[Fanzine Focus XXXIX] Scout Magazine #III

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a non-professional 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, Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, and Swords & Wizardry have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Old School Essentials.

Scout Magazine is a fanzine that comes packed with content that the Game Master can add to her Old School Essentials or change how it is played. This is no matter whether she uses the basic rules of Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy or the advanced options of Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy. Although specially written for use with Old School Essentials, it is easily adapted to the retroclone of Game Master’s choice or even added to Dolmenwood, the setting and retroclone also published by Necrotic Gnome.

Scout Magazine #IIIwas published in November, 2024 by PBenardo. Unlike Scout Magazine #I and Scout #II before it, it only includes two new Classes, but it includes as normal, both new monsters and articles that add new rules and mechanics to the play of Old School Essentials. Unlike the first issue, Scout Magazine #III does not possess anything in the way of a theme, but the monsters do!

Instead of new character Classes, Scout Magazine Issue #III begins with a list of ‘Backgrounds’. Each Background represents a skill or trait that the Player Character gained prior to becoming an adventurer. Some are quite mundane like the Farmer, who can predict the weather, but others are a little odd. For example, ‘Iron Dome’ means that the Player Character has an iron plaque in his head, which grants a bonus on Saving Throws versus charm or suggestion or ‘Graveyard Caretaker’, which enables the Player Character to detect the undead with a successful Listen check! Many are useful, such as ‘Surgeon’ which enables the Player Character to restore a single Hit Point to a wounded creature. There is decent selection, but at just fourteen, there is not a lot of variety to choose from.

One Background from ‘Backgrounds’ is given as optional, but it is actually supported with a whole article of its own. The Background in question is the ‘Psion’ and the article is ‘Psionics’. At the start of every day, the Psion’s player rolls for how many different types of psionic powers the character can use that day. So, the powers are random and the number of times the Psion can use them per day is equal to his Level divided by five. However, bearing magical items prevents the use of psionics and interrupting the use of psionic powers inflicts damage on the user due to psychic backlash. The powers include Astral Projection, Mental Shield, Precognition, Psi Cloak, 15’ Radius, Telekinesis, Telepathy, and more. The stranger ones include ‘Brain Bruise’ which inflicts damage on the nervous system of a creature, whilst ‘Preternatural Hearing’ enables the Psion to listen through solid objects. Of course, ‘Preternatural Hearing’ should really be called ‘Clairaudience’. Overall, the article is serviceable treatment of psionics for Old School Essentials, but its inclusion points to the fact that much of Scout Magazine is going over old new ground for a relatively new rules system—or in the case of Old School Essentials, a relatively new version of an old rules system. Nor indeed are psionics new to Old School Essentials, as for example, the Planar Compass Player’s Booklet for the Planar Compass fanzine has already presented a version.

The first of the two new Classes in Scout Magazine Issue #III is the ‘Wildling Warrior’. This is a tribal warrior with a distrust of anything different who inflicts double damage when he charges in combat with a two-handed weapon, is immune to fear, can forage and hunt, and will refuse to use magical items, though he will accept the use of divine magic. He will learn to strike invulnerable monsters and gains an increasing bonus to hit when wearing no armour. His War Cry can force a Morale Check on creatures of lower Hit Dice. It is difficult to really distinguish the ‘Wildling Warrior’ from the Barbarian Class and thus understand quite what this offers.

The same initially can be said of the ‘Zealot’, effectively a holy warrior or a version of the Paladin. Here the version can be either Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic in alignment. The Lawful Zealot focuses on life-giving magic, repelling undead, and boosting their allies’ abilities on the battlefield; the Neutral Zealot on nature-related magics, interacting with animals, and shapeshifting; and the Chaotic Zealots on controlling the undead and life-draining magic. The Zealot has to use blunt weapons, is immune to disease, and each hour can call upon his deity to cast a spell. The Lawful Zealot can Lay on Hands and at Eighth Level restore life or destroy undead; the Neutral Zealot gains animal form and at Eighth Level, full lycanthropy; and the Chaotic Zealot can drain life and at Eighth Level, can animate the dead. Each type of the Zealot has its own short spell list. The Zealot is three Classes in one, with the Lawful and Chaotic versions being akin to the Paladin and Anti-Paladin with the Neutral Zealot being a Druidic version. This is an intriguing option and something really different.

‘Drow Spells’ provides a spell list for the version of the Drow in Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy: Genre Rules. Many like Spidercloak Armour, Spider Bite, and Summon Spiders are appropriately thematic. The last quarter of Scout Magazine Issue #III is devoted to ‘Monsters’, all of which are inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos. Creatures taken from Lovecraft’s writings (and those of others in the same milieu) have a long history of appearing in Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games, going all the way back to the Deities & Demigods sourcebook for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition—and indeed, this is not the first time that the Old School Renaissance has pulled a tentacle out of the Cthulhu Mythos, such as Realms of Crawling Chaos: Lovecraftian Dark Fantasy. Here the author gives stats and a little detail on Azathoth, B’yakhee, Cthugah, Cthulhu, Deep Ones, members of the Great Race, I’thaqua, Mi-Go, Nyarlathotep, Shoggoths, and many more. There are some more generic Lovecraftian creatures alongside the well-known ones. These are all serviceable enough and the author promises the reader a supplement to go with them to cover the rituals and spells too.

Physically, Scout Magazine #III is tidily presented. It is very lightly illustrated.

Scout Magazine #III provides the Game Master and her players with a mixture of options old and new—or rather retreads of old worn paths and new. There is some good content in the issue, but just a little too much feels too similar to what has gone on before. That said, these are just the author’s suggestions and if the content of the issue does feel familiar, it is at least giving the Game Master more choice. Of the new, the Zealot Class is interesting, especially the Neutral variant, and the Backgrounds can add a nice bit of detail to any Player Character.

[Fanzine Focus XXXVIII] The Travellers’ Digest #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 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. 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 used the means offered in Traveller or MegaTraveller. This is addressed within various issues of the fanzine.

