The Other OSR: Three Weeks In The Streets

Galgenbeck is the last refuge of humanity and the last refuge of all in the land of Tveland. As the seas rise, the crops fail, wars continue without reason, the dead walk, plague runs rampant, the burden of taxes weighs heavier on all, and the peasantry seek help and succour within the walls of the city. Perhaps from the Shadow King, King Sigfúm, perhaps from the church of the Two-Headed Basilisks, its cathedral in Galgenbeck dedicated to the god Nechrubel and headed by the arch-priestess Josilfa. Both king and priestess heed the prophecies of the Two-Headed Basilisks that the herald the end of the world and are slowly becoming true. What happens though if the city itself is cursed, or worse, infested? What will authorities do to prevent the spread of the infestation beyond its walls? How will those trapped inside cope with increasingly limited supplies of food and water survive? Will law and order hold, or will the city descend into mob rule? When arch-priestess Josilfa declares Galgenbeck to be infested with the Mind Parasites, the city is closed and ringed by the implacable soldiery of the king’s Shadow Guard, and the city’s thousands of inhabitants, rich and poor, are trapped within its walls—the Player Characters amongst them. How will the Player Characters survive Three Weeks In The Streets?

Three Weeks In The Streets describes itself as a city-prison scenario for use with Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and also published by Free League Publishing. Published following a successful Kickstarter campaign,it even comes with its own official playlist to provide a soundtrack and begins with an encounter or two on the way to the city. It kicks off with the official announment made by the town crier, that the mind parasite is spreading and the arch-priestess has ordered the city closed. What do the Player Characters do? Do they try to fight or sneak their own way past the king’s Shadow Guard, the chance of being successful being very doubtful? They must try to find ready supplies of food and water, and every day the mob grows—and may even absorb the Player Characters—fuelled by truths and rumours that spread as surely and as quickly as the mind parasites. They are likely to encounter some of the worst and the best of Galgenbeck’s citizenry, those not wealthy enough to lock themselves up in their fortified and guarded mansions. One day after another takes on a regular pattern, of dread as yet another day dawns, of doom as night falls. As the rumours swirl and food and water supplies dwindle, the inhabitants of the city grow desperate and the tension rises, the collective stress and anxiety threatens to explode into mass hysteria. And then…

Only the first week of Three Weeks In The Streets is meant to be played out in this fashion and then it is meant to jump two weeks to the conclusion of the quarantine. By this time, the Player Characters, as well as everyone else in the city, is starving and dehydrated, but it is now that the arch-priestess Josilfa decides to step out of the Cathedral of the Twin Basilisks and deliver her judgement upon the people of Galgenbeck. It is as monstrous as you would expect.

The process is handled through an array of tables that explain survival and foraging, the waxing and waning of the mob and its mentality—gloriously depicted above a depiction of a mob a la Les Misérables, rumours and truths, events by day and by night, cover ‘Red-Eyed Rowdiness’ and ‘Drunken Debauchery’, and more. The events by day—the ‘Daily Dread’—may be as simple as the Church distributing food (with a chance of violence) or as horrible as citizens being dragged by their hair, screaming, to the town circle for execution, whilst those for the night—the ‘Daily Doom’—might see the mob breaking into the city stores for food or younglings being sold for food or labour, and a malaise sets over the city. ‘Mass Hysteria’, when it breaks out, is worse and ranges from the town burning for five days to the mob scouring entire city for personal items that it is sure is infested with the Mind Parasites.

The advice for the process is explained at the end of the scenario. This notes the fact that NPCs are likely to fall victim to group-think and that there are various factions that the Player Characters can take advantage of or ally with. The mob is described as a looming threat, one that the Player Characters can only avoid for so long. Similarly, there is advice too on what to do if the Player Characters simply decide to hunker down and try to wait it out with the supplies they have. Also detailed are various NPCs and creatures that threaten the city under lockdown, including the Shadow King’s Guard and Clerics of Josilfa Migol, plus the Galbeckian Pale Ones that do not understand why they might be blamed for the Mind Parasite infestation, Nerhrubel’s Rats that steal items (including those of the Player Characters), Wolves that specifically gather to prey on the weak, and more. Above it all are the bells of the cathedral, rung daily by Josilfa Migol, as she curses the city!

Three Weeks In The Streets is a toolkit that turns all of Galgenbeck into a prison in which the guards are as much inmates as the Player Characters and the rest of the city’s inhabitants. It has an incredible sense of uncertain, but still escalating calamity and probable rather than potential doom as the mob swirls in and out of the rumours and truths that ripple back and forth. It requires an experienced Game Master since it is not quite as tightly procedural as it could have been. That said, because it is not as as tightly procedural as it could have been, there is room for the Game Master to add her own content. Some of the scenarios or content which could be used in conjunction with Three Weeks In The Streets includes The God of Many Faces mini-hexcrawl and the various NPCs from Strange Citizens of the City, which could be woven in and around the events already outlined.

Physically, Three Weeks In The Streets apes the Artpunk style of Mörk Borg, but without overwhelming the look or legibility. The choice of artwork is appropriate and the result is that Three Weeks In The Streets is a decent looking scenario.

Three Weeks In The Streets is executed in a slightly chaotic fashion, so it is not quite as easy to run from the page as it could be. Nevertheless, Three Weeks In The Streets is a genuinely original and clever idea for Mörk Borg, giving the Game Master everything necessary to run a city-wide prison riot and have the Player Characters try to survive starvation, paranoia, and mass hysteria!

[Fanzine Focus XL] The Travellers’ Digest #7

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and her group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. However, not all fanzines written with the Old School Renaissance in mind need to be written for a specific retroclone. Although not the case now, the popularity of Traveller would spawn several fanzines, of which The Travellers’ Digest, published by Digest Group Publications, was the most well known and would eventually transform from a fanzine into a magazine.

The publication of The Travellers’ Digest #1 in December, 1985 marked the entry of Digest Group Publications into the hobby and from this small, but ambitious beginnings would stem a complete campaign and numerous highly-regarded supplements for Game Designers Workshop’s Traveller and MegaTraveller, as well as a magazine that all together would run for twenty-one issues between 1985 and 1990. The conceit was that The Travellers’ Digest was a magazine within the setting of the Third Imperium, its offices based on Deneb in the Deneb Sector, and that it awarded the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award. This award would be won by one of the Player Characters and thus the stage is set for ‘The Grand Tour’, the long-running campaign in the pages of The Travellers’ Digest. In classic fashion, as with Europe of the eighteenth century, this would take the Player Characters on a tour of the major capitals of known space. These include Vland, Capitol, Terra, the Aslan Hierate, and even across the Great Rift. The meat of this first issue, as well as subsequent issues, would be dedicated to an adventure, each a stop-off on the ‘The Grand Tour’, along with support for it. The date for the first issue of The Travellers’ Digest and thus when the campaign begins is 152-1101, the 152nd day of the 1101st year of the Imperium.

