde England, but in Poland. This requires that the Player Characters speak Polish and Doctor Dee employs them because they can. This is not usual for the Player Characters in The Dee Sanction, so Only a Fool is better suited to play as a one-shot or convention scenario.

Armed with details of Copernicus’ life and studies, the Player Characters travel to the village outside of the Archcathedral of Frombork and from there investigate and follow the clues that lead them into the cathedral, Copernicus Tower where Nicolaus Copernicus conducted his astronomical research, and beyond the village to where his mistress, Anna Schilling, still lives. The investigation is relatively short and not overly complex, essentially a mini-sandbox with a handful of locations. However, the Player Characters will quickly realise that they are being watched and that despite the rationality of Copernicus’ thesis, there are men and women in the village and the Archcathedral of Frombork who very much still hold to the heliocentrism of the past several thousand years. Their belief is ardent and raises the questions, what else do they believe in and what powers does that belief grant them? In fact, belief and non-belief lies at the heart of the scenario and the Player Characters will be constantly asked if they are believers or non-believers. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Believers will see the acts of heresy that are carried out during the scenario, but will also be suspectable to them as well, whilst Non-Believers will not be affected by them because they cannot see them. Further, some NPCs will only readily talk to Believers and talking to some of those NPCs is vital to the plot.

Ultimately, the scenario will climax at a performance of the malign Dischordant Harmoney at a Grand Alignment Eclipse in which Belief and Non-Belief are the weapons that the enemy and the Player Characters must wield against each other. The Dischordant Harmoney is performed on the organ in the Archcathedral of Frombork, so the climax has an over the top Gothic feel. Given that Only a Fool is best used as a convention or one-shot scenario, it is a pity that a set of pre-generated could not have been included with the scenario.

Physically, Only A Fool is tightly laid out over three pages. It is lightly illustrated and does need an edit. The single map is slightly too small to be fully effective and would have benefited from being on a whole page rather than half a page. Nevertheless, everything is decently organised and easy to use straight from the page.

Only a Fool is pulpy Gothic horror scenario that really benefits from its very different setting to that usually seen in scenarios for The Dee Sanction and from the players and their characters having to explore the consequences of belief and non-belief. It is short, direct, and easy to prepare, so is a solid convention or one-shot scenario.

Blood for the Blood Queen!

It is 1586 and Queen Elizabeth holds Mary, Queen of Scots still prisoner. Powerful, yet on the periphery of Europe, she is anathema to every good Catholic and every Catholic majesty on the continent, and to the Pope in Rome. Philip II of Spain, once also King of England by marriage to Elizabeth’s older half-sister, Queen Mary, sees it as his divine duty to overthrow his sister-in-law as a heretic and install Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne of England. It is a year before Queen Elizabeth will execute Mary, Queen of Scots and two years before King Philip launched the ill-fated Spanish Armada to defeat England’s sea power and invade, making England catholic once again. Meanwhile, he plots and directs court to undermine the English throne at every turn. In 1586, at his bidding, his court astrologer, Abiathar Crescas, will launch a plot that will see Queen Elizabeth suborned and replaced by the end of the year! Only the condemned men and women in the employ of Doctor John Dee, heretics themselves who would have been executed long ago were it not for Sir Francis Walsingham giving them a stay of execution whilst they investigate occult threats to both Queen and kingdom, are all that stand between Spain and a dastardly demonic plot to overthrow her majesty! This is the situation that faces the Agents in Abaddon’s Puppet, a scenario for Just Crunch Games’ The Dee Sanction, the roleplaying game of ‘Covert Enochian Intelligence’ in which the Player Characters—or Agents of Dee—are drawn into adventures in magick and politics across supernatural Tudor Europe.

Abaddon’s Puppet takes place in late 1586. It begins with Doctor John Dee instructing the Agents to continue investigating Christopher Marlowe after the events outlined in the scenario, ‘Ex Libris’ (which can be found in The Dee Sanction Adventures: A True & Faithful Transcription of Matters Concerning Lost Books, Strange Sorceries, Befouled Poppets, Accusations of Witchcraft, and Assorted HELLSCAPES) and word reaching the Agents of the bodies of children being found in the Thames, each one strangely withered, as if aged. This gives the Agents two lines of inquiry, one more difficult than the other. Investigating Christopher Marlowe is hampered by the fact that he has disappeared, but he was last seen coaching a young actor, Victor Smith, who has also disappeared. The Agents need to be circumspect here, since the clues point to Victor Smith working at the estate of Lord Wessex at nearby Egham. The other line of inquiry is more direct, taking the Agents along the banks of the Thames and surrounding streets on the trail of the bodies leading to an orphanage and a foundered ship just upriver. Eventually, this will lead to signs of very bloody doings in a nearby cellar. If the Agents are quick, they may well discover the perpetrators of bloody doings in situ and bring the scenario to much earlier end. However, it is more likely that they will be long gone by the Agents get there and it will be necessary to follow the other line of inquiry to the conclusion of the scenario. This takes place at Kenilworth Castle, owned by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, a favourite of Queen Elizabeth, where Abiathar Crescas and other Catholic conspirators work to bring their demonic plan to fruition and so engineer her dethronement and replacement by Mary, Queen of Scots.

Abaddon’s Puppet is a well organised affair. Each plot strand—the two investigations into Christopher Marlowe and the bodies in the water, followed by the journey to and the confrontation at Castle Kenilworth—is presented on a single page. This includes an overview and lists of clues, characters, and locations, the lists presenting the information as a series of bullet points. However, there is no direct connective tissue between the lists and it is not directly clear as to what clue each NPC knows and why. For the experienced Game Master this is not a problem as she can make the narrative connections and so bring the interactions between the NPCs and the Agents to life. For the less experienced Game Master this will be more of a hurdle and she may well want to assign each clue to a particular NPC or group of NPCs as part of her preparation. The Game Master might also want to create a few minor NPCs too should the players and their Agents want to talk to the families of the ‘adopted’ children. Otherwise, the organisation makes the scenario very easy to run from the page.

Physically, Abaddon’s Puppet is short, but decently organised and illustrated. Everything is clearly laid out and easy to find, and although lightly illustrated, it is a nice-looking scenario.

Taking some inspiration from the film Shakespeare in Love, Abaddon’s Puppet presents a dark, twisted plot against Queen Elizabeth that combines some pleasing investigation, a horrifying and challenging confrontation against the occult, and outright, bloody treason! In truth, the Agents are going to be lucky to survive the confrontation against Abaddon at the end of the scenario, but if they do, they will have proved their worth and their loyalty to the crown. Of course, having already been condemned to death and under stay of execution, their reward is never going to be more than a mere thanks and another assignment. Such is the power of The Dee Sanction.

One Bad Lock-In

If they are very lucky, for the agents of Doctor John Dee, it will be an evening like any other. Unluckily—rather luckily, for were they not such agents serving the crown, Walsingham would have not spared them their sentence for heresy—it is not going to be an evening like any other. Their employer, Mister Garland, sends the agents on what should be a simple collection task at The Admiral’s Compass, an inn in the once great port of Winchelsea, its once busy harbour silted up and its status as one of the Cinque Ports long since lost. Take possession of a valuable package and safely transport it Dee at Mortlake, they are told. Unfortunately, the contents of the package are far more dangerous than the Agents might suppose and certainly far more dangerous than the unfortunately greedy and larcenous stable boy at the inn could ever imagine. However, a furtive delivery and collection and a foolish theft are not the only events that are going to take place and be resolved at The Admiral’s Compass that night. This is the situation as laid out to the Agents in The Admiral’s Compass, a scenario for Just Crunch Games’ The Dee Sanction, the roleplaying game of ‘Covert Enochian Intelligence’ in which the Player Characters—or Agents of Dee—are drawn into adventures in magick and politics across supernatural Tudor Europe.

TheAdmiral’s Compass is a short, single session scenario, published under the ‘Sanction Community Content Creation Licence’, that is location-based and could easily be run as a convention scenario, but just as simply slipped into an ongoing campaign. Its events all take place within the confines of the inn over the course of a single evening. Besides the collection of the package, the other threads—appropriately—involve a prisoner exchange with a Spanish envoy and the sad story of a young sailor whom came home scarred by his experiences serving aboard the Counter Armada launched by Sir Francis Drake in April, 1589, following the defeat of the Spanish Armada the previous year. Initially, the three strands are separate, but by mid-evening, they will crash into each other and become increasingly intertwined and involve the Agents more and more. This all takes place against the backdrop of a storm that keeps the inn isolated and its staff and patrons reluctant to step outside, plus the growing realisation that something is stalking them both. Mixed into this are at least a couple of creepy scenes, more so if either player or Agent is an arachnophobe!

