The Other OSR: Book of Beasts

With Forbidden Lands – Book of Beasts, the number of creatures and threats with which to menace the Player Characters doubles! Published by Free League Publishing, Forbidden Lands – Book of Beasts provides twenty-eight descriptions of monsters fierce and fearsome adding to the twenty-three given in the core rulebook for the ‘Retro Open-World Survival Fantasy RPG’, Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World. Every entry comes with a short piece of colour fiction, full stats and abilities, and a table of Monster Attacks. That though is not all. For there is also a table for the player to roll his character’s Lore skill and so determine what Insights he might have into the creature. Then there is not one but two random encounters, each with some flavoursome description and an indication of the terrain types where the monster might be found. Lastly, there is a description of the ‘Resources’ that might be harvested from a monster if the Player Characters manage to kill one. Last, but least, there is a superb illustration. Beautiful, rich, and detailed, every image of a creature in Forbidden Lands – Book of Beasts is captivating. Any time that the Game Master shows one of these to her players, she really is going to amaze them.

So the Mummy is depicted as a dried husk of a warrior, grinning as it holds a victim by the throat in one hand, whilst readying a sword in the other. It is described as being in life a great lord who lusted after power, a lust that was not dimmed by the cold death of the crypt. In its unlife, it reigns over the steel and gold it was buried with and now jealously guards. Its body is hollowed out and empty and it hungers for the salts and juices that flow through the bodies of the living, having become a predatory cannibal in death. Some of this will be revealed in a Lore roll, but there is more that the Player Characters can learn. One of the random encounters is just a simple tomb description, whilst the other is a bit more exciting—a Mummy’s tomb that is already open and would have been plundered by some graverobbers were it not for the fact that they are being attacked by a Mummy and its servants!

In terms of stats, the Mummy is incredibly strong, but otherwise slow. It is unnaturally drawn to human entrails, but bound to its tombs. Its attacks include ‘Lordly Strike!’, which inflicts such a heavy blow that the defender is knocked prone, whilst with ‘Heart Constriction’, the Mummy makes a crushing genre with his fingers at an opponent who suffers a sudden and terrible pain in his chest and is potentially overcome with mortal terror! This is of course, in addition to the other four attacks listed for the Mummy, whilst the last entry in the monster description suggests the only Resource that can be harvested from a Mummy is the powder ground from its bones that when swallowed grants a bonus to the imbiber’s Strength.

So every monster and every creature in Forbidden Lands – Book of Beasts is given this treatment to great effect. The entries are all easy to read and easy to use, and include things such as a Dread Raptor, Giant Spider—which has descriptions of hatchlings, adults, and elders, the Iron Dragon, the Nature Spirit, Rat King, Twisted Ent, and more. There are some great monsters here and they provide the Game Master with some fantastic new options in terms of presenting challengers to her players. However, that is not all that there is in the pages of Forbidden Lands – Book of Beasts, although they do take up nearly two thirds of the book.

The content beyond the monsters in Forbidden Lands – Book of Beasts begins with a random encounter table for the thirty-six encounters that follow. All of these again, have a single paragraph of colour fiction, suitable to read out to the players, and typically a half page of detail, though some have more. Stats are included where necessary, but there is always a list of the terrain where the encounter can take place. They range from finding a man locked in a hanging iron cage pleading to be let free and coming across an old battlefield that could be salvaged to going to the aid of a legendary brewer and being employed to track down the bandits that attacked him and having to placate the spirit of an orc lord after sitting on his somewhat bedraggled stone throne. Some are as simple as coming across a piece of statuary and the opportunity to learn some lore about the history of the region, whilst others are more complex like discovering a length of a Dwarven wall and with the aid of an expert on its history finding a way to the tomb of an ancient chieftain. Not all of them are quite ready to run though, so there are several which require more development than others, such as the meaning behind a coded message that is found on a dead pigeon. This is though, a good selection of encounters and scenario hooks.

Oddly, Forbidden Lands – Book of Beasts has its own section of ‘Game Master Tools’ as if none of the previous content was for the Game Master and this section is for her eyes only. Of course, the whole book is for the Game Master. The section contains a list of traps, from nets, poison darts, and crusting boulders to domination, magical traps, and teleportation, which can be rolled for or selected, whilst ‘Books, Ballads, and Grimoires’ expands upon the ‘Carried Valuable Finds’ and ‘Carried Precious Finds’ from the Game-master’s Guide. These can all be studied and in return, a Player Character can gain a bonus, which can be a Talent or a skill increase. For example, ‘Easy Little Dwarfling’, a lullaby by Yendra grants the Lightning Fast Talent, whilst ‘Sweet, Courage, and Leverage’ by Nilia Trollvälte is a manual that increases the Might of anyone who studies it. Between the various categories, there are over seventy entries here and even just having the names of either the manuals and ballads, and their authors, adds to the immersive nature of the Forbidden Lands setting. A similar set of tables adds new artefacts to the roleplaying game, though they lack the description and detail given to those in the core rules.

‘Journeys’ adds further tables, but this time for nature of different locations or terrain types, ranging from plains, forests, and dark forests to quagmires, marshlands, and ruins, and then it does the same for camps, plus there is trio of quick and dirty weather tables. In general, the ‘Journeys’ only adds a little extra detail and the tables are limited in their number of entries. Strongholds form a major part of play in Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World, whether that is the Player Characters needing to investigate one, either to take and hold it as a base of operations or explore and scavenge its contents, or as a base of operations, work to make the surrounding area safer. ‘Rules for Strongholds’ adds to the rules found in the Player’s Handbook with a short table of events and a long table of potential servants, their personalities, and secrets. The table of events could have been much, much longer, whereas in a campaign, the Game Master will get much more out of the table of servants.

‘Potions & Poisons’ opens up a new aspect of play, especially for the Player Character with the Herbalist Talent. It allows a Player Character with this Talent to forage for herbs and with the addition of the new Alchemist Talent, him to brew and concoct various potions, tinctures, and more. There are rules here for a new function that can be added to the Player Characters’ stronghold, a Laboratory, which adds a bonus to brewing potions and poisons. In addition to the list of various alchemical potions, there is a list of poisons too, which is useful for the Poisoner Talent. There is a new rule what happens if too many potions are consumed in too short a time.

