Near & Far

“Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” It seems glib to be opening with a quote from Douglas Adams’ The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Guide, but given the sense of scale to The Atlas Of The Imperium: Second Survey, it nevertheless feels appropriate. Published by Far Future Enterprises, this is a supplement designed for use with Traveller⁵: Science-Fiction Adventures in the Far Future, but actually compatible with any version of Traveller which brings together over sixty star maps which together show the vast expanse of the Third Imperium and nearby sectors in Charted Space. It covers an area roughly thirty-nine by twenty-nine sectors—each sector consisting of sixteen subsectors, and each subsector ten by eight parsecs across, meaning that—roughly—the area covered by The Atlas Of The Imperium: Second Survey is fifteen hundred and sixty by nine-hundred-and-twenty-eight parsecs across! Make no mistake, from the Coreward sectors of Gashikan and Trenchans to the Rimward sectors of Aldebaran and Langere, and from the Spinward sectors of the Vanguard Reaches and Tienspevnekr (and beyond!) to the Trailing sectors of Arzul and the Crucis Margin, this book covers a huge amount of space. 

However, The Atlas Of The Imperium: Second Survey covers a whole lot more than just space. Every sector is given a one-page map depicting all sixteen of its subsectors, marked up with world types—worlds with water, desert worlds, or asteroids, whether a gas giant is present in the system, the letter code for the type of starport present, and type of base present, including Imperial Naval Base, Scout Base, and so on. The list of symbols has been greatly expanded to cover an array of base types, such as a Zhodani Base, Corsair/Clan/Embassy, Research Station, Imperial Reserve, Penal Colony, and more. Worlds with large populations have their names given in uppercase, letter codes indicate political allegiances, and various worlds are ringed to indicate travel zones—Amber and Red. Lastly X-boat routes are marked, as the political borders in different colours. The name of each sector, plus those for each of the sixteen subsectors in the sector is given in the outer margin. 

Each sector is followed by a listing of the world data for every world in the sector, the data running for barely a page for the lesser populated sector, but as many as three pages! This is done in the Traveller⁵ Second Survey format. Thus, hex location and main world name, followed by the UWP or Universal World Profile (starport, planetary size, atmosphere type, hydrographic percentage, population, government type, law level, and tech level), all pretty much as you would expect for Traveller. The Traveller⁵ Second Survey format expands this with an extensive list of further classifications and remarks. Thus a world can have Trade Classifications such as Garden World or Non-Agricultural, Remarks indicating whether the world is home to an Ancient Site, a Penal Colony, or under Military Rule, the highest nobility found there if any, whilst Importance, Economic, and Cultural Extensions all expand upon the basic details of each and every world. 

However, in many cases, the Importance, Economic, and Cultural Extensions all have code strings of their own, though much shorter than the standard UWP, represent more numbers for the Game Master to interpret and attempt to bring to the gaming table. For example, the Cultural Extension includes ratings for the world’s Heterogeneity, Acceptance, and Strangeness, with seven being the norm. Overall, it is a lot of information to take in and interpret, and the process of doing so, is hampered by the way in which the information is presented. The content on the maps is small enough, but the text size for the world data is not that much larger and presented in dense columns of fairly text makes it a challenge to read and pick any details. 

The Atlas Of The Imperium: Second Survey is designed to be a navigational guide to the Third Imperium and its surrounding worlds—in game and out of game. In game, it is an update of the First Survey conducted by the Imperial Grand Survey, an office of the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service, and published in the year 420 after a hundred years of work. The Second Survey, a much-needed update and expansion of the obsolete First Survey was begun as part of the millennial celebrations of the Third Imperium, and published in 1065. The current version of The Atlas Of The Imperium: Second Survey has a publication date of 1105. Out of game, The Atlas Of The Imperium: Second Survey is an update of The Atlas Of The Imperium published by Game Designers’ Workshop in 1984, and provides a massive amount of information for the Game Master to explore and see how the many sectors, subsectors, polities, and worlds relate to each other, and at least have the basic information about world to hand, if not necessarily the specifics. One sector, Foreven, abutting the Zhodani Consulate, just Spinward of the Spinward Marches, apart from a few worlds, has been left intentionally blank, including the specific World Data entries which follow, essentially providing the Game Master with two pages of question marks. 

In some ways though, the most interesting aspect to The Atlas Of The Imperium: Second Survey is its credits pages. This names the designers and origins of each one of the supplement’s nearly seventy sectors, as well who most recently developed it for inclusion here. In doing so, it mentions many of the great names that long time Traveller fans will recognise, such as J. Andrew Keith, William H. Keith, Joe D. Fugate Sr. Martin Dougherty, and more, drawing on sourcebooks as diverse as MegaTraveller Alien, Volume 1: Vilani & Vargr, Crucis Margin, Gateway to Destiny, and many, many more. It is a reminder that a great deal of the setting to Traveller and its Third Imperium and beyond, was not necessarily developed by Marc Miller and Game Designers’ Workshop, but rather farmed out to other publishers to develop and publish content for.

Physically, The Atlas Of The Imperium: Second Survey is cleanly laid out, but does need another edit and barring the cover, is illustration free. Of course, the text and the maps may well be too small for some readers to read with any ease and a magnifying glass may be warranted. 

The Atlas Of The Imperium: Second Survey feels such a high-level product–both in the game and out of it, providing the ultimate in grand overview of the Third Imperium and its surrounds, that it is really difficult to say how useful the supplement truly is. It does provide both player and Game Master alike with swathes of maps and territories and data, that it is difficult to encompass. The likelihood after all, is that a gaming group and its campaign is going to dig down from the lofty heights presented here and be exploring, adventuring, and gaming at the level of the subsector and sector at most. For that, they will need further information, which of course, is not present in the pages of The Atlas Of The Imperium: Second Survey. Which is reasonable enough, since such a project would have the scope and stature of the Encyclopaedia Galactica of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy, one of the primary inspirations for Traveller. Yet, The Atlas Of The Imperium: Second Survey does feel like it needs context. Perhaps a page devoted to each sector, providing an overview and some Library Data (there is none in the supplement)? 

Ultimately, however useful a Game Master and her players find The Atlas Of The Imperium: Second Survey, it is very much a huge update and an enormous improvement in both the amount and the presentation of the information first seen in 1984’s The Atlas of the Imperium. It really needs an Encyclopaedia of the Third Imperium as a companion. 

Cannibals & Colin

Originally published by Nightfall Games in 1993, SLA Industries is a roleplaying game set in a far future dystopia of corporate greed, commodification of ultraviolence, the mediatisation of murder, conspiracy, and urban horror, and serial killer sensationalism. The player characters are employees of the eponymous SLA Industries, undertaking missions and assignments across the many sectors of Mort City, into Downtown, and even into the five Cannibal Sectors beyond. They will hunt down serial killers, search the sewers for monsters, prevent terrorist attacks by rival corporations, silence dissenters, and more, not just taking the pay for each mission, but hoping to be caught on camera and the action footage be good enough to get them noticed, get them sponsorships and contracts, get them on the first rung to fame, fortune, and being media darlings. Over the years, the roleplaying game has been through the hands of several publishers—for good or ill—which means that it has not been as well supported as its devotees would like. Now back in the hands of the original publishing team, Nightfall Games, the core rule book for game has not only received a new printing, but following a successful Kickstarter campaign, it has released a major new supplement.

Cannibal Sector 1 is the first and worst of the Cannibal Sectors, the model for the other four, so it is no surprise that it should be the subject of its own supplement. Yet SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 is not just a supplement for SLA Industries, it is also a whole new campaign framework and a set of miniatures combat rules. As a supplement it opens up a vast region abutting Mort City for examination, infiltration, and invasion; as a campaign framework, it provides a new point of view from which to roleplay SLA Industries; and as a set of miniatures combat rules, it provides a new way in which to play in the World of Progress. It comes packaged in a handsome, sturdy hardback that showcases some of the best art seen for the World of Progress, in turns grim and grimy, weird and horrifying, cartoonish and toothsome—all of it in full glorious colour. 