The Travellers’ Digest #5 was published in 1986 in the run up to the Origins convention, which took place from July 3rd to 6th in Los Angeles and moved the date on from the 324th day of the 1101st year of the Imperium to 005-1102, the fifth day of the 1102nd year of the Imperium. The opening ‘Editors’ Digest’ celebrates the fanzine’s first birthday and the increase in page count to sixty pages due to advertising revenue! It highlights the fact that two books would be on sale at Origins ’86 designed by the team behind the fanzine—Grand Survey by J. Andrew Keith, published by Digest Group Publications and Traveller Book 8: Robots, published by Game Designers Workshop. In addition to providing an overview of the content of the current it announced the contents of the next four issues.

The fifth part of ‘The Grand Tour’ in The Travellers’ Digest #5 is ‘Feature Adventure 5: The Humaniti Experiment’, written by editor Gary L. Thomas. In addition to the standard books required by the campaign, the supplements Beltstrike! and Traveller Alien Module 6: Solomani are also useful. As a result of the events in ‘Feature Adventure 3: Tourist Trap’ in the previous issue, the Player Characters were knighted and are now on their way to Capitol, the heart of the Third Imperium where they will be formally ennobled by the emperor. They have now reached Vland, the home of Vilani culture and capital of the Sector in the Vland Subsector of Vland Sector in the Domain of Vland.

The scenario opens with Doctor Theodor Krenstein dealing with a possible memory glitch in ‘Aybee’, before they descend to the surface of Vland. Amongst the many tourist attractions on offer, Doctor Krenstein wants to visit the ‘Argushiigi Admegulasha Bilanidin’, the ‘Vilani Repository of All Knowledge’, also known as the ‘AAB’ or ‘the Encyclopaedia’. A combined museum, library, research centre, and publishing house, it is largest facility of its kind in explored space and it should be no surprise that Doctor Krenstein has an old friend there that he wants to visit. Doctor Issac Imlu is pleased to see him and happily gives the Player Characters a tour of the facility when he is approached by a belter who shows him an extremely old First Imperium data disk. The scenario concerns not only what is on the disk, but also where it came from. The belter explains that he has more disks, but will not readily reveal where he found it beyond the name, ‘Star Harbour’. Fortunately, the facility does have a First Imperium data disk reader and getting past the security code is not too difficult. The recording turns out to be a report on the manipulation of a human subspecies on the world of Uradanid to enhance their technological development past the use of the nuclear weapons. Analysing the information on the data disk reveals that the world was in the Solomani Rim and that this manipulation took place over three thousand years previously.

The inference of the information on the data disk is that the world of Uradanid is in fact, Terra, and that the Vilani made covert contact with the Terrans and manipulated their technological advancement so that they discovered Jump Drive technology before they might have done otherwise without this manipulation. This does not negate the Solomani status as a Major Race, that is, one of the species to discover Jump Drive technology independently, but it does call it into question. This is an astounding discovery if true. Certainly, Doctor Theodor Krenstein would want to research it further simply for its historical significance, whilst for the journalist, Akidda Laagiir, it would be an amazing scoop. However, when the Player Characters go looking for the belter who gave Doctor Imlu the data disk, they first find that he has left Vland and then discover that he is dead!

The second half of the scenario leads the Player Characters to the ‘Star Harbour’ system and the discovery that the belter was up to no good and ultimately, that the recording is a sham. Getting to this information is not as structured as the set-up to the scenario’s core mystery, which itself in terms of the Traveller background is both interesting and intriguing. The scenario, although underwritten in this second half, does expose the Player Characters to one of the pro-Vilani/anti-Solomani groups active the sector. These are expanded upon by the scenario’s ‘Library Data’ which describes several of these groups, some of which are extremist in their outlook.

The Travellers’ Digest #5 contains two big articles, both by big names in the Traveller community. The first is ‘Vland! Cradle of the First Imperium’ by J. Andrew Keith. It ties with ‘Feature Adventure 5: The Humaniti Experiment’ earlier in the fanzine, but also provides a map and a complete description of Vland, complete with statistics generated using the rules from Grand Survey. It is followed by ‘Library Data of the Vland Sector’ by Nancy Parker that complements the previous article and the adventure. The Vland Subsector is also detailed. The second big article is ‘The First Imperium’ by Marc Miller. This charts the history of the Vilani from their origins as part of the Ancients colony on Vland and their survival during the Final War between the Ancients, through their industrial and cultural development to their first space exploration and beyond. The discovery of the Jump Drive led to rapid economic dominance of the systems around Vland and the establishment of the three Bureaux that would control vast swathes of space for centuries to come. Within two millennia of this, the ‘Ziru Sirka’ or ‘Grand Empire of Stars’ was declared to govern over the whole of the territory it consolidated before fully instituting an emperor and governing in peace for over another millennia. Ultimately, the article details the Solomani making contact with the Ziru Sirka and the war that followed that would see the Vilani defeated. There is also a map that shows the extent of the Ziru Sirka and the areas controlled by the three bureaux, as well as list of other references available at the time of publication. Together though, the two articles form a very good introduction to one of the Major Races in Traveller and in 1986, they would have been major developments of the background to the roleplaying game.

The issue switches subject with Henry R. Neufeld’s ‘Playing in Character – Effective Role Playing’. As the title suggests, it is a guide to good roleplaying and roleplaying etiquette. It applies as much to the player as it does the players and it topped and tailed by an example of poor play and an example of good play. In between is a list of dos and don’ts that look obvious today, but perhaps might not have been obvious in 1986—at least to some players and Game Masters. It is still good advice though, but a surprising addition to the pages of The Traveller’s Digest though and one has to wonder if the author has had some poor roleplaying experiences…

Lastly, the issue includes the ‘Traveller’s Digest Astrographic Index for Issues 1—4’. This collates all of the mentions of the worlds, subsectors, and sectors mentioned in the first four issues of the fanzine. It is a useful addition for the Game Master wanting to find a location and its specific mention.

Physically, The Travellers’ Digest #5 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. What is noticeable about the issue is the first use of colour on its front and back cover.