Physically, The Admiral’s Compass is short, but decently organised and illustrated. Everything is clearly laid out and easy to find and there is both a floorplan and a description of the Inn. Overall, a nice-looking scenario.

The Admiral’s Compass can be run as a standard or a convention scenario or one-shot. As either of the later, the Game Master will need to prepare some ready-to-play Agents, complete with agendas of their own and agendas tied to the various members of staff and patrons at the inn. Otherwise, The Admiral’s Compass is a neat little horror scenario which takes place on a dark and stormy night.

“Let dead bodies lie”

It never pays to unearth the dead. Of late, rumours of ghosts and strange sightings have beset the London parish of Saint Poulkar, culminating in the recent attack by oddly acting rats upon a local child. These sightings have been centred near a converted Catholic estate that belongs to the Church, an estate that is recorded as having been the site of a mass burial site from the city’s last great Bubonic Plague outbreak in 1563. In addition, in response to complaints about the stench of the plague pit, ecclesiastical authorities have given permission for it to be excavated and cleared of the bones. Are the two connected? Certainly, the former is reason enough for Sir Francis Walsingham to want his agents to investigate and determine if there was something bad buried in the garden and if it represents a threat to the Crown and the natural order. And then deal with it. This is the situation as laid out to the Agents in Buried Dreams, a scenario for Just Crunch Games’ The Dee Sanction, the roleplaying game of ‘Covert Enochian Intelligence’ in which the Player Characters—or Agents of Dee—are drawn into adventures in magick and politics across supernatural Tudor Europe.

Buried Dreams is a short, single session scenario, published under the ‘Sanction Community Content Creation Licence’, that is location-based and could easily be run as a convention scenario. It has a nice mix of elements. A frail old priest descending into senility after living too long near the plague pit in house belonging to the church, a ghostly woman walking at night, a team of diggers who have down tools at the conditions and the frightening apparitions, and a bullied engineer are the least of it. With some investigation the Player Characters can discover what the Catholic Church used the house for during the reign of Queen Mary I and before, what the Anglican Church did afterwards in response, and find signs of it to if they are sharp-eyed. It will be quickly obvious that all signs point to the pit and whatever it is that the church interred there, but finding someone else other than the striking labourers to dig further may prove to be a challenge and when they have discovered what was buried, what to do with it may prove to be an even bigger challenge. Ultimately, the problem shifts from one of the dig being the potential cause of the supernatural to whether it might actually be the solution in the face of a dangerous outbreak of occult activity. If the Player Characters do not act, the situation on the former estate will descend into one of murder, growing fear, and ultimately mass possession.

Physically, Buried Dreams is plainly presented. There only the one piece of artwork, used to illustrate the villain (so ideally, the Game Master should get more illustrations for the other NPCs lest it appear that the villain is being singled out) and a map of Elizabethan London. The later is nice, but too small to be of much use. A map of the estate would have been useful.

Buried Dreams is a short sharp scenario of horror resulting from misunderstanding and fear. It is easy to prepare and its London location makes it easy for the Game Master to add it to her campaign.

Dee’s Discernments

The Sight: A True & Faithful Relation of Acts of Supernatural Foresight, Uncanny Vision, divers Readings of Occult Tokens: shewing the Particulars of SOME SPIRITS is a supplement of magic for The Dee Sanction: Adventures in Covert Enochian Intelligence. Or rather The Sight is a supplement of alternative and deeper magic for The Dee Sanction. For in The Dee Sanction, all Agents of Dee have magic. For under the terms of the Act Against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts, it permitted those with heretical knowledge to work off their sentence in service to, and in protection of, Her Majesty, Queen Elisabeth. This includes the one Favour, the very low key magical, Angelic means of influence that the Agent can bear upon the world, learnt through study of a corrupting tome or tutelage at the hands of a secret society. Theirs is a minor magic, but amongst their number, since after all, the authorities are on the constant lookout for any capable of even minor magics, there will be those capable of more—much more.

The Sight is a short supplement which introduces to four new talents—Aura Reading, Prophecy, Scrying, and Token Reading—to The Dee Sanction. It also provides guidance on visions, communing with spirits, possession, hypnosis, and the miraculous intervention of the Divine Chorus. Potentially, it increases the magical potency of the Player Characters or Agents, as well as adding a degree of uncertainty when using their magic. To determine if an Agent or indeed, an NPC, has the Sight, the supplement uses an expanded table over that given in The Dee Sanction. When a player uses the table, he either rolls larger dice types or draws from a full deck of playing cards to account for the increased number of entries. Standard rolls or number playing cards indicate that the Agent has a Favour, as in the core rules for The Dee Sanction, but here every entry has a list of three options, which the player can choose from or take all three, depending how much magic the Game Master wants her player to know.

Rolls of elven or twelve, or draws of either a Jack, Queen, or King, if using cards, determines whether has the Sight. Aura Reading enables an Agent to view and interpret someone’s supernatural aspects, Prophecy to see the future, Scrying to see things that are unseen, and Token reading to examine the lore and history bound up in objects. They are further divided into three, the die result or card determining which particular one an Agent has. For example, Prophecy includes Danger Sense, Things to Come, and Fortune Telling, whilst Scrying includes Visions, Divinations, and Summoned Advisor. There is some overlap to these, but there is every effort to make them different and feel different in play. Divination, for example, allows an Agent to experience the environment around a specific person, place, or event once a significant connection is established with them, which would require the blood or hair of the person, or an object from the location. Whereas Things to Come gives brief visions or warnings of threat, perhaps upon meeting someone, and is always involuntary.

Use of the Sight requires a player to succeed at a Supernatural Challenge. However, unlike the angelic nature of Favours, the Sight is supernatural in nature and therefore fickle. Which means that even in a player facing roleplaying such as The Dee Sanction, the Game Master gets to roll as well as the player. This elevates what would be a Supernatural Challenge in an Uncertain Challenge. The results of the use of the Sight range from Untruthful to Truthful depending upon whether the player and the Game Master both falter, one succeeds and one falters, and both succeed. The result, especially if the Agent is attempting to see the future, is only a possible future and it need not be easy to understand. In fact, it should be cryptic, and further, it should only told to the player of the Agent with the Sight, and done so in private. Further, the player should not write it down. This accentuates the uncertainty of the Sight. Inspiration for such foretellings is provided in a pair of tables.

The Sight also covers communing with spirits and talking with angels, the former answering a few questions, the latter even performing a miracle. There are rules here as well for possession and exorcism, and for both major and minor miracles. Both lend themselves to story possibilities, and of course, Enochian is the language of the angels, so it seems obvious to have talking with angels included here.

Physically, The Sight is cleanly and tidily laid out. It is lightly illustrated and consequently less obtrusive in comparison to the core rulebook.

The Sight is an excellent expansion to The Dee Sanction: Adventures in Covert Enochian Intelligence. Its rules are all entirely optional, and even if the Game Master decides not to add them to her campaign of The Dee Sanction or does not necessarily want her players’ Agents to possess them, they can remain the province of the NPCs or simply a source of ideas. However it is used, The Sight: A True & Faithful Relation of Acts of Supernatural Foresight, Uncanny Vision, divers Readings of Occult Tokens: shewing the Particulars of SOME SPIRITS still open up further story avenues and ideas as well as making the use of magic uncertain.

—oOo—

Just Crunch Games will be at UK Games Expo which takes place from Friday, June 3rd to Sunday, June 5th, 2022.

Dee's Occult Half-Dozen

The Dee Sanction Adventures: A True & Faithful Transcription of Matters Concerning Lost Books, Strange Sorceries, Befouled Poppets, Accusations of Witchcraft, and Assorted HELLSCAPES is an anthology of adventures for The Dee Sanction, the roleplaying game of ‘Covert Enochian Intelligence’ in which the Player Characters—or Agents of Dee—are drawn into adventures in magick and politics across supernatural Tudor Europe. It collects a half-dozen adventures released as PDF titles for the original Kickstarter and subsequently funded by a second Kickstarter campaign for a print edition. All of these scenarios are set during the reign of Elizabeth I, beginning in the year 1570, when Pope Pius V excommunicates her for her heresy and her persecution of the Catholics In England and the Catholic conspiracies against her seem to run rampant. All six can be run in more or less any order, or alternatively, run as a six-part campaign. The Dee Sanction Adventures starts with advice to that end, but nevertheless, it does require some effort upon the part of the Game Master to make the connections and links between them and so have them form a whole campaign.