Lastly, Forbidden Lands – Book of Beasts includes ‘Solo Rules’. This addition to various roleplaying games has become popular since the advent of COVID-19 and the extended periods of lockdown, enabling players to play face-to-face gaming at the table proved impossible. The rules here give the player, which of course, can be the Game Master, the means to explore the Forbidden Lands alone. The Player Character needs to be a little more powerful than a standard Player Character, and suggests that Lucky be taken as an extra General Talent. There are rules here for including a companion character, potentially a replacement Player Characters, and tables for the creating encounters and providing answers that the Player Character might have about the world around him. An ordinary deck of playing cards is required to generate the answers from what the rules call ‘Oracles’, covering simple ‘Yes/No’ questions, ‘Helpful/Hazardous’ situations, and more. As with other solo rules, the ones presented here make play more procedural than standard play and of course, they lack the capacity for roleplaying. Nevertheless, they are a useful option.

Physically, Forbidden Lands – Book of Beasts is a black and white book, but an absolutely fantastic-looking one. The artwork is exquisite. Otherwise, the book is very well written and easy to read.

Forbidden Lands – Book of Beasts is great addition to Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World and so much more than a simple bestiary. In fact, as a bestiary, it is not even simple. The monsters and creatures described are things out of nightmare and folklore, memorably menacing and dangerous. There is more to them than just encountering a gaggle of Goblins as in other roleplaying games, aided by the uncertainty of their different and random attacks, their lore, and of course, the encounter descriptions which accompany each entry. Then, there is the rest of the content in Forbidden Lands – Book of Beasts—encounters, traps, alchemy and potions, and quite a lot more. Forbidden Lands – Book of Beasts is not just a great bestiary for Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World, but a good companion to its rules as well.

An Other OSR Quartet II

Forbidden Lands: Crypt of the Mellified Mage is an anthology of four adventure sites for use with Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World, the ‘Retro Open-World Survival Fantasy RPG’ published by Free League Publishing, following from the earlier The Spire of Quetzel. Like The Spire of Quetzel, it provides the Game Master with four more locales she can slot into her Forbidden Lands campaign—whether her own or Raven’s Purge, the roleplaying game’s epic eight-part campaign with an open structure built around eight locations and a finale at a ninth location—or possibly run as one-shots. They reflect the open play style of Forbidden Lands, in which the players and their characters are explorers, travelling across territories which have been cut off for centuries and of which they know little except legends. Such legends serve as hooks, pushing the characters to visit the setting’s adventure sites—villages, castles, and dungeons—and pulling them into the region’s history and secrets, often revealing the dark truths of lands that have been under a blood mist and demon-infested for centuries. Whether delving into the honeyed tomb of an undead apiarist-mage, making a rescue attempt for missing villagers in the caves of a blood-potter, taking advantage of internal politics to defeat the Monkey King and banish his pagoda temple complex which has drilled its way up into the Forbidden Lands, or exploring the weird mind cloud of a long dead wizard, just as with The Spire of Quetzel, what really marks these scenarios as being different is their authors.

All four scenarios in Crypt of the Mellified Mage are written by some of the leading writers in the Old School Renaissance. They include Fiona Maeve Geist, one of the designers of MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror RPG; David McGrogan, the creator of Yoon-Suin, the Purple Land; Zedeck Siew, author of Lorn Song of the Bachelor and A Thousand, Thousand Island setting; and Adam Kobel, the designer of Dungeon World. The quartet consists of three dungeon and one village adventure sites, and in each case will require a degree of preparation if the Game Master wants to include them in her campaign. Sometimes this is actually creating a location for a dungeon to be found under, but mostly they are foreshadowing during early parts of the campaign to be effective parts of the ongoing story of the adventurers’ explorations.

Crypt of the Mellified Mage opens with Fiona Maeve Geist’s eponymous ‘Crypt of the Mellified Mage’, a dungeon which lies beneath a village which the Game Master will need to create or develop. It is actually the tomb of the sorcerer Pagoag, whose cruel skill and hedonistic experimentation into medical matters is said to have led him down some dark paths including the mellifiying of flesh using honey into a candy which when consumed is said to prolong the consumer’s life. Pagoag, being a sorcerer, also sought life after death and the result of his experiments can be found throughout his tomb—apiaries built from bones, skeletons home to bee swarms, and undead bee swarms! If the legends are true, then perhaps the mollified flesh may be found and collected, perhaps to consume to heal a Player Character’s illness, that of their patron (if they have one), or simply sold to the highest bidder. There is a sense of sickly-sweet revulsion to the tomb and Pagoag himself is a vile monster. The crypt is, of course, not a pyramid, but it has the feel of an Egyptian tomb, although one infused with the musky scents of spices and honey and an apiarist theme running throughout. It is nicely designed, with a pervading sense of creepy unease and multiple entrances and approaches to the tomb itself so that unlike other crypts, there is no linear play to its exploration which funnels the Player Characters and limits their actions. However, one big problem with the scenario is that as attractive as the three-dimensional map is, its design does not always match the text and vice versa. So what this is means that the Game Master will need to put more effort into the scenario to ensure that she understands the layout of the tomb and certainly the connections between rooms.

David McGrogan’s ‘The Firing Pit of Llao-Yutuy’ is a smaller, more focused dungeon, a cavern complex where the eponymous Llao-Yutuy breaks his captured captives and infuses their blood into the bowls, pottery, and even golems he makes and fires. Despite being a much smaller adventure site and less complex than the others, it is no less creepy with its cruel atmosphere and unnerving automata which appear here and there. The potter’s servants and shockingly poorly treated apprentices are unlikely to present much of a threat to the Player Characters, whereas the aforementioned automata, Llao-Yutuy himself, and his vilely shrewish wife will do. There are some intriguing treasures to be found, which might be the reason for the Player Characters’ visit, or they might be employed to rescue some the captives currently held by Llao-Yutuy and his servants. In some ways this is the easiest of the four adventure sites in Crypt of the Mellified Mage for the Game Master to use—it is relatively easy to set up and prepare, and the site is small. However, it suffers from the same cartographic issues as ‘Crypt of the Mellified Mage’, and again will need careful preparation upon the part of the Game Master to ensure that there is no confusion between map and text.