The Traveller’s Digest #5 picks up the Grand Tour with an episode that does not develop quite as well as its set-up suggests, but remains interesting and intriguing nonetheless. However, it is the inclusion of authors such as J. Andrew Keith and Marc Miller that really elevates The Traveller’s Digest #5 into a thoroughly interesting read that develops the background to the roleplaying game. Overall, this is good issue.

[Fanzine Focus XXXVIII] The Valley Out of Time: Tribes and Factions

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 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 and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game from Goodman Games. Some of these fanzines provide fantasy support for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, but others explore other genres for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. One such fanzine is The Valley Out of Time.

The Valley Out of Time is a six-part series published by Skeeter Green Productions. It is written for use with both the Dungeon Crawl Classics RolePlaying Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, ‘The Valley Out of Time’ is a ‘Lost Worlds’ style setting a la X1 The Isle of Dread, and films such as The Land that Time Forgot, The Lost World, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, One Million years, B.C., and others, plus the artwork of Frank Frazetta. Combining dinosaurs, Neanderthals, and a closed environment, it is intended to be dropped into a campaign with relative ease and would work in both a fantasy campaign or a post-apocalyptic campaign. It could even work as a bridge between the two, with two different possible entries into ‘The Valley Out of Time’, one from a fantasy campaign and one from a post-apocalyptic campaign.

The Valley Out of Time: Tribes and Factions is the fourth issue in the series and finally—finally—the series does something more than just give the Judge one more dinosaur or megafauna or one more fight with one more dinosaur or megafauna. For the Judge that wants fights and monsters, the first three issues of The Valley Out of Time were perfect, but for the Judge wanting more, they were a disappointment. What the series promises is set out on the back cover: “The Valley Out of Time is a series of ’zine-sized adventures from SGP. This valley can be placed in any ongoing campaign, and is set in the “Neanderthal Period” of development. Huge monsters – both dinosaurs and otherwise – and devolved humanoids plague the area, and only the hardiest of adventurers will prevail!” The key word here is ‘adventure’. There is not a single adventure, with plot and interaction and motivation and other elements that the players and their characters can grasp and engage with, in the first three issues of fanzine. Thankfully—thankfully—with The Valley Out of Time: Tribes and Factions actually begins to deliver on its promise.

As the title suggests, The Valley Out of Time: Tribes and Factions details some of the various groups and peoples of the valley as well as providing encounters and ways in which to interact with them. This includes four adventures or extended encounters, backgrounds on some of the tribes, and more. The tribes and adventures are divided into three sections, ‘Beastmen and Other Things’, ‘Urmanoids and Other Less-Developed Tribes’, and ‘The Urman, And Establishment Of Society’, each of which deals with different tribes and factions and gives a scenario or two. In ‘Beastmen and Other Things’, the groupings are Beastmen, the equivalent of Dungeons & Dragons’ non-human tribes, such as Goblins, Kobolds, and Orcs. The first of two entries for this section is ‘Here Comes the Cavalry’, the tribe being with ‘Pig-mees’, actually taken from Fight This Mutant. It begins in typical The Valley Out of Time fashion with the Player Characters encountering the Pig-mees after or during a fight that they are having with several dinosaurs, in this case, some Deinonychi. The Beastmen might aid the Player Characters or they might ambush them, depending upon how well the Player Characters are doing. Afterwards, there is potential for a parley and even some trade as the spoils of the fight are divided up. The encounter will be eased if the Player Characters have access to the Comprehend languages spell.

The second scenario begins in similar fashion, with the Player Characters encountering a dinosaur, having a fight with it, and then someone coming to their rescue. In ‘Why Did It Have To Be Snakes?’, it is Ophidian Beastmen. They will not only aid the Player Characters, but offer to share the treasure—in this case, the eggs of the Giant Iguana Lizard they were fighting—and invite them back to their dwellings to celebrate the victory. Of course, the Ophidian Beastmen, a la the Serpent Men of the Cthulhu Mythos or Robert E. Howard, have their own motives for helping the Player Characters—and they are not good! This scenario does carry a content warning, as it does include a horrifying possible ending in which the Player Characters become incubators for the snake-like humanoids’ eggs. There are notes alongside on the Ophidian Beastmen culture which the Judge can use to develop later encounters with them, though for ‘Why Did It Have To Be Snakes?’, the Judge may want to draw some maps of the Ophidian Beastmen’s underground lair.

‘Urmanoids and Other Less-Developed Tribes’ focuses on Urmanoid troops and families found across the valley. They do not yet have a language, but in comparison to other groupings in the valley, they are peaceful and family-orientated. They also tend to specialise in skills, such as builders or animal tenders, and there is even the possibility that a troop might specialise in communication and learn Common from the Player Characters. They are supported with an actual proper scenario, one that has a beginning, a middle, and an end, a plot, and opportunities to roleplay. Further, in an astonishing development for The Valley Out of Time series, ‘Ranch Hands’ does not actually begin with the Player Characters having an encounter with a dinosaur and having to fight it! Instead, they discover an Urmanoid village and are welcomed to stay, and even encouraged to join in the daily activities of the tribe. Then the tribe’s hogs are attacked by Dire Wolves! This is not the first time and their hosts decide to track the Dire Wolves to their lair and put an end to the menace. They will welcome any help upon the part of the Player Characters. Fighting the Dire Wolves and investigating their lair reveals an even bigger threat—not just the Dire Wolf Pack Alpha—but also a Man-Wolf! There are also hints of a bigger mystery too, one that will hopefully be developed in The Valley Out of Time: Rotten at the Core, the next entry in the series. Overall, this is the most sophisticated adventure that has been presented in The Valley Out of Time series to date.