The anthology—and potentially the campaign—opens with ‘Window of the Soul’ and the agents out on the town for an evening’s entertainment in the drinking holes, brothels, and bear-baiting pits of Southwark. However, their revelries are interrupted when they come upon a cart driver, his wife, and their child under assault by a group of ruffians, hellbent on doing them harm. This could be a simple robbery, but they detect something arcane about the attackers. Are they cursed? Bewitched? Or something else? Clues lead them into the comings and doings of Southwark and ultimately to the highest echelons the conspiracy against good Queen Bess. This is solid start to the anthology with a strange piece of investigation and incidences of mania which seem to affect the Londoners and the Player Characters.

It is followed by ‘The Gong Scourer’s Baby’ in which Doctor Dee—or Mister Garland—asks his Agents to investigate the birth of a Miracle Baby to a Gong Farmer in Southwark. With both the Queen and Doctor Dee away for her health, the Agents make the strange discovery that there is something more to the baby than mere miracle. Tracking down the source of the child will take them along the Thames and into a maze of industry and perhaps hints as to a conspiracy against Her Majesty. ‘The Gong Scourer’s Baby’ requires some input upon the part of the Game Master to set up and a bit more complex, with multiple options to choose from and timeline which the Player Characters will initially be unaware of.

The set-up to the third scenario harks back to the Player Characters’ own recruitment working as Agents for Doctor Dee. ‘In Fertile Soil’ takes the Agents out of London to investigate a possible Witch—accused of witchcraft and murder, and perhaps recruit her as a fellow member of the Sanction (and if not that, then help administer justice). The village of Soulgrave is a hotbed of gossip, and hides plenty of secrets, all under the eye of a puritanical parson. There is potential here for one or two creepy encounters out in the woods, and for Game Master an intriguing nod to future history and perhaps a roleplaying game like the FLAMES OF FREEDOM Grim & Perilous RPG.

A larger, more obvious monstrous threat has been harrowing travellers passing through Waltham Forest and so represents a potential threat to one of the Queen’s favourite hunting grounds, which means it requires urgent investigation upon the part of the Agents. After all, who would want to arouse the ire of the Queen? In ‘In The Monk’s Cowl’, the Agents are again sent out of London, this time to the market town of Waltham Abbey where they discover strange activities around the ruins of the abbey. This is perhaps the most complex investigation in the anthology, mixed in with some Hammer Horror, with no quite clear path to finding a solution to the problem and potential for disaster.

‘The Harrowing of Harlow Hall’ is a bit of an oddity in The Dee Sanction Adventures. It is a single location of adventure, set within the grounds and rooms of Harlow Hall, the home to one of the few individuals to have earned his freedom from the Dee Sanction. Thus it feels much more like a dungeon than any other adventure. It is also a much darker adventure in terms of its tone and content, and so does come with a warning for its horrifying content. It feels initially little like Hammer Horror film, but ramps up the nastiness as the Agents explore the house. ‘The Harrowing of Harlow Hall’ comes fifth in the anthology, but could easily be shifted to earlier or later if The Dee Sanction Adventures are being run as a campaign. However, its darker, perhaps even apocalyptically oppressive atmosphere means it is better suited for later in the campaign, and even perhaps as the climax to such a campaign.

Lastly, the feel of the dungeon continues in ‘Ex Libris’, which takes place in Deptford village where Doctor Dee sends the Agents to recover a copy of The Book of Dead Names. However, as they investigate the house and its cellars, the Agents discover that they are not the only ones after the book. This sets up a direct confrontation with the cultists and adds an element of time to the scenario as the Agents and their adversaries race to find the book. Plus, depending upon when the Game Master runs the scenario, it can lead into further adventures if the Agents fail to obtain the book—which is a serious possibility.

Physically, The Dee Adventures is a short, full colour digest book. The anthology is well written and benefits from some decent handouts and maps. The artwork is variable in quality, at best decent rather than outstanding. All of the adventures are quite short and should take no more than two or three sessions to play through—some much shorter than that.

The Dee Sanction Adventures: A True & Faithful Transcription of Matters Concerning Lost Books, Strange Sorceries, Befouled Poppets, Accusations of Witchcraft, and Assorted HELLSCAPES delivers on all that its title states. This is a solid and diverse collection of adventures that will see the Agents of Dee facing a variety of threats and dangers, whether used separately, together as a campaign, or woven into the Game Master’s own campaign.

Dee's Dirty Half Dozen

England under the reign of Elizabeth Tudor is imperilled from all sides. From the Church of Rome and all of its adherent nations across Europe, as well as those within England who had not renounced their Catholicism and become members of the Church of England. And also from the supernatural and the practitioners of magick who grow stranger and more prevalent as the wall of blind faith that protected the country and the monarchy had been weakened. First, by her father, Henry VIII’s break from Rome, his establishment of the Church of England, and Dissolution of the Monasteries; second, by her sister, Queen Mary’s reestablishment of Catholicism in the country in an attempt to undo her father’s scheming; and third, by the schism in Christianity that would give rise to fanatics upon both sides. The resultant rise in magical and incidences of the supernatural were not seen as being due to a loss of faith, but to a rise in the practice of witchcraft, such that five years after succeeding to the throne, Queen Elizabeth passed an Act Against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts, which particular made it a capital offence to employ magick to kill another and a felony to use it to maim or to consort with evil spirits, provoke love, or seek buried treasure. However, at the urging of Francis Walsingham, master of the Queen’s spy network in Europe, and Doctor John Dee, astrologer, alchemist, and companion in words to the Queen, she made an amendment—The Dee Sanction. This permitted the practice of magick in defence of the realm; it permitted those with heretical knowledge to work off their sentence in service to, and in protection of, Her Majesty; and it gave England a first line of defence against magick, its practitioners, and the supernatural. The fate of such agents would remain in the hands of Walsingham and Dee, their punishment abated—at least for the time being, and perhaps, just perhaps, despite what they have seen and what they have done, both in service of the Queen and before it, they might find absolution, they might have their sentences commuted.

This is the set-up for The Dee Sanction, a roleplaying game of ‘Covert Enochian Intelligence’ in which the Player Characters—or Agents of Dee—are drawn into adventures in magick and politics across supernatural Tudor Europe. Designed and published by the creator of The Cthulhu Hack following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is a stripped back, Old School Renaissance-style (but not actual Old School Renaissance) roleplaying game of Tudor horror, investigation, and magic. The Agents of Dee, the Player Characters, are vulnerable and expendable, amateurs at best only slightly supernatural, criminals marked for death, and thus beneath the contempt of the privileged. They are duty bound to investigate and stop supernatural threats which could kill them, for should they run, they will be hunted and hanged for the criminals they are, and being expendable kept in the dark as to the truth of any situation or even any monster they might face, and ultimately if their efforts to stop the horrors and the supernatural which might threaten the realm fail, they are the ones to blame.

An Agent in The Dee Sanction is first defined by three Resources—Physicall, Intellectuall, and Supernaturall. These are rated by die type—initially a six-sided die for all, but one or more of these can be stepped down a die type in order to increase one or the other two according to the player’s preference. An Agent also has a Back Story which represents crucial steps in their life leading up to and beyond the point they stepped onto the black path that resulted in both their enlightenment and the dark mark on their soul. It also includes an Occupation, which provides a choice of eight Abilities, of which a player selects three; a damning Association and a Focus for enlightenment; and a Favour, a minor, very low key magical, Angelic means of influence that the Agent can bear upon the world. An Agent has Hits—how much harm he can withstand when wavering in face of Threats or Hazards; Unravelling, a further Resource which represents the balance of his humours, which can be upset through fear and exposure to the Unnatural; and lastly, a single Fortune token which allows a reroll. Elements such as the Back Story and Favour are determined randomly, either by rolling dice or drawing cards from a standard deck.