To best run ‘The Grand Tour’, the Referee will need access to The Atlas of the Imperium, Supplement 8: Library Data (A-M), Supplement 11: Library Data (N-Z), Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats (or alternatively, Supplement 5: Azhanti High Lightning), as well as the core rules. In addition, other supplements would be required depending on the adventure, in the case of this issue, The Travellers’ Digest #7, Adventure 5, Trillion Credit Squadron. Of course, that was in 1985, and much, if not all, of the rules or background necessary have been updated since. The campaign is also specifically written for use with four pre-generated Player Characters. They consist of Akidda Laagiir, the journalist who won the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award; Dur Telemon, a scout and his nephew; Doctor Theodor Krenstein, a gifted-scientist and roboticist; and Doctor Krenstein’s valet, ‘Aybee’, or rather, ‘AB-101’. The fact is, AB-101 is a pseudo-biological robot, both protégé and prototype. Consequently, the mix of Player Characters are surprisingly non-traditional and not all of them are easily created using the means offered in Traveller or MegaTraveller. This is addressed within various issues of the fanzine.

The Travellers’ Digest #7 was published in 1986 and is a ‘Special Starship Issue’, the editors highlighting this and the big interview with Traveller creator, Marc Miller, in the issue. It also highlights the forthcoming publication in early 1987, of the Grand Census, its companion supplement to the Grand Survey, and looks back at some of the previous issues with the publisher’s warehouse manager having found some back issues.

The seventh part of ‘The Grand Tour’ in The Travellers’ Digest #7 is ‘Feature Adventure 7: The Fourth Imperium’, written by Gary L Thomas and Joe D. Fugate Sr. The publishing date for adventure is 344-1112, or the three-hundred-and-forty-fourth day of the year 1112, whilst the starting date for the adventure is 014-1103, or the fourteenth day of the year 1103. The adventure takes place in the Dynam system of the Masionia subsector of the Lishun Sector. This is the site of an Imperial Naval Depot where over a thousand mothballed starships are held. These ships are held in readiness in the event of another interstellar war or emergency and all can be restored to full operation with relative ease. The Player Characters are continuing their journey to Capital and having got half way there, Doctor Theodor Krenstein wants to stop off at the depot in the Dynam system to visit the August, a 75,000-ton battlecruiser on which his great-grandfather served during the Third Frontier war. Admiral Walter, who has been in command of the Dynam Depot for over two decades, readily welcomes them and will even give them a guided tour, the fact that they all have been recently knighted for their bravery being a contributing factor towards their recognition.

The action begins with the Player Character coming aboard the August and beginning the tour, given by Ensign Amherst. The tour is brought to an abrupt halt when another Naval officer is discovered in the bridge of the ship, much to the Ensign’s surprise, as the officer draws his gun and shoots him dead! This leaves the Player Characters unarmed and facing an armed opponent, though ‘Aybee’ can use the laser in his arm. The scenario escalates from there, with the discovery of another four men aboard the ship, all armed, and then, once the Player Characters alert the rest of the base, it becomes clear that more of the mothballed starships are being powered up. And then some other ships turn up… It appears that there is a grand hijacking taking place.

‘Feature Adventure 7: The Fourth Imperium’ presents an interesting situation, but arguably, not one that is actually interesting to play. It starts with a lot of exposition, including directing what the Player Characters, notably, ‘Aybee’ acting oddly before the tour begins. Once past the point where the rogue Naval officers aboard the August have been dealt with, bar a diversion to find out what might be happening to fuel being siphoned off from the depot, the scenario rapidly scales up in terms of scope and away from what the Player Characters are expected to do. At this point, the Player Characters are no longer involved in events, primarily because only one of them has any applicable skills to participating in a grand space battle. Instead, the players are expected to play out the battle using the rules given in Traveller Book 5: High Guard, using the given stats for the various ships and incorporating the highly detailed sensor rules included in the scenario.

If the players are happy to switch from roleplaying their characters to handling such a space battle, then ‘Feature Adventure 7: The Fourth Imperium’ is fine. If not, half of the scenario is wasted. Either way, however the Game Master has had to tailor the adventure to her players, in roleplaying terms, ‘Feature Adventure 7: The Fourth Imperium’ is actually very short and should take no more than a session to play through. The space battle may be longer, but that is optional and the fact it is optional and it ignores the Player Characters is why it is simply underwhelming.

The key feature of the issue is ‘The Future of Traveller: An Interview with Marc Miller’. It covers how he got into gaming and founded Game Designers’ Workshop, and discuses some of the early games published, including its first roleplaying game, En Garde!, before getting into Traveller and its development. It also discusses the development of what would become Traveller: 2300 as a game alongside Traveller rather than replacing it, Miller making clear that he believes that the future of the roleplaying game to be secure. It is an interesting read, capturing the optimism of the period and about the future of the roleplaying game.

The scenario is further supported with background information for the Dynam System and the Masionia subsector, as well as ‘Library Data of the Lishun Sector’. There is also ‘Computer Software for High Guard’ by Dale L. Kemper and J. Andrew Keith, which adds three new programs. ‘Squadron Operations’ enables computer-linked ships to operate more efficiently; ‘Fleet Operations’ does the same for fleets; and ‘Simulation’ offers a means of handling simulations aboard ship without interfering with ship’s operation. These are useful for campaigns which focus on large scale ship operations and combat.

Gary L. Thomas examines the role of the Social Standing attribute in Traveller for ‘The Gaming Digest’ in ‘Characters with Class’. The article begins by acknowledging that Social Standing has little effect on game play if it is not ‘A’ or higher and a Player Character is not a noble. It breaks down the social classes according to Social Standing and suggests that a Player Character spend Cr250 per point of Social Standing per month to maintain it. Otherwise, it falls. This is fine in a static game in which Social Standing is important, but Traveller is about travel, the Player Characters typically moving from one star system to another. In which case, who is a Player Character trying to maintain his standing against? It also suggests that by spending more, a Player Character can improve his Social Standing. It should be pointed that this will only go so far and not beyond Social Standing ‘A’, since the Player Character is likely to be looked down upon as nouveau riche. Snobbery counts, after all. Also, a Player Character with high Social Standing spending time with someone with a lower Social Standing will also affect their Social Standing, which means that Player Character with high Social Standing will suffer for it by spending time with his fellows. The article comes to a close with guidelines for when a Player Character of higher Social Standing wants to throw his weight around, which are useful. Bar the breakdown of what Social Standing ratings mean, the rest of article is not, since it is divorced from the style of play at the core of Traveller—travel where few NPCs are going to know who a Player Character is versus a static location or even organisation where more NPCs are going to know who they are.

Rounding out The Travellers’ Digest #7 is more background support for the scenario, ‘Feature Adventure 7: The Fourth Imperium’. Part of the fanzine’s ‘Traveller Tech Briefs’, ‘Starships in Mothballs’ by Joe D. Fugate Sr. and R. Leibman, is a guide to putting a starship into and taking it out of mothballs. This is solid explanation of how it is done and nice background detail.

Physically, The Travellers’ Digest #7 is, as with all of the issues so far, very obviously created using early layout software. The artwork is not great, but it does its job and it is far from dreadful.

The Travellers’ Digest #7 is the ‘Special Starship Issue’, which it is and is not. Yes, there are lots of articles about starships and a scenario involving starships, but none of the content about starships in the issue is relevant to a Player Character. It is all pitched at a level above the core play of Traveller and whilst it is interesting, it fills out details of the Traveller universe rather than being immediately playable content. Similarly, unless the players are really keen on running large scale starship battles, the scenario does not offer the amount of play that scenarios in previous issues did. Overall, interesting, but not enough playable content.

[Fanzine Focus XL] Pamphlet of Pantheons

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry.