After opening with an overview over the five Cannibal Sectors, SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 dives into the history of Cannibal Sector 1. Once called the Central Outskirts and home to millions, in the year 300sd, Salvation Tower, the great hope for solving Mort City’s epidemic unemployment, plunged several storeys into the ground. In the chaos that followed, millions of civilians rioted and looted, then fled towards the city walls, seeking refuge in Mort City proper. But unable—or unwilling—to deal with the wave of refugees. In the six centuries since, the descendants of the Central Outskirts civilians turned to cannibalism to survive and as it became acceptable evolved into tribes of what SLA Industries now consider to be an entirely new species. As the Central Outskirts decayed and crumbled, other factions used the ruins as a vector to get closer to Mort City. These include the strange antler-skulled Carrien with their hockey-stick-like clubs and DarkNight, which set up bases from which to launch terror strikes inside the city; the gasmasked, trenchcoat wearing, chain wielding Scavs appeared from nowhere to smash at all other factions; whilst the otherworldly, Dream Entities seem to come from somewhere else to tempt and taunt the weak and the unwary before sending them mad. SLA reacted to these threats first by constructing the impregnable, 207 km long Sector Wall and dispatching Digger, the great Manchine to track down the leaders of those who had rioted following the collapse of Salvation Tower. Digger went rogue and haunts Cannibal Sector 1 even now. Although Sector Rangers have long been slipping into Cannibal Sector 1 to map and scout its furthest reaches, it was not until three years ago that SLA decided to take back Cannibal Sector 1. Project Red Sky sent thousands of Shiver Units—the mostly Human urban pacification and police—into Cannibal Sector, but poorly supplied, the operation was a disaster and most of the Shivers died under waves upon waves of Cannibal attacks. As SLA suffered from the recriminations and fallout from the failure of Project Red Sky, another plan, the Bellwood Campaign, has been put into operation—establishing bridgeheads. Better armed and armoured Shiver Units, Sector Shivers, would establish forward bases from which to patrol the immediate surrounds and curb the activities of the denizens of Cannibal Sector 1. Naturally, this renewed effort has been heavily mediatised with shows like the popular Sector 1: Life on the Wall which became the highly popular Shivers Fuck Shit Up.

This sets up a detailed exploration of Cannibal Sector 1, which itself consists of some seventeen regions across twenty thousand square kilometres bounded on one side by the Sector Wall, pierced by just six Sector Wall Holes. Much like the rest of the World of Progress, Cannibal Sector 1 is poisoned by pollutants and lashed by near constant rain, but this varies region by region. Each is detailed in terms of its area and level of pollution, weather, terrain, resources, logistics, and notable inhabitants. So the war zone Southern Front consists of two thousand square kilometres, suffers from low (relatively) pollution and intense rainfall as well as flash floods, resulting in mud fields where Shiver forces are engaged in trench warfare with DarkNight. Its most notable resource is a rich copper mine, which the terrorist organisation uses for weapons manufacture. In comparison, the Northwest Compact is three times the size and suffers from greater pollution, and its main threats are Carrien, followed by Cannibals and 9th Division—the remnants of Project Red Sky turned rebel. Beset by torrential rainfall, it consists of a tightly-built grid of office tower blocks and civilian apartment highrises, many of which have collapsed into piles of rubble. Its most notable inhabitants include Klip-Klop, a Greater Carrien who leads a conclave on deadly sweeps of his territory; Jordy, the murderous offspring of the largest Cannibal clan in the region, The Bloody Bones, who only lives to kill those his mother dislikes; and of course, Digger, the largest and most notorious of the Manchines.

Across the seventeen regions, SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 as a setting offers a huge range of terrains and threats. It means that the player characters could have to hunker down in the Western Front-style trenches of Southern Front, get stuck in the weird post-apocalyptic suburbia of the Tabor Projects—home to The Homespun Cannibal clan, and perhaps monitor the marshlands of the McGill Valleys, at the heart of which are the almost-luxury hotels and complexes where the 9th Division has its headquarters. 

Some nine factions are to be found in Cannibal Sector 1, most of them inimical to SLA Industries. They include the Cannibal clans, which have long feuded with each other for food and territory, but some now fight over whether or not they believe in their deity, Rawhead. Four Cannibal clans are described—The Bloody Bones, The Gartaks, The Homespun, and The Black Shucks. The strange alien origins and biology of the Carrien are explored, as are those of the Scavs, genetic experiments from two centuries ago who have come back to plague SLA Industries. DarkNight and its operations are detailed, as are the Dream Entities which cause fear in their opponents, affecting them with horribly realistic illusions or their worst phobias. Some take the form of tortured Shivers expressly to prey upon their victim’s survivor’s guilt, whilst the child-like Titters use their supposed innocence to lure their victims in before distorting their realities. In presenting all of these factions, it should be noted that a lot of teeth are on show and for an SLA Operative—or more likely Shiver trooper—there is a strong likelihood of their being torn apart, if not simply eaten. This is horrifying, but as much as SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 focuses on physical and body horror, with the Dream Entities it does not ignore mental horror either.

In its campaign to occupy, pacify, and reclaim Cannibal Sector 1, SLA Industries send innumerable men and women into the different regions on a variety of missions. First and foremost—at least recently—are the Shivers, previously assigned to patrol the streets of Mort or man the sector walls looking over each of the five Cannibal Sectors, but following a massive recruitment drive, sent into Cannibal Sector 1 to establish bridgeheads. Sector Rangers are SLA Operatives trained to scout the far reaches of the sector on six month-long tours, whilst SLA Operatives, the company’s elite, undertake missions to look good on television as much as they are to fulfill their objectives. Lastly, NAGA 7 Division protects Mort from the unknown and the unseen, primarily the Dream Entities.

These faction descriptions are not just simple write-ups of their history, their organisation, and so on. Every description is accompanied by write-ups of typical roles within the factions. So for the Shivers, there are stats and descriptions of Troopers, Pacifiers—close combat specialists, Sergeants, Breachers—defensive specialists, Medics, Shiver Dogeybone—heavy armour suits, and Shiver Elite. These are accompanied by write-ups of notable figures, in the case of the Shivers, Sergeant Rooker, a famed squad leader, and then notable squads. Similarly, the description of the Cannibal clans goes into their culture and daily routine, as well as their worship of Rawhead, before detailing the four clans and their organisation. These include their Matriarchs, Butchers—the prized sons of the Matriarchs, Wranglers—who raise and herd carnivorous pigs for feast, fighting, and fun, Runts—the not-so prized sons of the Matriarchs, and the Mastiffs—the Cannibal clans’ prized hunting beasts. This is followed by a full write-up of the aforementioned Jordy.

In all of this, SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 presents the Game Master with NPCs and threats to bring to her SLA Industries game, but that is not all. Another more chapter follows, detailing the flora and fauna of the sector—from the Arachnostalker, the armoured spiders known to lay massive webs and stalk its prey to exhaustion, and the disgusting Fleshworms which strike from cadavers to the annoying Clinger Algae, which degrades ceramics and so has to be scraped from the fortress walls of the Shiver Bridgeheads, and White Queen Lichen, the most poisonous substance in Cannibal Sector 1 which is harvested by Carrien to smear on their antlers and by Cannibals to coat their blades. Later on, full descriptions of the weather, toxins, diseases, and other environmental hazards to be found in Cannibal Sector 1 are given—and vile they are too! Lastly, Digger, the most feared thing in Cannibal Sector 1 is given stats and a write-up. The stats are all but superfluous since no player characters—whatever their skills or equipment—is ever going to take him down.

Equipment details are provided for all of the factions operating in Cannibal Sector 1. So the arms and armour of DarkNight as much as the Shivers, plus the bizarre things used by and against the Dream Entities. Not just the manufactured equipment of DarkNight and SLA Industries, but also the hand-built Scrap Armour, Punch Dagger, Ripper Gauntlet, Slingshot, and more used by the Carrien and Cannibals. The hardware section covers mundane equipment too, like the MT04 Trencher Shovel, the Piggy Wiggy easy-to-open meat tin, and Spritzcleen Sanitiser, the latter vitally important for operating in a sector that is redolent with disease and crud. Every item is given a full colour illustration, every gun, every melee weapon, every armour, every thing. Previous supplements for SLA Industries have not been able to do this, but it is important for two reasons. There is a strong military aspect to roleplaying and gaming in Cannibal Sector 1, so what a character takes beyond the city walls and might help ensure his survival is important, but also, SLA Industries is a game of commodification and mediatisation of violence and survival, so what you are equipped with matters… Lastly though, there is one vital piece of equipment that every Shiver squad will not go without—Colin the Teddy Bear. The surrogate squad member in case any one of their number is lost, Colin the Teddy Bear staves off any fall in morale which might come with the loss of a squad member, preventing their number falling the standard ten to the dreaded nine…

In terms of roleplaying, SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 adds a range of new skills, from Animal Husbandry—essentially Pigotry and Bridgehead Construction to Gristle—the Carrien language and Sector Lore. It provides rules for creating Shivers, the recruits currently being sent out to establish and hold Bridgeheads from to patrol and pacify, including various training packages. These are supported by a guide to building Bridgeheads and everyday life within them, as well as five scenario outlines. What SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 presents in terms of a campaign, is military-themed, a low intensity conflict that can be best described as a ‘Police Action’, with the ‘alien’ environment as much a danger as the inhabitants. There is scope also for long range patrols as Sector Rangers, as well as standard BPN missions for SLA Operatives, but the focus in SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 is on the Shiver set-up.