Mistress Conquest works the streets of London at night with a crew disposing of its rubbish. Always wanting to better herself and find a better place for women in general, in the discovery of a strange book— The Voynich Manuscript—she saw an opportunity to learn and perhaps gain knowledge that would help her. Unfortunately, she was able to learn little before the book’s previous owners came for her, but the members of The Octagon Society recognised her ambitions and believed that they could be aligned with their aims to find balance in both mind and spirit as a route to a higher purpose or form. She was able to learn a little before the society was rounded up as part of the enforcement of the Act Against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts.

Janet Conquest
Intellectuall d8
Physicall d6
Supernaturall d4

Back Story
Occupation – Scavenger
Abilities – Scavenging, Night-Work, Astrology
Association – The Octagon Society
Focus – The Voynich Manuscript
Favour – Moisten (Stain, Spatter, Damp)

Hits 3
Unravelling d8
Fortune 1

Mechanically, The Dee Sanction has the feel of The Black Hack and Cthulhu Hack, but instead of deploying the standard attributes, uses its Resource mechanics instead. Thus whenever an Agent faces a Challenge, whether a Threat or a Hazard, his player rolls the appropriate Resource die. A roll of three or more and the Agent succeeds. However, if the result is a one or a two, the Challenge Falters and the Agent suffers a Consequence. This does not mean that an Agent has failed, but rather that his progress is slowed or achieved with unforeseen ramifications or a complication. In combat, this is typically not an unforeseen ramification but rather a loss of a Hit, but in other situations an Agent could be Humiliated with a social Challenge or Exhausted after an endurance Challenge. In addition, a Resource can be stepped up to the next higher die type or down to the next lower die type due to environmental factors, preparation, enemy power, and even Abilities. If the die type drops below d4, the Challenge becomes a Call to Fail, and the player has the option for his Agent to step back from the situation or take the Consequence. Combat is handled in a similar fashion, with a Moment representing a few seconds and initiative only failed on Falter. As with The Black Hack, the mechanics are player-facing, so in combat he rolls for his Agent to attack and to defend against attacks. A success on an attack and typically a single Hit is inflicted and a success on a defend, the Agent avoids harm, but suffers it on a Falter. If an Agent is reduced to zero Hits, he is dying and if his player rolls a Falter three times he dies. Otherwise, he is Out of Action and suffers a Consequence of the Game Master’s choice.

The Dee Sanction being a horror roleplaying game has its equivalent of a Sanity mechanic, in its case, the Unravelling. When the uniformity of belief divided and called into question and the Dissolution of the Monasteries scouring England’s symbols of belief, the Unravelling began… Across the country, in dense and trackless forest, along stretches of rambling roads, and within the ruins of broken churches and abbeys, somethings otherworldly snaked into the mortal world, Chaos blossomed in dark places, and there have been many nights when the Wild Hunt rides out. Exposure to unnatural horrors, rampant chaos, or the influence of other worlds is disruptive, traumatic, and unsettling, and when an Agent encounters the inhuman, the abhorrent, and the impossible, his player rolls the Unravelling Resource. Again, rolls of three or more and the Agent has the mental and perhaps moral fortitude to withstand the otherwise horrid effects of the unnatural, whilst a roll of one or two indicates a Falter. Where in other situations, a Falter indicates a success with complications, when facing the otherworldly, a Falter indicates that the Agent has suffered mental, soul scouring complications and one of his Humours has been upset. Not only is the Agent’s Unravelling die stepped down to its next lower step, the Agent suffers an Immediate Effect which lasts for a scene and an Ongoing Consequence which lasts until the Agent has had an overnight rest. Major frights may require the Unravelling die to be stepped down before the roll is made!

For example, Mistress Conquest has been directed to investigate sightings of a pony with blazing eyes in the Queen’s forests to the south. Near the village of Allum Green, she sets out to locate and confirm the truth of the matter. The Game Master says that searching for signs at night is a Challenge and will force her Intellectuall Resource to be stepped down, but Mistress Conquest’s player suggests that her Night-Work Ability would help in the situation. The Game Master agrees and Mistress Conquest’s player rolls her full Intellectuall Resource die. The roll is successful and some hours later, Mistress Conquest comes across the strange beast in the middle of a track. As it turns and snorts at its new watcher, its eyes blaze with fire and Mistress Conquest is taken afrit. The Game Master asks her player to roll her Agent’s Unravelling die. Unfortunately, the result is a Falter and Mistress Conquest must suffer the effects. Her player rolls an eight-sided die for the Immediate Effect and a six-sided die for the Ongoing Consequence. Mistress Conquest’s Black Bile Humour is up and the Immediate Effect is that she is overwhelmed by extreme emotion, her eyes filling with tears, and her body given over to deep sobs. The Ongoing Consequence is that once her tears and sobs have dried up, she is struck Sullen into a resentful silence and despondent, having been scared by the unnatural beast.

Besides their own Abilities and Resources, the Agents have access to a number of tools and devices. One set is narrative in nature, the others not. The narrative tools are six broad influences in Tradecraft—Access, Conspiracy, Kit, Magic, System, and Vigilance. Access represents contacts and associations that the Agents can take advantage of; Conspiracy dealings with anything which questions the status quo and common sense; Kit, the right equipment or ingredient; Magic, knowledge of the Other World; System, the ability to work the country’s bureaucracy; and Vigilance, watchfulness, caution, and curiosity. Each facet of Tradecraft is a shared Resource between the Agents, and just the one is chosen at the beginning of each adventure or mission, representing how the Agents plan to deal with the unexpected or unknown they might encounter as part of their investigations. At the end of the mission, that facet is lost, whether it has been used as part of the Agents’ enquiries or not. Its primary use is to counter the Marks possessed by the enemies, hazards, and other threats that the Agents will encounter. Marks are narrative objectives, representing tasks that the Agents need to fulfil in order to successfully investigate and deal with a threat to the realm, and since only one can be addressed in each adventure, they lend themselves to play over the course of two or more adventures in dealing with a single mission.

For example, the Agents have been tasked with investigating the activities of one Sidney Montague, a student at Oxford who has been taking an interest in particular books at the college and so his tutors have alerted Doctor Dee. Montague’s mother regularly attends court and so has the favour of the Queen, so the Agents have to be careful in how they proceed. The Game Master sets three Marks. One is Conspiracy to determine what the Montague is bringing into his country retreat from the continent; the second is Kit, finding the right device to deal with the Barghest Montague has summoned and is roaming the forest; and the third is System, the Agents needing to obtain a signed and sealed legal writ giving them permission to search the house.

The other tools are magical devices which aid the Agents in their investigations. They each have a Black Seal or amulet which allows them to communicate with Dee from a distance and also eventually, understand other languages and they have access to Stone Houses, a series of refuges and sanctuaries across Europe and the Middle East, that only those wearing the Black Seal may enter. Dee himself has Mercator’s Void, used as part of scrying rituals, and he can send Mister Garland, a supernatural manifestation, either a ghost or even an archangel, to serve as a briefing officer for the Agents and a contact for Dee. Specifically, the designer notes that Mister Garland serves as the equivalent of the character Al from Quantum Leap and the miniature tape recorder from Mission: Impossible, and that is an indicator of the tone of The Dee Sanction. It is an investigative horror roleplaying game set in the Tudor period, but it is not written as a strictly historical roleplaying game. It is intended to be played more as a horror mystery television series set in the Tudor period of an alternate Europe which makes the elements of magick, conspiracies, and so on, are real. And the devices themselves are reskinned anachronisms which facilitate, but break neither the narrative nor the tone of the television series.

For the Game Master there is a listing of the major enemies of the Queen, including the Pope and the Catholic Church, Mary, Queen of Scots, the Fae of the Great Wood, and more, plus a short bestiary—with it being easy to add more from other sources, background information about the Tudor Age and on both Walsingham and Dee, advice on running the game and even on converting adventures and their plots from elsewhere. Notably, it highlights how fragile the Agents are, having only a few Hits and their Unravelling almost a certainty… It also suggests that the Agents and their players keep a journal, both as means to record their progress and suspicions, and perhaps a means of the Game Master to develop further adventures from, and also a way for a replacement Agent to come up to speed quickly in an investigation should one of them die! Rounding out The Dee Sanction is the one-shot, ‘Lost in Translation’. It takes place during the great tour of European courts undertaken by John Dee and Edward Kelley in pursuit of occult knowledge, with the Agents being sent to recover a lost relic whilst they are in Poland. In doing so, they confront the creeping incursion of the unnatural that has come about with the weakening of faith across the continent, and whilst there are political benefits to be gained from a successful outcome, they will not be without their consequences… It feels a little odd to have a scenario in a roleplaying game which focuses on Tudor England set on the continent, especially in the core book. That said, as a one-shot it is fine and it can be adjusted back to England if that is what the Game Master wants, plus it would work later on in a campaign which could go abroad. Despite it being a solid introduction to the setting, it would have been perhaps stronger in storytelling terms to have gone with the pilot for The Dee Sanction television series, that is, the ‘how the Agents got into this mess and this is how they get out of it’ story and explored that aspect of the setting a bit further.