The entries in The Valley Out of Time: Tribes and Factions have been working up the developmental ladder and reaches the most advanced group with ‘The Urman, And Establishment Of Society’. It develops earlier content and makes full use of the Dungeon Crawl Classics dice to determine each tribe’s general appearance, organisation, and technological development. The attached scenario is ‘Jungle Saviors’, which begins with the Player Characters stumbling into a clearing consisting of blood-soaked mud and bones surrounding a squat and ugly idol. Then out of the surrounding jungle, a band of small, but also ugly Urman attack! The Player Characters have trespassed on their sacred site, but fortunately—or unfortunately, they are not interested in killing the Player Characters. They have other plans for them, plans that warrant another content warning for this issue of the fanzine. The encounter does not quite get that far as an even more scary-looking group of Urmen, looking like jungle ghosts, attacks the Player Characters and the other Urmen alike, turning the encounter into a three-way fight! Again, this is more of an extended encounter, one that sets up an interesting situation, but never quite fully develops the aftermath as it could have done.

The Valley Out of Time: Tribes and Factions also includes discussions of barter, trade, and the economy of the valley and religion in the valley. ‘Barter, Trade, And The Economy Of Valley’ looks at what the tribes’ value and what they might trade for it—based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs—as well as what the Player Characters might be able to barter for with the items that they bring into the valley with them. It also looks at unique items to be found in the valley and how they might be worked into a campaign. ‘Religion In The Valley (And Other Fey Tales)’ looks at worship in the valley, emphasising how it is often more immediate in nature, helping the valley’s inhabitants get through the day. It also examines other motivations such as expanding the tribe (as in a couple of cases in the issue’s encounters) or conquest, but suggests that primarily, what the inhabitants worship are primarily related to nature. It also notes that the inhabitants’ pragmatic attitude towards death means that undead are rare in the valley beyond ghosts and apparitions. The importance of omens is highlighted and the essay notes that these can play a significant role in interacting with the valley dwellers. These are frustratingly good overviews of both subject matters as they pertain to the valley. Frustrating in that it has taken four issues of the fanzine to get to this point to really look at life in the valley rather than list dinosaur after dinosaur.

The issue comes to a close with appendices that start with entries for the new monsters in the issue (despite them being given in the actual adventures), including stats for the Urman. ‘Resources Of The Valley’ is a nice accompaniment to the earlier essay on trade and barter, whilst the third appendix gives a little flavour text that adds another legend to the valley.

Physically, The Valley Out of Time: Tribes and Factions is well presented and well written. The artwork is of a reasonable quality.

With The Valley Out of Time: Tribes and Factions, The Valley Out of Time series begins to deliver on some of the promises made by the author at the beginning of every issue. It starts to look at the valley as a whole, its inhabitants and their lives, and supports that with better scenarios rather than just dinosaur, dinosaur, dinosaur, dinosaur, dinosaur, dinosaur. There really should have been more content like this from the start and it is a shame that it has taken the author so long to get to an actual proper overview of just some of the elements to the setting that would enable the Judge to run it properly.

[Fanzine Focus XXXVIII] Beyond the Borderlands Issue #3

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.

The Beyond the Borderlands trilogy of fanzines is different. Beginning with Beyond the Borderlands Issue #1, this is a systems neutral regional hexcrawl inspired by B2 Keep on the Borderlands, most recently implemented by Goodman Games’ Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands. The setting for the Beyond the Borderlands, like B2 Keep on the Borderlands before it, is the edge—or just beyond it—of the civilised lands, the frontier outside of which lies untrammeled wilderness, barbaric tribes, and Chaos run rampant. Here a solid fortress has been established as the last outpost of civilisation, to provide a degree of protection to travellers making the journey beyond and against the possibility of an incursion from the ghastly Goblins, horrible Hobgoblins, obnoxious Orcs, grim Gnolls, and more, which lurk just out of sight, ready to strike…

Published by Swordfish Islands LLC (but also available in PDF from the author), best known for publishing Swordfish Islands: Hexcrawl Adventures on Hot Springs Island, the first part of a trilogy detailed the last bastion of a civilisation on the frontier, Stronglaw Keep, and the surrounding Wicked Palovalley. What was particularly noticeable about Beyond the Borderlands Issue #1 was that all of its maps were presented in isometric format, which when combined with their bright, vibrant colours, make them leap off the page. This feature is continued in Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2, which when combined with spare nature of the text makes the descriptions and details given nicely accessible and easy to run from the page. However, Beyond the Borderlands Issue #3 differs from this bar the vibrancy and colour.

In contrast to B2 Keep on the Borderlands, what Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2 did not do was take the Dungeon Master and her players into that den of evil which so threatens the Keep, the Caves of Chaos! Instead, it detailed a similar, but much smaller area, The Bloody Ravine, a sharp valley whose walls are pockmarked by cave entrances, beyond which many different tribes of Humanoids find their home. Notably, it detailed only six caves rather than the ten of the original short. What then of the remaining four? They are not detailed in either Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2 or Beyond the Borderlands Issue #3—and nor do they need to be, since The Bloody Ravine is complete as written. Which begs the question, does the Beyond the Borderlands trilogy really need a third issue and if it does, what does it add to the reinterpretation of the classic setting Basic Dungeons & Dragons?

Beyond the Borderlands Issue #3 brings the trilogy to a close with not another set of mini-dungeons as per the series’ inspiration, but what is the equivalent of a mega-dungeon for the trilogy. This is the Shifting Maze, a six-level dungeon that is a small part of the Chaosphere, a dimension of unreality that strikes fear into most who hear about it. It is presented in cross-section rather than the isometric style seen in previous issues. Each level has four entrances and eighteen rooms which are not only generated randomly at the start, but since this is the Shifting Maze, is generated randomly again whenever the Player Characters leave the dungeon and come back in again. The method of creating this by drawing cards from an ordinary deck of playing cards, turning the play of Beyond the Borderlands Issue #3 from a dungeon crawl into a ‘cardcrawl’. The suits of the card determine the room type—Spades for monster rooms, Clubs for trap rooms, Diamonds for empty rooms, and Hearts for safe rooms. The two cards from each of the four suits are used to mark the entrances, whilst eighteen cards are drawn for each level and arranged on the table however the Game Master wants. A token is used to mark where the Player Characters are in the level and as they proceed through the level, cards are turned over and resolved. If there is an encounter, it has to be resolved before the Player Characters can move onto the next one. When the Player Characters leave the dungeon or proceed down to a lower level, the cards on the table are collected, the deck is shuffled again, and new cards drawn.