Pamphlet of Pantheons: Guide to Creating Fantasy Myths and Religions is a systemless sourcebook designed for fantasy games in general, rather than a specific roleplaying game. Which means that it will work with many Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games. It would also work with Science Fiction settings too if there are cultures with polytheistic faiths. Released following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it is designed and published by Gonzo History Project, better known as James Holloway, the host of the Monster Man podcast, who also published The Magonium Mine Murders.

The aim of the Pamphlet of Pantheons is to make the creation of a fantasy pantheon relatively simple and easy, whilst avoiding two pitfalls. One is avoid making them boring or irrelevant to either the setting or the Player Characters. In other words, they should not be boring and they should matter to the players and their characters. The other is to avoid unnecessary complexity. A richness of detail can be off-putting, Greg Stafford’s Glorantha of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and M.A.R. Barker’s Tékumel of Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne being quoted as examples. Both are rich and complex, but requirement commitment to get the most out of them. What the fanzine offers to avoid both is a set of twenty-five tables which a Game Master can roll on and using the prompts provided build a relatively complete pantheon.

The first sixteen tables provide the divine archetypes that are the core of the pantheon. These include ‘Bestower of Plenty’, ‘Celestial Sovereign’, ‘Fruitful Earth’, ‘Hierarch of Hell’, ‘Laughing Rogue’, and more. As archetypes, it is easy to recognise gods from various real world (and even fantasy) pantheons, but the aim is for the Game Master to create her own rather than simulate another. The author admits that the archetypes do have a European (though he does reference middle eastern gods too) feel because that is where his influences come from, but that should not limit the imagination of the Game Master. Further tables define the look and feel of the gods, whether they look human or have fantastic features or are disembodied cosmic forces, what their signs of divinity are, which one is the head of the pantheon, what titles they bear, and what do the religions devoted to them look like? Every table has six entries and most also have little asides and thoughts that serve as further prompts for the Game Master to ponder.

The process of pantheon building involves rolling some dice and making a few choices. First is to decide on what archetypes will be in the pantheon, not all sixteen are needed, with eight being suggested as a good number. Having selected the gods for the pantheon, the Game Master rolls a complication for each, the pantheon’s aesthetic, adds a duplicate god or two (or combines them), adds secondary attributes and complications to the gods in the pantheon, and then rolls for minor gods, if needed, to cover very specific aspects of the setting. The pantheon is ready at this point, but to it, further rolls for temples, rituals, servitors, and treasures will define how the pantheon is perceived by its worshipers and how the religion is practised. All the results are noted down on the Pantheon Sheet included in the fanzine. With this done, what the Game Master does next is flesh out the details of her pantheon, making connections between its deities and so creating elements of its mythology. The prompts beneath many of the tables will help with this.

The process is simple and quick. Perhaps the most difficult part of the process is actually thinking up names for the goods themselves (though that can be eased with an online name generator). It helps that the author includes a fully worked out example, based on a livestream he hosted as part of the Kickstarter, with a filled in Pantheon Sheet. The simplicity of tables means that Pamphlet of Pantheons could be created as an online pantheon generator, but arguably that would be too easy and it would not avoid the first pitfall that the fanzine warns against, that is, making the religion and its gods boring, since what it avoids is the process itself which gives time for the Game Master to think about the pantheon and the relationships of the gods within it, building connections, areas of conflict (such as when there two or more gods with the purview for the same thing), and so on.

Physically, Pamphlet of Pantheons is clean and tidy, and lightly illustrated with public domain artwork, most of it small and all appropriately placed.

Pamphlet of Pantheons is an engaging little supplement, a simple set of prompts that direct a Game Master, with a few rolls, to not only create a complete pantheon, but to think how the pantheon works and is worshipped by a particular culture. In the process, she will create background to part of her campaign world and a religion that she understands and can impart to her players, and so bring her campaign world to life.

[Fanzine Focus XL] The Beholder Issue 5

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. As new fanzines have appeared, there has been an interest in the fanzines of the past, and as that interest has grown, they have become highly collectible, and consequently more difficult to obtain and write about. However, in writing about them, the reader should be aware that these fanzines were written and published between thirty and forty years ago, typically by roleplayers in their teens and twenties. What this means is that sometimes the language and terminology used reflects this and though the language and terminology is not socially acceptable today, that use should not be held against the authors and publishers unduly.

The Beholder was a British fanzine first published in April, 1979. Dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it ran to twenty-seven issues, the last being published in July, 1981. It was popular and would be awarded ‘Best Games Fanzine’ at the Games Day convention in 1980. After the final issue of The Beholder, the editors would go on to release a number of anthologies which collected content from the complete run of the fanzine such as Beholder Supplement Glossary of Magic, which collected many of the magical items which appeared in the fanzine and collated them into a series of tables for easy use by the Dungeon Master, and Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2, the first of several scenario anthologies.

The Beholder Issue No. 5 was probably published in August 1979, given that the fanzine was published monthly and on a regular basis throughout its run. The issue’s concerns are typical of the period for a fanzine devoted to Dungeons & Dragons—problems with different aspects of the roleplaying game and possible solutions, new monsters, new spells, an adventure, and so on. The editors—Michael Stoner and Guy Duke—implore readers to submit ides for the forthcoming monster issue, likely to be Issue 8 to coincide with Games Day V and note that, “In a few weeks the long-awaited DM’s Handbook will be on sale. Watch out for a review of it in issue 7. There is no doubt that it will have a large impact on the way many people play D&D , and will most probably alter several basic parts of the game. We hope to be able to “move with the times” and cater for the many new players who will be coming into D&D because of this (just as many started when the “Basic Rulebook” first appeared). However, if you still play “old style” D&D, don’t panic! We will try to ensure that articles are of use to everyone, from rank amateur to top-class pro.” Thus, the issue comes at a point when there is a definite shift in the hobby from Dungeons & Dragons and Basic Dungeons & Dragons to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, a split that would mark the first of the edition wars that followed over the years. This split then will not be as sharp since mechanically the similarities between the two really are very strong.

The issue’s content opens with ‘View Point: Specialised Clerics Are More Interesting’ [sic] by John Norris. His viewpoint is that the Cleric Class as presented is unsatisfying and vague, calling Gygax’s design simplistic and the only thing that distinguishes one Cleric from another is the plain and boring Alignment system. He suggests that real clerics have “…[A]ll sorts of interesting foibles, some of which stem from the particular tenets of their various faiths and others which seem to be a kind of professional “occupational hazard” of clergy in the society to which they belong.” The article highlights one of the longstanding and oft-addressed complaints about the roleplaying game, in that Clerics are depicted as a holy warrior a la the Crusades, when in the fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons, Christianity was not the faith of choice and there were plenty of other options. The solution is typically to design pantheons with gods that grant different spells and demand different tenets and the article more or less suggests that with a detailed example of a ‘Subclass’. This is ‘The Way of Anubis’, which believes that it is the proper doom of all living things to die and that it is wrong to interfere with the dead, especially via resurrection. There is some divide in the faith too, between those that believe that the process should not be interfered with and those that believe its process should be hurried. In game terms, Clerics of the Way of Anubis better turn and dispel the undead and they cast Lay Undead better and more effectively than the standard Animate Dead spell. Counter to this, Clerics of the Way of Anubis do not use healing magic and are opposed to its use, even seeking to reverse the effects of such magic if used! Clerics of the Way of Anubis also seek to kill anyone who has been resurrected.