Physically, The Dee Sanction comes as a handy, digest-sized supplement. It is perhaps a little busy in terms of its layout, with a lot of bold text and so it does need a closer read in places than its then obvious simplicity warrants. The artwork has a nicely idiosyncratic feel to it and overall, there is no denying the certain charm to its physical look and feel.

Despite some missed opportunities in the choice of scenario, The Dee Sanction is a fantastical little offering of desperate horror and occult investigative roleplaying in a different age, but one with which we will be familiar from our fascination with the period. It is thus easily accessible in terms of the setting, just as is its horror and its set-up, all eased by simple mechanics that both create interesting Agents and make game play quick.

A Beggarly Affair

One of the delights of Maelstrom, the Tudor set RPG published in the United Kingdom by Puffin Books back in 1984 and then more recently by Arion Games in 2007 is its Livings the equivalent of its Classes in other RPGs. From Architects, Doctors, and Scriveners to Beggars, Blacksmiths, and Traders via Mages, Mercenaries, Priests, and Rogues, each of the game’s numerous Livings is presented in plenty of detail. Every Living is interesting and capable, though often only in some small way. The more recent Maelstrom Companion added yet further Livings, expanding especially with a number of legal professions. Now there is a supplement that focusses entirely upon one type of Living with the eponymously titled Beggars Companion.

This slim one-hundred-and-twenty-two page paperback expands greatly upon the beggar and his place in the Tudor England portrayed in Maelstrom. For the player it covers how beggars rose in numbers during the late Tudor period; how they were treated by the state, the church, and society in general; the numerous types of beggars and their ‘tricks’; and the basics of the secretive language of Beggars’ Cant. For the Referee, it covers the beggars’ campaign; a set of beggars and rogues that can be player characters or NPCs; and a septet of adventure seeds as well as a full adventure.

For the player there are a total of twenty-eight new Livings, all of them beggarly professions. They range from the ‘Abraham Man’, who fakes lunacy, and the ‘Bawdy Basket’, who trades in lewd lechery and loathsome falsehoods, to the ‘Whipjack’, who fakes service as a shipwrecked mariner, and the ‘Wild Rogue’, who has known no other profession except that of beggar. Most of these can be taken by a character of either gender, but several are gender specific, such as the female only ‘Bawdy Basket’ or the ‘Father of Families’, a male only Living for which the beggar entreats his audience with tales of the loss of his wife and children. Each is accorded bonuses and penalties to his attributes as well as a ‘Nefarious Knack’, a special ability that is particular to that type of beggar. Thus, the ‘Counterfeit Crank’ is capable of ‘Loose Fall’, so that when replicating the effects of epilepsy, he is capable of falling to the ground without injuring himself.

Our sample character is Eleanor Mathews, a widow who was forced upon the road with the death of her husband, Nicholas. She uses her knowledge of herbs, and more recently spices, to work as a ‘saffroner’, a sell of fake herbs and spices to the unwary. Despite her being a woman, the Brotherhood has accepted Eleanor as she is a skilled healer.

Eleanor Mathewson
Herbalist/Trickster-Saffroner, Age 38
Attack Skill 30
Defence Skill 30
Endurance 30
Speed 30
Agility 30
Will 30
Persuasion 41
Knowledge 45
Perception 40
Equipment: Sample herbs, filler materials, clothes, pouch with 14 pennies, a day’s food, knife
Abilities: Herb Lore, Diagnosis, Assess

What comes across clearly from reading the Beggars Companion is how much of a challenge roleplaying a beggar character will be in Maelstrom. Tudor society looks upon the beggar poorly, seeing him as lazy and greedy and ill prepared to work for a living as every proper, upright, and industrious Christian ought. The state has legislated against the beggar many times, but beggars can obtain licenses to practise their ‘trade’. Such licenses can also be counterfeited. Even so, the law will often drive beggars out of a parish, or worse, punish them by placing them in the stocks, branding them, or have the gristle from their upper ears cut away as indication of their vagrancy. Further, as outsiders, beggars are rarely trusted and as strangers, can be blamed for the cause of manner of ills – diseases, thefts, and so on. That said, beggars can at times call upon the charity of the church, though the degree of help available will wax and wane… Another source of help is the Brotherhood, a fraternal organisation that provides shelter and support to beggars in good stead, but will call upon its brethren to aid in its criminal activities. What this means is that beggars must live by their wiles as well as by their ‘tricks’ of the trade in order to earn them a crust and they need to succeed without being obvious about it. 

Essentially, what this addresses is the issue at the heart of the Beggars Companion – why would the players should choose to play in campaign involving beggars. Besides the detail provided with each Living, the Knack assigned to each Living serves as a ‘roleplaying’ hook, not only something that the character can do and do well, but something that needs to be roleplayed. Not just roleplayed by the player as part of the game, but actually roleplayed by the character in the game in order to do well. Thus the challenge of playing a beggar this historical setting is only extended. Further challenges of increasing difficulty are presented in the Styles of Play, beginning with the Theatrical style that is much lighter in tone and better suited to one-off scenarios and short campaigns. This is followed by the default Historical setting, replete with filth, decay, depravity, and distrust, and then the Dark style, in which the lives of the beggar characters are under constant threat.

In addition to the Rogues Gallery, the Referee’s Section also includes a further Living. The Upright Man is a manipulator of both the beggar and the respectable, hiding behind his own façade of respectability that creates by being seen to work. Where most characters in Maelstrom have no more than two Livings, the Upright Man is a third Living, one to be taken after a previous profession and then life as a beggar. It can also be used as something for beggar characters to aspire to. ‘The Long Road’ is a full scenario, much in the style of the adventure from the core rulebook for Maelstrom. Here the beggar characters follow not just a road, but also another beggar, Old Ted. Once an Upright Man, it is believed that Old Ted amassed a small fortune so as members of the Brotherhood, the characters have been tasked to keep their eye on him. Suddenly he wanders off. Where could he be going, and why? Understandably, this is a linear affair, although given the subject matter of this supplement, it is a pity that the adventure only really allows the player characters the opportunity to practise their knacks at the beginning. Rounding out the supplement are a set of appendices that cover the physical hardships of being a beggar, more herbs, and a bibliography.

The Beggars Companion is a reasonably well presented book. It is lightly illustrated and although it is an easy read, it could have done with a closer edit in places. Overall, this is an interesting little book that nicely expands upon an aspect of Tudor England and Maelstrom. It would be nice to see it supported with more adventures and even a campaign, but in the meantime, there is plenty of detail and background material for the Referee to bring to his game.

An Elizabethan Whirl's Companion

The classics are not always perfect, and so it is with Maelstrom, the Tudor set RPG published in the United Kingdom by Puffin Books back in 1984. There is much to love about the game, including its period attention to detail, its simplicity, and its two scenarios, one for solo play and the other to be run by the GM. Unfortunately the RPG was lacking in terms of certain rules, for example, those for firearms and for two-weapon fighting, and background and setting detail. None of these issues were addressed when Arion Games released a new edition of the game, but fortunately now they have with the game’s very first supplement, The Maelstrom Companion.

The Maelstrom Companion comes as a slim, oversized paperback that contains an array of additions to the game and setting. In terms of rules, the most obvious and simple additions are the new rules for firearms and two-weapon fighting, which are both so simple and easy that the reader is left wondering why anyone had to wait for so long to get them. The obvious answer is that the original RPG had been out of print for over two decades before The Maelstrom Companion was even considered… That said, none of the firearms are named, being merely listed as having differing Attack Skill modifiers, damage ratings, ranges, and so on according to their size, whether a pistol or a musket. This was an omission when it came to weapons in the Maelstrom RPG, and it is one that is continued here.