Zedeck Siew’s ‘Temple of the Six-Limbed Lord’ literally invades the Forbidden Lands with monkey magic! Intended for more seasoned players and characters, technically, a village site, it is a temple complex consisting of several pagodas which have drilled their way up into the Forbidden Lands in an attempt to invade heaven. Of course, the Six-Limbed Lord wants to spread his worship, and that includes the Forbidden Lands, visiting nearby towns and occupying them, capturing friendly NPCs, even menacing strongholds held by the Player Characters. The Player Characters might encounter Monkey Soldiers on an impromptu pub-crawl, caravans beset by cloud riders sparking lightning, one of the Priests of the Six-Limbed Lord sat in a gilded throne borne by a Macaque Swarm, or even Nyanyetnya, Seventh Priest of the Six-Limbed Lord, who wants to serve them tea. Of course, she wants more than this, having been expelled from the temple—and she wants back in! To that end, she will engage the Player Characters who if they decide to help her will have to negotiate the petty politics of the other priests and their cohorts. This is the most sophisticated of the adventure sites, and the one to involve the most roleplaying as the Player Characters play the factions in the temple off against each other.

However, ‘Temple of the Six-Limbed Lord’ not only invades the Forbidden Lands literally, it invades the Western fantasy genre of Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World as well. What this means is that for some Game Masters, this adventure site might be at odds with their campaign and the genre. It is well done, despite suffering from the same cartographic issues as the earlier adventure sites and really adds something memorably different to a campaign, almost leaving Game Master and players alike to wonder quite what a Forbidden Lands-style campaign would be like in the setting beyond the walls of the Temple of the Six-Limbed Lord.

The last scenario in Crypt of the Mellified Mage is Adam Koebel’s ‘The Dream-Cloud of E’lok Thir’, and again is a very different dungeon—even radically different. What it does is turn the mind or dreams of a long dead wizard into a dungeon, one consisting of locations inspired by his fragmented doubts, elations, fears, and joys and as they explore each of these rooms, the Player Characters will encounter reflections of both E’lok Thir’s emotions and their own. There is no map to the dungeon, but rather the Game Master generates the life of the deceased mage and develops descriptions of rooms such as ‘Regret Made Manifest’ and ‘The Hidden Self’ based on what was rolled. The Game Master is free to connect these however she wants and without the need to adhere to the laws of physics, since this is, after all, a ‘Dream-Cloud’. Consequently, there is an otherworldly etherealness to ‘The Dream-Cloud of E’lok Thir’ and because the Game Master will need to know her player’s characters very well, there is an introspectiveness to it as well. Whilst it is the most open of the four scenarios in the anthology, it is also the most challenging to run. Further, it is not the easiest of scenarios to provide motivations for Player Character involvement. The Dream-Cloud can be reached via ritual, even as a consequence of a failed ritual, so the Player Characters might be forced to explore it following a magical mishap. The likelihood is that they will be wanting to enter the Dream-Cloud for a reason, either to obtain an object or treasure, or even information, and each of the location descriptions includes details of what treasures might be found there. Overall, ‘The Dream-Cloud of E’lok Thir’ is more a tool kit than a finalised adventure site ready to play, but its format does mean that it could be played through more than once, and each time it would be different enough.

Physically, Forbidden Lands: Crypt of the Mellified Mage is a lovely little book, that unfortunately let down by the disconnect between text and maps. Work around that though, and it is a pleasing hardback, nicely illustrated with maps done in the same style as other Forbidden Lands books. Each scenario follows the same format as those other books—Background, Legend, Getting Here, Locations, Monsters and NPCs, and Events. Despite the fact that the maps could have been better described, they are lovely to look at and the artwork throughout the book is exquisite. It would have been nice if some of the NPCs in the book had been illustrated, especially the various monkey priests in ‘Temple of the Six-Limbed Lord’ where they play such a pivotal role.

The disappointing side to the four adventure sites in Forbidden Lands: Crypt of the Mellified Mage is that each requires more preparation than they really should, especially to work them into a campaign, let alone coming to understand the map locations and their descriptions, and so none of the four are quite ready to play as they could be. If she is happy to make those preparations and develop them in readiness for inclusion in her campaign, Forbidden Lands: Crypt of the Mellified Mage provides the Game Master with some delightfully different adventure sites, each in their own way, creepy, weird, and wonderful. 

An Other OSR Quartet

The Spire of Quetzel is an anthology of four scenarios for use with Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World, the ‘Retro Open-World Survival Fantasy RPG’ published by Free League. It presents four locations which the Game Master can slot into her Forbidden Lands campaign—whether her own or Raven’s Purge, the roleplaying game’s epic eight-part campaign with an open structure built around eight locations and a finale at a ninth location—or possibly run as one-shots. They reflect the open play style of Forbidden Lands, in which the players and their characters are explorers, travelling across territories which have been cut off for centuries and of which they know little except legends. Such legends serve as hooks, pushing the characters to visit the setting’s adventure sites—villages, castles, and dungeons—and pulling them into the region’s history and secrets, often revealing the dark truths of lands that have been under a blood mist and demon-infested for centuries. Whether encountering a dreaming Demon-Queen, a prison of strange beasts who call themselves a family, a coven of witches who do not get along, or the weird graveyard of the last thunder lizard to walk this land, what marks these scenarios as different are their authors.

All four scenarios in The Spire of Quetzel are written by some of the leading writers in the Old School Renaissance. They include Patrick Stuart, the author of Veins of the Earth for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay; Chris McDowall, the designer of Into the Odd; Ben Milton, the designer of Maze Rats; and Karl Stjernberg, the designer of The Rad-Hack. They include a castle, a village, and two dungeons, all four of which are easily added to a campaign.

The quartet opens with Patrick Stuart’s eponymously titled ‘The Spire of Quetzel’, not so much a castle as a tower of high magic and mystery. The adventurers are approached by a crow-masked figure who asks them to perform a task—enter the tower where a long dead half elf, half demon sorcerer lies dreaming and return with her heart, a black gem. Once inside, the player characters first having to negotiate with demons before ascending into the tower’s upper reaches where its locations transcend the walls, spread out somewhere above the clouds. Several of these locations have a maze-like feel—one that the Game Master will need to improvise as the player characters progress—as well as an actual maze. Other scenarios for Forbidden Lands tend to have grim and gritty feel, but there is a sense of the ethereal to ‘The Spire of Quetzel’, one that echoes the dissolute and aged feel of an encounter that might be had by Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melniboné.