Lastly, SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 includes a set of skirmish rules for handling tactical situations between the various factions within the sector, each player controlling a patrol from one of these factions. Each player is given a pool of points or Creds, with which to design his patrol, whilst the Threat Level of any one model will determine how many can be in a patrol. These are clear, simple wargames rules for handling small engagements in 25 mm scale on an area roughly three by three feet. Rather than the standard roleplaying mechanics of SLA Industries, it uses a dice pool of ten-sided dice, with the best result counting. This being for SLA Industries, the rules also cover the use of Ebb—the strange power harnessed by Ebons and Brainwasters, as well as the various abilities of the Factions, like Juggernaut or Terror, fear being a possible response to many of the things found in the sector, plus the equipment. Several scenarios are given as are optional rules which cover vehicles and denizens.

The skirmish rules being for SLA Industries means that it is not just about defeating your opponent, but looking good on camera whilst doing it. Success in the rules means generating Ratings Points, the better the success, the greater the number of Ratings Points. A higher kill count will generate more, as will melee attacks. This modelled by the Bullet Tax, which encourages SLA Operatives (at least) to forgo the use of guns in favour of melee weapons. Overall, this is a solid subset of rules, offering an alternative to roleplaying in the World of Progress, though one that requires some investment in terms of the necessary figures.

Physically, SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 is a well-presented book. The layout is simple and clean and profusely illustrated. Every thing, every creature, and every one to be found in Cannibal Sector 1 is given a full colour, fully-painted illustration, and barely a page goes by without an image. And the artwork is all  very good. The writing throughout, is engaging and in many cases, entertaining, the pieces of in-game text in particular, whether it is jingles for Spritzcleen Sanitiser or Shiver Sergeant Raymonde Giles’ prologue to episode 238 ‘Jimmy’s Release Party’ of Shivers Fuck Shit Up. Note that the language is of an adult nature throughout, but that is in keeping with SLA Industries.

On the downside, of course, SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 is written for use with the first edition of SLA Industries rather the forthcoming SLA Industries: 2nd Edition, which is currently on Kickstarter. This means that its content are not easily compatible and so will need a conversion document. Another issue might be the lack of maps of individual locations, such as the Bridgeheads. 

The anticipation among fans of SLA Industries for Cannibal Sector 1 has been long and not without its difficulties. That anticipation, that wait though, has been worth it. The interesting fact about SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 is that were it to come with a set of rules of its own, it could have been the ‘Cannibal Sector 1 Roleplaying Game’. There is enough content and gaming material for it to have stood on its own and not as just a supplement for SLA Industries. It is no mere supplement though, for it extends and deepens the World of Progress like no supplement before it, at its core, pitting the ordinary lives of the Shivers against the outlandish—in all senses of the word—environments of Cannibal Sector 1, as well as offering other options. In addition, the effort made to show what the world of Cannibal Sector 1 looks like, from the mundane to monstrous is amazing, helping to bring the vision of the authors and artists to life.

SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 literally opens up a whole new sector for a SLA Industries campaign to play in, whether that is as a Shiver squad assigned to a Bridgehead or a team of SLA Operatives sent on a particular assignment. It presents threat after threat, danger after danger, and mystery after mystery in a wealth of detail which will fuel a SLA Industries Game Master’s campaign for months and months of play—if not more. Cannibal Sector 1 is a testament to the perseverance of its authors and artists, that despite the difficulties faced, they have produced such an impressive supplement. Overall, Cannibal Sector 1 adds so much to the World of Progress and in such a simple and stunning fashion, that every SLA Industries Game Master will want SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 the way a Shiver wants a Colin.

Extermination Exercises

Originally published by Nightfall Games in 1993, SLA Industries is a roleplaying game set in a far future dystopia of corporate greed, commodification of ultraviolence, the mediatisation of murder, conspiracy, and urban horror, and serial killer sensationalism. The player characters are employees of the eponymous SLA Industries, undertaking missions and assignments across the many sectors of Mort City, into Downtown, and even into the Cannibal Sectors beyond. They will hunt down serial killers, search the sewers for monsters, prevent terrorist attacks by rival corporations, silence dissenters, and more, not just taking the pay for each mission, but hoping to be caught on camera and the action footage be good enough to get them noticed, get them sponsorships and contracts, get them on the first rung to fame, fortune, and being media darlings. Over the years, the roleplaying game has been through the hands of several publishers—for good or ill—which means that it has not been as well supported as its devotees would like. Now back in the hands of the original publishing team, Nightfall Games, the core rule book for game has not only received a new printing, but the first new supplement in many years has finally seen print.

Previously only available as a series of PDFs—or data packets, Hunter Sheets Issue Two brings together twenty ‘Hunter Sheets’ that SLA Industries has issued to be taken by Contract Killers and Contract Hunters and fulfilled in return for an agreed payment. In the World of Progress that is SLA Industries, standard Operatives are assigned BPN or ‘Blue Print News’ sheets, tasks that require a mix of investigation and combat to fulfill, but Hunter Sheets detail threats, problems, and difficulties that SLA Industries wants dealt with by freelancers with more combat experience. They include serial killers, escaped experiments, aliens, rogue operatives, gang leaders, and more.

In game terms, these are assignments suited to experienced player characters and as such, are not fully fleshed out scenarios, but more slightly detailed outlines. Each target is accorded a description of his criminal portfolio and an actual Hunter Sheet which could be copied and handed to the players prior to their undertaking the assignment. This Hunter Sheet lists the target’s name and description, crime, and the department issuing the Hunter Sheet and the amount of the bounty to be paid upon its completion. Each Hunter Sheet also gives a Criminal Profile, Last Known Location, and Method of Attack for the target as well as headshot photograph. All together, the twenty of these take up the first half of the supplement. The second half of Hunter Sheets Issue Two provides the game stats for all twenty targets as well as some notes for the Game Master on using each target in the game.

The subjects of the Hunter Sheets include Rover, an Advanced Carrien trained by SLA Industries, but since gone rogue and become a business suited executive in Cannibal Sector 4 where he leads a very well organised carrien pack of his own. Suzi Tic-Toc is the last of the Tek Trex employees whose knowledge and ability to build and command drones is keeping her alive, but who SLA Industries wants dead—as well as her knowledge destroyed. Socko is the latest serial killer on Mort to break through the thirteen victim threshold and so come to the attention of the media, despite the fact that he is uncharismatic, inept, and ripe for the takedown by SLA Operatives or even civilians wanting to make a name for themselves. On the plus side, Socko is very good at making a getaway and he even has his own fan club!

Baba Naga is an incredibly old Ebon—a bag Ebon—who has the ability to use Glyph Cards to powerful and seemingly effect. Known as the ‘Blind Witch’, she is also known to cast fortunes using these Glyph Cards and the Department of Ebb really wants her and her knowledge off the streets of Mort City. Criss Cross is a preteen gang leader and visionary whose gang members have engaged in petty crime across Sector 45 of Downtown just as she has been indoctrinating them in anti-SLA propaganda. The Hunter Sheet for Sidi Gejkta is one the few to take the Operatives offworld. The Wraithen has gone rogue on an alien home world of Matanwa and dedicated himself to protecting the planet from further incursions by SLA Industries military forces. The change here takes SLA Industries as a roleplaying game and the player characters out of the Urban Horror genre which lies at its heart and ‘up country’ rather in the style of Apocalypse Now.

Each of these is then given game stats—though not Baba Naga—and notes and suggestions for their use in a game for the Game Master. For example, the notes for the serial killer, Socko, highlights what a sad individual he is with a domineering sister and a slew of wouldbe vigilantes and bounty hunters on his tail, whilst those for Criss Cross are surprisingly short and focus on the importance of her visions to certain departments within SLA Industries. Rounding out the section for the Game Master are details of the Root Dogs, one of the most vicious of the Conflict Races who used science and advanced technology to wage war rather than fight face-to-face, including releasing random herd creatures on target worlds to simply test them as much as defeat their enemies.

At the start, Hunter Sheets, Issue Two  suggests that Hunter Sheets are a fairly recent new innovation, one that has been taken advantage of by certain  combat focused operatives who have been forming ‘Death Squads’ and then going deep into Downtown. Not to go rogue as such, but to take advantage of their power to set up small fiefdoms lording it over civilians far from the reach, let alone the oversight, of SLA Industries. Consequently, opinion within the company is currently divided as to what to do about this situation, either seeing the use of Hunter Sheets and Death Squads as a necessity, but wanting to curb and control their excesses, or simply wanting to stop them all together. The twenty Hunter Sheets presented in this supplement represent reactions to them so far—as experiments, as necessities, as exercises in power, as the means to clear up embarrassments, and so on.