‘The Way of Anubis’ is a fascinating creation. One that follows through on the author’s initial complaint about the Cleric Class, but to an extreme. ‘The Way of Anubis’ is a Cleric Subclass is unplayable as a Player Character type since it is antithetical to what a standard Cleric is supposed to do in play and that is heal. One way which the author suggests getting around this is to keep the ‘The Way of Anubis’ Cleric’s faith hidden until the full meaning of his tenets are realised in play. This is odd in itself since a reason would have to be given why this was kept hidden and keeping it hidden feels like a dirty trick to play upon the players by the Dungeon Master. In a way, the article shows the reader how not to do it when it could have been exploring more options.

‘Monster Summoning’ gives eight new monsters. They include the Wood Golem for the Druid to create; the Thin Giant, essentially a giant with invisibility due to permanent Duo-dimension spell having been cast on them; the Bactos, a living cactus that uses its offshoots to pin victims against it and drain all moisture from their bodies, making resurrection impossible; and the Death Grub, an flying insect related to the Rot Grub, which does not attack, but instead infests dead bodies and again, resurrection impossible. The daftest monster is the Time Rat, a rat from the future with time travel powers that likes to come to the past and explore dungeons and is curious about adventuring parties. If attacked, it can cast Time Stop, after which it will steal any item its can, especially magical items, and then phase out back to the future. It is essentially a means to deprive Player Characters of their hard won magical items and it could have been a whole lot more interesting. Lastly, the Thin Giant is simply boring.

‘Monster Reaction Roll Tables’ provides a more detailed means of handing interactions between the adventurers and the dungeon denizens if the former are looking to do more than fight, whilst Andreas J. Sarker’s ‘More Gem Tables’ provides a means for the Dungeon Master to detail the gems that might be found as treasure. The included ‘Computer Program’ is a simple BASIC computer program, running to just fifteen lines of code and designed to generate attribute values for Dungeons & Dragons characters. This dates to a time when home computers could easily be programmed at home to run programs typed in.

‘The Dragon Race’ presents the Dragon as a playable Race. As a playable Race, the Dragon has high minimum attributes, can only be a Magic-User or a Fighter—and cannot cast magic if the latter, and has a breath weapon that inflicts damage equal to its Hit Points and can be used a limited number of times a day. They have a natural claw and bite attack, but the bite attack gets better for the Fighter Dragon. All Dragons can attack creatures and enemies that require magical weapons or attacks to hit, but need to be higher Level to attack creatures and enemies with higher magical protection. However, there are two downsides to the Dragon as a playable Race. One is that all Dragons are suspicious of everyone and everything and they are only accepted in society because they are feared, and mechanically, they suffer a high penalty to Experience Point gain. This is -20% for the Fighter Dragon and a massive -40% for the Magic-User Dragon! Honestly, this is not a bad version of the Dragon as a playable Race as the penalties do offset any advantages that the Dragon has and a player of a Dragon will see the characters of his fellow players racing ahead in terms of power and ability.

‘New Spells’ are taken from the ‘Barad-Dur Spellbook’. The eight spells include Mirage for the Illusionist, which makes something appear very attractive, like a fine meal or a pile of gold, and can be used as a distraction for all but the most intelligent and similarly, for the Illusionist, Premonition, with which the caster runs his finger across his neck as if to cut and then points at the victim of the spell, who gets a bad feeling that his about to die, and if he fails a Saving Throw, runs away! Effectively, a Fear spell then. The Clerical spell Cure Paralysis is good for after encounters with Ghouls and Ghasts and the like; Death Bomb turns a Magic-User into a living bomb if he is killed, potentially destroying every item on his body, if not his actual body, so good for the Dungeon Master to use on a villainous wizard; and Probability Travel gives the spell’s recipient the ability to see a few seconds into the future, see what he is going to do, and give him the opportunity to improve on it. In game terms, Probability Travel lets a player roll twice for his character’s next action and take the best result. So, Advantage in 1979, then?

Lastly, ‘Thoughts on NPC’s’ (sic), suggests ways of getting away from anonymous NPCs who are just there to provide services such as Cure Disease and Resurrection. Ultimately, the point of half the article is not about NPCs as such, as more finding ways of making the Player Characters work to access spells such as Cure Disease and Resurrection, whether that is through simple, but big payments or more interestingly, require a quest to get the right ingredients or components, or fulfil a task required by the caster. The other half is a call to make normal NPCs more interesting, especially those that adventure with the Player Characters, such as having an Assassin pose as a Paladin in a party of Good-aligned Player Characters. Arguably, this is a call to make NPCs more of a threat—in this case, an internal threat—than necessarily interesting.

The highlight of any issue of The Beholder is its scenario. ‘Legend of Leshy’ is what it calls a ‘stage-by-stage’ mini-scenario. What this means is that its plot and story will be revealed in discrete sections or scenes. Roughly designed for a group of five Player Characters of First and Second Level, one of whom should be a Druid, the scenario is based on Slavonic mythology and calls upon them to capture the ‘Leshachikha Bond’. The Leshachikha is the mortal wife of Leshy and bearer of the Leshonki, the children of Leshy. By capturing the ‘Leshachikha Bond’, it will free her from her subservience to Leshy. He is the spirit of the forest and tends to be good natured, though he does lead travellers astray. The scenario begins at the Ivanovich family farm where the Player Characters are staying, put up in a barn overnight. This barn is locked and the Player Characters are warned about the Keeper of the Barn and told not to enter the yard after 11 pm as there will be strange spirits about.

The farm and its inhabitants are nicely detailed and will be a challenge to get past as the Player Characters will need to break out of the barn and into the house in order to really get the scenario going. This is to begin the quest that spirit of the barn sets, which includes actually setting fire to the barn(!), and puts them on the path to capturing the ‘Leshachikha Bond’. Much of the scenario is an exploration of the surrounding wilderness, almost jump-cutting from one scene to the next, one encounter with a mystical inhabitant of the forest to the next, as the Player Characters go in search of the ‘Leshachikha Bond’. In places, the scenario can be quite tough physically, such as attempting to get across a battered rope bridge, but bar the occasional random encounter, is low in terms of combat. Most of the encounters will give clues as to where to search next and ultimately, if the Player Characters complete the quest, they will be well rewarded.

In 1979, ‘Legend of Leshy’ would have been a fine scenario. It is rough around the edges and the background to the scenario, based on Slavonic folklore, would not have been familiar to many players or Dungeon Masters, so adding it to a campaign would have been a challenge. (Today, there is at least a Wikipedia page.) More background would have helped and it would have been good if the possibility of the Player Characters returning to the Ivanovich family farm after the quest ends had been addressed. The main problem is the lack of detail on the otherwise large, two-page spread map of the region. The Dungeon Master really needs to work through the scenario hard in order to extract clues as to where various locations are on the map. That aside, ‘Legend of Leshy’ is a fine fantasy folkloric adventure, possessing an at time eerie and unsettling atmosphere that would have been enhanced by the lack of familiarity with the folklore.

Rounding out The Beholder Issue No. 5 is the ‘Contacts & Info’ section. Not only does this gives details of the then forthcoming Games Day which would take place on October 20th later that year, but lists a couple of players looking for players. This was how it was done back in the dawn of the hobby and people were then quite happy to hand out their address as contact details! One of the two is Simon Washbourne, later designer of roleplaying games such as Lashings of Ginger Beer.