The first of two dungeons in The Spire of Quetzel, Chris McDowall’s ‘The Bright Vault’ is home to a clutch of Demon spawn, siblings imprisoned in a blessed gaol lest they escape and wreak havoc upon a world only beginning to come to terms with the lifting of demon mists and some of the secrets so revealed. All four siblings are very different in terms of nature and motivation, and as much as the player characters will interact with them, they will be interacting with their guardian more and who will play a major role in their interaction with her charges. It also means that in places the Game Master is likely to be roleplaying one NPC against another and that is not always interesting for the players. Of the four scenarios in the anthology this is most awkward to run and prepare.

Technically, ‘The Hexenwald’ is a village, but really it is a set of similarly-themed locations—a coven of witches spread throughout a wood, on and around a lake. Ben Milton’s scenario is home to five witches, each with different pre-occupations and relationships with her sisters. Individually, these are interesting little encounters, but they are really designed to work together, their relationships driving potential events. Yet their homes feel too spread out to quite do that. Thus the Game Master might want to drive these motivations and interactions more proactively or have The Hexenwald a location that her player characters do not visit once, but several times, each time perhaps encountering different witches. Unlike the other scenarios in the anthology, ‘The Hexenwald’ is one that has the potential to be used in the long term.

Lastly, ‘Graveyard of Thunder’ by Karl Stjernberg is an entertaining change of tone, earthier and perhaps more natural. The location is actually a near-mythical dinosaur graveyard, which at the time of the player characters’ incursion is home to the cave system’s guardians and the last dinosaur which has come to die. They are not the only persons with an interest in the site, for an orc band has searched for the Graveyard of Thunder and its potential riches. The scenario is a pleasing contrast to the other three in the anthology, possessing a mythical naturalism where the others are archly arcane.

Physically, The Spire of Quetzel is a slim, but pleasing hardback, nicely illustrated with maps done in the same style as other Forbidden Lands books. Each scenario follows the same format as those other books—Background, Legend, Getting Here, Locations, Monsters and NPCs, and Events. In general, this works, but occasionally, where an NPC plays a major role in the scenario, for example, in ‘The Bright Vault’, having more information about the NPC upfront would make the descriptions of various locations clearer, less obtuse. Of course, this is not an insurmountable problem, but rather an issue upon first read and preparing the scenario with ease, and it helps that the fact that each of the four scenarios is barely twenty pages in length.

Unlike the scenarios in Forbidden Lands or Raven’s Purge, the four in The Spire of Quetzel are easier to adapt to other Old School Renaissance retroclones, not in terms of mechanics, but certainly in terms of plots and themes. Thus The Spire of Quetzel is a ready source of scenarios should the Game Master look outside of the Dungeons & Dragons-derived retroclones, but of course, the four scenarios in this anthology are best suited for addition to a Forbidden Lands campaign. They can be used as is, as one-shots, or as individual locations to be encountered in between others that are part of a campaign. Although some need a little more preparation than others, The Spire of Quetzel is solid collection of short scenarios that can be readily added to a Forbidden Lands campaign.

The Other OSR: Raven's Purge

One of the greatest artefacts of the Forbidden Lands is Stanengist, the royal crown known as ‘The Hanging Stones’. In this crown were mounted six rubies, each the elf stone of the first six elves of the Forbidden Lands who planted its trees, cut the beds through which the rivers flowed, and gave homes to its animals. From their position upon the crown, these elves could maintain a watch over what they had wrought and give advice to their descendants who wore the crown and so keep the lands intact. When several of the rubies were stolen, the land was weakened and with the coming of mankind to Ravenland, the land would ultimately be sundered with the rise of the Orcs and the unleashing of demons by the arch-sorcerer, Zygofer the Spellbinder. Walled off for centuries, the Blood Mist that has long settled upon these Forbidden Lands has recently lifted and men and women of all races have flooded into a realm untouched by their hands for centuries. They are not valiant souls, but scoundrels, treasure hunters, vagabonds, adventurers, fortune seekers, setting out to make their mark on the new land—there are dungeons to be plundered, great treasures to be found, and strongholds to be claimed!

The starting point for such expeditions are the legends, the lore, and the rumours that weft their way across the land, from ear to ear, and so it is with new word of Stanengist. It is said that visions have been seen of the lost rubies and where they lie. Locate these rubies and Stanengist itself and then remount them in the crown and it is said that whomever places it on her head shall according to legend gain the power to rally all kin and rule over the Forbidden Lands. There is truth in every legend, so is there a band of adventurers and fortune hunters brave enough, resourceful enough, foolhardy enough to locate all of the lost elf stones and so claim the crown of the Forbidden Lands?

This is the set-up for Raven’s Purge, the first campaign for Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World, the ‘Retro Open-World Survival Fantasy RPG’ published by Free League. Published as part of the roleplaying game’s Kickstarter campaign, Raven’s Purge is an epic eight-part campaign with an open structure built around eight locations and a finale at a last, ninth location. The player characters are free to visit any of the first eight locations in any order—and need not even visit them all—in order to gain sufficient information to go to that last location. This reflects the open play style of Forbidden Lands, in which the players and their characters are explorers, travelling across territories which have been cut off for centuries and of which they know little except legends. Such legends serve as hooks, pushing the characters to visit the setting’s adventure sites—villages, castles, and dungeons—and pulling them into the region’s history and secrets, often revealing the dark truths of lands that have been under a blood mist and demon-infested for centuries.

Raven’s Purge is presented as a toolkit to run its campaign as much it is a campaign itself. This is because the campaign is freeform in structure rather than linear, so the player characters are free to roam where they will, visiting which of the eight locations they want, and in what order they want. Now this means that the campaign is more of a challenge for the Game Master to prepare to run because it is primarily player directed. To offset this, the Game Master can nudge the player characters in certain directions, using the legends given for each of the artefacts which appear in the campaign and the various NPCs who have an interest in Stanengist.

As a toolkit, Raven’s Purge gives a complete history of Stanengist, including its missing rubies and details the nine key players from the Forbidden Lands with an interest of obtaining  in gaining the missing Elf Stones and Stanengist, before detailing the eight (plus one) locations which make up the campaign. Now the Game Master should be aware that the nine key players are not just the key players particular to this campaign, but the setting for the roleplaying game itself. Once the player characters get involved, their actions, the alliances they forge, and the enemies they make will have a profound effect upon the Forbidden Lands. Some of those effects, the consequences of the player characters’ actions across the campaign, are discussed in the book’s last chapter, ‘Aftermath’. This capacity to fundamentally change the political landscape ties back into the ethos of the designers of Forbidden Lands—that each Game Master’s campaign is going to be different and that the outcome of the player characters’ actions will be different in each campaign, essentially stamping their combined ‘legacy’ upon the Forbidden Lands.