Physically, Hunter Sheets Issue Two is a slim hardback nicely presented full colour, although primarily using an olive or khaki-based colour range. Every target of one of these twenty targets is given a full illustration by Dave Allsop and these are all fantastic. Unfortunately, the editing leaves something to be desired. Almost every ‘fi’ or ‘fl’ letter combination is missing, making the book challenging to read in places, though the reader should be able to adjust.

If you run a SLA Industries campaign or are a devotee of the roleplaying game, then ownership of Hunter Sheets Issue Two is a must. It provides a score of combat-orientated missions and more than a score of potential foes, the player and their characters having some leeway in how they approach each, the Game Master being free to develop the specifics of each mission from the information given. Hunter Sheets Issue Two does need a tighter edit, but the Game Master can work around that to further develop its content for more experienced players and more experienced player characters of SLA Industries campaigns.

Faith's First Steps

Published by Burning Games in 2016, Faith: The Sci-Fi RPG is a Spanish Science Fiction Roleplaying Game that suffered from a number of issues which hampered play. Primarily these consisted of a lack of a scenario to play and a lack of background and objectives for the player characters, but the RPG also came without effective examples of how the rules worked or a fuller example of play. Despite these issues, Faith: The Sci-Fi RPG was not without its merits. The setting was intriguing, depicting a future in which some time after the collapse of human society, an alien insectoid species known as the Corvo appear, annex the Earth, and begin using humans as mercenaries in the ongoing cold war between the Corvo and their traditional enemy, aquatic mammals known as the Iz’kal. This lasted for nearly three centuries, but in the last three decades this war has been put on hold as the Corvo, the Iz’kal, and other species have been attacked by the Ravagers, a hive-race intent on harvesting any genetic material it can. The Corvo and the Iz’kal have formed a Coalition to defeat this threat, with Humans serving alongside both them and other species.

The setting of Faith: The Sci-Fi RPG is fairly hi-tech. Both biological and technological upgrades and implants are available and many devices can be accessed and even hacked using a Cortex Connector. The stars are reached not by Faster Than Light starships, but by accessing a network of wormholes called the Labyrinth, whose extent remains unknown. Beyond this though—and this is where Faith: The Sci-Fi RPG is unique—faith and a belief in the gods play a fundamental role in everyday life and beyond. Five are described. Ergon favours selflessness and happiness, Kavliva values strength and ambition, Vexal favours freedom and respect for individuality, Hexia values the pursuit of knowledge for the common good, and Ledger favours individualism above and the chaos it can reap. Of the five only Ledger does not have cults organised around his worship, although such cults are more organisations through which their members can demonstrate their faith rather bodies sanctioned by the gods. Anyone who embodies the commandments of one of these gods may be granted gifts or Divine Upgrades and become a Soulbender, able to warp reality.

Further, the mechanics in Faith: The Sci-Fi RPG favour player choice rather than randomness. They are card driven, each player drawing from their own decks, whilst the GM has his own. Although each player only holds a limited number of cards for each scene, they enable a player to better control his character’s luck rather than relying on the randomness of dice. Lastly, Faith: The Sci-Fi RPG is fantastically well illustrated with numerous, fully painted pieces of artwork that capture and depict the feel and grandeur of the setting far more than the writing does.

Now Burning Games has followed up Faith: The Sci-Fi RPG with FAITH: A Garden in Hell - RPG Starter Set. Funded via Kickstarter, FAITH: A Garden in Hell - RPG Starter Set is designed for two to five players, including the Game Master, which comes in a box that contains an eighty-page Campaign Book, a thirty-eight-page Rulebook, four player character folios, a GM tracking sheet, a deck of fifty-four of Gear & NPC Cards, a player deck, and four Boss Cards. Notably, the campaign, ‘A Garden in Hell’ is designed to be played straight out of the box, including as it does a scene that sets the campaign up and runs both players and Game Master through the mechanics.

Opening the box that contains FAITH: A Garden in Hell - RPG Starter Set and the first thing that you come to is the GM’s Outline. This four-page folio is the starting point for the boxed set, but it is primarily used to track the player characters’ progress through the campaign. It enables the GM to mark off chapters and various effects that will may affect later chapters as the campaign proceeds. Below this are the four player character folios, each four pages in length and complete with a background, technological and divine upgrades—currently possessed and available to take as the campaign proceeds, and of course, the character sheet. These folios are presented in a clear and open fashion, and are easy to read and use, especially the explanations of how various upgrades work. One notable feature is that each character’s skill and attribute ratings are marked not in black, but grey so that they can be easily amended as they play through the campaign and gain experience. These are accompanied by full colour card decks that detail the campaign’s NPCs and equipment, whilst the major NPCs are described and given stats on larger cards, essentially, ‘boss cards’.

The four player characters include two male and two female characters. They consist of a Corvo tech-engineer with a cybernetic arm, a Raag med-tech and xenologist, an Iz’kal covert ops specialist, and a Human military explorer. Interestingly, it is the Human character—Humans being primarily employed as mercenaries in this future—who is in charge rather than one of the major races of the Coalition. On the other hand, one race not represented in the ‘A Garden in Hell’ campaign are the Ravagers, who are available as a player character race in the Faith: The Sci-Fi RPG. Now there are reasons for this as the campaign does deal with secrets about the Ravager, but perhaps having a Ravager player character on the team would have been actually more interesting and more poignant once those secrets are revealed? Were a Game Master to want make adjustments to the campaign, this might be one that would add to ‘A Garden in Hell’.

The first of the two books in the box is the Rulebook. This is v1.5 of the Rulebook, which is available to download here. The Rulebook does include quick rules for creating player characters, so that a player could create his own to play through the campaign, though the four pre-generated player characters are designed with the campaign in mind. This version of the Rulebook benefits from more examples, but there is no example full play and the writing is perhaps a bit curt in places.

The ‘A Garden in Hell’ campaign casts the player characters as members of Team Inferi, a recon unit in the Coalition’s Planetary Expedition Corps. The Coalition has just launched a major operation against a Ravager strikeforce, but as the campaign begins, it is not going according to plan and Team Inferi finds itself alone, having crash-landed on System NT-44 after being attacked by Ravager forces. Team Inferi must survive this biologically rich and fecund world, recover what supplies they can and gather other survivors before going on to discover the secrets that the world hides. The structure of the campaign—which will find the player characters undertaking a wide array of mission types, including diplomatic, exploratory, patrol, recon, and rescue missions, and more—is somewhat linear in structure. There are points where the campaign opens up to allow the players to choose the missions that their characters can undertake and who they report to, allowing them to explore and experience more of the world and discover its secrets. Spread out over twenty-one chapters across four acts, the bulk of the encounters do involve combat, primarily against Ravager forces, but the planet is itself equally as dangerous, whether it is from native species or the environment itself, such as the acidic seas.

The ‘A Garden in Hell’ campaign does involve quite a lot of purple prose to read out, but notably, the first scene is specifically designed to walk the Game Master and his players through the rules and how they work. Essentially this can be done as soon as the Game Opens the box and examines everything, but to be fair, he would benefit from reading through the Rulebook first before running the campaign.

Unfortunately, FAITH: A Garden in Hell - RPG Starter Set is not without its issues. The most obvious one is an insufficient number of Player Decks. Now the new edition of the Rulebook that comes with this Starter Set does include new rules for multiple players to play using just the one Player Deck, but if they want a better showcase for the rules, a playing group can easily substitute Poker decks though or use those found in the Faith: The Sci-Fi RPG. The other is the writing itself. Although clear in meaning, it is often unnaturally phrased in places, for example, the use of ‘Unconfronted’ instead of ‘Uncontested’. Ideally, it needed localising before seeing print.

Physically, the components in FAITH: A Garden in Hell - RPG Starter Set are all in full colour and of good quality. Of course, the artwork in both the books and on the cards is fantastic and fantastical. In particular, the artwork created for the campaign—including the cartography—is particularly good and much of it can be used as illustrations to show the players as they play through the campaign.

Faith: The Sci-Fi RPG was a difficult game to approach because it did not give the Game Master and his players the means to apply it. FAITH: A Garden in Hell - RPG Starter Set does this and more. It provides the means to apply the rules and get a feel for what for the RPG is like, doing so through better presented rules and a playthrough example. Above all, FAITH: A Garden in Hell - RPG Starter Set provides a solidly written, well presented campaign that offers multiple sessions of good play and a taste of the Faith: The Sci-Fi RPG universe.