The six levels consist of the Fetid Tunnels, home to giant rats, jackalopes, and Kobolds, as well as a young Wyrm hiding from poachers; the Crumbling Mines where the Firebug Queen holds court; Mushroom Lake where hostile frogmen make sacrifice to an ancient Kraken; an Elven Mausoleum still protected by undead vassals; the Sibilant City, an ancient Elven city overgrown by plants and taken over by snakes; and the Duke’s Domain, ruled by the Lords of Chaos. Each level has a two-page spread of its own. This includes three tables. One for the passages, one for random encounters, and one for specific locations. Plus, there are game stats as necessary.

The nearest there is to a fully detailed NPC in Beyond the Borderlands Issue #3 is Mr. Beatley Coins. He wanders the dungeon with things to sell and coins with which to buy. This includes rumours as well as standard goods. His inventory includes all manner of creature body parts that when consumed, provide a particular bonus. For example, the Spider Gland can be consumed to gain the ability to climb smooth walls and shoot webs for several hours, whilst a Frogman Intestine improves the consumer’s Wisdom and makes them immune to poison, but break wind loudly every hour! This is all part of a pleasing and very decently illustrated section of magical items. In some ways, this is the best part of Beyond the Borderlands Issue #3.

Physically, Beyond the Borderlands Issue #3 is well presented. it needs a slight edit in places, but the artwork is excellent. There are no maps, so the isometric cartography of the first two issues is not repeated here. Which is a shame.

The Beyond the Borderlands series is intended to be a trilogy, inspired by B2 Keep on the Borderlands and presenting a simple, stripped back means of revisiting the classic scenario for Basic Dungeons & Dragons. In exploring the frontier fortress of Stronglaw Keep and the surrounding Wicked Palovalley, this is exactly what Beyond the Borderlands Issue #1 and Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2 do. Beyond the Borderlands Issue #3 takes the trilogy beyond the Wicked Palovalley and away from Stronglaw Keep and in the process away from B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Effectively, the inspiration for the trilogy ended with Beyond the Borderlands Issue #2 and Beyond the Borderlands Issue #3 has nothing to do with B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Although it is not a bad dungeon, Beyond the Borderlands Issue #3 is a part of the Beyond the Borderlands trilogy in name only.

[Fanzine Focus XXXVIII] Scout Magazine #II

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a non-professional 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, Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay, and Swords & Wizardry have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Old School Essentials.

Scout Magazine is a fanzine that comes packed with content that the Game Master can add to her Old School Essentials or change how it is played. This is no matter whether she uses the basic rules of Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy or the advanced options of Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy. Although specially written for use with Old School Essentials, it is easily adapted to the retroclone of Game Master’s choice or even added to Dolmenwood, the setting and retroclone also published by Necrotic Gnome.

Scout Magazine #II was published in January, 2024 by PBenardo. Like Scout Magazine #I before it, it includes four new Classes, a host of new magical items, monsters, and articles that add new rules and mechanics to the play of Old School Essentials. Unlike the previous issue, Scout Magazine #II does not possess anything in the way of a theme.

The new Classes begin with the ‘Transmuter’. This is a variation of the Magic-User, one which specialises in one of the classic Dungeons & Dragons schools of magic, in this case, ‘Transmutation’. Thus, the Class is all about the alteration of matter, including the transformation of objects and creatures. The Class is also supported with a complete spell list of twelve spells per spell level, for a total of seventy-two spells! Some two fifths—twenty pages—of the fanzine are devoted to this spell list. The spells range from the simple Camouflage, which hides the subject of the spell, and Darksteel, which makes a weapon dark, silent, and causes any blood it spills to adhere to it, both at First Level, to Convert Potion, which changes one potion or poison into another and Corrosion Wave, which degrades all items of metal within an area into uselessness, both at Sixth Level. Included in the list are some classic Magic-User spells appropriate to the Transmuter, like Mending or Heat Metal, but these are joined by some interesting and useful spells, such as Lighten Load, a First Level spell that makes the encumbered unencumbered or the Second Level Breathe Noxious Gases. The spell list gives the Class a lot of options and especially, utility, in comparison to the standard Magic-User.

The second of the new Classes is the ‘Mystic’. This is the Monk for Old School Essentials, a Class that was surprisingly omitted from Old School Essentials: Advanced Fantasy. The ‘Shadowborn’ employs the shadows and the magic of the Shadow Realm when he goes adventuring. The Class cannot wear any armour, but gains a bonus to Armour Class when not fighting in daylight or magical light, is better at hiding shadows than the Thief Class, and gains Infravision that increases in range as his Level increases. The ‘Shadowphase’ enables the Class to step into the shadow realm and exit from the shadows at another nearby location, though this requires a Move Silently skill roll. When Hidden in Shadows, the Shadowborn receives a bonus to attack and damage, including against those who can only be hit by magical weapons, and lastly, at Ninth Level, the Shadowborn can build a monastery and summon denizens of the Shadow Realm. The Class is effectively a Fighter, but one that emphasises stealth rather than direct conflict. As does the ‘Stalker’, the fourth Class in Scout Magazine #II. However, the Stalker is also an expert tracker and ambusher, gaining bonuses against favoured enemies—the Backstab ability in particular—and in the terrain it specialises in. Effectively, this is a specialised version of the Ranger.

Bar the Mystic which adds a Class that is not officially in Old School Essentials, the Classes in Scout Magazine #II are all about specialisation. This means that they may not suit all campaigns or settings and their abilities are very much situational, limiting their effectiveness. However, the one Class of the four that is specialised and actually provides wider and more interesting options is the Transmuter as the Class has more options to chose from in terms of spells.