One of the best aspects of Maelstrom is its Livings, the equivalent of its Classes in other RPGs. From Architects, Doctors, and Scriveners to Beggars, Blacksmiths, and Traders via Mages, Mercenaries, Priests, and Rogues, each of the game’s numerous Livings was presented in plenty of detail. The Maelstrom Companion adds several new Livings, including the Agent, who serves a political patron and works a network of contacts and informants in his master’s service; Alchemists, capable researching certain recipes, such as that for Aqua Vitae, Blackpowder, and Fireproof Cloth; Barber-Surgeons, capable of treating wounds – unlike Physicians!; law enforcement in the form of Beadles, Constables, and Watchmen; Farmers, who can raise crops and stock, handle and treat animals, and tell the weather; Friars, who are monks that actively spend time amongst the laity, often relying upon them for charity; Hunters, excellent shots and trappers who use their stealth as either game keeper or poacher; Sailors, who not only know how to sail and swim, but climb too; the Tavern Keeper, who in the course maintaining his establishment, gains a nose for food and drink as well as for trouble; and the Witch, who understands herbalism and medicines, but also knows curses.

Many of these are supported with new rules and expanded rules. For example, the Alchemist is supported with rules for Alchemy along with numerous recipes. Likewise, the Witch’s new rules for Witchcraft detail the nature of the Contracts that a practitioner enters with certain intelligences from the Maelstrom, be they “Demons” or “Devils” or not; her healing skills, or rather her “country wisdom;” her ability to make Curses and Charms; and her loyal Familiar. A Witch who pursues a knowledge of Herbalism cannot make Contracts or Curses and vice versa. The expanded rules cover magic, allowing a Mage to specialise as an Astrologer, an Elementalist, or a Skryer (a Mage that specialises in contacting and speaking to spirits and more). They expand and divide healing between the three Livings that become available with the advent of The Maelstrom Companion. Wounds are bandaged, internal bleeding is staunched, limbs splinted, and teeth pulled by a Barber-Surgeon, whereas the superior – in attitude, at least – Physician do not, and instead primarily treats diseases and infections. Overlapping between the skills of both is the Herbalist, who can treat minor wounds and diseases. Similarly, the Weaponsmith Living can now be a Gunsmith rather than a Bladesmith, and thus specialise in the manufacture of the firearms whose rules appear elsewhere in the book. Lastly, the Labourer Living is actually given a full benefit in that he can work for a full day and gain bed and board if not wages. Character generation overall is supported with a list of period Christian names, along with a table of distinguishing features, such as Alcoholic, Disconcerting Gaze, and Tall, that can be used to individualise a character.

Much of the contents of The Maelstrom Companion is for GM and player alike, but the GM is not ignored. He receives a supernatural bestiary, covering an array of unnatural creatures from Black Dogs to Robin Goodfellow; a short, if pertinent history that details the Tudor church and the Dissolution of the Monasteries – useful in particular if the setting provided in The Maelstrom Companion is used; and some actual campaign advice. This explores various campaign styles possible in the Tudor period – political, military, trade, business, criminal, and so on. Some of the descriptions of these styles are longer than others, but they are at least ideas and they are accompanied by sample campaign ideas. The reader though, will be left wanting more, and perhaps they could be expanded upon in future supplements.

Where Maelstrom provided information on the places along the road between St. Albans and London, The Maelstrom Companion gives a whole setting to explore and interact with. This is the Suffolk market town of Bury St. Edmunds in the year 1540 during the reign of Henry VIII. Once the county seat, the life of the town revolved around its powerful abbey, but with the break from Rome, the King’s establishment of the Church of England, and the dissolution of the monasteries, Bury St. Edmunds has lost much of its status. Into this power vacuum have moved various nobles, merchants, and guilds, each vying for influence and prestige, and each perhaps looking for a few good men (and women) who might be able to work behind the scenes to further their employer’s ends. The environs and personalities of the town are described in some detail, that latter organised by Living, and a timeline of events are given for the whole of 1540. Some adventure hooks are also given, though no scenario is included. It would be pleasing to see this further supported with actual scenarios set in the town. The Maelstrom Companion is rounded out with various useful game references, such as the Master Living list and quick guides to running both Basic and Advanced Combat.

Physically, once you get past the front cover, The Maelstrom Companion is disappointing. The layout is unsophisticated, even pedestrian. Where much of the artwork in the Maelstrom core rules conveyed much of the game’s feel, here it is murky and disappointing. For the most part, the book is decently written, but it does need another edit in places. It could also do with a reorganisation, so that the sections for the GM are clearly kept separated from those that the players can read.

The production values are this supplement’s Achilles Heel. They give the book a disparate and unfocused feel, which whilst unfair is not wholly unwarranted. For the most part, the new material is decent, especially that which builds upon the game’s primary highlight – its detailed Livings, whether that be the additional rules or the expanded ones. The supplement though points to the need for further development, whether that is in the form of expanded advice for the GM or scenarios, including those that could be set in Bury St. Edmund. Ultimately, whilst there is a goodly amount of useful and interesting information in The Maelstrom Companion, both the information presented and the book itself is let very much let down by its underwhelming production values.

An Elizabethan Whirl

On occasion I want to delve into the extensive library/ludography upstairs and pull out a classic or an item of interest and review it. If all I did was review games, then it would happen, but the truth is that there is never quite enough time to review games from the here and now, let alone review those from the past. Yet the reflective nature of the twenty-first century and our yearning for late twentieth century nostalgia has led to the games of our yester years actually being made available once again just as if they were appearing on the shelves all that time ago. Such is the case with Maelstrom.

Originally published in 1984, Maelstrom was something of an oddity. It was a full RPG, but not one that was released not by a hobby publisher, but by Puffin Books, the imprint of Penguin Books that was, and remains a major publisher of children’s books. This meant that an actual RPG appeared not just on the shelves of your local games shop, but also on the shelves of your local, and thus any, book shop. Now this sounds strange, but in 1984, the hobby in the United Kingdom was at the height of the Fighting Fantasy craze. Titles in the solo game book series were selling very well, but Maelstrom was a very different beast, a semi-historical RPG set in the late Elizabethan Age, that came not only with a magic system and potentially, a treatment of the supernatural, but also a solo adventure and an adventure written for multiple characters. Further, its characters were not the traditional warriors and wizards, but nobles, professionals, craftsmen and artisans, tradesmen and labourers, as well as mercenaries, priests, mages, and rogues.

Now Arion Games have brought it back. It still comes as a thick, slightly over-sized paperback with the terrific snow scene of a man defending a cart and his companions from members of the soldiery. Inside the book is still split between two parts, one for the players and one for the referee, with a solo adventure in the players’ part, and an adventure to run in the referee’s. The book still has the heavy ink illustrations that do so much to give it a heavy atmosphere and a historical feel. Everything looks about the same as my now somewhat shelf worn copy that I bought back in 1984. The question is, how do the game’s rules and the game itself stand up to scrutiny with the benefit of twenty-five years’ gaming experience?

Maelstrom uses a percentile system, with characters having to make rolls or Saving Throws against one of nine attributes that define each character. So for example, to parry a sword thrust, a character must roll against his Defence Skill, whereas to work out the state of a noble’s household accounts, a clerk would roll against his Knowledge Skill. If this sounds simple, then it is. Even the complications only add just a little more to account for critical results, combat, and magic.

So in a fight, the blows of the combatants go back and forth with rolls on their Attack and Defence Skills with damage from successful hits rolled according to the weapon type, which often requires the use of six-sided as well as ten-sided dice. One interesting aspect of combat is that whilst all damage is recorded against a character’s Endurance – who will fall unconscious if he suffers damage equal to his Endurance – each wound is recorded individually. So for example, Alfred, waylaid by thugs, is beaten several times with their cudgels for a total of sixteen points of damage, which is recorded blow-by-blow as 5/5/2/4 (16). Wounds are recorded this way because each heals individually, at a rate of one point per week if resting or one point per month if pursuing a normal life, so that in our example, after a week’s bed rest, Alfred’s wounds are reduced to 4/4/1/3 (12). This makes for a dangerous combat system, but the issue of a character falling unconscious after receiving damage equal to his Endurance is problematic in that it is not necessarily deadly. Delivering a mortal blow is technically not possible, at least in the basic rules.