—oOo—

Currently, funds are being raised on Kickstarter for FAITH: The Sci-Fi RPG Core Book, which includes the complete rules and background.

Coming Together

Reunion is the first scenario for River of Heaven: Science-Fiction Roleplaying in the 28th Century, the near Transhuman Space Opera RPG published by D101 Games. Designed for four to six players, it is an introductory adventure that can be used as a one-off scenario, a convention scenario, or as the starting point for a campaign. They take the roles of crewmembers serving aboard the interstellar stepship, the Cape Verde, a vessel owned by House Harper-Yung, one of the ruling families on Jericho. Of course like any stepship, all interstellar piloting and navigation functions are carried out by a Pilot’s Guild provided Stepdaughter, who is literally plugged into the ship.

As Reunion opens, the crewmembers are waking up from Vitrification, the means of cryopreserving both passengers and crew for the long, typically years’ long, voyages between star systems. This is typically an unpleasant experience, those put under usually suffering from nausea, disorientation, and even temporary sleep sickness. Fortunately, the crew are trained to overcome these symptoms and quickly realise that something is amiss… First, the medical team that would usually be on hand to help revive them is not present. Second, they are in zero-g—which means that the ship is not accelerating. So where is the medical team and what has happened to the rest of the crew? Further, what is going on with the Cape Verde?

The truth of the matter is that the Cape Verde has been attacked and boarded. To say more would be to spoil the scenario, but the player character crew members need to find out by whom and why as well as what has happened to the rest of the crew. In doing so, they not only get to explore their stepship from nose to tail, they may also discover a deep, dark secret at the heart of River of Heaven. The player characters are free to pursue the plot in Reunion however they like, though much of the plot will proceed unless they intervene. There will certainly be locations aboard the Cape Verde that the player characters will want to visit—the bridge being an obvious example—and the scenario does include certain encounters to that end. For the most part, the scenario and its plot are location based, but this will diminish as the actions of the player character crew members impinge upon the plot. 

To support this set-up and plot, Reunion includes descriptions of, and deckplans for, the Cape Verde, plus the vessels used by the scenario’s adversaries. Also given are the stats and write-ups for the NPCs, both the crew members of the Cape Verde and of the adversary vessels. Last of all are the character sheets for the six pre-generated player characters.

Physically, Reunion is slightly underwhelming as the deckplans for the various spaceships and starships feel just a little too basic. The deckplans do break the book’s text as otherwise there are no illustrations. In places, Reunion could also do with another edit.

Reunion is a scenario in which the player characters really do need to be proactive in pursuing the mystery at its heart. If they prevaricate, there is every chance that they will find themselves adrift and potentially be unable to get back to civilisation. This is not so much of an issue in a one-shot or convention scenario, but in one intended as the start of a campaign…? Other than this, Reunion is a solidly done scenario with potential for some good action and revelations at the heart of the setting for River of Heaven.

A River of Heaven Dammed

The year is 2701 and mankind has reached the zenith of the Bright Age or Third Renaissance. In the past four centuries, world after world has been colonised and whole polities have declared their independence from Earth, but Faster Than Light travel remains a scientific impossibility. The first colony ships were slow, but in the wake of the near disastrous Solar System War that followed mankind’s first contact with the extra-terrestrial species known as the Spooks, recovered technology gave us the Step Drive and thus the Stepship. Piloted by Stepdaughters—each trained and provided by the Guild of Pilots and integrated into their vessels, these kilometre-long vessels are capable of achieving near Light Speed, cutting interstellar travel times by years—though passengers are still required to remain in cryogenic vitrification. This has enabled the Guild of Pilots to become one of the most powerful economic agencies across the River of Heaven, alongside the Guild of Engineers that maintains all Stepships  and the Guild of Communications that maintains the near instant Quantum Communications network along the 'River of Heaven'. More recently, the Machine Civilisation—descended from the first A.I.s built by mankind that escaped beyond the Solar System—returned to present us with amazing technological advances, including the Visser Cube. When linked Visser Cubes are placed in separate star systems, they enable interstellar travel via wormholes, further cutting travel times to as little as instantaneous or minutes.

The gifts from the Machine Civilisation have enabled the feudal corporate polity of the Kentauran Hegemony—centred on Alpha Centauri—to eclipse Earth and the Red Empire of Mars. This is a golden age, one that other worlds want to participate in, whilst others see the relationship between the Kentauran Hegemony and the Machine Civilisation as a threat to their individuality and their independence. Worse, away from the Cardinal Worlds of the Kentauran Hegemony, there are signs of interstellar piracy in the Outremer Worlds and a growing number of Renouncer Zealots—each intent on destroying all Artificial Intelligences.

This is the default setting for River of Heaven: Science-Fiction Roleplaying in the 28th Century, a far future, near Transhuman Science Fiction RPG published by D101 Games following a successful Kickstarter campaign. Notably, it is written by John Ossaway, who is best known for Cthulhu Rising, a near future setting in which mankind went out to the stars and discovered that the secrets best forgotten about the universe in the 1920s had a basis in a reality. It was a setting that showed much promise and was well supported by the author, but never received the support it deserved from Chaosium, Inc. bar a pair of Miskatonic University Library Association Monographs. The influences upon River of Heaven are as diverse as John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series, Alistair Reynold’s Revelation Space series, and Frank Herbert’s Dune novels—the latter in particular.

Mechanically, River of Heaven uses D101 Games’ OpenQuest, a stripped down version of Chaosium, Inc.’s Basic Role-Play, the original generic RPG first published in 1980 and most recently republished in 2008 whose  mechanics underlie  so many of the RPGs published by Chaosium.  These mechanics are still percentile-based, but OpenQuest keeps the number of skills and possible modifiers to a minimum. For the most part it does this effectively, but its combat mechanics cannot escape a certain degree of extra complexity, surprisingly more so for personal combat rather than for vehicle or space combat. Personal combat is also very deadly, two shots or a single critical hit being enough to disable, if not kill, a player character. This is particularly important given that under OpenQuest and thus River of Heaven, the ‘monsters’ or opposition are often as deadly as the player characters. Indeed, the advice for the Games Master is to keep the number of threats or foes faced by the player characters to a relative few lest they be overwhelmed. Over all, the rules are simple and straightforward and for anyone who has played Call of Cthulhu or RuneQuest, very easy to pick up.

Character creation is also simple. A player selects  Human Subspecies—Baseline Humans (from Earth or Outremer Worlds), Genies (most of humanity from the Cardinal Worlds), Skinnies (microgravity environments), Tweaks (bio-engineered pilots, soldiers, or for Zero-G environments), or Bioroids (biological robots) and either buys his character’s stats from a pool of points or rolls for them. Every character receives the same pools of points to spend in turn on his Resistances and his Combat, Knowledge, and Practical skills. A character also has a pool of points to spend on Augmentations—Biotech, Cyberware, and Nanotech like a GPS, Hypaedia (personal encyclopaedia), improved organs, subdermal communications, and so on. Many of these need to be activated to work and for every one installed, it pushes a character towards a personal singularity at which point he becomes Transhuman and a Games Master NPC. Every character has two Hero Points that can be spent to gain a re-roll, downgrade a Major Wound to a normal wound, and to avoid death. Options allow for Personality Traits that can triggered for skill bonuses and Motives that once fulfilled grant Improvement Points which are spent to better skills.

Our sample character is a minor member of House Harper-Yung of the Kentauran Hegemony. Of the Noble caste, he was caught up in a sex scandal two years ago and was exiled on a low remittance. Thus he has to be careful when he is in the Kentauran Hegemony. He is persuasive and well-mannered and prior to his exile was training to work in the family corporation. He had barely begun his studies when the scandal occurred. Now his primary skills are his charm, and his swordsmanship and ability to play chess.