The utility of the Transmuter Class—and all spellcasting Classes—is expanded with ‘Mana-Point Spellcasting’. Instead of spell slots per Level, a caster has Mana Points and it costs one Mana Point per Spell Level to cast a spell. Spell point systems are designed to replace the Vancian system of memorise, cast, and forget, enabling a caster to cast the same or different spells as long as he has the points to power them. This system does that, but with some interesting tweaks. The number of Mana Points is equal to his Intelligence plus Level, but that is the maximum amount and the Player Character does not get all of that back with a full night’s rest. It will take several nights’ rest to fully restore his Mana Points. This means that any caster will still need to husband his Mana Points, but the system gives some flexibility. It is possible to regain Mana Points in play for undertaking certain Class actions. For example, the Druid gains them for entering a new wilderness hex and taking a full night’s rest in the wilderness, whilst the Illusionist gains them for uncovering an illusion and making a Saving Throw versus mind-altering magic. This adds further flexibility, whilst also encouraging Class specific activities. Lastly, repeatedly casting the same spell increases its Mana Point cost, and divine spellcasters such as the Cleric and Paladin are included here as well. The Game Master may want to change the attribute which determines the number of Mana Points they receive from Intelligence to Wisdom. Otherwise, though, this is a very serviceable option.

‘Expanded Potions’ offers up twenty-two new potions, like the Potion Of Alignment Reveal, Potion of Non-Detection, Oil of Quicksand, and Potion of Wraithform. These add to the potions given in the previous issue of the fanzine, but the article handily provides a new table of magic potions which includes its new potions and those from the core rulebook for Old School Essentials. There are rules too for mixing potions. They are quick and dirty, typically disabling the imbiber temporarily. There is scope there for a whole article here exploring the possibility of what happens when specific potions are mixed and consumed, but these guidelines will do in the meantime.

‘Skirmishes’ gives rules for handling combat between small squads of between eleven and twenty combatants. A squad is abstracted down to ‘Hit Value’, ‘Attack Value’, ‘Defence Value’, and ‘Morale Value’, rather than designed like a Player Character or a monster, and rolls are made using a ten-sided die rather than a twenty-sided die. The result is a subsystem that is perfectly playable, but does not mechanically feel like Old School Essentials.

‘Politics’ provides the means for the Player Characters to interact with the community and factions and organisations on a wider scale. It is intended to allow the Player Characters to gain influence and reputation beyond simply dungeon delving and so build towards and beyond the Domain tier style of play as they acquire Ninth and Tenth Level and beyond. The Player Characters gain a ‘Notoriety’ value to represent how well known they are, a ‘Faction Standing’ and ‘Ranks’ with different groups, and ‘Influence’ that can then be expended on ‘Moves’ like pinning a crime on someone, purchasing a property, owning a trading vessel, hiring spies or hitmen, and requesting military aid. All of these moves take time, meaning that the Moves play out over the course of a campaign, even whilst the Player Characters are adventuring, whilst still allowing the action to switch to the consequences of those Moves or scenes within them. This is a great addition if the players and their characters are looking to do more than adventure into dungeons and have a wider influence upon the campaign world.

Lastly, Scout Magazine #II gives nine ‘Monsters’. They include both the ‘Green Hag’ and the ‘Night Hag’, variations upon the crone as the monster; the golden-furred cat that is the ‘Luck Eater’, which charms people and grants both a bonus on all rolls and the worst result on all secret rolls made by the Game Master; and the ‘Saw Beast’, a mechanical monster of spiked circular wheels and sawblades. These are serviceable enough.

Physically, Scout Magazine #II is tidily presented. It is very lightly illustrated.

Scout Magazine #II provides the Game Master and her players with yet more new content. The inclusion of the ‘Transmuter’ Class and the ‘Mana-Point Spellcasting’ are well trod paths for Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying games, offering options that are not in the core rules almost as if it was 1978. This does not mean that they are bad, by any means. In fact, the ‘Transmuter’ Class along with its extensive spell list is a decent addition, whilst ‘Mana-Point Spellcasting’ has tweaks enough to make it more than simply turning spellcasters into walking spell batteries. All of this does come at the cost of adding further complexity to Old School Essentials, but there really some good options in Scout Magazine #II for the Game Master who wants to expand her campaign.

[Fanzine Focus XXXVIII] Legends of Uganda 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 showcased how 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 and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game from Goodman Games. Some of these fanzines provide fantasy support for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, but others explore other genres for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. One such fanzine is Legends of Uganda.

Legends of Uganda Issue #2 was published in August 2024 for Gen Con. Published by Sanctum Media, this a collection of lore and legends from the Republic of Uganda following on from Legends of Uganda Issue #1 the previous year. Written by Ugandan game designer Ashraf Braden, it expands upon the content of the first issue with more patrons, magic, and more. The patrons begin with ‘Bihogo, Patron of Cattle’, the Queen of Cattle associated with the fall of Ankole, the second largest of Uganda’s kingdoms. Her adherents are sworn to protect their herds and eat no beef, and when invoking her, her gifts include Horns of the Ankole, which gives an adherent nasty horns that can be used in combat, or the Milk of Bihogo, which the adherent weeps and has healing properties. The second of the Patrons is ‘Musoke, Worm of the Rains’. It is important to the Baganda tribe which favours small gods and spirits, and so Musoke appears as a humble-sized caterpillar who can be called upon at the end of a drought to bring rain. When this happens, he will often appear as a rainbow. His patron effects are all rain related. The description of also includes the Children of Musoke, a ‘Rain Elemental’, and a Third Level Patron Spell, Kaharas Deluge, which transforms the caster’s body into a living rainstorm. The third Patron is ‘Lubowa’, the master of the land and the way in which people live upon, who is so powerful that he is only called upon crimes such as murder, witchcraft, and similar need to be adjudicated and settled. His patron effects enhance investigation, find hidden truths, and so on. Lubowa often manifests as soot, so his ‘Soot Elementals’ embody his swift judgement and consuming wrath.

The ‘Ndyamuhaki’ is the primary monster detailed in the fanzine. It is a trickster spirit, that can be turned by the Cleric, but is primarily known for its ability to shapeshift—including beast, bird, humanoid, mist, and shadow, and its curses. These are nasty. They include ‘Curse of Half-Sight’, which affects several victims, forcing them to pluck one of their eyes out! The other is ‘Curse of the Wandering Fool’, which is not cast by the Ndyamuhaki, but parents or elders upon their wayward children, imposing a penalty to both Luck and all navigation checks until they return home, apologise, and admit the error of their ways.