The rules for magic continue Maelstrom’s simplicity, requiring a Knowledge Skill roll by a mage to recall the correct incantation and a number of Will rolls equal to the desired effect’s difficulty. The game does not come with dedicated spell lists and the referee is expected to determine the rolls needed for the effect that the player mage wants. Again, critical successes and failures are possible, and their effects also need to be determined by the referee. In casting a spell, a mage taps into the “Maelstrom,” a dangerous and chaotic force that can, at the referee’s option, act independently for or against the mage, or even serve as a strange dimension that the mage and his fellow player characters can be cast into and out of, perhaps to end in some strange place or time.

Creating a character in Maelstrom involves assigning fifty points between nine attributes, each of which starts at a base of thirty. After that each character requires a Living, representing his past prior to going adventuring. Each Living determines a character’s age, appropriate skills, and possessions. The given selection of Livings is diverse, from Noble to Labourer, and includes Professionals (Architects, Clerks, Doctors, and Scriveners – lawyers), Craftsmen and Artisans (Armourers, Blacksmiths, Bladesmiths, Masons, Tailors, Tanners, and Wood-carvers), Traders (in everything from fish and fruit to wine and groceries), Travelling Players (musicians, minstrels, and players), and Herbalists. The latter are usually pacifists that collect and prepare herbs for medicinal purposes, knowing in which seasons herbs are available. The Herbalist Living is supported with excellent appendix detailing the herbs its practitioners work with.

Our sample character is Henyre Powlett, an architect who has been studying and working under a master architect in Bristol for almost half of his life. He wishes to travel to gain further work and experience. He is a gentleman whose family owns land in the county of Somerset.

Henyre Powlett
Architect, Age 26
Attack Skill 30
Defence Skill 30
Endurance 35
Speed 35
Agility 30
Will 35
Persuasion 40
Knowledge 45
Perception 40
Equipment: horse, dagger, good clothes, pouch with 49 shillings, a week’s food, skin of wine, and architect’s tools

Of the Livings available, the closest in terms to classic types in other RPGs are the Mage, the Mercenary, the Priest, and the Rogue. Mages are generally older as they need to take up a second Living in order to provide a cover for their sorcerous activities and likely membership of a cult. Mercenaries are excellent fighters and know how to use their armour to lessen blows taken and to use their weapons to inflict more injurious wounds. A Priest can exalt those around him through Preaching, and has limited powers – Detection, Warding, Casting Out, and Exorcism – over spirits. Rogues though, are further divided into Beggars, Thieves, Assassins, Tricksters, Burglars, and non-specialists, each with their own particular skills in addition to those general to the Living.

The Player’s Section is rounded out with a solo adventure and some advanced rules. The adventure is relatively short, but still atmospherically grim. It is designed to be played with an Assassin character who is given a target to kill. The advanced rules add encumbrance, attribute modifiers for Livings, rules for making a living out of a character’s Living, more detailed weapons and wounds, and the effects of critical rolls in combat. For the most part, the Referee’s Rules gives even more details on each of the Livings as well as a scenario. The latter describes a road trip from St. Albans to London in which various events occur and comes full of colourful detail. The adventure is well done and serves as a good introduction to the setting.

So far, Maelstrom is an immensely likeable RPG. It is full of period detail, never more so than with the character types which get more coverage in Maelstrom than any other subject, though this information is split between the book’s two parts for the player and the referee. It is also easy to play and run, the rules being simple and easy, but although the game can be run as is, it is not without its problems.

The rules themselves are too simple, especially the basic rules. The advanced rules are necessary to avoid the game being too simplistic, especially for combat, which needs the rules for serious and critical wounds for it to be more than straight fight to a knockout. For an RPG set during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, it seems a curious omission that no rules are given for the use of firearms. Another problem with the RPG’s list of weaponry is that whilst multiple damage listings are given for each weapon type – for example, “1-10, 2-12, 3-18, 2-20, 4-24, 3-30, and 5-30” all under sword – the listings do not actually assign an actual sword type to each damage value. Suggestions are given separately, which is anything other than helpful.

Perhaps, the biggest problem with Maelstrom is the lack of adequate background. A little over two pages is devoted to “Background: The Lie of Land,” discussing the period in the broadest of terms. The truth of it is that it not enough. Without more background, the referee is forced to look elsewhere if he wants to write adventures as beyond the wealth of detail accorded the various Livings, Maelstrom is sorely lacking. The Elizabethan Age is a period of religious strife, exploration, treason, and more, all of which is ignored in Maelstrom. The result is that the referee will need to come up with a background and a focus for his game, for Maelstrom lacks a sense of conflict that would provide that focus.

Further, perhaps too much information is paid to the characters and their Livings. You can of course, have too much information, but at the same time, there is the matter of whether a player would chose to play a Fruiterer or an Engraver versus a Mage or a Mercenary?

Physically, this edition of Maelstrom does need an edit and perhaps its layout could be a bit more open and easier to read. Worse, much of the artwork has a slightly faded, washed out look that renders the road map in the adventure very hard to read.

There is much to like about Maelstrom. Its rules are easy, and even with the use of the advanced rules included, the game is still quite light. The magic system is simple, but also flexible, and what is included in the book, is supported with two good adventures. The historical detail is excellent, but it is too focused. It needs more historical background rather the detail about the Livings and perhaps, it even needs a second edition. As it is, Maelstrom is not without charm, but it is without focus.

Retrospective: Suppressed Transmission

Of course, you know about the Suppressed Transmission?

If you do, then go make a cup of tea and put your feet up with a copy of Foucault’s Pendulum, you know the one with annotations from the Pope. In mean time, come a little closer and I will put you in the picture. Back in 1998, Steve Jackson Games’ Pyramid magazine began publishing a series of columns by Ken Hite entitled Suppressed Transmission.

Following Lovecraft’s dictum that “…piecing together of associated knowledge” opens up “terrifying vistas of reality” each Suppressed Transmission is an essay that placed subjects as diverse as the Roswell landings – all six of them, Shakespeare as well as his plays, variations upon Spring Heeled Jack, Antarctic Space Nazis, and the many colours of the elixir vitae that is Cocoa-Cola under a lens that not only revealed Hite’s mind map, but also his reading habits of the then previous twenty years. With each essay he spins a web of horror, conspiracies, secret histories, alternate histories, and high weirdness that makes connections hither and thither. Hite’s aim is never to validate the pseudoscience, conspiracies, fallacies, and slapdash scholarship that he bases these essays on – and which I suspect he finds to be endearingly risible – but rather to give the reader concepts, ideas, and set-ups that he can base a whole game on.

For example, in “The Sky is Falling,” Hite goes from discussing what the 1908 Tunguska incident was and what it might have been – including the coming to Earth of a Colour Out of Space or the attempted summoning of Azathoth (really? Not seen that in a Call of Cthulhu adventure), to moving the incident to Moscow rather than Siberia and seeing what could happen. Which includes no World War I and a race to Mars between the Red Baron and Eddie Rickenbacker amongst other things… Elsewhere, Hite plays the Kevin Bacon game with Sir Francis Bacon rather the actor in “Six Degrees of Sir Francis Bacon,” explores what happened to Roanoke in “Croatoan or Bust: Finding the Lost Colony,” and gives us the A to Z of all things conspiratorial in “A Conspiratorial Alphabet,” all before leaving us with his “Top Ten Books for High Weirdness in Your Campaign.”

To date, of the three hundred written, Steve Jackson Games has only published the first sixty-eight in two volumes, Suppressed Transmission: The First Broadcast and Suppressed Transmission: The Second Broadcast. Both books are now only available in PDF, but in each case they allow Hite to revisit and reorganise each of the first year’s columns and annotate and cross reference every one. Then apply an index, which means that can you look up something like H.P. Lovecraft (fifteen entries), penguins (four entries), or the Templars (also fifteen entries), just to see how Hite uses them and the places that he takes them to.

In their time, Hite’s columns were a constant draw to Pyramid magazine and ensured that readers would renew their subscriptions time and again. They were considered to be that good and many subscribers felt them to be the best articles to appear in the magazine. Even at their most basic, every Suppressed Transmission is immensely readable. At just three or four pages long, they are easy to read just about anywhere, and they are even just about the right length to read aloud. Their use though is as a veritable well spring of ideas.