Physically, The Beholder Issue No. 5 is slightly untidy in places, but readable. The layout is tight and that does make it difficult to read in places. The illustrations are reasonable, but the cartography simply lacks the detail its scenario requires. Of course, every issue of the fanzine was published when personal publishing was still analogue and the possibilities of the personal computer and personal desktop publishing were yet to come. In the case of The Beholder that would never be taken advantage of.

The Beholder has a high reputation for content that is of good quality and playable. The Beholder Issue No. 5 does not yet match that reputation, but as with previous issues, the signs are there and there is content aplenty that the Dungeon Master could have used in her game at the time and in some cases, still use to today. The standout piece is the scenario, ‘Legend of Leshy’, which is a rough, but interesting attempt to write a folklore-based scenario that just about works. It is certainly the best scenario in the fanzine to date. Elsewhere, the other articles are not quite as interesting or as thoughtful as in previous issues, though still very much concerned with what would have been traditional topics for Dungeons & Dragons at the time. The Beholder Issue No. 5 would have been a solid issue of the fanzine in 1979 and even today in 2025 is an enjoyable read.

[Fanzine Focus XL] Gridshock 20XX ’Zine 2: Roster

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and her group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons,RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Another popular choice of system for fanzines, is Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, but then there are outliers, fanzines for genres, let alone roleplaying games, which you would never expect to receive support in this format.

Gridshock 20XX ’Zine 2: Roster is a fanzine for ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying. Published by VX2 following a successful Kickstarter campaign, this is a product which is very different in many ways. It is a fanzine for the superhero genre, it is a fanzine for ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying, and as superhero fanzine, it actually presents a post-apocalyptic setting. All three factors make it standout as different. As the name suggests, Gridshock 20XX ’Zine 2: Rooster is the second in the series for the fanzine, but there is only a total of four issues.

The first issue in the series, Gridshock 20XX ’Zine 1: Roadmap presented an overview of its setting. This is the future of the North American continent after society was society ripped apart in 1986 by an event known as the Shock which followed the successful attempt by the mysterious Omegas to destroy a psionic computer network powered by extradimensional energy. The resulting Aftershock killed millions, made more disappear, substituted familiar landscape with alien ones, turned the sky violet, and changed some of the stars to alien ones. Governments collapsed and supervillains seized control to establish their own, ultimately dystopic fiefdoms, together known as the Supremacy. The Shock also disrupted the Grid underlying the whole of reality and weakened it, leading to the opening of ‘Gridgates’ to other worlds and aliens visiting the Earth. Reality storms imperil travel so that long term travel in in convoys and all forms of broadcast media act as vessels for a necrocosmic plague. Only the wealthy has access to any form of direct communication, whilst messages and recorded media are delivered directly. Long distance travel is via the Thunder Road, a continental network of highways and fuel stations controlled by Lord Thunder, the leader of the Sanction.

In the world of Gridshock 20XX, the Player Characters are Vectors. They possess the ability to warp the Grid and thus reality, manipulating it in their favour. Vectors are typically human, but can also be gatecrashers from other realities or hybroids—one of the genetically engineered labour force. Whilst Vectors have superpowers, they do not operate as the superheroes of old. They do not wear spandex and they do not patrol looking for crime. That, combined with the flashiness of their powers, would make it easier for the Supremacy to find them. Instead, they travel the Thunder Road, looking for work and when they can, attempting to strike a blow for justice and freedom. Vectors are meant to be proactive and fight for what is right, forge new alliances, push their powers to the limits of reality—and perhaps beyond, reclaim hope and rebuild civilisation, and explore the secrets of old world and the new.

Gridshock 20XX ’Zine 2: Roster is the character book for the series, the bulk of which is devoted to twelve Vector Templates that a player can chose from. These have one of five sources—Genetic, Mystic, Necrocosmic, Omegalithic, and Technologic. Genetic means that the source is biological; Mystic means the source is derived from a bond or pact with the supernatural; Necrocosmic is tied to the Necrocosm, the dark echo of where daemons come from; Omegalithic, linked to the weird crystalline substance salvaged from encounters with the Omegas before the Shock; and Technologic means that a device or cybernetics are the source. The Vectors Templates consist of the Ace, which is skill and training focused; the Fabricator, equipped with an illegal portable omegatechnology factory; Free Agent, which has been in stasis since before the Shock and uses a psionic amplifier for its powers; a Gatecrasher, an alien from another world or dimension; the Gridjockey, which can use any power by rewiring the Grid temporarily; the Hybroid is a human genetically engineered with animal DNA; the Neogenic has unique superhuman abilities; the Outcaster is empowered by the Dreaming Mother; the Revenant had his lifeforce drained by an unliving being from the Deadside, but is still in possession of his Geist and still needs to feed on the lifeforce of others; the Roguebot is illegal in the Supremacy; the Suitjack is bonded with a relic battlesuit of pre-Shock Omegatechnology; and the Ultra-Knight is a hunter of daemanoids and other evildoers.

Besides the base stats, each Template instructs the player to select one or more powers and specialities, whilst choosing three qualities from the list given. A player can take a Template as written, but each Template also suggests three variants. For example, the Ace Template also gives the Neo-Ninja, the Neutraliser, and the Vigilante as alternatives, whilst for the Outcaster, there is the Daemonologist, Exorcist, and Warlock. In each case, there is an explanation too, of how to create them from the given base Template. All together, Gridshock 20XX ’Zine 2: Roster provides thirty-six possible Vector types beyond the base twelve for a total of forty-eight options.

The last two pages of Gridshock 20XX ’Zine 2: Roster details a pair of ‘Threats and Menaces’. The first is Daemons, of which there are several types and which can only assume physical form in Realspace for a limited amount of time. The information here expands upon that given in Gridshock 20XX ’Zine 1: Roadmap, whilst the second type is given ready made stats. These are for Exhumans, those who have had their lifeforce drained by an unliving being from the Deadside. Ordinary humans drained are converted into Shamblers, whilst Superhumans so drained return as Exhuman NPCs after a few panels. Several types are included, like the Annexator, which boosts the abilities of other Exhumans, the Demolisher—which can be formed from ordinary Shamblers in time, and the Shambler itself. These nicely tie in the with the Revenant Template earlier in the book as well as expanding the threats available for the Game Master to use.

Physically, Gridshock 20XX ’Zine 2: Roster is very nicely presented in swathes of red and black. The artwork is decent, but the typography is difficult to read in places.

Gridshock 20XX ’Zine 2: Roster is a solid continuation of Gridshock 20XX ’Zine 1: Roadmap. It firmly focuses on the player and the types of character he can create, whilst for the Game Master the Templates can be used for NPCs as well as using the monsters.

[Fanzine Focus XL] The Phylactery Issue #2

On the tail of Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another Dungeon Master and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Not every fanzine for the Old School Renaissance need be dedicated to a specific retroclone, such as The Phylactery.