Xiang Tu Harper
Human subspecies: Genie
STR 16 CON 13 DEX 18 SIZ 11
INT 17 POW 12 CHA 17
BioEnergy 12 Transhuman Points 6
RESISTANCES
Dodge 53% (+20%) Persistence 37% Resilience 35%
COMBAT SKILLS
Close Combat 64% Ranged Combat 45% Unarmed Combat 44% Heavy Weapons 17%
KNOWLEDGE SKILLS
Computer 17%, Culture (Kentauran) 47%, Culture (Other) 27%, Language (English) 67%, Language (Mandarin) 37%, Natural Sciences 27%, Religion 27%, Religion (Other) 17%, Technology 17%, Science 17%
PRACTICAL SKILLS
Athletics 39%, Craft 27%, Deception 35%, Drive 35%, Engineering (Type) 17 %, EVA 45%, Influence 47%, Medicine 27%, Mechanisms 35%, Perception 34%, Performance 27%, Pilot 37%, Streetwise 39%, Trade 37%
AUGMENTATIONS
Beacon/1, Combat Reflexes/2 (+4 to Combat Order), Cortical Shunt/1, Pheromones/2
Motivation – to be restored to House Harper-Yung

River of Heaven’s chronology runs from fifty years hence up to the early years of the Fourth Millennium. It is fairly detailed, whilst still allowing room for the Games Master to run his games. The setting at the time of the Bright Age is similarly detailed—if not more so—and that is something of a problem because River of Heaven does not quite get the presentation of its setting right. The primary focus of the RPG’s setting is physical in nature. Now this is understandable. After all, River of Heaven is a near space Science Fiction game set on other worlds, so some detail is needed about the physical nature of these worlds and the star systems they are in. Yet River of Heaven concentrates on the physical details—such as each star’s Metallicity and each planet’s Obliquity to orbit—at the expense of other background detail. Again, this is a Science Fiction RPG and some of these details are needed when running a Science Fiction campaign.

Yet others are not and what is lost in this focus is a feel for the people and organisations of the River of Heaven as well as their aims and objectives. So what are the aims and beliefs of the governments and corporations of the Kentauran Hegemony or the Empire of Mars? What does a Guild Engineer know and believe? Why does a Renouncer hate the Artificial Intelligences used throughout the River of Heaven? What does the Machine Civilisation want? To an extent, some of these questions are addressed in the Friends and Foes chapter under the individual entries, but even the given answers feel underwritten and unhelpful. This is despite the back cover blurb suggesting various roles that a player could take on, including “a crew member on an interstellar trader, a member of the mysterious Engineers’ Guild, a body-hopping Intercessionist agent – out to manipulate human cultures to its own secret ends, a Renouncer Zealot – intent on destroying Artificial Intelligence in all its forms, or perhaps one of the Reclaimers – planetary engineers dedicated to terraforming any viable planet they happen upon…” Unfortunately, River of Heaven just does not provide enough information or advice on how to create and portray such characters, and similarly, not enough information for the Games Master in creating interesting NPCs and plots.

Creating an interstellar Science Fiction RPG in which there is no means of Faster-Than-Light travel was always going to be a challenge because Slower-Than-Light makes travel from one star system to another very slow and thus slows a story down. River of Heaven works around this with the advanced technology of the Visser Cube, but only to an extent, so that interstellar space travel becomes more of a storytelling device for the Games Master. Where River of Heaven is actually interesting is in that it presents several centuries of playable history. The default time period is the Bright Age during which contact with the Machine Civilisation advanced humanity by several centuries, in particular enabling near instantaneous interstellar travel. Yet other timeframes also lend themselves to campaigns. for example, during the Solar System War against the Spooks in the late twenty-third century and then later during the Renouncer War at the end of the third millennium. Of course, the Bright Age framework suggests its own campaign possibilities, such as merchant traders—though the extreme high cost of starship ownership means that the player characters are likely to working for someone else or renting space aboard a Step Ship; participating in the ongoing cold war between the Kentauran Hegemony and the Empire of Mars; and archaeologists exploring the Solar System and the ravaged Earth for its secrets.

Physically, River of Heaven is a brightly and breezily presented. The artwork is decent, though it may not be to everyone’s taste. Unfortunately, the editing inconsistent and the presentation suffers towards the end of the book, as does the writing, almost as if the layout artist and editor began to lose interest. If there is one thing definitely missing from River of Heaven, it is a star map. Which is an odd omission given that the RPG is meant to be set in an accurate representation of the stars near Earth.

As a Science Fiction setting, River of Heaven benefits from a simple, but familiar set of mechanics and a far future setting that is interesting and not without potential. Unfortunately, the setting of  River of Heaven: Science-Fiction Roleplaying in the 28th Century feels undeveloped and under-presented, and until the author and D101 Games can give us better support, is something for the Games Master to develop.

Cosmic Numenera

The Ninth Age, the setting for Monte Cook Games’ Origins award-winning RPG, Numenera is already weird. Its combination of Science Fiction and Fantasy set a billion years in the future brings together all manner of strange devices and uncanny wonders, both great and small. Such devices and wonders may well be ‘magic’, but they may also be technologies, relics of the past ages or civilisations. They all but litter the landscape, from small artefacts known as ciphers to great edifices that hang in the sky without rhyme or reason, whilst creatures unknown to our distant age—alien species, newly evolved animals, bioengineered things, and more, lurk just beyond the edges of the civilisation, just as that current civilisation lurks in the shadows of those past... Which all seems perfectly suited to one further ingredient—Lovecraftian horror!

In Strange Aeons: Lovecraftian Numenera is a mini-supplement designed to add the Cosmic horror of author H.P. Lovecraft to Numenera, to make it even more uncanny, even stranger, and further, unfathomable. Unfathomable to the point where the mental fortitude of the adventurers is threatened and undermined. It describes how to elements of Cosmic Horror to adventures and campaigns set in the Ninth Age, including rules for handling the loss of sanity and its effects, reskinning creatures with Cthulhoid tags, and of course, certain creatures of the Mythos. The supplement comes as a full colour, twelve-page PDF, just 0.9 MB in size.

Divided into three parts, In Strange Aeons: Lovecraftian Numenera begins with ‘Bringing Lovecraft to the Ninth World’. Here author Monte Cook gets to play a little further with the Arthur C. Clarke Third Law that states that ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’, for although much of the numenera or devices of the Ninth Age may look like or work like magic, they are actually scientific or technological items, though ones created using knowledge that is now lost. In a Ninth Age lost to the baleful effects of Cosmic Horror, such scientific or technological items are just as likely to be ones created by a science never fathomed by man. Thus the discovery of Lovecraftian Numenera is likely to have unheralded effects and influences. A Lovecraftian Ninth Age will  not only be weirder, but will also push the setting away from exploration and adventure, to one of exploration and horror. Overall, this is a solid introduction to combining the genres.

Of course any encounter with the Cthulhu Mythos requires a sanity check and thus a means to handle sanity loss. Numenera being a simple system means that the new mechanics for are just as simple. Saves against sanity are done as Intellect defence rolls. Should a character’s Intellect be driven to zero, the excess is not passed onto another attribute, but simply lost, whilst the maximum size of the Intellect pool is reduced by one. Should his Intellect pool be permanently driven to zero, then he gains the Mad descriptor. A further means of the effect of sanity can also be effected through GM Intrusions—the latter being one Numenera’s more interesting storytelling mechanics.

The second part of the supplement, ‘Lovecraftian Descriptors and Skins’, gives mechanical means to handle the Mythos. The two Descriptors—descriptors describing how a character does something—are ‘Mad’ and ‘Doomed’. Both suit the additional genre and both have their advantages and disadvantages, but mostly the latter. For example, the ‘Doomed’ Descriptor grants a bonus to a character’s Speed pool as well as skills in perception and Speed defense tasks, plus Intellect defense tasks related losing your sanity. All this because the character is jumpy, wary of danger, defensively minded, and both cynical and pessimistic. Yet the character is also Doomed, so whenever the GM uses an Intrusion on him, the character refuse it nor does he receive XP for accepting it. Now that is undoubtedly harsh, but hey, the character is doomed…!

The Skins are equally simple matters. The three—Non-Euclidian, Squamous, and Unnamable—provide means to adapt the creatures of the Ninth Age to a Lovecraftian horror setting. For example, Non-Euclidian creatures are not only more skilled in Speed defense and in stealth tasks, they can also slip between the spaces to seemingly teleport short distances. Again, useful and simple.

The third and final part of the supplement is devoted to Lovecraftian Creatures. These are few in number, being just four. Which is somewhat disappointing. The four are Deep Ones, Great Race of Yith, Mi-Go, and Shoggoths. Given a page each, these are rather nicely written up, in particular the Great Race of Yith and the Mi-Go, both of which are highly suited to the Numenera setting as they are noted for their scientific, if alien bent. Nevertheless, four such creatures is not enough—and surely Nyarlathotep could have made an appearance!

Physically, In Strange Aeons: Lovecraftian Numenera is well presented. The artwork is very good and the writing clean and simple. If there is an issue with the supplement it is not the uninitiated—the GM will still need to know his Mythos. Either through reading the fiction or having played any one of the Lovecraftian horror RPGs available, it helping that a mix of both is listed in the supplement’s bibliography.

There is almost nothing wrong with In Strange Aeons: Lovecraftian Numenera. It provides a GM with just about everything needed to add the basic elements of Cosmic Horror to his game, and what does being evocative and interesting. What is wrong with In Strange Aeons: Lovecraftian Numenera is the feeling that there should be more. In fact there should be a full Lovecraftian RPG using the Cypher System—the supplement certainly hints at the possibility. As a side note, this supplement would also work with The Strange, Monte Cook Games’ other RPG.