The campaign’s adventure locations include the centre of the region’s slave trade, a party venue for ogres, an orc city, an abandoned mine, and more. Each location is accorded a chapter of its own and organised into the same format. This begins with a description of what the player characters see before detailing the location’s background, how to get there, the legends associated with it, its locations, monsters and NPCs, and possible events that might play out there once the player characters arrive. The ‘Getting There’ section typically gives two or three ideas, many of them NPC encounters before reaching the location itself that are tied into possible storylines given in the ‘Events’ section. If there is a weakness to the ‘Getting There’ section, it is that across the eight locations, the ‘encountering an NPC just outside a location who wants you do something in said location’ does become something of a cliché and the Game Master may want to adjust as necessary. That said, all of the given NPCs should be fun for the Game Master to roleplay and the events themselves are varied.

The Game Master can also expand upon Raven’s Purge by adding two of the adventure locations from the roleplaying game’s ‘Gamemaster’s Guide’—Weatherstone and Vale of the Dead. These can either simply be added to the eight given in Raven’s Purge, or if the Game Master has already run them, use them as a springboard into this campaign. Either way, they could be used as the starting point for playing Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World. The structure of the Raven’s Purge campaign—a series of nodes linked by legends at the centre of which is the finale—is also open enough such that a Game Master could design locations and adventures of her own to run in addition to the campaign itself.

Physically, Raven’s Purge matches the style and quality of both the ‘Player’s Manual’ and the ‘Gamemaster’s Guide’ for Forbidden Lands. Although it does not have the faux leather covers of the two core rulebooks, this is another sturdy hardback done in black and white on buff pages. Again illustrated in pen and ink throughout, it has the look and feel of a roleplaying game supplement from decades ago. The artwork, primarily drawn by one artist, is excellent, as is the cartography, again more illustrations than maps, is also good. It should be noted that the fantasy of Forbidden Lands is definitely grim and gritty with a mature tone.

In a great many ways, Raven’s Purge is the companion to the boxed set of Forbidden Lands. Together, the ‘Player’s Manual’ and the ‘Gamemaster’s Guide’ for Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World set up the Forbidden Lands as they are now, with Raven’s Purge expanding up that. Raven’s Purge though then provides the means for the player characters to not only interact with the great and the good—actually, mostly not good as there are shades of grey in every NPC—of the Forbidden Lands, but also truly change its political landscape. Raven’s Purge is a grim, gritty open campaign in which the future of the Forbidden Lands is placed in the player characters’ hands and what they do and what they decide will be their legacy in the Forbidden Lands.

The Other OSR: Forbidden Lands

The Ravenland was once ours, lands beyond the mountains which represented virgins ripe for expansion and settlement, but then the savagery of the Orcs was unleashed on the settlers, forcing their leader, Zygofer the Spellbinder to turn to foul means to drive them back. He opened dark gates to let in the demon help he sort and set himself up as king of Ravenland, but in response the wise king walled off the lands and forbade all to talk about the Spellbinder’s domain which became known as the Forbidden Lands. For centuries, they have been under the demonic control of both Zygofer and his daughter, as well as under the curse of the Blood Mist, which sucks the life out of anyone who strays too far from their door. Yet now, even while Zygofer and his daughter remain still on the throne of the Forbidden Lands, the Blood Mist has lifted and men and women of all races have flooded into a realm untouched by their hands for centuries. They are not valiant souls, but scoundrels, treasure hunters, vagabonds, adventurers, fortune seekers, setting out to make their mark on the new land—there are dungeons to be plundered, great treasures to be found, and strongholds to be claimed!

This is the set-up for Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World, a fantasy roleplaying game published by Free League, following a successful Kickstarter campaign. It comes as an imposing boxed set which contains two hardback books with faux leather covers—the ‘Player’s Manual’ and the ‘Gamemaster’s Guide’, a large full colour map of the Forbidden Lands, and a sheet of stickers. The roleplaying game is described as a ‘Retro Open-World Survival Fantasy RPG’ and designed to be played in the style of the fantasy roleplaying games of the seventies and early eighties, with the player characters free to roam as they will across the Forbidden Lands as a sandbox. The stickers play a role in this too, for they can be applied to the map to mark the location of sites across the Forbidden Lands, whether they are villages, strongholds, or dungeons. In this way, Forbidden Lands becomes a legacy game, in that playing through a campaign means that both map and campaign will be unique to each gaming group, the same as playing through board games like Pandemic Legacy or Gloomhaven.

Forbidden Lands is a roleplaying game of exploration, in which the player characters, like others, set out to see a land which has long been forbidden to them, to escape the bonds placed upon them by the deadly effects of the Blood Mist. In doing so, the player characters will discover adventure sites—villages, castles, and dungeons. To varying degrees, at each of these will be found intrigue, horror, and treasure. Initially, villages will bases of operation for the player characters, but in clearing out both castles and dungeons, they can be turned into strongholds and developed into long term bases for the player characters. As they find more treasure and develop sources of income, this can be spent to restore and rebuild facilities that have fallen into disrepair, to build new facilities, and to staff the new stronghold. In the process, the player characters will discover both the history and the secrets of the land, revealing legends and investigating them further, perhaps ultimately to find one of the great artefacts that have been lost during the centuries in which the land was covered by the Blood Mist.

A character in Forbidden Lands is defined by his Kin, Profession, age, attributes, skills, talents, Pride, and Dark Secret. There are seven Kin—or Races—Human, Half-Elves, Dwarf, Halfling, Wolfkin, Orcs, and Goblins. Of these, Wolfkin are a bipedal wolf-like species who have a pack mentality and love the hunt and the wilderness. Each Kin has a key attribute, a talent, and typical profession, though when creating a character a player does not have to adhere to this. For Humans, the key attribute is Empathy; the Kin talent is ‘Adaptive’, which enables a player to substitute another skill in a situation by spending a Willpower point; and typical professions are essentially any… There are eight Professions—Druid, Fighter, Hunter, Minstrel, Peddler, Rider, Rogue, and Sorcerer. Each also lists a key attribute as well as skills; suggestions for a source of pride, a dark secret, and a relationship. A character has four attributes—Strength, Agility, Wits, and Empathy. There are just sixteen skills to choose from, but a player will begin play with either eight, ten, or twelve points depending upon his character’s age. 