The Phylactery Issue #2, published by Planet X Games in September, 2021, following a successful Kickstarter campaign, is a fanzine for the Old School Renaissance rather than any specific fantasy retroclone. Thus, it works for Old School Essentials or The King of Dungeons or Labyrinth Lord. As with The Phylactery Issue #1, it is a collection of magical items, NPCs, monsters, and a scenario or two. It presents the Game Master with a relentless barrage of choice and options, some of which is ready to use, some of which is not, and so will require the Game Master to develop and add some stats. Everything comes with background elements—some specifically so to make them interesting—enabling the Game Master to flesh out her campaign setting as well as introduce an item of magical power. All of it is written by Levi Combs, the publisher, and his words are backed up with some decent artwork and excellent maps.

The issue’s magical items begin with ‘The Skullstaff of Stelos’, the first of its many magical items and it is a big one. Originally crafted for Stelos the Necromancer, it is a great, gnarled staff, topped with a charred, horned skull. The wielder can command undead as a Tenth Level Cleric (or four Levels higher, if already an evil Cleric) as well as cast various spells and talk to the undead. However, it will transform the wielder into an undead creature as well, but he will not accept that he is changing. This is a very nicely detailed item that any Game Master is going to want to equip her big evil villain with.

‘Of Longstriders and Giant Killers – Renowned Rangers of the North’ is inspired by Tolkien’s Aragon and describes five tough NPCs and their most feared weapon or magical items. For example, the Dragon-bone Spear is a Spear +2 once wielded by Helka ‘Red-Spear’, known for her hatred of Frost Giants after her family was killed for them. Not all of the NPCs are dead, like Belken ‘Stormbreaker’, who wears The Counsel of Crows, a silver torc that enables him to talk to crows and other corvids as per the spell, Speak with Animals. He is so feared that even a murder of crows overhead is enough to scare away bands of Orcs and Goblins. None of these NPCs is given stats, so the mechanical focus is on their magical items.

The magical items continue with ‘Magic Armours and Weapons of Legend’. They include The Alabaster Armour of St. Saldric the Blessed, a set of plate armour sacred to the god of justice, all alabaster white, except for the left gauntlet, which is left plain to symbolise the one-handed nature of the god! It is Platemail +2 and can reflect spells as per the Ring of Spelling Turning. This article adds another three, nicely detailed items with lore aplenty that can be worked into a campaign. And then, ‘Secrets From the Lich’s Crypt - A Whole Buncha Weird Ole Crap in a Dead Wizard’s Lab’ gives the Game Master a pick and mix of things to fill a wizard’s laboratory, such as the Elixir of Curdled Swarms, which when imbibed causes the drinker to wrack with convulsions and then vomit Ochre Jellies under his command! This develops a thematic line of oozes and jellies that runs through the issue, and is one of nine fascinating items that add spice to a particular location or can be pulled out and placed elsewhere in the Game Master’s campaign.

The monsters and NPCS start with ‘Strange Things That Live Underground And Other Weird Creatures’. They include Shroud Spiders that combine the worst features of giant spiders and undead shadows; Ooze Cultists of the Slime-Lord which have melted faces and lurk in the underworld, capturing the unwary and transforming captives into gelatinous horrors or feeding them to the carnivorous jellies of their slime-farms; and Worm Polyps from the Void Beyond, great green sacs that hang in fungal forests that when they burst, shower the area with carnivorous worms whose continued bite will transform the victim into a monster (sadly, the actual monster is not detailed).

The legendary Grandmother of Witches is fully described in ‘She Rides on the Wind – Baba Yaga, Hag Queen of the North’. The equivalent of a Twentieth Level Magic-User, she can even learn Cleric spells and has an array of monstrous abilities, the equivalent to a god. Her magical items are detailed too and all together she is a fearsome foe, should she turn her attention to the Player Characters. ‘Hali Oakenspear, Wandering Cleric of the Luck Goddess’ is given a full write-up as an NPC, an Eighth Level Cleric who has dedicated herself to wandering the land and doing good.

The last of the monsters are detailed in ‘Here There Be Monsters!’. The four entries include ‘Sodden Bastards’, the unfortunate souls of those who drowned at sea and now lurk in shipwrecks, ready to instil fear in those they surprise, and the ‘Murdershroom’, a fungal horror formed from the energies of a magical gate or the fallout of a demon summoning gone wrong, which stalks victims in the dark of the underground, breathing toxic spores on them causing hallucinations, and after slaying them, taking their bodies back to a corpse farm to attract more victims.

Further flavour is added ‘More Forbidden Demon Cults of the Outer Void’, which describes three demons and their cults, like ‘Mulg, The Bloated One’, a mountain of yellowing fat and bone whose approach is heralded by a vile, unwashed odour, and who revels in greed, deviancy, and worse, and who can consume anything. Like the other two entries, it is accompanied by a ‘Fun Demon Cult Fact!’, in this case the rise of Mlug from a minor demon to a greater demon after it got lost on the astral plane where it gnawed away at the body of a dead deity!

The Phylactery Issue #2 includes three scenarios of varying length. Deigned for Player Characters of roughly Eighth Level, ‘Brood-Hive of the Slime God’ describes a set of caves near the fishing village of Urtag Horn, several of whose inhabitants have gone missing, been beset by strange dreams, and even gone mad. The local clergy want the matter investigated, the mad man indicating the cause as being inside the caves. These are slime-encrusted and very nicely detailed and quite a tough little dungeon that can played through in a single session, two at most. It is nicely detailed and its location makes it easy to add to a campaign, as is ‘Grindhouse Deep Crawl #1’. This is a dungeon complex intended to be added to a bigger dungeon, a half-finished and forgotten annex. There is no real theme to the set of nine rooms, instead being a set of well designed and interesting encounter written around a very attractive map. There are at least two shafts that drop to lower dangers; a tomb of Prefect Thrim, a cleric consumed by a carnivorous creeper who thinks that it is the cleric and if the Player Characters can speak to plants it might be able to answer questions they pose, whilst the vegetables it grows have divine spell effects if eaten; and a Demon-Frog’s Fane, where the wounded may be given its blessing if they bathe in its waters before its bloated statue and let it feed on more blood! Lastly, ‘It Came From Spawn Vat X!’ is more of an encounter, the Player Characters going to investigate the tower of a well-regarded wizard, which has recently exploded, and facing the last of his experiments gone awry. It is short and simple and very easy to prepare.

In between, ‘Twelve Things a Magic Mouth Would Say’ is a fun table that can be used to unnerve the Player Characters or lay the seed for a puzzle or adventure hook. Similarly, ‘10 Wayward Oddfellows You Might Meet on Any Given Night at Old Man Rumple’s’ gives a table of NPCs can be used in the same fashion, whether to add colour or spur further adventure. The latter is very similar to ‘1d10 Tough SOBs, Roadhouse Hoodlums, Bored Adventurers, and Mean Ole Bastards You Might Meet in a Tavern’ from The Phylactery Issue #1. Barring the stats, they do draw comparison with the ‘Meatshields of the Bleeding Ox’, the regular collection of NPCs from the Black Pudding fanzine, and they are just as useful.

Physically, The Phylactery Issue #2 is very nicely presented. It is well written, and both the artwork and cartography are excellent.

The Phylactery Issue #2 continues the stream of content begun in the first issue, presenting the Game Master with a wealth of options—monsters, treasures, and more that she pick and choose from to add to her campaign. Some of it needs a little development, even if only to fold into a campaign setting, but there is so much here to choose from and use, that a Game Master is not going to be disappointed with the content. (The only disappointment might be when the author runs out of steam!) Suitable for any Old School Renaissance retroclone, The Phylactery Issue #2 continues the torrent of ideas and dangers and more, still giving the Game Master a wealth of choice and content to work with.