In comparison to Legends of Uganda Issue #1, there is less content in Legends of Uganda Issue #2. The content is not only decent, but interesting. The backgrounds to all of the entries are very good, but the case of the three Patrons, they do feel as if there should be more to them. Some do have spells and associated monsters, but not all. There is no discussion or development of how the Player Characters might relate to them, or as a Wizard or a Cleric, what spells they take to adhere to the strictures of their patron. This is the core problem with the issue, the lack of game development in terms of application. So, no hooks or adventure seeds, no suggested spell lists, and so on. It means that the content of Legends of Uganda Issue #2 is harder to use.

Physically, Legends of Uganda Issue #2 is a plain, simple affair. The artwork is black and white, consisting of what looks like traditional depictions of the various entities described in its pages.

Like its predecessor, Legends of Uganda Issue #2 really is a fascinating read, an opportunity to read about the monsters and legends of another country and not only that, but have them translated into game terms—and all that by an indigenous author. Yet the content, as interesting as it is, it is not as developed or as supported as it could have been to best help the Judge—who will really have her work cut out to get the best out of Legends of Uganda Issue #2.

[Fanzine Focus XXXVIII] ShadowFolk Issue One

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 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. A more recent Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game which right from the start of its appearance started being supported by fanzines, is ShadowDark, published by The Arcane Library. ShadowFolk is one such fanzine.

ShadowFolk Issue One was published by This Is The Weird in April, 2025. It describes itself as an ‘Obscure Folklore Toolbox’ and the first issue is inspired both Ukrainian and Slavic Myth, but has the feel of cosmic horror. It is broken down into three sections, ‘Player Tools’, ‘GM Tools’, and ‘Hex Tools’, but much of the content in ShadowFolk Issue One is actually connected.

The ‘Player Tools’ offers two new Classes. The ‘Kazhennik’ is a member of a species that originated on a strange world of crystallized wood and strange cosmic winds, now lost to them. They have crystalised skin for slightly higher Armour Class, wield a weapon of crystalised wood that inflicts greater damage, and can summon a strange bluish-purple wind that works as a Feather Fall spell. Their strangeness affects others and themselves, such that they avoid civilisation in favour of nature. They give a Close ally a bonus to any roll, but the Kazhennik suffers a penalty when this happens. The other Class is the ‘Netlenne’, a survivalist who can use some nature magic. They have been blessed by nature deities and by teenagers eyes of white orbs and amber colored hair. They loathe reptiles of any kind and at advantage when attacking them, and also have advantage for all nature-related rolls. Their major ability is that they can cast the Shapechange spell to change into any non-reptile creature. They can learn nature-related spells, but not often.

These are odd Classes, outsiders and suitable for campaigns away from urban areas. Mechanically though, what marks them out as different is that they are not Classes that can be taken in addition to an Ancestry. Instead, what they do, much like Basic Dungeons & Dragons did ‘Race as Class’ rather than ‘Race and Class’, is ‘Ancestry as Class’. ShadowFolk Issue One suggests two ways in which this can be done with the Ancestries presented in ShadowDark. One is a hybrid between the Ancestry and the Class in which the Player Characters gains the benefits of another selected every other Level, whilst the other is more of a hodgepodge method that needs some adjustment to the Talent Charts to work with any ease. Both are detailed in ‘Ancestry As Class (AAC)’ in the appendix at the end of the issue.

The ‘GM Tools’ consist of several connected monsters. ‘The Gentleman’ is a dapper demon who who helps forge alliances and agreements between the unlikeliest of groups and deadliest of enemies that always looks so good on paper—and prove to be in the short term. Invariably they go wrong, one side—or both—is betrayed, and so on, so that the chaos of before, is even worse. The Gentleman is always accompanied by two ‘Vyrovik-apes’, undead-like, pony-sized apes that protect their master by being able to teleport between shadows and uttering soul-wrenching howls. They are also unerringly able to track any mortal who gives up his soul to their master. Such souls are transformed into ‘Vyrovik-ki’, short, pig-faced undead chaos fiends that undertake simple tasks because otherwise they can get distracted. Their entry includes a nice table of what they might do when distracted! The other servants of The Gentleman are the ‘Vyrovik-pel’, semi-corporeal winged demons that understand all languages and lurk on rooftops and in allies, collecting all manner of gossip and rumour. What the Game Master has here is suite of demons that can lurk in a city, collect rumours and information that The Gentleman can use to his advantage. The monsters could have done with a few hooks or ideas on how to implement them in a campaign, but these are reasonable tools to start with.

The ‘Hex Tools’ continue the support for the earlier content in the fanzine. ‘Korrine Village’ provides a settlement for the Kazhennik, grown from the forest floor from dead wood turned into a crystalline substance. It is more an overview, but in a page it manages to pack in a quick description of Kazhennik culture, three personalities, and a couple of hooks. There is not a great deal of detail, but it could serve as a rest stop or the home of a Kazhennik Player Character. More attention is paid to the ‘Isle of Mt. Smersh’, the home of The Gentleman from one world to the next. It is heavily mountainous, The Gentleman’s sanctuary, a castle of white obsidian sits atop the island’s highest peak and is marked with endless mazes and tunnels, the whole complex guarded by clockwork machinations and chaos fiends. It is littered with the remains and sometimes devolved descendants of civilisations that The Gentleman has manipulated into their destruction. The remainder of the island consists of thick jungle broken by standing stones, temple of the rain gods, and a silent statue that appears different to everyone who looks upon it. The Game Master will need to develop the specific sites herself to really make full use of them, although the two included monsters—the Mayan Warrior and Child of Zorro—give the island more of a Pulp action Central American feel rather than an ancient island of Chaos.

Physically, ShadowFolk Issue One is a good looking first issue. The very nice artwork contributes towards that appearance, the issue does need an edit.