Talents are tricks and abilities which give a character an advantage in play. Each Kin has its own talent, which has just the one rank, but the other two types, professional and general, have three ranks each. Each Profession has three talents given, except for the Sorcerer, which has four.  For example, the Fighter’s Path of the Blade enables a character to spend a Willpower point to bypass armour during an attack at Rank 1, spend a Willpower point to gain another attack at Rank 2, and multiple Willpower points to increase damage inflicted at Rank 3. A character begins play with a Kin talent, a Rank in a Profession talent, and a Rank in up to three general talents, depending on age, of course.

Lastly, each character has a Dark Secret and a source of Pride. The former is primarily a narrative aspect for the Game Master to work into the play of the game, earning the character Experience Points when it comes into play, whereas the latter can be invoked once per game session after a player has failed a roll—even if he has Pushed the roll—to roll a twelve-sided die and hopefully get some or more Successes. The larger die types have more Success symbols on them, including multiple Success symbols on some faces. However, should a character still fail after his Pride is rolled, he loses that Pride and must come up with a new one in a later session.

To create a character a player selects a Kin, Profession, age, talents, Pride, and Dark Secret and assigns points to the character’s attributes and skills. The process is relatively quick, a matter of making a few choices. Our sample character Solga, a Goblin who got thrown out of her tribe for her snide remarks and being suspected of poisoning her husband. She helped Gaverin escape when she made a run for it and they have travelling together ever since. He is interested in uncovering the legends and secrets of the Forbidden Lands, whereas Solga is along for the company.

Name: Solga ‘the Rat’
Kin: Goblin Age: 26 Gender: Female
Profession: Rogue
Attributes
Strength 2 Agility 5 Wits 4 Empathy 3
Skills: Melee 1, Stealth 3, Sleight of Hand 2, Move 1, Manipulation 2, Scouting 1
Talents: Sneaky (Kin), Path of the Poisoner (Rank 1), Fast Footwork (Rank 1), Sharp Tongue (Rank 1)
Willpower: 0
Pride: No one has a softer step than you
Dark Secret: You compulsively steal valuables you catch sight of
Reputation: 1
Relationship: Gaverin treats you like a child to be chastised . Very annoying.
Gear: Dagger, grappling hook, lockpicks, 3 silver
Resource Dice: Food d6, Water d6

Mechanically, Forbidden Lands uses the same mechanics as Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, Coriolis: The Third Horizon, and Tales from the Loop – Roleplaying in the '80s That Never Was. Called the Year Zero Engine, which uses a dice pool system based on six-sided dice. These dice are divided into three types—Base, Skill, and Gear (or Weapon) Dice—and coloured white maroon, and black respectively in the custom set available separately for Forbidden Lands. Alternatively, a playing group can substitute dice of three different colours. Sixes—or crossed swords on the custom dice—are counted as Successes, whilst ones—or skulls on the custom dice which appear do not appear on the Skill Dice—are counted as Banes.

What matters is that when a player rolls dice for his character’s action, he needs to roll at least one Success to succeed. Successes rolled greater than those needed can used to achieve further effects, such as fully repairing gear back up to the number of dice they add in any action. If the dice are rolled and there are no Success, then this is considered to be a failure. Alternatively, a player can decide that he wants to push his character’s action. In this case, he reroll any dice that have not rolled Successes or Banes in the first roll. Even if a roll is successful, any Banes a player has rolled from either the first or second roll, are triggered and will damage or exhaust either the attribute used if rolled on the Base dice or the gear used if rolled on the Gear dice. Rolling Banes has a positive side though. For every Bane rolled on the Base dice after a roll has been pushed, a character receives one Willpower Point, which can then be spent to fuel a character’s Kin and Professional Talents.

What the Game Master does not do is set a difficulty number or target in terms of the number of Successes a player needs to generate in order for his character to succeed—one is enough, and of course, any extra go towards effects that benefit the characters. Intead, the Game Master can modify the number of Skill dice a player rolls, for example, a Hard task levies a -2 modification, reducing the number of Skill dice a player has to roll by two.

For example, Solga and her companion, Gaverin, were ambushed by bandits and Gaverin was captured. Solga managed to escape the ambush and has tracked the bandits to the ruined tower they are based and are holding Gaverin. After some hours, Solga has found a way into the tower—an embrasure high up on the wall. The Game Master states that this will not be a test to see if Solga can climb the tower, but to see if she can do it silently. Otherwise, this might be a Move check, but Solga’s player states that the Goblin will be taking her time. Solga’s player assembles his dice pool, which will consist of five Base dice for her Agility, three Skill dice for her Stealth, and one Gear die for her grappling hook. This gives Solga’s player nine dice to roll, but the Game Master states that this task is Demanding and modifies the number of Skill by one, so now Solga’s player only rolls eight dice. Unfortunately he only rolls one Bane on the Gear die and no Successes, so Solag’s player decides to Push the roll. Taking up the seven dice which came up blank—the Gear die cannot be rerolled because it rolled a Bane—he rolls again and gets two Success and another Bane, this one on a Base die!

To sum up, Solga’s player has rolled enough Success to succeed, but has rolled two Banes, one on the Gear die and one on a Base die. The Game Master rules that the Bane on the Gear die means that one of the tines on Solga’s grappling hook has broken, meaning that it cannot be used effectively until repaired. In other words, it will not grant the +1 bonus to all climbing rolls until then. The Bane on the Base die temporarily reduces Solga’s Agility to 4 and gives her a Willpower Point, but at least the Goblin has succeeded and is inside the bandit’s tower.

Combat uses the same core mechanics, but adds tweaks to both initiative and actions. Initiative is handled by both players and Game Master drawing from a ten-card deck, numbered one to ten. Initiative then proceeds in ascending order, though some Talent allow Initiative to be changed and players can swap initiative cards if one character needs to act before another. Otherwise it remains the same throughout a fight. In combat itself, a character can perform two actions—a Fast Action and a Slow Action. The first might be a dodge, a parry, a swing of a heavy weapon before an actual attack with a heavy weapon, run, aim, and so on, whereas the second might be a slash with an edged weapon, stab with a pointed weapon, a taunt or persuade attempt, and so on. Fast Actions typically do not require dice rolls, whereas Slow Actions typically do.