In Strange Aeons: Lovecraftian Numenera is a pleasingly simple and straightforward supplement. It might well, very much, leave you wanting a lot more, but what it does give is evocative and embodies the weird side of the Mythos.

Into the Vortex...

Vortex is a scenario for Monte Cook’s Origins award winning Numenera RPG originally used to launch and showcase the setting and RPG at  GenCon 2013. It is designed to challenge three to six characters who should be of either First or Second Tier and is flexible enough to be used as either a demonstration adventure, an introduction to the setting, or as part of an on-going campaign. Available as a 13.42 MB, thirty-page PDF, it includes not only an eighteen-page adventure itself, but also a dozen pre-generated adventurers all ready to play, the latter being available as a 24 MB,  twelve-page PDF.

Written in two acts, Act I of the adventure, ‘The Temple’, mostly takes place in a wilderness area. The player characters are exploring the region when they come upon a strange structure outside of which be-robed figures are conducting a ritual. Before the characters can interact with the figures they disappear into the structure, but not before leaving behind some food and a notebook. The structure then rumbles into the ground and disappears, but fortunately for the player characters, the notebook contains details as to when and where the structure will reappear. What do the player characters do?

Curiosity should be enough for the player characters to follow up on the clues in the notebook. After all, this is the Ninth World and exploring the technologies of the past should be the motivation for many, if not all of the characters in a party.  Following up on the clues will bring the characters through a nearby village and present a minor encounter. It is a decent little encounter that given that Vortex is a demonstration scenario serves to show how the Cypher System, the mechanics for Numenera, work in play and give the opportunity for the players to try out their characters’ abilities in a fight. 

Beyond that, the characters should eventually make their way to the point where the structure is supposed to reappear and when it does, the first person to exit begs for their help—she and her brother have been kidnapped by a cult and they want out! Here begins the real meat of the adventure, the opportunity not only to help out a damsel in distress, but also explore the mysterious disappearing and reappearing structure. It is also here where the adventure picks up and gets a little more interesting. The cult itself should not trouble the player characters unduly, though the cult leader may be a bit of a challenge.  Once he has been dealt with, Vortex changes tack and gets a whole lot more interesting.

Act II, ‘Through the 'Vortex' draws the characters deeper into the secrets of the Vortex—and beyond! Where the first Act focused on combat and interaction—in the village and then in the strange structure, here the emphasis changes to exploration and examination. If Act I felt a little too much like the traditional start of a Dungeons & Dragons style scenario, then Act II is where Vortex really begins to feel like a Numenera scenario in its Science Fiction. For the switch in emphasis in Act II is ably supported by the weirdness of the setting and the destination that lies ahead of the player characters—if they prevail and uncover the right clues that is. Not that the weird is not present in Act I, for in addition to its combat encounter there are a number of smaller locations to explore and experience, but it comes to the fore in Act II. This is the ‘Citadel of Radiance’, a thoroughly fantastic setting in the truest sense of the word. 

Vortex can be used as is, or split into two parts, but Act I should only take a session or two to play through at most, whilst Act II will probably take two or three. There is advice on running it as part of a campaign game or a convention scenario, and also on what might happen afterwards, although the given suggestions are a bit slight. There is though, a slightly disjointed feel to the scenario. The whole affair is written more as a pair of sandboxes—one for each act—that the players and their characters are expected to explore and interact with. The issue though is that there is a strong plot that runs through Vortex whilst there really is little for them to just explore and interact at random in true sandbox style. More encounters around both the village and in the strange structure would have supported the sandbox format. Nevertheless, Vortex is a well written, detailed scenario.

Vortex also comes with a set of six pre-generated characters. They include two characters of each type and the six do a decent job of showcasing some of the character types possible using the rules in the Numenera core rules.

Vortex is an excellent scenario. It can also be a deadly scenario, but without the risk, where is the fun or the reward? Vortex does a very good job of showcasing the strange and wondrous nature of the past some nine billion years from now…

Wondrously More Than Magic

In the far future mankind will have done wonderful things. Travelled to other universes. Controlled the energies of stars. Constructed cities and structures that float in the sky. Harnessed the smallest of machines to undertake great tasks and more. Modified the appearance and genetics of not just the beasts around them, but of themselves to give endless form and function. All this and more over the course of eight aeons and eight great civilisations, but now, following the fall of the last civilisation, what is left of such great achievements are orbiting satellites that beam constant streams of inaccessible information, engines deep within the Earth whose thrumming can at times be felt on the surface, structures that hang in the sky without the means to access them, portals that occasionally open to other worlds that might lead to greater wonders or imminent death, clouds of swarming nanites, terraformed and modified landscapes that defy purpose, and of course, the 'numenera'. In this the Ninth World, people look upon the wonders of the past, knowing that it was achieved through technological means—not magic, but knowing that they have lost the means to create it or in many cases, to use it as it was originally intended.

The people of the Ninth World are humans, though some are abhumans—mutants, crossbreeds, the genetically engineered, and their descendants, or they are visitants, who have come to Earth, but are not native to it. They reside in the Steadfast, a collection of kingdoms and principalities that exist under the watchful benevolence of the Amber Pope, whose Aeon Priests of the Order of Truth revere the peoples of the past and their knowledge and technology. The Order of Truth not only studies the past and its technologies, it tries to find a use for them to the betterment of the peoples of the Steadfast. The peoples of the Ninth World make use of the technology that they can scavenge—and which the Aeon Priests tell them is safe to use, turning it into armour, weapons, and everyday devices and tools to enhance the medieval technology they currently possess. In particular they employ Numenera—artifacts, cyphers, and oddities— bits of technology leftover from past civilizations, that may have an obvious function; may have once had an obvious function, but what that was has been lost and the device is put to another use; or may have once had an obvious function, but what that was has been lost and can no longer be discerned.

This is the setting for Numenera, a Science-Fantasy RPG set a billion years into the future, designed and written by Monte Cook whose credits include Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition, numerous d20 System titles, and of course, his own campaign setting, Ptolus. Originally and very successfully launched on Kickstarter, Numenera is also a post-apocalyptic setting that embraces the weird, though not in the wacky sense of say Wizards of the Coast’s Gamma World or the arch-baroque decadence of Pelgrane Press’ Dying Earth role-playing game or the oppressively rich Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne. It does though, embrace a sense of wonder and the wondrous, but in its underlying play, it certainly draws parallels with Gamma World in that the player characters go out into the world and explore the ruins and devices of the past in the hope that they can use them to improve the society of today. In a sense, Numenera is a dungeon bash game, the characters delving across, down, up, and beyond into the wonders of the past to plunder its relics, but the technological and the fantastical elements of the setting push it away from that as does the fact that the characters are not delving necessarily for riches. As a game, Numenera is a contemporary design in that it embraces both rules light mechanics and light storytelling mechanics.

Characters in Numenera are primarily humans in one form or another—visitants are an advanced option and one of three Types—Glaives, Nanos, or Jacks. Glaives are warriors, either wearing heavy armour and wielding heavy weaponry or relying light arms and armour to give them movement and agility. Nanos are sorcerers, capable of tapping into the Numenera to alter reality or learn more about it, wielding ‘Esoteries’ to command nano-spirits. Jacks are somewhere in between, being flexible in what they can do, capable of learning to fight, using ‘Esoteries’, and more. At their core, each character is defined by three stats—Might, Speed, and Intellect, and a descriptive sentence. This sentence has the structure of “I am a [adjective] [noun] who [verbs]”, where the noun is the character’s Type; the adjective a descriptor, such as Clever or Swift, that defines the character and how he does things; and the verb is the Focus or what the character does that makes him unique. For example, “I am a Charming Jack who Murders”. A player will also need to assign some points to the three Stats and choose some options in terms of Background—how the character became a Glaive, Nano, or Jack—and select some skills from the Type. The choice of descriptor and the verb further defines and modifies the character, whilst the Background and the Connection help hook the character into the setting. Characters begin at Tier One and can advance as far as Tier Six, gaining skills and abilities along the way.

The three sample characters attempt to showcase what the system can do. The Glaive is intentionally basic, almost bland, primarily a fighting man in a strange world, so that the Nano and Jack have something to compare with. The Nano is capable of talking to machines and has an innate understanding of numenera, but the downside is that the people around think him odd. The Jack has implants from the past that enable him to manipulate gravity, but does not know where they are from and how they work. The answers might lie with his father, but he has gone missing.