ShadowFolk Issue One is an ambitious first issue, providing an interesting pair of Classes that do not fit the pattern of traditional Classes in ShadowDark, as well as a setting and a great villain that the Game Master can add to her campaign. However, it is not apparent until quite a way into the fanzine that the various articles are connected and designed to be used together. Perhaps some time could have been spent explaining this at the start? Similarly, ‘The Gentleman’ feels underwritten in terms of actions and motivations and again, more time could have been devoted to developing that for the benefit of the Game Master. Overall, ShadowFolk Issue One does show promise, but the content needs a little more development.

[Fanzine Focus XXXVIII] Book of Misery Vol. 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 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. A more recent Old School Renaissance-style roleplaying game that fanzines are being based upon and inspired by is Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance retroclone designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing.

Book of Misery Vol. 2 is a fanzine for Mörk Borg written and published by Gizmo in February, 2023. It contains a mix of options for both players and the Game Master. This includes new Classes, weapons, monsters, and a dungeon that can be easily brought into play and all done in the artpunk style that Mörk Borg is notorious for. It opens with the first of four Classes. The ‘Wise Zealot’ ardently spreads the word of the two-head basilisks, driven by a key belief such as ‘The End is near. Nothing can stop it. However, it is needed for the vitality of the world.’ or ‘Any written word that doesn’t see the basilisks in a positive light in heresy.’ With him, he carries a holy relic, such as a gem-encrusted drinking cup that turns any liquid placed in it turns into pure drinking water, or a terrible amulet that mocks passersby mercilessly, but lets the ‘Wise Zealot’ cast powers at an advantage. The ‘Witch Hunter’ is a version of the classic Puritan figure, agile and with good reason to hunt witches like, “At the age of ten, a witch named Hela, killed your dog in your ritual. He was your best friend. You took up arms to hunt and kill, her easiest way to find her? Kill every witch.” He is armed with such things as a crossbow or silver stakes and flashpowder or a silver sword, the latter good versus hags and witches.

More monstrous is the ‘Renegade Sanguine’, essentially a vampire for Mörk Borg. The Class has higher Toughness and Presence and also a Renegade Sanguine ability. This includes fangs as natural weapons that inflict a six-sided die’s worth of damage or with ‘Raise Thrall’, which grants the ‘Renegade Sanguine’ the ability to raise a corpse for several hours per day. The oddest of the four Classes is the ‘Reborn Fungus’, a mushroom given human form, perhaps created by a witch in a ritual gone wrong and abandoned or sacrificed by the cult his family belonged to. ‘Reborn Fungus’ might emit an ‘Ominous Glow’ of faint blue light or commit ‘Mind Theft’ by releasing spores to temporarily control others. The four Classes offer a mix of the ordinary and the outré. The weirdness of the ‘Reborn Fungus’ and the creepiness of the ‘Renegade Sanguine’ are in keeping with the styles of Mörk Borg, whilst the ‘Wise Zealot’ and ‘Witch Hunter’ are more direct in how they are likely to be played.

‘Monsters and Beasts’ describes thirteen entries, but gets off to an underwhelming start with the Amphiptere, a simple flying lizard. Fortunately, the other entries are more interesting. The ‘Runner’ has the body of a dog, demon’s claws, and a misshapen human skull for a head, that stalk the land and have to be killed in blow of their screams will summon more! ‘The Flail King’ is arrogance personified, accidently summoned by an egocentric scholar, which then killed him. ‘The Flail King’ always attempts to persuade everyone that they are the evil ones. Besides a flail attack, it also has a disorientating eye beam and a nasty bite. The ‘Lamia’ is a creature of legend that poses as a malformed building and fires magic missiles. Why? This is a question never answered in too many of these monster entries, and so they are only slightly more interesting though and feel like they are monsters simply for being monsters’ sake, with little to them to really warrant the Game Master using them in her game. The collective ‘Creatures of the Woods’, which include the ‘Will-O-The Wisp’, ‘Bark-eating arachnid’, and ‘Scorned Spirit’ are simple and easy to use. More detailed and thus actually more interesting are the ‘Rot Mana Drinker’ is an obese, lich-like creature obsessed with magic to the point that they eat it—and those that carry it, and the ‘Demön Lörd of Törture’ (or is it pain, the entry is not quite clear), who descends upon towns and villages and divides them into cultists who worship him and then torture those who refuse to. Overall, a disappointing selection.

‘Places To Go, People To See’ is more useful. ‘Sheila the Crafter’ is a combined trader and quest giver who will buy all manner of bodily remains and can upgrade black powder weapons and other interesting things. The problem is that the description is all about the sales, but not about the quests. So the Game Master will need to extract them from what she has on sale as best see can, such as goblin blood for the goblin blood poison. ‘Rurik IV’ is a warrior for hire, Kash a ‘Pirate Demon’ who has given up her piratical ways and come travelling inland to look for something, although the description does not say what. Unfortunately, and again, these suffer from being underwritten and will need some development upon the part of the Game Master.

The ’Magic Items’ include the ‘Book of Fungus’, a dangerously compelling book that grants the user the ability to cast a fungal spell each time they read it, but fail to cast the casting once too often and they have to eat the book. The ‘Flail of the Great Devil Lord’ was created and wielded by a forgotten warrior, who defeated a demon and attached its head to a chain. It is incredibly heavy, so harder to hit with, but it can do a lot more damage. These are all decent enough.

Rounding out Book of Misery Vol. 2 is ‘The Slaughter Tunnels of Pumpkin Valley’. It details of band of wildfolk who have devolved after years of being cut off in a dungeon below a pumpkin swamp. The Player Characters wake up to find themselves prisoners and have to escape, so this is an easy one to add to a campaign, even to the point of their waking up first thing to discover themselves in this predicament! Effectively ‘dungeon of the cannibals’, this is a serviceable affair.

Physically, Book of Misery Vol. 2 adheres to the artpunk style of Mörk Borg. For the most part it works, but some of the founts selected do make the titles difficult to read.

Book of Misery Vol. 2 is even more of a mixed bag than Book of Misery Vol. 1. The Classes are decent enough, but rest is too underdeveloped and too underwritten to be of immediate use to the Game Master. If she puts some work into the content, then it might be another matter, but why should she have to?