Advanced combat in Forbidden Lands makes use of the combat cards from the Forbidden Lands: Card Deck to bring a tactical element to the game with hidden combinations. Essentially the combat cards give manoeuvres and actions that a character might take his combat attacks and before each attack, both defender and attacker take two and decide in what order they will be played, so not only does this add a degree of tactical back and forth to a fight, it also adds a degree of uncertainty. (The Forbidden Lands: Custom Deck also adds Artifact Cards, Mount Cards, and a Reference Card as well as Combat Cards and Initiative Cards.)

When an attack is successful, the attacker inflicts damage equal to the weapon, plus any extra Successes rolled. Damage can be blocked by both armour and cover, the defender rolling a number of dice equal to the armour or cover value, with every Success rolled blocking a point of damage. Weapon damage typically affects a character’s Strength Attribute, but other forms of damage can affect the other Attributes. Notably, in social situations, characters can use their Manipulation skill against an opponent’s Insight; damage to Agility represents physical fatigue and exhaustion; damage to Wits represents fear, confusion, and misjudgement; and damage to Empathy represents callousness and distrust. Damage has two effects. First it reduces the number of Base dice a player can roll for the damaged Attribute, and second, if reduced to zero, it means that the character is Broken, the exact effects of which vary from attribute to attribute, but essentially it means that a character cannot act. In combat, it means that an enemy can attempt to deliver a coup de grâce.

Continuing the example, Solga has successfully climbed the tower where the bandits are holding her companion, Gaverin. She sneaks down a corridor, checking several rooms and eluding the guard before finding where the bandits are holding the prisoner.  Slipping into the room, the goblin grins at the bound and gagged Half-Elf, and quickly goes to work, loosening the ropes and the gag that hold him silent and immobile. Almost as she finishes the task, Gaverin snaps a warning to his liberator—the guard has swung back on his rounds and discovered the escape attempt. Solga has her blade drawn, but the Guard does not. Both react at the sight of each other and a fight ensues.

Everyone involved draws an Initiative card—the Game Master draws a 9, Gaverin’s player draws a 7, and Solga’s player draws a 4. This means that of the player characters, Gaverin will go first, but all the Half-Elf can do is escape his bonds, which means that the Guard could attack him before Solga can act. So, before the round begins, the players swap their Initiative cards, making the order now the Guard, Solga, and Gaverin. The Guard’s first action is ‘Draw Weapon’, a Fast Action which enables him to attempt a Slash’ with his axe as his Slow Action.

The Game Master rolls three Base dice for the Bandit’s Strength, two Skill dice for his Melee skill, and two Gear dice for the attack. She rolls two Successes and one Bane on the Base dice, though the latter does not count because the roll has not been Pushed. The hand axe inflicts two bonus Success, so Solga is about to take four damage to her Strength. This is a lot of damage, but Solga has the Fast Footwork Talent which gives her a Dodge beyond any Reactive action. Solga’s player rolls four Base dice for her Agility—it should be five, but she took damage during the climb into the tower—plus a Skill die for her Move. Since this is a ‘Slash’ attack, Solga’s player would two extra dice, but Solga wants to remain standing, which would penalise her by two dice, it simply negates the bonus. Solga’s player has to Push the roll, but eventually gets two Success and a Bane on a Base die. Since the two Success are equal to what the Game Master rolled for the Guard, Solga avoids the attack. In the process though, she bangs an elbow and reduces her Agility to 3. She also receives a single Willpower Point.

Now it is her turn to act. Solga’s first act is a ‘Feint’, a Fast Action which will allow her to exchange Initiative cards with the Guard. So on Round 2, Solga’s Initiative will be 9 and she will act first! Then her Slow Action is to ‘Stab’ the Guard with her dagger. Solga’s player rolls two Base dice for her Strength, one Skill die for her Melee, and a Gear die for the dagger. Her two Success are enough to hit and as the Guard has already acted, he cannot take a Reactive action. With the bonus damage from the dagger, this would inflict a total of three hits on the Guard, but the Game Master rolls for the Guard’s armour and gets a single Success. This means that Solga’s blade slips past the Guard’s armour and inflicts two hits. His Strength is reduced from three to two. As the Goblin darts in with the blade, Gaverin behind finally frees himself from his bonds and readies a spell…

Magic in Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World is organised into Talents and like other Talents, is organised into three ranks. A Sorcerer or Druid who knows one of these Talents at Rank 1 is able to cast all of the Rank 1 spells in that Talent. This is in addition to a number of general spells that all spellcasters know which typically have to do with the general manipulation of magic itself. Mechanically, a player never rolls a skill check for his spellcasting character to cast a spell, as it is automatic. Instead, he spends Willpower Points to charge the spell and then rolls to see if the spell can be overcharged. For each Willpower Point so invested, the player rolls a base die. Each Success rolled overcharges the spell, whilst each Bane indicates a magical mishap. Now this is open to abuse, the player of a Druid or Sorcerer attempting to Push every roll in order to generate Willpower Points, so a Game Master does need to keep a check on this as really, whilst magic is not a one-shot thing, it is powerful and it does take effort and its use should reflect this.

Name: Gaverin 
Kin: Half-Elf Age: 106 Gender: Male
Profession: Sorcerer
Attributes
Strength 2 Agility 3 Wits 5 Empathy 3
Skills: Crafting 2, Melee 1, Sleight of Hand 2, Lore 3, Insight 2, Manipulation 2
Talents: Psychic Power (Kin), Path of Signs (Rank 1), Fearless (Rank 1), Incorruptible (Rank 1), Lucky (Rank 1)
Willpower: 2
Pride: Whoever threatens you will die a painful death
Dark Secret: You are haunted by visions of the world beyond the veil
Reputation: 1
Relationship: Solga doubts your magical powers. The fool!
Gear: Knife, crystal ball, 7 silver
Resource Dice: Food d6, Water d8

It is now Gaverin’s turn to act. Not wanting the Guard to cry out or alert his fellow bandits, he casts the spell, Paralyse. This is a Rank 1 spell which causes a target to lose one or more of his next actions. Gaverin’s player decides to invest two  Willpower Points into the spell, but his Pyschic Power Talent adds another Willpower Point to the total, giving Gaverin’s player three Base dice to roll. He rolls two Successes and one Bane. The Successes increase the Power Level of the spell to three and prevents the Guard from taking his next Fast Action and Slow Action. The Bane though means that Gaverin’s player must roll on the Magic Mishap table. The result of this is that casting the spell causes the Half-Elf pain, his losing a point of Strength. As the guard suddenly finds himself unable to move, Solga looks back at the Half-Elf who is now slightly wincing in pain, and says, “Well, ‘e ain’t mivin’, we betta do though.” The two quickly move to tie the Guard up and make their escape.