Thre’un
“I am a Strong Glaive who Rages”
Tier One Glaive
Might 17 (Edge 1)
Speed 12 (Edge 1)
Intellect 9 (Edge 0)
Effort 1

Cyphers (2): (Two Cyphers selected by the GM)
Physical Skills: Breaking inanimate objects, Climbing, Jumping, Practiced with all armour, Practiced with all weapons
Fighting Moves: Bash (1 Might), Thrust (1 Might), Frenzy (1 Intellect)
Equipment: Great hammer, broadsword, shield, medium armour, explorer’s pack, 5 shins
Connection: Bouncer in a local bar for a while, the patrons recall me
Origin: Inborn Abilities

Huongsem
“I am a Mechanical Nano who Talks to Machines”
Tier One Nano
Might 08 (Edge 0)
Speed 12 (Edge 0)
Intellect 17 (Edge 1)
Effort 1

Cyphers (3): (Three Cyphers selected by the GM)
Esoteries: Distant Activation (1 Intellect), Hedge Magic (1 Intellect), Scan (2 Intellect), Sense Numenera, Ward
Skills: Identifying & understanding numenera, Machine Affinity, Practiced with light weapons
Equipment: Dagger, book about numenera, bag of tools, 4 shins
Connection: An experiment went wrong and the locals remember you 
Origin: Ports & Plugs
Notes: Unnerving aura

Kishiev
“I am a Graceful Jack who Controls Gravity”
Tier One Jack
Might 11 (Edge 0)
Speed 16 (Edge 1)
Intellect 11 (Edge 0)
Effort 1

Cyphers (2): (Two Cyphers selected by the GM)
Tricks of the Trade: Hedge Magic (1 Intellect), Hover (1 Intellect), Pierce (1 Speed)
Skills: Balance & Careful Movement, (Flexible) Skill, Perception, Physical Performing Arts, Practiced with light & medium weapons, Speed Defence
Equipment: Clothing, bow & arrows, explorer’s pack, pack of light tools, device for determining mass, 8 shins
Connection: Worked alongside his father who has since disappeared 
Origin: A Cobbled Jumble

Mechanically, Numenera uses a single mechanic—the roll of a single twenty-sided die against a Difficulty, ranging from zero up to ten. The actual Target Number is the value of the Difficulty multiplied by three, thus giving a range between three and thirty—any action with a Difficulty of zero is automatic. Modifiers, whether from favourable circumstances, skills, or good equipment, can decrease the Difficulty, whilst skills give bonuses to the roll. A character can also spend points from his Stat pools—on a one-to-one basis—to reduce the Difficulty, though a player should bear in mind that the Stat pools reflect his ability to act and take damage when attacked. The cost of spending points from a Stat pool is reduced by its associated Edge, as are the use of a Glaive’s Fighting Moves, a Nano’s Esoteries, and a Jack’s Tricks of the Trade. In some cases, this will reduce the cost to zero, thus reducing it to an innate action. For example, Huongsem has an Intellect Edge of 1, which reduces the cost of his Distant Activation and Hedge Magic Esoteries—both of which cost one point from his Intellect pool to use—to zero and so he can do them instinctively, whereas with his Scan estorie, he must still expend a point from his Intellect pool to use it, though its cost is reduced from 2 to 1. Results of nineteen indicate a success and a Minor Effect, which might be extra damage in combat or something listed for a character, such as ‘Hitting a Muscle’ for the ‘Carries a Quiver’, which inflicts Speed damage as well as ordinary damage. A roll of a natural twenty also inflicts extra damage as well as a Major Effect. 

While the system is simple enough—even if the GM adds any of the given options—the radical, even elegant aspect to the mechanics is that the GM never, ever rolls a die. So whilst a character rolls to attack as normal, when an opponent attacks him, the character rolls to avoid the attack. Essentially the mechanic focus of the game is always on the player characters and they are always the focus of the action and the story. At the same, the shift for the GM is on running and presenting the story, not the dice rolls, and as a development of this idea, player characters receive Experience Points in again, another radical fashion when compared to other RPGs. First and foremost, they are not earned for defeating opponents, overcoming challenges, and so on, but for finding interesting numenera and making discoveries. Secondly, a player character gains them when the GM ‘intrudes’ on the game in storytelling terms to present the character with a challenge or difficulty, such as his crossbow string snapping whilst in combat or the rope slipping whilst climbing. Accept this ‘Intrusion’ and the character earns two Experience Points, one of which he must give to another character. A player could reject this ‘Intrusion’, but that would cost him an Experience Point. If a character rolled a natural one at any time, the GM can give an ‘Intrusion’ that cannot be bought off. However it comes, a GM ‘Intrusion’ replaces the need for him to roll dice and encourages him to participate in the telling of the story.

Over a third of Numernera is devoted to the setting of the Steadfast, its environs and beyond, literally, The Beyond. This is anything that lies outside of the nine kingdoms of the Steadfast and the Beyond the Beyond is also detailed. One such location Beyond the Beyond is The University of Doors, a place of learning found in an alternate universe that can only be reached via one or more hidden doors—getting to the door could be an adventure in itself. These sections are full of interesting details and places—such as the ‘mud’ city of Nihliesh, built atop an ancient, but immobile city-vehicle; that the lady Anatrea of Castle Aventur hosts salons for scholars and nanos, such is her fascination with numenera; and that a sphere of an unknown black material is rumoured to constantly roll across the Plain of Kataru.  Several organisations besides the Order of Truth, including the Convergence, whose members value Numenera as much as the Order of Truth, but for themselves rather than for society itself; the Angulan Knights, who are dedicated to humanity’s advancement and have the blessings of Order of Truth and ride the great xi-drakes as mounts; and the Jagged Dream, a secret anarchist cult dedicated to engineering conflict on a massive scale, are also detailed. The chapter of critters continues the weirdness of the setting with some odd creatures indeed, like the Sarrak, an eight-foot long cat-like predator that has a three-foot diameter ball of energy as a head. A lovely touch is that for each of the creatures, the GM is given an ‘Intrusion’ which he can use to make the encounter more challenging. So for the Sarak, it can suddenly seize control of character’s device to switch it off or turn it against him as an ‘Intrusion’.

Of course at the heart of Numenera are the numenera themselves, the devices of the past that have been put to uses old and new. They come in three types—Cyphers, Artifacts, and Discoveries and Oddities. Cyphers are one-time use devices, such as a Density Nodule that attaches to a weapon and increases its density and damage capacity for a day or Stim, which decreases the Difficulty of a character’s next action by three steps. Common Cyphers are drugs, medicines, or grenades. More desirable are the Artifacts, as they have greater endurance and more obvious application. It might be an Automated Cook or a suit of Battle Armour, a Hoop Staff that projects images into the bronze hoop at its top that warn of danger, or a Telltale Glass that turns red if poison is ever poured into it. Artifacts are not always perfect and may have quirks that the GM can use as ‘Intrusions’. Lastly, Oddities and Discoveries are interesting finds that do not have in game terms any actual mechanical effects, such as crystal that reforms after being smashed or a ring that when warn, gives the feeling of being caressed by warm hands. They can of course, be sold, but they also add verisimilitude to the Ninth World, being essentially the ephemeral gewgaws and knickknacks of a past age.

Interestingly, the player characters are limited in the number of Cyphers that they can each possess by their Type (Glaive, Nano, or Jack). Possess too many and a character’s Cyphers begin to have side effects, sometimes dangerous ones. The people of the Ninth World know this and distrust those with too many. This limit is both a game mechanic and a setting mechanic. It both enforces the fleeting nature of Cyphers and the need to use—because using them is fundamentally cool—whilst at the same preventing any player from just hoarding them.

The GM is supported with his own section of advice that covers using the rules, creating stories, and bringing the Ninth World to life. All three chapters are well written as befitting the author of the highly-regarded Dungeon Master’s Guide for Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition. Rounding out the volume is a quartet of adventures that do a decent job of showcasing and helping the GM to showcase the mechanics and setting of Numenera. Physically, Numenera is a beautiful book. The artwork works very hard to bring the look and feel of the Ninth World to vibrant life. The writing is assured and the layout tidy. The book is also a pleasure to read and organised well—particularly in the early chapters where the author explains the basics of the setting, the basics of the rules, and so on. A nice touch is the author takes the time to explain to the reader the differences between the world of the twenty-first century and that of the Ninth World.

Despite its size and scope, there is a lightness of touch to Numenera that is not to be found in other post-apocalypse set roleplaying games. It shows most obviously in the ‘player facing’ mechanics, but it is the Ninth World itself that comes to dominate with its weird and its wondrous future displayed both in the art and the description. Numenera is a beautiful book and a beautifully realised and accessible, if alien setting that begs us to explore and discover its fantastical science to build a bright new future.