Perhaps too many GURPS books are referenced, but most GURPS books are good reference guides too. Sometimes its feels as if Hite is channelling one too many Illuminati games, but then he is saving you an awful lot of research and entertaining you at the same time.

About as fruity a cabinet of cocktails of insanely weird ideas as any gaming reference work deserves to be, Suppressed Transmission never fails to be entertaining and interesting. It is a resource that should be on the shelf of any good referee and just be glad that Hite was channelling this insane weirdness so that you never had too.

...and not a codpiece in sight

I have already opined that the focus for the Old School Renaissance is perhaps a little too tight, upon iterations of the Dungeons & Dragons of any when from 1974 to 1981 and on the relatively few genres that appeared in roleplaying during that period over the limitless possibilities that we have seen available since. So what this means is that we have fantasy roleplaying in form of Goblinoid Games’ Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry from Mythmere Games, plus the many other variants of Dungeons & Dragons, whilst Science Fiction is covered by Grey Area Games’ X-plorers: The role playing adventures of Galactic Troubleshooters! and the forthcoming revised Starships & Spacemen from Goblinoid Games, leaving Mutant Future – also from Goblinoid Games, to do does the weird post-apocalyptic setting we remember from Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World – both from TSR. All right, so this is a generalisation, but it does leave an awfully large and diverse number of genres yet to be explored in the retro fashion of the Old School Renaissance.

So Backswords & Bucklers: Adventuring in Gloriana’s Britain from the amusingly named British publisher, Tied to a Kite, is something of a curiosity as far as the Old School Renaissance is concerned. Powered by the same rules as to be found in Swords & Wizardry: Whitebox – available to download from here – and as its subtitle suggests, Backswords & Bucklers is a game set in Elizabethan England that is slightly more fantastic than our own. Not fantastic enough that it trips off into the faerie realms and back again – at least not in Book One: Basic Rules, the first book to be published, which only hints at the dangers of dark magic, with supplements to come set to cover the alchemical, the sorcerous, and the demonological arts in actual detail.

So the first question in any RPG is, “What can I play?” Backswords & Bucklers offers three classes, the Fighting Man, the Scoundrel, and the Cunning Man or Wise Woman. The first of these can be anything from hired muscle to professional soldier, whilst the second is more of a rogue, making his living any way other than what others would call honest toil. The last of the three classes is a country bred cross between an apothecary and a private eye, able to heal with his knowledge of herbs and chirurgy, but also able to find things through dowsing. The effects of both herbalism and chirurgy will vary from one Cunning Man to another, as a player is free to select from various choices as he gains levels. Of course, let us not forget the dangers of playing a Wise Woman – “And how do you know she’s a witch?”

The sample character is Edmond Treves, a ne’er do well who resides in Southwark. By night he is an actor, part of the company at the Globe theatre, but by day, he does odd jobs for Sidney Moulson, a local smuggler. This is always in the company of a strong arm called Harry Pleasance. Of the two, Harry is the brighter, but likes to keep this fact hidden. So when the two are together, Harry never speaks, except to whisper his thoughts into Edmond’s ear.

Edmond Treves
1st Level Scoundrel
Strength: 10 Dexterity: 13 Constitution: 9
Intelligence: 12 Wisdom: 14 Charisma: 15
Defence Rating: 10 Saving Throw: 14 Hit Points: 3
Class Abilities: Information Gathering, Picking Locks, Moving Silently
Equipment: Cloak, Clothing (including boots and hat), Satchel, eating knife, dagger, lock picks, broadsword; 1 Shilling

Harry Pleasance

1st Level Fighting Man

Strength: 16 Dexterity: 12 Constitution: 12

Intelligence: 16 Wisdom: 12 Charisma: 10

Defence Rating: 11 Saving Throw: 15 Hit Points: 5

Class Abilities: Cool Under Pressure, Saving Throw (+1 vs. Death & Poison), Experienced Eye

Equipment: Cloak, Clothing (including boots and hat), Backpack, whetstone, eating knife, dagger, leather jack (Armour Rating 1), falchion, buckler; 3 Shillings

Most of the time, a character can carry out such abilities without problem, but where it does matter, the referee decides on the chances of success to be rolled on a six-sided die. Combat of course, uses the standard twenty-sided die, but is slightly more complex than that of most “Edition Zero” RPGs in that it takes into account the type of damage, especially when “downright” blows are inflicted, which happens when someone runs out of Hit Points. Armour reduces damage whilst shields make an opponent more difficult to hit. As written, most weapons do just one six-sided die’s worth of damage per hit, but whether that is a straight die’s worth per hit or a number of dice equal to the success roll is unclear. It is probably the former as the latter seems like an awful lot, but even then, just rolling one die for each weapon’s damage is uninteresting, and this only looks all the more odd given that missile weapons do damage equal to a single six-sided die per level of the bowman, the pistoleer, or the musketman. So as everyone gains levels, they become deadlier shots, but not deadlier swordsmen, except for the Fighting Man who gains extra attacks per turn as he gains levels.

The reason for this is that attacks by missile weapons are one time, skill based attacks, whereas a melee presents multiple opportunities to successfully strike an opponent and inflict damage. This is a reasonable enough argument I suppose, but if every weapon inflicts just one die’s worth of damage, it not only makes them all a bit flavourless, with the only reasons for a player to choose one weapon over another is cost and the type of damage it does for “Downright Blows,” which are inflicted when an opponent is reduced to zero Hit Points.

The other odd issue is how the classes gain Experience Points. The Fighting Man gains his by fighting others. He does not have to defeat his foe, but if he wins, a Fighting Man gains double the Experience Points. In contrast, the Scoundrel gains them by expending money at a rate of five Experience Points per Penny spent, and the Cunning Man for helping others. These are a means by which the rules encourage or enforce roleplaying within the setting.

The last issue with the classes is the lack of choice within them. The Cunning Man does not suffer from this to the same extent, but the differences between one Scoundrel and another or one Fighting Man and another will entirely be down to the players rather than any mechanical element built into the rules. To be fair, this is an issue with any “Edition Zero,” but it would have been nice to have some means to differentiate between characters of the same class. One means for example, might have been to make the game’s weaponry more individual and more flavoursome, and were I to run Backswords & Bucklers this is something that I might do.

The “Edition Zero” game has any number of clichés, one of which is having a party assemble at “ye humble olde tavern” for a drink and a rumour prior to the start of their next dungeon delve. Backswords & Bucklers cuts out the delve and instead of the “Dungeon Bash,” has the “Tavern Trawl.” Actually, the rules for “Tavern Trawling” are a means by which a referee can create a base of operations for the player characters and using that generate rumours and employment for them. To that end, Basic Rules: Book One comes with a sample tavern, The Duck & Drake complete with clientele and rumours. The given sample adventure, “The Unfortunate Spaniard,” is more of a thumbnail than a full adventure.

Aside from the issues already raised, Backswords & Bucklers as seen in Basic Rules: Book One, suffers from several problems. The first of these is that the book lacks background. It needs to have more historical information than it does, necessary because not everyone is going to be familiar with the late Tudor period. Second, there is no referee or campaign advice on running the game beyond particular situations, such as combat. One combined effect of both of these is to leave the referee wondering what sort of tone the game should have. Should the tone be the tragic farce of Blackadder II? The romantic comedy of Shakespeare in Love? Or the high drama of Elizabeth? It does not help that the lack of a spellcasting class in the game also means that the magic is barely touched upon beyond listing some sample magic items that might be the subject of possible jobs to be found in the “Tavern Trawling” tables.

Physically, Book One: Basic Rules for Backswords & Bucklers: Adventuring in Gloriana’s Britain is reasonably laid out with suitable public domain artwork used well to break up the text. A slight edit is needed in places, but this a readable and easily used little book.

Ultimately and as given in Book One: Basic Rules, the real issue with Backswords & Bucklers is that it is too basic and does not really have enough information – it needs more of the Gloriana. There are issues with the rules too, mostly in terms of balance, between the classes and in the combat mechanics. Nevertheless, all of these issues can be fixed and the game is playable as is, should you so desire, especially when coupled with a knowledge of the period. It might not be perfect, but Backswords & Bucklers: Adventuring in Gloriana’s Britain is certainly playable and it shows promise aplenty. If Tied to a Kite can deliver on that promise with future supplements, it will have given the Old School Renaissance a solid little addition.