Overall mechanically, characters in Forbidden Lands are not incompetent, but they do often have push themselves in order to succeed and that increases the possibility of a player rolling Banes. As deleterious as Banes are, they have a positive effect in also generating Willpower Points, which are necessary if a magic using character wants to cast spells or to activate some Talents. Thus, this is not forgiving system and it is one that reflects the harsh nature of the Forbidden Lands.

Two big aspects of Forbidden Lands are Journeys and Strongholds. Journeys covers not just travel, but also exploration. Each character on a journey undertakes a particular part of the trip, such as ‘Lead the Way’ or ‘Keep Watch’. All characters undertake the ‘Hike’ action. In keeping with the dangerous nature of the Forbidden Lands, there are plenty of mishaps that can befall travellers should the roll be failed for any one of the journey’s parts, though no rolls are necessary for the simple ‘Hike’ action. Strongholds are bases that the player characters find, clear out of foes, rebuild, defend, and improve. At its most basic, a stronghold provides a place to rest and sleep in relative comfort and safety to the point where a character can gain a Willpower Point, but different facilities provide different benefits. So a Bakery provides food if there is flour, a Library a bonus to Lore rolls, a Shooting Range somewhere to practise Markmanship and so gain Experience Points towards that skill, and so on. Instead of being a game of exploration and discovery, the addition of strongholds add economic, planning, and battle elements to Forbidden Lands as well as further opportunities for roleplaying. It enables a campaign to develop, the players and their characters to have a stake in the world, and because funds are needed to build more, provides further reason to go out and adventure.

All of this so far, has been in the ‘Player’s Handbook’ for Forbidden Lands. The ‘Gamemaster’s Guide’ essentially gives the deeper secrets and background to the setting. As well as advice on running the game right from the first session, it gives the history of the Forbidden Lands and how they gained such a name, presents the gods and faiths of the region, and provides more information about the Kin, much of which will only become apparent during play. The bestiary includes lots of classic fantasy monsters, from Death Knights and Dragons to the Undead and Wyverns, although there are plenty of monsters unique to the Forbidden Lands. Every monster gets a table of six attack actions which the Game Master can choose from or on roll on. In terms of treasure and loot, most of the time, the player characters will find coins and things that they can sell. Magic items are extremely rare, but can be very powerful. These are artefacts, of which there are eighteen described in the book, each with illustration, an associated legend, and a suggested location where they might be found as artefacts are not just some random loot drops. Many have drawbacks, but all have an associated Artifact die. This is a dice type larger than a six-sided die, with the faces higher than six being marked with Success symbols or even multiple Success symbols. When a character uses an artefact, his player gets to roll its associated die instead of any Gear dice. (All of the game’s artefacts, including those associated with the Raven’s Purge campaign, appear on the Artifact cards in the Forbidden Lands: Custom Deck.)

In addition to extensive and detailed encounter lists and tables for creating adventure sites, which a Game Master could use to create locations and adventures on the go if she wants to run her game like that, the ‘Gamemaster’s Guide’ describes three adventure sites in detail—a village, a castle, and a dungeon. The Hollows is a village which is just opening itself up to trade and the wider world, which has divided the villagers; the castle of Weatherstone stands atop a rock promontory that stands separate to the walls of the gorge it is in and is said to hide the war chest of its last lord; and the Vale of the Dead is said to be where Zygofer the Spellbinder practised his necromantic arts! Together these provide multiple sessions of play, the player characters first exploring the village and then going out to explore the other locations, perhaps claiming Weatherstone as their own as their first stronghold. Each location has their own plots, but much of the action and roleplaying will be very player-led. They also work as a campaign’s first adventure sites before a group beings playing the Raven’s Purge campaign itself.

Physically, Forbidden Lands is very presented and put together. Both books are presented as old tomes on off-white paper and illustrated in pen and ink throughout, which given that most modern roleplaying games are presented in full colour, gives Forbidden Lands the look and feel of a roleplaying game from decades ago. The artwork, primarily drawn by one artist, is excellent and helps give both the books and the setting a very uniform look. One lovely touch is that the same weapons are redrawn again and again, each time to illustrate the types typically used  by the different Kin in the setting. There are no mechanical effects to this—an Orc sword works exactly the same as an Elf sword—but it adds a degree of verisimilitude. The cartography, more illustrations than maps, is also good. Lastly, the game’s box is deep enough to hold both the Forbidden Lands: Custom Dice Set and the Forbidden Lands: Custom Deck as well as the two books, should the Game Master purchase them.

From the start, Forbidden Lands has certain ‘Old School’ feel. It comes in a box, like all good games of yore did and the look of the books similarly echo an old style look. The fantasy of Forbidden Lands also echoes that of the traditional fantasy of the first roleplaying games in the types of player characters, the monsters to be faced, and in the exploration of dungeons—though it expands that to take in exploration of the lands too. Mechanically, Forbidden Lands has an ‘Old School’ feel too in that the Year Zero engine is far from forgiving, enforcing the fact that life in the Forbidden Lands is cruel, and that any attempt to explore and claim them involves danger and the possibility of both failure and death. Yet while there is still room for heroism and even quests too given that artefacts in the setting are unique things of legend and grant their wielders great power, the tone of this game is not heroic fantasy, but rough, gritty, and bloody with more than a lingering sense of menace.

Superbly packaged, Forbidden Lands is a pleasing combination of ‘Old School’ nostalgia and fast, simple mechanics with unobtrusive narrative elements designed to bring aspects of the character into play. Its setting offers scope for the player characters to develop not just personally, but also in terms of their place in the world. Overall, Forbidden Lands – Raiders & Rogues in a Cursed World is a brutal and modern take upon ‘Old School’ play in a land still under the influence of a great evil.