[Fanzine Focus XL] LOWBORN Issue 2

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and her group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Most, but not all fanzines draw from the Old School Renaissance. Some provide support for much more modern games.

Lowborn is ‘An Independent Grim Perilous Fanzine for Zweihänder RPG’. As the subtitle suggests, this is a fanzine for the Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous RPG, published in 2017 and thus modern, but actually a retroclone of another roleplaying game. That roleplaying game is the definitive British roleplaying game, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, published by Games Workshop in 1986.

Lowborn Issue 2 was published in August, 2020. The content begins with with ‘The Dark Order’ by Peter Rudin-Burgess. This is a scenario set in the chancery of Edessa, below the city of Outremer. This is a murder mystery set below the city where single-sex work gangs labour at feeding the great steam turbines. Gang Master Zangi leads a gang of twenty-four free women who, in turn, drive sixty female mutant slaves, all loading city waste into the furnaces. Gang Master Zangi has disappeared, but now her skull has been raked out of Number 2 furnace. Shortly after, a new gang leader is appointed, and then it happens again when another gang master is found boiled alive and a new gang member is also appointed. This is followed by the murder of a bar owner and then another gang master. The scenario is presented with a lot of set-up up front and then followed by the plot hooks and the various genres in which the scenario might be used on. The scenario needs a lot of work to run effectively with clues to connect the murders to the culprits and it is also only halfway through the scenario is it mentioned that it is for Dark Astral: Chapbook for ZWEIHANDER Grim & Perilous RPG, the Science Fiction equivalent setting for the ZWEIHANDER Grim & Perilous RPG. It is mentioned on the cover, though. The map of the lair is by Dyson Logos, so good.

‘New Distinguishing Marks’ by Adrian Kennelly is literally that, a table of entries like ‘No chin’ or ‘Unbending knee’. Chuck Kranz’s ‘Random Space Encounters’ provides twelve encounters, again for Dark Astral: Chapbook for ZWEIHANDER Grim & Perilous RPG. For example, ‘Just like in the TV shows.’ expands to ‘A tear in space erupts of the port barely out of manoeuvring range, but a strong magnetic pull of the anomaly pulls your ship in. A voice in your head echoes, “I have such wonderful sights to show you.” The darkness takes you after being dragged through the event horizon. When you come to your ships nav-computers are not able to gain bearing on where you are… or when you are.” These are fine and again something that the Game Master will need to develop.

It is not quite clear what Sean Van Damme’s ‘Introduction to Assassinations’ quite is, initially, but what it turns out to be is a means of introducing options for the budding assassin. The Claw of Retribution is the largest guild of assassins in the great city and puts up notices on a board at the West Wind Pub, where the guild previously operated from, of small jobs, or rather, assassinations of minor folk that it has been hired to do. Its members can perform them, but it lets prospective members undertake them as a test. There are thirteen such tasks, not always hits or deaths, such as burning down a distillery that is not guild affiliated or forcing a member of the faith to stop preaching in the docks. The Game Master will need to develop the hooks, but there are some fun options here that will support a grittier, dirtier style of play for thug and thief type characters.

‘Order And Corruption: Purity Points’ by Lyle Hayhurst gives an extension to the Corruption Points of ZWEIHANDER Grim & Perilous RPG. Corruption Points are gained for immoral acts, giving in to personal weakness, and even being injured, and will potentially force a Player Character down a dark path. This article suggests another path that a Player Character can go up. By committing acts of goodness, being tolerant of those different to himself, protecting the innocent, giving to the poor, being merciful to a villain, and more, a Player Character can gain Purity Points. Like gaining Disorders for Corruption Points, he can gain Blessings for accruing enough Purity Points like becoming a ‘Friend of Animals’ or gaining a ‘Inner Glow’ of Purity. The article suggests that a Player Character can earn both Corruption Points and Purity Points and need to be tracked, and what this does is add some flexibility and complexity to the play and reward a player for good roleplaying whatever his character’s action.

Ignacio M. writes three entries in the issue. The first, ‘Learning from Different Arcanas’, suggests a way in which an Arcane Magick user can cast magick from a Wind other than his own. For each symbol that Player Character has to pass through to get between his Wind he has studied and the one he wants to cast from, there is a penalty to the Incantation test and if the Channelling test is failed, then extra Chaos dice has to be rolled. The rule is quick and simple and potentially dirty if thing goes wrong! He also suggests ‘New Combat Actions’ with ‘Oh No You Don’t’ which enables a Player Character to study the ebb and flow of the battle and interrupt the action of a foe; ‘Goad and Deter’ to slow a foe’s action down; and ‘Leave It Open’, in which he tricks a foe to gain a bonus on his next attack. These are decent additions.

Lastly, ‘Carnival II’ continues the description of a magical carnival—a common trope in roleplaying games inspired by Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay such as Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous RPG—begin in Lowborn Issue 1. However, unlike in many cases what lies behind the magic in the carnival is not necessarily dark or dangerous, but that rather its various members are all anthropomorphic animals. They include a middle-aged anthro-rabbit who controls his perfect puppets though his voice alone and Priscilla, middle-aged anthro-hedgehog who is also a very skilled physician, alchemist, and herbalist, and exotic dancers that somehow entice audience to buy the overpriced drinks at their show. The latter is perhaps the only real danger in the carnival, but others might see it differently and act accordingly. This adds another three tents and their occupants to add to the three previously described, so there is yet room for expansion. If there is an issue for the article, it is the inclusion of the anthropomorphic NPCs and whether that fits a Game Master’s campaign. She, of course, has the right to change such details and the various NPCs could be hiding something else instead. Bar some scenario ideas or hooks, ‘Carnival’ offers an intriguing and different type of circus, one with plenty of room for expansion and development.

Physically, Lowborn Issue 2 is a bit untidy and rough around the edges, plus it needs a slight edit. The layout is also a little tight in places.

Lowborn Issue 2 is a mixed bag with some content more useful and more interesting than others. ‘Introduction to Assassinations’ is packed with great hooks for a bruising lowlife campaign and like ‘Order And Corruption: Purity Points’, has plenty of roleplaying potential. Elsewhere, several of the articles are rough and could be clearer in their set-up, let alone their execution.

[Fanzine Focus XL] Carcass Crawler Issue #4

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. Then there is also Old School Essentials.

Carcass Crawler is ‘The Official Fanzine Old-School Essentials zine’. Published by Necrotic Gnome, Old School Essentials is the retroclone based upon the version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons designed by Tom Moldvay and published in 1981, and Carcass Crawler provides content and options for it. It is pleasingly ‘old school’ in its sensibilities, being a medley of things in its content rather than just the one thing or the one roleplaying game as has been the trend in gaming fanzines, especially with ZineQuest. To date Carcass Crawler #0, Carcass Crawler #1, Carcass Crawler Issue #2, and Carcass Crawler Issue #3 have all focused on providing new Classes and Races, both in ‘Race as Class’ and ‘Race and Class’ formats as well as general support for Old School Essentials, and Carcass Crawler Issue #4 is no exception.

Carcass Crawler Issue #4 was published in December, 2024 and includes three new Classes, four gods, eight monsters, a shelf of arcane grimoires and their contents, expanded rules for brewing, purchasing, sampling, and describing potions, and a short adventure. The first two of the three Classes draw heavily from Tolkien’s Middle-earth and specifically The Shire. The first is the ‘Halfling Hearthsinger’ by James Spahn and Gavin Norman, which specialises in collecting and memorising legends, lore, and folk tales. The Class’ primary abilities are ‘Foster Friendship’, enabling the Hearthsinger to temporarily make friends if he can tell a story; recall Lore about monsters, folk tales, legends, and even magical items; and ‘Read Languages’ that are non-magical, including codes and dead languages. He can also better listen at doors and as a ‘Rumour Monger’ learn more rumours from others! Eventually, when he has enough money, he can establish tavern, although there is no Level requirement. The ‘Halfling Hearthsinger’ has a maximum of eight Levels and is a Class designed for interaction, so suitable for players who like to talk and build relationships.

The second new Class is also Halfling related. Designed by James Spahn, the ‘Halfling Reeve’ is more obviously based on the Bounder, who patrols the borders of The Shire. The Class must be Lawful and is a capable forager and hunter, good at stealth, and is also a Goblin Slayer and a Wolf Hunter. In addition, the Class also is able to cast Druidic magic at higher Levels. Again, this Class has a maximum of eight Levels. The Class is effectively a variant upon the Ranger, but pleasingly effective.

The third Class is Gavin Norman’s ‘Arcane Bard’. This is intended to be like the jack-of-all-trades Bard Class from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition, combining skills such as Climb Sheer Surfaces, Hear Noise, Pick Pockets, and Read Languages with the Lore ability as per the ‘Halfling Hearthsinger’ and the casting of Arcane magic. The only musical benefit that the ‘Arcane Bard’ gains is an ‘Anti-Charm’ effect against song-based powers like that of the fairies or Sylvan creatures. With its mixture of Thief abilities and ability to cast magic, the Class is more of a generalist and not quite as interesting a design. It can go up to a maximum of fourteen Levels.

‘Deities and Cults’ by Chance Dudinack and Gavin Norman describes four gods, the benefits of worshipping them, and their spells. For example, ‘The Black Alderman’ is the god of skulls, dentistry, and organ dirges who directs his worshippers to collects skulls for him, including those of rare monsters and influential personages. Some worshippers, known as ‘Bonesmiths’, work as travelling dentists and bone-setters, but its spellcasters gain traits such as a pallid complexion for gaining the ability to cast First Level spells, a sunken, skull-like facial features for Second Level spells, and more. The spells include Skull Speech, which causes a skull to speak, even that of an undead skull; Skull Sentry, which sets a skull to chatter its teeth if anyone of the designed type comes close; Danse Macabre, which makes bones come to life and dace; and Control Skull, which gives complete control of a skull, but not the rest of the bones, to the caster. The other gods include a deity of redemption and light, once a fiendish deity, but now reformed; a god of insane, danger, perils and risk, which revels in seeing others overcome great odds and thus endlessly creates them; and a god of the weird deeps of the Underworld. These are all small cults and will really enhance a campaign as very nicely themed faiths and there are some entertaining spells to go with them as well as some nice roleplaying hooks, whether for a player or the Game Master.

‘The Mage’s Grimoire’ by Brad Kerr and Gavin Norman adds more spells. These consist of Burning Hands, Feather Fall, Shocking Grasp, Unseen Servant, Pyrotechnics, Ray of Enfeeblement, Shrinking Cloud, Blink, Slow, and Tongues. These are all going to be familiar from Dungeons & Dragons, specifically for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but which do not appear in Old School Essentials. Now they do. The article also add five tomes, packed with spells, including several of those listed earlier. Not only do they add spells that can be studied and learned, but also flavour. For example, the ‘Book of the Hideous Frog, written by the Frogmancer Neem, is a wide, frog-faced tome bound in damp frog flesh that wiggles in an unnerving fashion and which causes frogs to spawn in the owner’s clothes and belongings each night! These are all great fun and will just add a little bit of flavour to a campaign and inspiration for the Game Master to create more should she need them.

Gavin Norman’s ‘Strange Brew’ expands the basic guidelines for potions included under ‘Magical Research’ in Old School Essentials with a plethora of options. It allows any character able to create magical items to brew potions or if not, hire an alchemist. An alchemist NPC can brew potions at half the time it would take a Player Character, but is an expensive hireling—1,000 gp per month, and that does not include the cost of the actual potions. The article does not discuss either Potions of Delusion or poison, but otherwise, keeps things simple by approximating potion effects with particular spells, such as a Potion of Control Undead with the spell Control Monster and a Potion of Speed with the spell Haste. It also suggests possible potion ingredients, like a Storm Giant’s heart for a Potion of Giant Control or Pegasus feather for Potion of Levitation; what hints might be gained on a sampling a potion for the first time; and a table of options to describe potions. Handling alchemy and brewing potions in Dungeons & Dragons-style games can get bogged down in a lot of detail, but the guidelines here opt for simplicity and clarity. It does not delve too much into the how and why of brewing potions, but suggests ways in which the ‘Magical Research’ rules can be expanded and the use of potions in game play can be enhanced.

Penultimately, Gavin Norman details eight new monsters in ‘Terrors of the Dark’. These are all creatures to be found in the depths of the Underworld. They include the Grue, a thing of magical darkness found stalking desolate places; Oil-Mites, tiny, rock-like mites that lurk in webs and drop onto passing adventurers to consume their flasks of oil; and the Torch-Bearer’s Ghost, the spirit of some poor townsfolk who met his end in a dark dungeon after being hired as a torchbearer by an adventuring party and now haunts the dungeon, carrying a flickering light, and potentially leading other adventurers to their doom in revenge! This is a delightfully thematic octet of threats and dangers several of which play upon the fear of the dark for both players and their characters and their need for light.

Lastly, ‘Noximander’s Cave’ by Chance Dudinack and Brad Kerr is a rare inclusion of a scenario in the pages of Carcass Crawler and a rare appearance of a scenario for old School Essentials for Player Characters of Fourth and Fifth Level. With a map by Glynn Seal, it describes a small complex of rooms and caves used by the illusionist Noximander the Tenebrous to worship Moumb and conduct further research. Located under a city, builders recently broke into the complex via a cellar and the adventurers are hired to investigate. This is a decent mini-dungeon using many of the monsters from ‘Terrors of the Dark’ that could be played through in a session or two.

Physically, Carcass Crawler Issue #4 is well written and well presented. The artwork is excellent and the cartography good.

Although Carcass Crawler describes itself as a fanzine, it is not really a fanzine, since much of its content is written by the designer and publisher of Old School Essentials, it is published by the publisher of Old School Essentials, and it is obviously more polished and professionally produced than most fanzines. That aside, the content in Carcass Crawler Issue #4 is a good mix of the useful and the flavoursome. The new-is spells of ‘The Mage’s Grimoire’ and the potion details of ‘Strange Brew’ are interesting, whilst the flavoursome include the ‘Halfling Hearthsinger’ and ‘Halfling Reeve’ Classes with their lovely bucolic feel, and ‘Deities and Cults’ adds delightful roleplaying details that will make any setting that bit more interesting. Overall, Carcass Crawler Issue #4 is a very enjoyable issue with plenty that will enhance any Game Master’s campaign.